The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - The early training camp storylines that actually matter

Episode Date: August 7, 2025

Teams have been at training camp for a couple weeks now, so you know what that means. We've got plenty of storylines floating around out there. Some of them matter. Many of them don't. Dave Helman and Derrik Klassen wade through them and separate what actually has meaning from what doesn't on this episode of The Athletic Football Show.Rundown (timestamps are approximate)6:09 Matthew Stafford's back injury13:27 Ben Johnson's aggressive approach to training camp24:07 The Saints QB battle32:20 Depth chart silliness52:57 Rookie WRs turning heads1:01:45 Aireontae Ersery pushing for a starting job in HoustonHosts: Derrik Klassen and Dave HelmanExecutive Producer: Michael BellerProducer: Michael BellerSubscribe to The Athletic Football Show...⁠Apple⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠YouTube⁠Follow Robert on Bluesky: @robertmays.bsky.socialFollow Derrik on Bluesky: @qbklass.bsky.socialFollow Dave on Bluesky: @davehelman.bsky.socialFollow Robert on X: @robertmaysFollow Derrik on X: @QBKlassFollow Dave on X: @davehelman_Theme song: HauntedWritten by Dylan Slocum, Trevor Dietrich, Ruben Duarte, Kyle McAulay, and Meredith VanWoert / Performed by Spanish Love SongsCourtesy of Pure Noise / By arrangement with Bank Robber Music, LLC Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to the athletic football show. I am Dave Hellman, and as training camp rolls along, we figure it is time for another check-in. A lot of news flying around, a lot of injury updates, a lot of position battles. Dep charts got released, and oh, by the way, the first batch of preseason games is finally upon us. It's a lot to get to. And Derek Classen and I decided we're going to help you sift through it all. Not everything you hear this time of year is concrete. is definitely going to age well as we get closer to the season.

But some of it is very, very important. So the goal of this show was to look around the league at different training camp headlines, decide what matters, maybe what doesn't matter. Get into the nuts and bolts of all of it. Really fun show, Derek Klesson. Let's get into it. All right, Derek, I definitely don't want to call it a lull because training camp is all encompassing all summer long.

But I think we've reached the point of the training camp, calendar where teams have been going against themselves for long enough. You're starting to see the joint practices. It's definitely starting to feel a little bit more like noise. And that's why I'm glad we're finally coming up on the first week of the preseason where, yeah, it's not everything, but at least it is a more concrete version of summer football. Like at least we can see something real instead of trying to decipher training camp cell phone clips, you know? Well, I was actually talking to Belor pre-show that like the four or five days from Hall of Fame game until the rest of preseason starting is like the most limbo we get in the entire NFL period because technically

football starts but I think we all know the Hall of Fame game is like not really worth watching back even relative to a lot of other preseason games and then you have this four or five day period where 30 other teams still haven't played or done anything meaningful yet. I think it's a challenging point of the schedule for everybody. Right? Like, again, the teams are probably sick of practicing each other. They're probably getting to the point where they're ready for a break in the routine. And it's hard for fans and media to decipher what matters. Like, what is real? Should I actually be excited about these highlight real catches that I'm seeing on my social media feeds? Should I actually be worried about injuries and other developments coming out of camp? Is this guy really jumping into the stratosphere and ready to take the next step? should I be panicking that somebody's not running with the ones often enough? So that's what we're going to do here. We're going to try to parse through as many of the big storylines coming out of training

camp as possible and decide, does this matter? Should I actually care about this? Or is it all noise as we get ready for the start of the season? Because you know as well as I do, it won't even take until like week two or week three. Like by the time the rosters get cut down, we're going to look back and be like, man, I really spent a lot of time worrying about nothing. There's going to be a lot of, and it's, everything from like the first roster cutdown days

through like week seven is just a progression of like, wow, that thing I was doing in August just really didn't matter at all. And then by the time you get to middle of NFL season, like the actual stuff coalesces and you can forget about all of that, but the first like six weeks of every year, it's just a lot of man, I spent a lot of air time on the Vikings wide receiver four or whatever I was thinking about at the time.

and I never ever get tired of it. But all right, so we put together a nice little rundown of what we think are storylines that matter, things that are really jumping out across the league. And let's just go through and talk them over. And we've hit on this a couple times during the preseason. And I was kind of content to let it lie because there's no new information. But I do think we should start this off with Matthew Stafford in light of the fact that we have at least a little bit of an update, the insiders on Wednesday morning started talking,

like when you give it a diagnosis, when you give it a real term, I think it's worth talking about. And they're calling it an aggravated disc in Matthew Stafford's back, which is understandably why he hasn't been practicing. We've said several times on this show that we don't think it's a big cause for concern. does hearing that a 37-year-old quarterback is dealing with back issues change your opinion of that at all? I mean, there is kind of something to giving it a name. Like, we all knew that he had back and shoulder issues. And I mean, I would say like most parts of Matthew Stafford's body at this point are probably aggravated. But the fact that they have thrown like an actual name on it and I saw that he was getting like an epidural and stuff to handle all of that.

I think a month ago, I was pretty okay with being like, ah, he's Matthew Stafford, man. he's a soldier, he'll go out there and it'll be fine. And I think after hearing a little bit of this and really just a lot of the other ways that they've talked about, the Matthew Stafford situation, like, I want to say like three weeks ago, Sean McFay was talking. He's like, oh yeah, Matt's, he's day to day. And then it came out very quickly after that. They were like, actually, I misspoke.

He's week to week. And it's like, just stuff like that adding up over the course of the off season. I am getting a little bit worried that, you know, it's not going to be one of those things where I think Matthew Stafford is just by week six, one big thing is going to go wrong and he's going to miss the year. But I do just worry a lot of these things are adding up to the point where it's like instead of 90% Stafford, we're getting like 75% Stafford, which at that point, I don't know if that's probably not good enough for the Rams to be the team that they want to be. I go back and forth with stuff like this because I subscribe to the bubble wrap theory of training camp where especially if you are a proven dude, I'm really just trying to keep you out of harm's way. So I really don't care that much if a 37-year-old Super Bowl champion quarterback with whatever career numbers you could ever possibly want. I really don't care if he's not getting a ton of practice time.

But at the same time, these things don't go away, especially take it for me as somebody who's the same age as Matthew Stafford. Back issues are really, really hard to get rid of, especially if you're being expected to play football every seven days for the next. you know, at least four, if not five or six months. I'm not worried about Matthew Stafford being available for week one. I am worried about Matthew Stafford holding up over the stretch of 20 weeks. And I think that's, we've talked about it. That's the worry with the L.A. Rams is this is just a very uncomfy reminder that it's very fragile when you're asking guys like Matthew Stafford to hold up for that long.

I also, the last thing I want to say, because I've given the Bengals and Joe Burrow a lot of shit for this over the years, the Bengals and Joe Burrow have been bad in September, like the entire time that he's been there. And that's for a number of reasons he's been hurt some of those times. Obviously, the first year he was a rookie, all that stuff. That's also kind of been true of the Rams and Matthew Stafford for a lot of the time that he's been there, where they're a team that is pretty slow to start in a lot of years. And even last year, that was certainly the case where they looked like a pretty middling team until the last eight or so weeks of the season

where they went on this run. I want to say in like 2022 or 3, they kind of did something that was very similar. So I think if he's going to come into the season bubble wrapped, which again, he's a proven guy. I get it. And the whole point is that, you know, we'll do whatever we got to do for 10 weeks and by the end, we'll get into the playoffs and then we'll be the team that we want. I just wonder if he's really not going to have as nearly as much

practice time as he needs. Are you even slower in September than before? Like, I just, I don't know, man. our wonderful colleague Jordan Rodriguez was out at the Cowboys Rams joint practice that just took place. And she made the fantastic point. Look, a lot of teams are out on playing their starters in the preseason. The Rams are pretty famous for it at this point. They haven't really done it in years with their marquee players. But joint practice where you can go against another NFL team in a more controlled environment

and quarterbacks can't get hit and all that type of stuff. most teams, including the Rams, view that as very, very important. Like, they care a lot more about the two days that they practice with somebody else than the preseason game. For Matthew Stafford to miss that, I think that means something, right? Like, I don't give a damn what he does on the preseason game days, but to miss a joint practice, it does suggest, like I said, I'm not worried about his availability for week one, but it does suggest a heightened amount of concern about where this guy is and how careful they need to be

with him, I think. I couldn't agree more. And the last thing I want to say, I've seen some people doing the, oh, well, the backup's Jimmy Garapolo and Jimmy Garoppolo is fine. Jimmy Garapolo might be fine. But for the Rams to be who they want to be, they kind of need Matthew Stafford to be playing at like an A level. And Jimmy at this stage in his career, like, you might get two or three decent games

out of him. But if he has to play for any extended period of time, I don't know about the offense anymore. The vision of the Rams as a Super Bowl caliber team depends on. a quarterback of good, healthy Matthew Stafford's caliber, I think so. And you agree with me. So, no, I'm not buying that. Like, sure, they could be viable with Jimmy Garapolo and they could win some games and be, and be pesty.

But that's not what we're looking for when we get excited about the Rams having Devante Adams in the fold and all that stuff. Like, if we're taking them seriously. Who, by the way, got Jimmy benched in Las Vegas? Valid and also said, like, nobody was happy in Las Vegas. like Devante Adams has made very sure to let everyone know how much he regrets the the Las Vegas stint, at least the on-field portion of it. I'm sure he doesn't regret the contract.

Anyway, it's something to monitor for me. Like I said, I think I'm not worried about him playing against Houston in week one. I am worried about having to keep an eye on the injury report every single week all the way through the season. And that's that's the reality of having a 37-year-old quarterback. It's nothing new. We've seen plenty of guys have to deal with stuff like this before. But I think this more than anything just underscores that this is the world the Rams are living in.

Probably for however much longer Matthew Stafford wants to play, whether it's just this year or the next two years, whatever. I think it's why it's finally time that they started collecting first round picks. Okay. I keep trying to move on, but that is a phenomenal point that I've seen people make already. They have two picks now. So it's a nice ace up your. sleeve to be like, hey, if this goes south and the bottom drops out and we're whatever, at least we are in prime position to make use of two first round picks.

I bet you the Rams feel even better about that little bit of business they did with the Falcons in the spring. I bet they feel better about it now than they did then. Oh, definitely. All right. The next storyline I want to get to, it's near to me in proximity. And I know Robert's not here to be our resident Bears fan who really has lived. with this team for his entire life.

But I am a new resident to the Chicago land area, Derek, and you've spent plenty of time here yourself over the last year or so. I am fascinated by what I am seeing coming out of Bears training camp over the last three weeks. And it's really, I don't, I don't really care about the reports that the offense is sloppy or whether Caleb Williams is establishing rapport. I am interested by the way that Ben Johnson is running this training camp. And it feels very much like a guy who's trying to send a message and set a tone. So I actually, I went to a Cubs game on Tuesday.

And it was the day of the practice where the Bears had a live period, like live tackling. All NFL teams do this. They'll have a practice where they do goal line and they let the guys really hit. And it's physical. it's fun and it gets the juices flowing. But to hear it from everybody around Chicago while I was out socializing on Tuesday, it just turned into like a free-for-all. Like guys were after practice saying like, yeah, it was supposed to be one period,

but it just kind of turned into the entire practice. And from the sounds of it, it just feels like Ben Johnson is trying to capture that whole Mike Ditka thing that this entire city is obsessed with. and I'm so curious to see how it goes. I don't really have a firm opinion of it, but clearly there is a clear intent here for Ben Johnson in his first summer with the Bears. Yeah, you mean the guy who was like cooking up fake fumble trick plays

is not a guy who's just going to like let stuff kind of spiral out of control a little bit once they start to, you mean that guy? I think it's funny though in general that he would kind of let a practice go like that because I do when I think of Ben Johnson, it's like incredibly detail-oriented, which to me, that is the most important part of what he's bringing to Chicago. Because the biggest complaint that I had with Caleb Williams last year, obviously, you can, you know, some of the deep ball stuff was really bad. Some of this hack taking was really bad.

But to me, the biggest issue when you watch Caleb Williams was he was really, really trying to play like Peyton Manning, Drew Brees, like hang in the pocket, go one, two, three, all this stuff. but I don't think the offensive coaching was good enough to really get him to hone in on how the offense was supposed to be played. The whole thing with Ben Johnson is that what he was doing with Jared Goff was like, hey man, what are the plays that you like? How do we get you to feel comfortable with all of them? And let's just try to craft the entire offense around that. So I think they can bring any element of that to Chicago.

I think obviously it's going to be overwhelming at first because I think Ben Johnson does bring a pretty full array of plays and concepts and stuff. but I just feel like that is exactly what they needed to set the tone being different than it was a year ago. And the feedback all seems very positive. You know, like players want to be coached hard, right? Like early on in camp, Ben Johnson pulled the starting offense off the field for lining up wrong. And then Luther Burden. I mean, it's the type of stuff that you probably want from your coach after what Bears players have been through the last two years. Luther Burden got kicked out of a drill when he returned from injury.

It feels very authoritarian. And it is, I think it can be really good, right? Like I said, I think there wasn't enough experience on the Bears coaching staff before. You saw the way things spiraled out of control last year. And if you're a Bears player that lived through that, you're probably like, yes, this is exactly what we want. But my only concern is how does that bear out when the rubber. meets the road. I mean, if the bears don't start 3 and O, and I bet you they won't, because it's a tough schedule to open the season, how do they adjust to that? Because I think you got to,

you got to have faith in, in this process leading to results. And Ben Johnson has great credentials. I doubt anybody is questioning him right now, but this has to lead somewhere in the long run. And I do wonder about that on a long enough timeline. I wonder about that a little bit, because I do think if he's going to be so, you know, nitty gritty and really getting on guys for a lot of the small details. And you're two and four at a certain point. And it doesn't look like you're turning around. I can see how that would start to, to create on people. But I don't know. At the end of the day, I really do think these guys are professionals. And again, they do want to be the best at their job. And they do want to be pushed. And so I think even if it's definitely not as lax in an environment as it was a

year ago, I really do think that them getting pushed is going to be something. Ultimately, even if it's not working out early is going to work out in the end. I mean, it's what happened with Detroit. And I think that's actually part of why, to me, it's pretty important that they brought in a lot of veteran older players along the interior, specifically around Caleb Williams, obviously, because they have a lot of other young pieces in the offense, right? You just drafted two new skill players. You have Caleb Williams, Roma Dunzee.

So for them to bring in a bunch of veterans who have played on teams that maybe weren't so good and have maybe had to like work into into year one into year two being better teams down the line, to me, I think that's a pretty important factor in like very smart team building. I think that's a valid point, but there is a key difference. And you're right. The Dan Campbell Lions had some miserable times before things got going. Like they had a forgettable first season. It was really, really bad in 2022 before they kicked into gear.

I think the key difference there is you send an expectation when you trade away Stafford. And remember, it sounds silly now, but Jared Goff was basically like a salary dump at that time. It was like, okay, Jared Goff can be our quarterback and we'll be able to get a new guy in a couple years and we'll thank Jared Goff for his time and move on. And that's obviously not what happened, but the bears were clearly in this long rebuild. And the bears can say whatever they want. And that's probably how they should view it. But that's not what the roster says. You know, that's not what they have compiled on offense.

That's not the expectation for a guy like Caleb Williams. So I think just inherently there will be less patience for this team than a team like the Lions where when Dan Campbell got there was like, all right, man, have fun biting those kneecaps. We'll check in with you in a couple years. Like that's not, that's just not the world the bears are going to live in. A, because of their roster and Ben Johnson, but also, by the way, the other thing that makes this fascinating as somebody who's new to the city, I guess I always knew this, but this place is football. crazy, dude. Like, even with all of the disappointments of the last few years and the pain of the Justin Fields era and everything that comes before that, you can feel an electricity in the air here. Like, people want this so badly. And they're not even jaded, right? Like, you might expect a fan base

that's gone through this to be a little beaten down and kind of expect the worst. That is not the vibe that I get being here. Like people are amped. They expect this to work. And so I think for a lot of reasons, it could get gross if things don't click as quickly as they're supposed to. The expectations is a good point. Like we, the bears are not expected to make the playoffs this year.

But I think it's like on the table for a lot of people. Like if the defense really hits its stride, if Caleb Williams and and the offense can be like the 13th best offense or something like that, then they could make the playoffs. the Lions, it was like, they might have been last in playoff odds that year. Like, I don't, I don't remember what it was at the time, but that first Dan Campbell year, I'm sure they were like bottom three. So that's a good point. It reminds me of like Bo Schembeckler, the old Michigan teams back in the day where he's like, those who stay will be champions or even like, like Denzel Washington and remember the Titans. That's the vibe that I get from what Ben Johnson's trying to do.

He's like, I'm going to, I'm going to break you down and rally you and turn you into this great football team. I hope it goes that well because it would be a phenomenal story, but it does make me very curious watching Bears training camp from afar to see how all of this ages once we get out of the preseason. All right, we got plenty more storylines to get to. We'll do that on the other side of this break. All right, Derek, I remember talking with you about this before training camp even kicked off. So now that we've got a couple weeks of sample size, it feels only right that we check in on the Saints quarterback situation, which very much feels like a storyline worth paying attention to for better or for worse.

The Rattler is winning that job, man. I said it like half jokingly a couple of weeks ago, and I probably said it a number of times in this podcast actually, but like he, here's this. I don't know why I'm defending a quarterback like this. My take is basically that I think he could be like quarterback 26 and like he could be like a not completely embarrassing player, which doesn't sound very exciting. But I think kind of goes to the point of like, I feel like this entire saint season was setting up for a lot of this as a holding period anyway. We're going to see if these young offensive linemen are going to be something for us and we'll just kind of move on and kind of reset in 2026.

Which to me, you could have done that with Spencer Rattler. Like, Ratler is going to make aggressive throws down the field. He's going to hang in the pocket and, you know, see how long these offensive linemen can really hold up. And I think he has enough to him that you could get like functional. functional-ish offense out of him. So that to me is like, I don't understand why they drafted Tyler Shuck. And so now they're at a point where they drafted Tyler Shuck to this older 26-year-old prospect, he's going to come in, he's going to be our immediate starter, and we're going to

be able to have functional offense. When to me, you kind of already had that guy on the roster, and now Shuck might not even be the weak one starter. It's just a bizarre. It's a funny little quarterback room. I'll give it that. There's a couple things I want to hit here for starters. I think this storyline really ramped up earlier in this week.

I think it was Tuesday when Spencer Rattler got the reps with the ones for a second consecutive day. And everybody freaked out. Like, oh, look, we got our first leader in the clubhouse. It looks like it's going to be Spencer Rattler. I think it's fair to point out guys still move around during the course of practice. I, you know, I heard from my good buddy, Luke Johnson, that Rattler took reps with the threes that very same day. So, like, it's, none of these things are purely set in stone, especially in an unsettled room like the Saints. But the fact that Spencer Rattler could win the starting job, and from the sounds of it, not that this is high, high praise, but he's been the better quarterback.

Like, Tyler Shook has struggled the way that you would probably expect a rookie to struggle, a rookie drafted in the second round to struggle. Ups and downs, highs and lows, I get that. But if Rattler has any potential to win this job, then this is what we talked about before camp. I just don't even really understand why you did it in the first place. And another thing that I've seen over the course of the last week is, hey, draft a quarterback where you can. It doesn't matter.

All kinds of good quarterbacks have come from all rounds of the draft. Jalen Hertz was a second round pick. Dak Prescott was a fourth round pick. Russell Wilson going way back was a third round pick. I get that, but I do think you have to recognize where you are as a franchise in the Saints case and say, if this season doesn't go well, we will be picking in the first round in 2026 with an eye on a quarterback, potentially very high. And it just rubs me the wrong way if a guy drafted 40th overall doesn't win the starting job as a rookie and then is very clearly buried on the depth chart behind a guy that you have to play.

one year later. That's been my concern from the beginning. And it looks like it's bearing out. Again, it's early. The job is not settled, but that is my concern with the Saints quarterback room. Well, and even the other quarterback you mentioned, this is why I think he's different than a lot of those guys. Russell Wilson was Seattle. They paid Matt Flynn to very obviously be the starter. And then Russell Wilson just surprised. And that was kind of a nice thing for them. Jalen Hertz was not the starter when they drafted him. They had Carson Wentz, who would easily know, in the downturn of, I think, his career a little bit. But they did have a guy who I think was pretty firmly entrenched as a starter.

And then Dak Prescott was like a fourth round. And we have Tony Romo. We hope he's healthy with all of that stuff kind of just fell apart. Like they had clear guys they wanted to be the starting quarterback. With the Saints, they were drafting Tyler Shuck to be that starting quarterback, almost closer in the same vein of like when the, you know, when the Bengals drafted like Andy Dalton or maybe when the Raiders had drafted Derek Carr, these top of the second round guys that are like, we don't have another option. We're going to hope that he can step in and be the starter.

And those guys did that. Like they stepped in and they were perfectly fine rookie starting quarterbacks. To me, it's a little bit concerning that Shuck has not like pretty clearly and pretty early supplanted himself above guys like Spencer Rattler. When like, again, I like Spencer Rattler, but like realistically he's quarterback 27. He's like if Kyler Murray had the athleticism and lack of grace of a Gardner Minshu, which is like not the greatest mix of players. And that's part of it too is where Shuck was drafted, it was never a guarantee that he was going to be the definitively better quarterback.

So it's just a matter of resource allocation. A sampling of the guys taken right after Tyler Shuck. I mean, you got Mason Taylor with the Jets now. Donovan Azaraku is in Dallas. J.C. or J.T.2M. Maloa, the edge rush route of Ohio State. He's in Indianapolis. Will Johnson, the guy that some people thought was CB1 that fell to Arizona because of injury concern. The list goes on and on and on.

Obviously, we don't know if any of those guys are going to be studs just yet either. I'm not trying to get carried away with Will Johnson highlight reels coming out of Arizona, although there are quite a few, by the way. But I think I would feel better with one of those guys developing on my roster and just figuring out quarterback the next year. Spencer Rattler and Jake Hainer could be competing for this job the same way. And I would feel better about the long-term plan. Like, it's not that I'm afraid of the Saints rebooting. And that's, I've seen that coming out of Saints Camp too, where people are like, everybody says they want to reset until you try to do it. And now the sky's falling because the

quarterbacks don't look good. I'm like, no, that is not my problem. My problem is that this just doesn't line up. The strategy here doesn't line up with the long-term outlook for who you are. And is it the end of the world if you draft Tyler Shuck 40th overall and he doesn't really get to play a whole lot for you? Probably not, but I just, I think there are more efficient ways you could have done this. Right. Like if if they do end up picking top five and then the guy they take next year is good. We all just forget that Tyler Shuck was was a draft pick. But I think part of why I didn't love the pick so much either was I just flatly thought Spencer Rattler was a better prospect even in college. So to me, it's like not even like they're swinging for a higher

ceiling. And of course, I can be wrong. I'm wrong about players all the time, but it didn't feel like they were swinging for a higher ceiling, really. And it is appearing that the floor isn't any better either. So it's like, well, what did we draft? We are recording this before the vast majority of the league has played a preseason game. Maybe Ty Rooshoek is a gamer, man. I mean, I was there. I was there the night Dak Prescott went nuclear in the preseason against the Rams after looking very forgettable as a training camp quarterback. So I'm reluctant to write the guy off this early. But the concerns that we had about the Saints quarterback room are playing out at least through three weeks of camp. I guess we'll see how it ages here over the rest of the month.

I did, I mentioned Jake Hainer briefly, hilariously. He is listed as a potential starter on the Saints step chart. because they did that really fun thing. The Saints' Dept Chart literally says Spencer Rattler or Tyler Shook or Jake Hainer. So I guess, I guess technically it's a three-man race, although that would surprise me a little bit. Speaking of that, though, teams have released their first step charts of the preseason as well recently. You can read into that as much as you want. I'm here to tell you that I'm really not going to.

I don't know. How do you feel about that? Pretty much same. Like almost anything that these preseason charts could tell me, just don't really do a lot for me. Because you just get a lot of like, or, or it's just stuff that it's like certain teams and the way that they view things

will almost always put the veterans in front of rookies anyway, even if by the third preseason week, that's not even true. Like, I want to say I saw the Steelers running back room put Jalen Warren ahead of Caleb Johnson. And it's like, okay, I get it. Warren does a lot of things really well. and he's been there for a long time.

But realistically, like, Johnson is probably, to me, going to be the lead back. It's just certain stuff like that. It's like this feels like a waste of time. Running backs in particular exasperate me at this time of year. And I'm certainly not trying to hate on fantasy football. I play every year. I love it the same way everybody else does. But fantasy football, I think, drives a lot of this eagerness to find the next running back

and find the guy who's going to win you your lead. And it's valid because it happens every year. Guys come out of nowhere every year to be useful players. But it drives us to this place where I'm watching no contact training camp reps trying to make distinctions between backs. And I cannot stand it. I cannot stand trying to decipher like, well, it didn't look like he would have gotten tackled on that play. But I guess we'll never know. And I feel like that's happening in cities across the NFL.

Like, I'm excited about Trey Benson and what he could do with James Connor. I've always loved Tai J Spears in Tennessee since he got drafted. I like a lot of these guys, but I cannot use training camp to try to decipher running back pecking order. It drives me up the wall. Can I also say one more thing that drives me nuts with what happens a lot of time from fantasy people and I get it? I promise you guys, the fun 190 pound back is never going to be the lead back. in his backfield. We have to stop that. The most recent one I've seen is Bucky Irving.

And listen, man, Bucky is awesome. He's a really, really good player. He's never going to be the Ezekiel Elliott take 350 carries in a season. Like, that's just never going to happen with those guys. We have to get over that one. Yeah, I think that's the other thing, too, is everybody is looking for a belk out running back who they can just plug into a fantasy lineup and really not have to worry about. And those guys definitely exist.

But I don't think we're going to get more of them, you know? like I think we have settled into a firm amount. You know, there's a handful in the league every year. There's guys you can count on. But the vast majority of teams are going to be using two to four guys to handle the running back position. And that's just the world we live in, y'all. I don't, I don't think we need to breathlessly monitor Jacori Kroski merit reps at

commanders camp, which super fun player. It's not a knock on him. I just like, these are the names that you see crop up. And it's like, yeah, could he have a role in this? offense? Absolutely. Do I need to be worried about him, like getting drafted in a fantasy league? I don't think so. I think these are the types of things that we can let fade into the noise during training camp. Now, having said that, oh no. There is a lot of fun stuff to get to with depth charts and with playing time. Let's not bury the lead too much. I mean, the Cleveland Browns announced

Shadur Sanders is going to start their preseason opener on Friday night. And from the sounds of it, with the injuries that they're dealing with at the quarterback position, I think it's going to be Shadur and Snoop Huntley carrying this game. So Shadur, I would guess, is going to get an entire half of football, maybe even more than that. Like, he could conceivably play three quarters, which I personally am pretty excited to see. And they should, right? Like, this is nothing against New Puntley, but like, we know what he is at this point. And they've signed him as the fifth quarterback in what is already a crowded room that is going to have to get cut down at some point.

Just give Sanders every rep available. And if they don't want to put him out there with like the fourth string offense because those reps are at that point for him maybe like to the point of detrimental and not even that useful, fine, I get that. But for as long as you are trying to be a semi-serious offense in these preseason games, if the other guys can't go like Sanders should. just get every rep possible. Because I think even coming out of college, he was a guy who was going to need that. Because I think to me, he's because he's not much of a creator outside of the pocket and doesn't have these insane wow tools the way that like a Cam War did, he's going to have to be a guy who plays like very within the offense and is like pretty tuned into the way that

things need to go on time. You're only going to really be able to get to do that in the NFL when you get reps. And so the more that he can get, the better. And this isn't even me saying like he's got to go do this. can prove to, you know, go win the starting job and stuff. I still have no idea who's going to get any starting reps this year in the regular season. But for the preseason, if the other guys can't go, just give them all to him. See, I'm sticking to my guns.

I think Joe Flacco is going to be the Brown starter in week one, which, who did they? It's a matter of just when is, when is he going to, when is he leaving the lineup? Yeah. That's, yes. When is Joe Flacco leaving the lineup? But for the time being, he's the guy you're getting ready to start week one against Cincinnati knowing that and look I I've said before you can't give him no reps he's got to get practice reps when he's available but in the preseason I would give all those reps to Shadur and

when he's healthy Dylan Gabriel as well I know Gabriel's dealing with a hamstring injury that's part of the reason Snoopuntley is even on this team right now go go figure that the team with a four-man quarterback competition needed a fifth that's you would have thought they had all the contingency plans necessary for injuries and yet here they are. I'm playing Shadur and Dylan Gabriel as much as humanly possible. Yeah, I hope he gets three quarters. Because, I mean, at this point, Snoop Huntley is clearly just here to get you through the week, right?

I mean, he hasn't even had that much time on task. You're not getting out of him, getting anything out of him playing a lot of preseason snaps. Shit, for that matter, give Shadur the entire game. And yeah, I don't know what the plan is for the entire Brown starting roster, but it is encouraging to think that Shadur will play at least some of this. game with the best version possible of a preseason Browns team. At least I would hope so.

All right. I'm curious for how you feel about this. And I think the answer is going to be not so great. But as long as we're looking at depth charts, Travis Hunter, starting wide receiver in Jacksonville, not very surprising. Second team on the defensive side of the ball, which I would say lines up with what we've heard about how they're using him, far more offense than defense. But I'm guessing you have an opinion about this.

I hate it, dude. We did a different show where you and Robert, like, kind of sold me on like, well, in theory, their best three receivers, if you remove Travis Hunter, does not look very good, whereas they could probably feel the decent secondary without Travis Hunter. Like Jerry and Jones can play a little bit of outside for them. You have Tyson Campbell. Jordan Lewis is going to play the nickel. That's a totally fine cornerback room to get by.

But to me, when you. you go up and draft a player, like trade up picks to go and take a guy in the top three of the draft the way that they did with Travis Hunter, who is supposed to be a unicorn. Me personally, I would like to play him at his best position, which in my opinion is corner. It's what he practiced more when he was in college. And I think that's where you see some of his most special skills. And like he does some really good stuff at receiver. Don't get me wrong.

But when I watch some of his ball skills at DB, when I watch the way that he can click and close on stuff, when I watch just how fluid he is at the line dealing with some of these guys in press, I just, why would I not want that guy playing his best position? I think I can answer that. And I'd love for your opinion on this. But I don't want to undermine the importance of defense or the value of having a shutdown cornerback. I mean, those guys don't grow on trees. They're incredibly valuable players.

But if Travis Hunter is going to pay this trade off, don't you think he's more valuable to the Jags as a pro bowl, hopefully all pro caliber receiver? Like, don't you think the Jags ceiling is higher if Brian Thomas Jr. and Travis Hunter are a Chase and Higgins type of receiver duo than not, you know? Like, not to say that there's no value in him being a great cornerback, but don't you think the Jags have a better chance of hitting whatever their ceiling is if they have two elite receivers? I think because they would have two of them, I think that there's a chance that you could get there.

But I think in a vacuum, like, I would rather have what to me can be an all pro corner than a pro bowl receiver. Like every time. Like, I just, like the Texans are actually a great example. I think Nico Collins is fantastic. I would rather have Derek Stingley on my team. Like, to me, that is kind of what,

to me, what we're talking about with like the outcomes in terms of quality for Travis Hunter. I would rather have Derek Stingley. I don't know if I agree with that. I mean, the Texas offense was bad with Nico last year. I mean, Nico missed a solid chunk of the year with an injury.

And I'm not saying it's his fault, obviously. And they were good one in 2023. But like, I just, I think I'm more defense-pilled than the rest of this show. And I really think that if you do have one of the truly elite corners, I think that's just as valuable as almost anything else in the league. I mean,

it's an age-old debate where defense wins championships and all, that all that good stuff that we love to say. And you're probably not going deep into the postseason without some dudes on that side of the ball. But I think if you get enamored with it, it's understandable. Like so much about this game is just geared toward the offense. So much about this league is geared toward the passing attack specifically. I mean, it's, it was like this mind blowing development when teams turned back to the run last year. We had to write these crazy think pieces about it because that's how pass-oriented the game has become. And you certainly can't say that it would win you a championship,

but it just feels like, A, a great way to tap into Trevor Lawrence's potential, and B, a surefire way to win a bunch of football games, right? And you can worry about making the moves that you need to make to win a championship later. I mean, no offense to the Jags, but let's get into a world where we can consistently have a winning record before we worry about what's happening in the divisional round of the playoffs. And I don't know, having, like, I'm imagining a world where these two receivers, like I said, Chase and Higgins or Devante and A.J. Brown and Philly. Like if you're operating in that world with a quarterback that we think highly of, it's awfully entice. I'm going receiver.

It's a long way of saying I'm going with the receiver. Even I understand the value of a really good corner. But that's just the world that we're in right now. Again, because, they do also have Ryan Thomas Jr. It does allow you to maybe they can be like the fourth or fifth best receiver duo in the league. And that does change the math a little bit. But I don't know. I think for me in a vacuum, it's like I'd always rather have the guy who to me when he's on the field, tilts the field and really determines how the other team has to play.

I think he could be that at receiver. But I think there's a lot more that we have to see and a lot more left up in the air. I think with corner, like I would honestly be shocked if he's not that kind of player. I hope we get to see both. We've talked about it plenty. I mean, I hope the Jags have a plan to work him heavily at receiver. Maybe in one preseason game, depending on how many snaps he gets. Maybe you up the defensive snaps in another game.

I said it already, but let's see. Let's put everything on this guy's plate before we worry about limiting him to one role. We haven't touched on this trade at all. It happened like in a break in our recording schedule. Robert called it and it came to fruition perfectly. The Eagles did do a midsummer DB trade. They sent Thomas Booker from their defensive line to the Las Vegas Raiders in exchange for cornerback, Jacori and Bennett, which classic Howie Roseman shoring things up before

they even become a problem because that was the word out of Eagles camp was your other corners besides Quinnion Mitchell, maybe not as consistent as you would prefer. So why not add one more guy to the mix? I don't even know what to think. No, I do know what I think of this trade. I think it's fine for the Eagles. They probably realistically never wanted to start Keely Ringo or whoever else on the other side. So you go and get a young competitor at the position who I think can be like a fine

cornerback number two. And I know statistically, Bennett was really, really good last year. I think a little bit of that to me was the product of like everyone else was kind of bad. And so it's just he was getting thrown out a little bit, you know, less in some situations than other guys. so I think that was part of it, but I think he's a good promising player. I'm shocked the Raiders wanted to part with him, given that the rest of their secondary is not any good.

Like, it's just baffling to me. Like, they're starting. I'm not shocked, but go ahead. They're starting now. Eric Stokes, who has not been a consistent starting corner in a long time and was like up and down with the Packers when he was there. And Darian Porter, who some people believed were like, he wasn't even a full-time player in college.

college. Like it's just, it is a bizarre cornerback room. It already was. And now they've traded away who was probably going to be their best guy. It's only bizarre until you remember who coaches them now. And then it all makes sense. And Jacori and Bennett is in the 42nd percentile of NFL cornerbacks in terms of height. He's 511. His arms are just shy of 32 inches, which is the 66th percentile. And to Pete Carroll and guys from the Pete Carroll tree, you might as well not even be in the league. How dare you play cornerback if you're not at least six foot tall, preferably like six two? I'm just going to say, I'm the sizest on this show. And I'm like, 5-11 with decent arms is not that bad. Like, what are we talking about here? But Pete is,

he operates a different way. I get it. It is a perfectly reasonable size. Like, Jacorian Bennett is just fine to play a cornerback. But this. scheme, the way Pete Carroll has always done things. Dan Quinn's the same way, by the way. And obviously, he came up under Pete. He was part of those defenses back in the day. It matters to a lot of these coaches. And I have always thought it's a little bit silly. Yeah, I mean, ideally, sure, like, if you, if you can find a Richard Sherman or a Brandon Browner, like, those guys are a ton of fun and you can have great results. But trading away a guy who doesn't fit your time. in your first year when you're already up against it in your secondary.

It is a little crazy to me. It's just not surprising because a lot of football coaches operate this way. It's a good point. I don't know. I just felt like at least maybe give it one season to see if you can live with a guy like this. And maybe honestly all the practices and stuff they saw that that was enough for the type of stuff that they want to do that that wasn't going to fit. And I will say like in Vic Fangio's defense, that's not going to matter less that he's not a big guy. Like they're a big, play a lot of off zone, just drive on stuff type of defense, which if you're a little bit undersized, is completely fine.

So I get it all from that angle. It's just when you flatly say bad cornerback room, trade it away maybe their best guy, regardless of all the other context, it's just a funny, it's just a funny, funny thing. To a team that has his history of doing these trades very well, by the way. And outsmarting the other team. Yes. Yeah. It's a tired joke at this point. But like, maybe we just send the call to voicemail when how it.

Roseman calls during training camp. I mean, I think it's nice for both teams. The Raiders obviously are thin at defensive tackle after releasing Christian Wilkins, so they get Booker to help them there. The Eagles needed to help in the secondary, but is anybody going to be surprised if Bennett plugs right into this Philly defense and not even saying he's going to have a like Zach Bond type of jump, but I'm very confident he'll be a useful player for this defense somewhere along the line. All right, a couple more storylines to get to, but we're going to take one more

break before that. Okay, Derek, it's time for the part of the show where I completely contradict myself and will just be a hypocrite, but that's okay. I'm hosting the show. I can do that because I just said we don't want to get wrapped up in depth chart stuff. We certainly don't want to get carried away with rookies that are shining during training camp. But I do think it's worthwhile to try to look around the NFL and see things that are exciting, but that also makes sense. You know, like every team has a guy that's making plays and standing out on the practice field. And every single fan base is talking about a guy right now where they're saying, well, he won't make it to the practice squad if we cut him.

There's just no way. And 99% of the time, that's just not the case. But there are a couple instances in the league right now where I'm seeing guys make moves and I'm wondering if it can be more than that. And I think in a few circumstances, you can look and say, oh, no, this makes a lot of sense to me. And the guy I want to start with is Torrey Horton up in Seattle. Have you, has he cropped up on your radar at all in the last few weeks?

Not so much with preseason stuff, but he was a guy that when they drafted him, it was, you know, it's, it's one of those picks where like, in theory, they get a discount right. But it was like, well, he's coming off of a pretty major injury. So you just don't know how he's going to bounce back from it. But then that's also one of those picks that by the time you get to August and it looks like he's fully healthy, then you're like, oh, well, they did get a discount. He's good. So I think he would add a lot of, to me, intermediate juice that that offense would be missing otherwise if he is not the player they need him to be.

So I think it's pretty exciting. He ran a 4-4-1, five months post-surgery. He injured his knee in his last year at Colorado State. His relative athletic score puts him in the ninth. 98th percentile. Like, yeah, when you say juice, and you can see it. I'm not trying to get worked up about cell phone training camp videos, but like the guy has juice. Like you can see it in Seahawks training camp reps. He's getting work with the ones. And I think the reason why this in particular excites me is what bummed me out about the Seahawks in the off season because Cooper Cup is a

phenomenal player. He's accomplished a lot in the NFL. But you look at Cooper Cup and Jackson Smith and Jigba and you're like, okay, not only do these guys fill similar roles, but where is the speed? Like, where is the threat when you're talking about an opposing defense? And this guy, between his size, the role that he fills and his speed, I'm just like, oh, this is a guy that could have a very clearly defined role very quickly. I know Marquez Valdez Scantling is in Seattle as well. Not ready to say that Tori Horton is like a day one starter. But there's clearly something worth getting excited about here based on the early returns in camp. Yeah. And like to me, it's not just the juice. I mean, he is a lot faster and going to be more explosive than all those

guys, especially Cooper Cup at this stage in his career. But I think the other complication I had with the Seahawks offense was when I think of Jackson Smith and Jigbo, where do I want to align him ideally in the slot? When I think of Cooper Cup, where do I want to align him ideally? in the slot. Exactly. And then Marquez Valdez Scaling, it's just like he's a very, like he can play outside, but he's a very particular just get down the field and block type role player. The Matt Collins is the Gabe Davis is that sort of player.

Tori Horton could be like an actual run some serious one-on-one routes from the outside. And I do think that if this offense wants to be the team that they're selling us that they can be this offseason, they kind of need that player because I do struggle to envision how the rules are supposed to perfectly play out without a guy who can kind of consistently win from the outside. And that's why I would guess the Seahawks are going to give him every opportunity to grab a role. You know, Rieck Wullen was calling this guy Jerry Rice Jr. after practice the other day. And Mike McDonald even mentioned it. He was like, I see, like, I see the same stuff. Y'all see. Like, this guy makes a play every day. And I can't stress this enough, too.

Like, it's not only is it early, but the games matter for a guy. like this too. Like you've got to take it into the stadium with the lights on with a bunch of people watching. You got to be consistent across multiple types of opportunities. But I feel confident saying the Seahawks are probably going to throw a lot of these opportunities at him because I think it would be big for their offense if you could count on a guy like this when two months ago maybe you weren't so sure. Yeah. I would say the best way to try to describe what they probably want out of him is obviously Clint Kubiak is coming from New Orleans. If Horton can be like 75% of what Chris Elave was for the Saints,

at least in year one, you know, obviously you want to hope he'll be better than that. But like if he can fill that role, that makes this offensive where I can like actually see a clearer picture for what it's supposed to be now. Everything we just said about him, I think applies to Dante Thornton in Vegas as well, which we just spent a lot of time talking about how preseason depth charts don't matter. I do think it matters when a fourth round rookie is listed as a starter immediately. Like he started turning heads from the very beginning and it doesn't seem like the Raiders are shying away from that. Like the Raiders seem perfectly comfortable saying, yeah, we want this guy to be a part of what we got going on.

On a team that drafted a different receiver ahead of him in Jack Bess. And so, and again, this is another one where it's like to meet Trey Tucker is a very particular kind of receiver. Jacoby Myers is ideally. more of an underneath possession, probably from the slot type of player. And then even like Brock Bowers, you kind of want to put out in the slot as much as you can. And so it was like, okay, who can we have that can play a little bit outside for us and stretch the field? Thornton hopefully gives that to them.

So he actually was not a player. I watched that much going into the draft. So he's a player. I'm a little bit more in wait and see mode. I want to see how these preseason games roll out. But I do think that that would have been the missing spot of this offense. Because I like a lot of the rest of it, right? like Gentie, Bowers, Myers,

but those are kind of all players that win within 15 yards of the line of scrimmage. You kind of needed somebody who could win further than that, especially with Gino Smith, the quarterback. It's really enticing. Yeah, and that's the challenge is not getting overly excited about what we're seeing. But again,

if the team's willing to call the guy a starter, that is enough of a vote of confidence that I'm like, all right, let's see what we got here because the team is acknowledging it. This is not rampant speculation. One more guy I'll mention. And look, these guys are receivers. It is easy to notice receivers at training camp.

I think that's worth pointing out. Like line play is hard to evaluate in a training camp setting. Receivers get the ball thrown to them. But another guy I've really enjoyed monitoring over the last couple weeks is a draft pick that really caught me off guard. But Brad Holmes might have done it again with Isaac Tisla. Like this has been a super fun development. And I like everything that he's done so far.

Like he had a nice day in the Hall of Fame game. They're moving him up the depth chart, letting him work with the starters. And then the thing that really sold me was our guy Colton Pouncey, who covers the Lions for us, does a phenomenal job over in Detroit. He had a practice note where to slot just destroyed a guy on a block to spring a touchdown in the run game. And I was like, that's Lions football right there. Like, if you can do it all, like the nifty catches are fun. But if you're just declining guys as a run blocker, then I think you might have a role with the Detroit Lions. So that was really exciting to see.

I think of the three, this is the one I'm the most excited about, which given his build, I don't think will be surprising to anybody. He's like six, three and a half, 214 pounds. And when you watch him run, he's just a powerful strider. Like even just in that preseason game where like some of the crossers that he's running, he's just a very powerful mover. You add that on top of the fact that he's going to get in there a little bit in the run game. Like, I think in year one, maybe he's just Josh Reynolds. But like, we've seen what a Josh Reynolds can do in this kind of offense. And then if he taps into anything a little bit more explosive than that, I think that they could really be cooking.

So I'm with you. On draft day, this was a very like, whoa, they moved all those resources for that guy. That's kind of interesting. But I don't know. The more I sit about it and it's like, well, they've needed an X for a long time. I think they needed a bigger body to replace a guy like Josh Reynolds. Maybe it can work out. I really hope it does.

I think it's worth noting to, again, it's fun to be on the lookout for the Puka Nakua, right? Like the guy who's just the man from the beginning. But I think it's also worth remembering it's a long freaking season, dude. And teams are going to change and evolve. And maybe some of these guys will not make an impact in the first two, four, six weeks of the season. But if an Isaac to Slah, especially for a team, like the Lions, which we expect to be relevant deep into the season, if they can get more and more out of him to the point where he's a guy that you can lean on, or maybe not lean on, but at least

get something from in the late stages of the season. I mean, I know Xavier Worthy was a first round pick. It's not a great comparison. But the difference between September Xavier Worthy and December Xavier Worthy was, it was insane. It's a completely different thing. So if this is where these guys are in August, even if they don't hit the ground, running and become stars in the first few weeks of the season. It's exciting to think what that means for their development over the course of an entire season. All right.

You had one that you wanted to get to, which I love you for it, because like I said, it's hard to evaluate O&D line play during training camp, but we do want to check in on the Texans offensive line for obvious reasons. What do you got? Yeah. So the Texans obviously did a lot of shuffling around their offensive line this year. You know, Laramie Tuntle out. One of the other guards was out.

ended up drafting Arionte, Ursary in the second round, which to me, at the time, it's like, okay, you look at the depth chart. Cam Robinson, who they signed, I think to be probably a Band-Aid at left tackle, but probably the entrenched starter. And then at right tackle, I think, ideally, they would have wanted Blake Fisher to maybe take a step in year two after a pretty rough rookie season. So to me, that was going to be the plan.

And then you just go in thinking like, okay, Ersary, he to me was a little bit of a project coming out of the draft. to like kind of some heavy feet. I think sometimes moving, trying to get targets at the second level, he could be a little bit hit or miss. But it was like, okay, you can see the power. You can see the size why some of this would work if he could speed some things up a little bit.

He is already apparently fighting for the starting job at both left and right tackle. And it seems that like at right tackle that that door is probably a little bit more open given how I think Blake Fisher played last year and how apparently camp might be going. So I don't know if we're going to get Urs Reyes the starting tackle or how well he's even going to play. But it does mean something to me that a month ago, I would have been like, yeah, Cam Robinson, Blake Fisher, out of side out of mind. That's going to be their tackles for whatever reason.

But now the fact that it's kind of in flux is interesting to me. Because I think ultimately, whoever the tackles were going to be, all we wanted was the Texans offensive line to be better than it was last year. And so to me, if that means Blake Fisher, if it means Arionte Urstery, I don't really care. But it means something to me that Ursary is already kind of taking the job potentially. Do you think that means anything in the bigger picture? Because I'm with you. If you're not a top 15 pick at offensive tackle or maybe if there's a very specific reason why you weren't like Josh Simmons this year, we know why Josh Simmons was picked where he was.

And he wouldn't have been if he was healthy. Outside of that, it's hard for me to get excited about a rookie offensive tackle who's taken outside. I don't know. Yeah, the top 15, the top 20. and you hear so much about how offensive line play in college is in a terrible spot. Like you're not getting guys prepared as well as you possibly can for the NFL level just because of the difference in schemes and splits and stuff like that. But there's more success stories than you might guess. I mean, Roger Rosengarten comes to mind right off the top of my head in Baltimore last year where I was very worried about the Ravens' offensive line, in part because you're probably asking.

a second round rookie to playwright tackle. But more and more, it feels like a lot of these guys are capable of the jump in a way that maybe I'm not giving them credit for. I think that's a great point. I still believe that ultimately, if you want an all pro or consistent pro bowl tackle, you probably got to take them top 15. If you really want to get like the blue chip tackles, you probably have to take them there. There's not that many like Jordan Milottas to go around where you take them later and they become

a really special player. but I do think that you can pretty consistently get like quality level tackles in the second and third round. I mean, some of those guys that you already mentioned, like Delmar Glaze for the Raiders played pretty decently last year as a third round rookie. Like you can get some of these guys. Bernard Raymond, I believe was a day two pick for the Colts and he was okay as a rookie

and really became into a solid guy who just got paid pretty handsomely. So I actually think that you can find competent tackle play in this range. And so if Ursery, you know, I still expect. them to be a below average tackle in the grand scheme of things. But Blake Fisher was worse than that last year. So that's an upgrade. And if they can get two or three more of those upgrades along the offensive line, that changes a lot for this Texan team, hopefully.

That on top of the rules in the offense seemingly being better or hopefully. I think a lot of it is expectation too, right? Like, it's funny. I say Juan Yomoros was a third round pick. And I mean that as a compliment. Maybe if you're a chiefs fan, maybe you don't feel that way. but I'm like, hey, if you can get average to maybe below average, you know, offensive tackle play out of your 90 second overall pick, I'm probably calling that a win. Luke Godecki in Tampa was pick 57 a few years ago.

Like, again, these aren't guys that you probably get excited to talk about. But the hit rate, it seems like, is it's probably better than I give it credit for. Because, yeah, when I hear that you were drafted outside the top 15, 20, I'm just like, all right, it's not that you can't be a good player, but it probably won't happen quickly. But, yeah, maybe I need to revisit this take as we, as I get into my draft coverage. Yeah, I think we just have to recognize that we're not going to, those guys aren't going to be the Pinesuels. Like, if you want to Penae Sule, they're going to go high. But again, you can get, whereas I do think the reason that's weird is like, I think we've seen a lot of the second and third round receivers become truly the best. in the league like the AJ Browns and guys like that.

Tackle is probably just never going to happen, but you can get some solid guys. You got to field five offensive linemen. They can't all be all pros. So if this works out, and of course, we're out over our skis here, but let's just live there for a minute.

But like let's say some of these Texans O line moves work out better and faster than we would guess. And that's been my concern with the Texans this entire offseason. How does that change your thoughts on Houston? if this offensive line revamp is better and faster than maybe we're giving it credit for. So I still think I would be shocked if there are any better than like the 22nd best offensive line in the league. However, we've seen C.J. Stroud be pretty dang good with the 22nd-ish best offensive line in the league, the way that he was his rookie season.

It's just last year it was like a truly bottom three, bottom four unit along with teams like the Bears and the Giants and the Seahawks and stuff like that. So if they can get out of that gutter and not speed up C.J. Strauss process so much to where he's just dirtying a bunch of throws, I think that we could live in a world again where we remember why we were all so excited about him. And so I don't know if they're going to be, I think if they get to that, they're not going to be like a top eight offense. But again, they were like a mid-20s offense last year. They can get back to at least average if the offensive line takes all those steps. But I think I'm still very much in wait and see how all of that actually comes together. We don't have to wait or see for that much longer. I know preseason is not everything, but like I said, we just, we need a little more information. We need a little more data and we're going to get it here coming up this weekend. In the meantime, that does it for us. Derek and I will be back on the other side of the weekend, but don't worry, we got you covered the whole way through. Robert's got another beat writer notebook coming up on Saturday, I believe.

And we will have another show for you, Derek and I on Monday. A lot to get to. Obviously, preseason games starting. hit on the news as we need to. But until then, we appreciate y'all so much. We will talk to you next time.