The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - The QB Carousel with Mike Sando and a Seattle Seahawks Team Visit with Michael-Shawn Dugar

Episode Date: December 9, 2020

First up, Robert is joined by The Athletic’s own Mike Sando to look ahead to next season’s quarterback carousel and give percentage chances of teams kicking off 2021 with a new starting QB, including the Lions, Colts, Eagles, 49ers, Patriots, Saints, Falcons, Broncos, and Bears.Then, to close things out, The Athletic’s Michael-Shawn Dugar stops by for a Seattle Seahawks Team Visit to discuss the “Let Russ Cook” movement, how it’s had diminishing returns as the season’s worn on, what opposing defenses are doing to stifle the offense, where the franchise goes if this version of the team falls short of their lofty expectations, and much more.And, from now through December 31, you can get an annual subscription to The Athletic and give one free when you visit theathletic.com/footballshow Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the athletic football show. The athletic football show. I'm Robert Mays. Great show for you guys today. Michael Sean Duggar is going to be joining us a little bit later for our weekly team visit. We dug into all things Seahawks, the derailing of the Let Russ Cook movement, what's going on with their offense, everything. Before we do any of that, though, a man that I can't believe it's been this long since he's been on the show. It's week 13, but I'm glad to have him back.

The Athletic Zone, Mike Sandel. Mike, how you doing, man? I am doing well. It's so good to be here, Robert. I love your work. You know, your weekly columns are a really nice ad to the athletics. So people, I'm going to plug your columns on your show. They're really good.

Nice little deep dives and extra time put in. So I'm happy to be here. I know we're going to have a good conversation. So we were kicking around ideas for what we wanted to talk about here. And you do a lot of work talking to executives and kind of thinking about where the league is, seeing the whole chessboard. And it might be strange timing for what we're. we're going to talk about. But in a way, I don't think it is. We're going to talk about the coming

quarterback carousel and what it might look like in 2021. You just wrote about it. I just wrote about which teams could trade for Sam Darnold. So it's been fresh in our minds. And I also think this week has set the table for it pretty well. We have Carson Wentz getting benched a couple hours before we started recording this show. The Lions just fired their general manager, which puts Matthew Stafford's future into a much murkier place. You recently wrote about that. So it may seem strange to do this in the middle of December, but I think that the news cycle has kind of set us up to have a really good conversation about it. Absolutely. You know, and I think we have to think about these things in advance.

I mean, you know, it's not that far away from GMs coming in and look, they've already made a decision. The decisions are, they've already made a decision on what's to not play them this week. So it's, I think it's totally topical. I think it's a good one. I actually did a little, you gave me the teams you want to look at. I actually put the percentages in. I like sort of it here. And I didn't you love that.

I was actually talking to a guy from a front office about it. He's like, okay, I'd go a higher percentage on this team. So I've got all this stuff here. I'm ready. That's why I wanted to do this with you. So what we're going to do is I struggled with figuring out how the best way to lay this out. And what we landed on is we're going to go through all the teams that theoretically could make a quarterback change from their week one starter from this year. So that's the caveat.

And we're going to give the percentage chance. It'll be a different starter next year and who those guys might be. So I want to start with the Lions because you just wrote about Matthew Stafford. and you've been thinking about this. So what would you say the likelihood is that the Detroit Lions will have a new starting quarterback for week one of the 2021 season? I said 10%. That's the second low change percentage of anyone for me. Now, that is shocking to me.

Give me any reasoning. Yeah. You know, I think people will come into that job and see a really talented guy and realize how hard it is to find another one. And I think there's a lot of people in the league who looked over there and said, if I only had that guy, they keep screwing it up. How do you lose with Matthew Stafford? Now, we'll see how the rest of the year goes if he tanks or injuries are a problem again. But I don't think they're in a situation where they have to trade.

I mean, it's not like he's the reason they've lost games. I mean, heck, they switched to Bevel and they had 400 yards passing, and they had one of their best offensive EPA games probably since Bevel's been there, since Patricia's been there even. You know, I think they could do better around him, but I don't think there's any compelling reason. It's not like he's making $45 million and the cap number's terrible and you're in jail. I mean, you're worse without him, aren't you?

But shouldn't you be worse? That's my question. Are they in a spot where it's time to get bad and it's time to really tear this thing down? I agree that you're worse without Matthew Stafford than you would be with him. But it seems like this is a team that's in need of something drastic to get out. out of the rut that they're in right now. That would be my argument. Right. So I think there's two different than percentages to have. There's the if Robert Mays and Mike Sando were the GMs, what are the percentages that these guys would move versus what do I think they really are.

So when I look at Detroit, I don't necessarily think, I think they're embarrassed that they went from winning with Jim Caldwell to losing, basically having the same record if you were trying to be bad, right? And so is their philosophy going to be how do we get worse to get better later? Or is it, hey, let's try to get better for now and later, right? I think what's their most likely approach going to be? What's the approach of someone who comes into the team going to be? How many people really come in and say, as GM, I got five years, let's get worse? You know what, I mean? They're five and seven. It's not like they're going to have the, what's their record going to be seven and nine or six and ten or, you know what I mean? They're not going to be picking fourth.

I mean, they may be able to even, and they may be able to draft a quarterback and still have Stafford. So that's, that's all, that's why it's 10%. I think I lean towards the likelihood that he comes back as their guy. That's fascinating. I, in my mind, I think they should trade him because I think they should try to start over. And I think you could get a lot for him. Yeah. In your mind, if somebody was going to, let's throw out the possible teams.

Let's say there is a group that includes the Niners, the Colts, maybe a couple others that are in the Matthew Stafford running. What do you think the Lions could get for Matthew Stafford if they traded him on March 1st? Yeah, maybe they don't, yeah, I think they're, they shouldn't take less than a first round pick. But I think that that might be hard. I don't know that that's guaranteed they would get it.

You know, is it a two and something else? I think, I think that really depends also on who's looking now. Carson Palmer, when he got traded from Arizona, the Raiders, it was a one and a two. that's the cop I made in my column. I think they're the same situation, same guy. Super talented arm. I thought the cop was great. Former number one picks really gifted.

And if you put them in the right situation, can they succeed? They're with bad franchises, you know? Yep. I think that's why you get a one for Stafford. I absolutely think that somebody would give it up for him. And what you said about the Lions, I think, is so funny. And them looking at him and saying, well, why hasn't he succeeded? if we put the right things around him because I think that's the Matthew Stafford danger.

I tweeted this yesterday and I didn't really mean it as a slate, but it probably came off as one. And I was actually talking to a front office person about this recently where we were talking about, God, when you watch him play and you watch him throw, you just get so tantalized by the skills. And you think I can be the one to fix him. We can be the one to extract everything we can from him. And I think if you were the lions or someone else, that becomes dangerous. but if you were a team like the Colts, that really does probably feel like we've set up this space for a quarterback.

If we get the right guy, we can win a Super Bowl. I think he's the type of guy and they have the money, everything else you could talk yourself into. So let's get to the Colts because that's the next team on my list here. What would you say the likelihood is the Colts have a different starting quarterback that they move on from Phillip Rivers to start the 2021 season? Okay. In my initial thing, I put 65% that I ran it past a front-off's exactly what I'm. Exactly what I have.

But he said higher. The guy that I was talking to who's in a league was like, nope, I think it's higher. So that could just be what you, what's your e-vow on Rivers? And I think it could be higher ultimately. I don't feel like Rivers is winning games for them. You know, I feel like clearly their defense and even their special teams component without having Vin and Terry, you know, injured and missing kicks every week, has been dramatically improved and that they may feel like, hey, how, how?

How much is he, how much is rivers elevating us versus how much are we on the edge of our seat with our fingers crossed going? I hope he doesn't screw it up. And I'm just relieved when he has a no turnover game. And what's the prospect for him next year? Is it going to get, probably to get a little worse? I don't feel like he's one of those guys who is, I think it's catching up to him a little bit, that he, you're propping up him more than he's helping you. And so that if you had a chance to get somebody with a future and upside who may even be better, right now, that's why that 65% may be too low.

I had 65% and my thinking is very similar to yours. And the reason I think there's a really good chance they move on is because everything is on the table to them. There's nothing limiting them. The only thing that would kind of pare down their list of available quarterbacks is that they won't be drafting very high. So they would have to go make a big push up the draft, which they haven't traded any draft picks away.

Chris Ballard has created a scenario. area where the only thing left is the quarterback. And this is intentional. They have all of this young talent after making the darn old trade originally, I'm trading back. They have so many young, cheap ascending players on that team. They have a ton of salary cap space. So if they want to move up and get one of the guys in the draft that they think is available,

they have the picks to do it. If they want to be able to absorb a Stafford contract, they have the money to do it. Anything is available to them. And that's why I think it's going to be easy for them to say, we can get better than this. We can get better than what we have right now. Yes. Now here's the interesting component.

The human component of that is your head coach is a big part of these decisions. He has hands on the quarterback. He's very tight with Philip Rivers. He has a past relationship with Carson Wentz. When Matt Nagy could determine who the bears were going to get a quarterback, who did he get the guy he knows? He tried a fourth round pick for one of the worst quarterbacks in the NFL. For the guy he knows.

I know in quarterback tears. one of my quotes was, yeah, he's worse than Trubisky. That was actually in quarterback years. He has been worse than Trubisky. Yeah, I don't mean that. I know you're a bear's fan, so that was unintentional. But it's fine. It always happens.

It's inevitable. What does Frank Rec want to do? Is he going to be sitting there going, Chris, Philip means so much to this team. And you give me, you're in the system. We didn't even have the pandemic. We didn't even get any reps. If you give me an offseason with Philip, he still got it, we can take this thing home. Let's not take the risk.

This team's ready. Phillips ready. He got us for the season. He didn't wreck it for us. We're that close. What do you do? What do you do as an organization? If you're the GM then, you never act independently.

You do things in step with your coach. And I don't know what that conversation is like. I know. I'm sure that's exactly right. But I also know that Chris Bauer loves guys that are just outwires physically. And if he's sitting about and thinking about what the offense can look like, I promise you, he has images of Matthew Stafford dancing around in his head that aren't the ones he has of Philip Rivers. So that becomes the question.

So I ask you, gun to head, which of those options do you think is the most likely? Is it Stafford? Is it Darnold? Is it Wence? Who would you think is the best candidate to end up there? Yeah, I think it's the Darnold Wentz route more than the Stafford route for them. I think they've already did in their mind the Stafford route this year with the old guy. So if you're going to go with an old guy, the veteran.

guy. We did that. And you know what? We love him. He's great for our program. We can work around him. But ideally, we're going to go with someone who has both upside and a future and in Wences' case, he's already played well. He's played well before. So you know, with Donald, you don't know because he's never played well. So then you go back to your evaluations beforehand and then you're evaluating the situation of like, okay, the Jets didn't really do anything to help him. The Eagles only got worse. Those teams actually got worse around their guys. And that's why, we're going to trust our evaluation. Look, Frank Reich, when he was there, Wens was playing great.

We'll get Wents in here. We'll get him a weapon. He just needs a reset. Get out of Philly. That whole thing was weird. Foles won the Super Bowl. Frank, you know, if we can get, Frank will fix them. That sort of thing, I think, is the much more route with upside.

Otherwise, why go, if you're going with an old guy, you got an old guy. So here's my question about Wence. And kind of similar question about Darnold. What do you think it would take to get Wence from the Eagles? because I feel like it's going to be absolutely nothing. And for a couple different reasons. One, the way he's playing right now. Two, they have very little leverage.

After benching him and the way the contract works, it's not really feasible for them to cut him. It financially just doesn't work. So they almost have to trade him. Other teams are going to know that. So I don't think there's a situation where they're getting a two for Carson Wentz because they're in desperation mode

about having to get him off the roster. I feel like a team, do you don't think that's true? Well, I don't think they have to get him off the roster. Why do they have to get him off the roster? Oh, okay. So you think they could just have him there next year and not true. They can have him there next year. I mean, that could even be the most likely scenario, you know, is that he's back.

I mean, he's played well before. It's a crazy season and everything around him created. And, you know, let's see how Jalen Hertz plays. I mean, if he lights it up down the stretch. But even then, what's he, Drew Locke, who you're going to bet on off? of four games late in the year. I don't know. I mean, I think we need to figure out what they're doing and who their coach is going to be, but I think Carson Wentz being on the team. In fact, I don't know if we're going to do Philly soon or next, but I actually have a lower. We will now. Yeah,

I actually put, I put Philly, I put Wens that there's only a 25% chance that's a different starter in week one and next year. And when I sent that to my front office guy, he said lower, it's lower than that. That's shocking to me. Explain to me how that's different in the league. explain to me. Because Carson Wentz has played great before. There's no off the field, alcohol, suspension thing. You're just looking at a weird season where they built the team terribly. It all created around him.

And he's playing bad, but he's played good before. And so do you want to go with, do you want to go with guys who haven't played good before? What's your, what's your alternative to him? When he's already, like you said, he's going to be, it's not like it's some amazing cap savings to necessarily move. I mean, it's a wash. If you trade him, it's a wash. So I would want something good in return for him. But there are probably any team that's any team that adds him or the Eagles really has to evaluate what happened. What's really wrong here? Is he just never going to play good again? Is that what it is? We've just, we just discovered he's just bad because he's played well

before. And even before, even after last season, all the focus was on the injury. People didn't think he was crap. I mean, I thought he was overrated in quarterback tiers, but he might have been 12 or something. You know what I mean? He was 10 or 20. He was in the second tier. He was a workable, fungible quarterback. You could absolutely win some games with him.

Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, I think that we get caught up right now in the enormity of what this all feels like, right? That we benched him, if we're the Eagles, that we're already down the road that we've moved on and divorced. but when you have that, you know, in the process of that falling out, I've, thankfully, I've never been divorced. I don't plan on being divorced if my wife is listening, but, you know, you might go through a period. I hope she's not. You might, yeah, she's got much better stuff to do. She just want to listen to me, believe me, any more than she has to. But, you know, I would imagine, if I were ever in a situation like that, that you might have a falling out and a real emotional

spat, and then you might take some time apart. and then you might talk about what really happened here and what are the what is the best path forward you know i think there was love in this relationship between carson wents and the team and i don't when i look at what's really changed the most it's hard to know if it's carson paul carcin palmer carcin went or the team i mean the whole team construction is a nightmare right now they they tried to prop the window open and it slammed shut on wence's fingers you know and so now he's got broken knuckles and can we fix that, right? Or do we just get a whole new house and a whole new quarterback?

And I think it's to be determined. Do you get a new coach? So that's the question. Do you think there's a better chance he's on the roster if they do move on from this front office or if they don't? That's a great question. I think that if, well, I don't think they're moving on from the front office. I think how he, that would surprise me. I mean, I think Howie has a really great relationship with the owner who trusts him.

and I think the owner wants that, and the owner can sort of control things through Howley in a way that you can't do maybe if you get someone else, right? I mean, I think the owner probably likes that part of it. So to me, the most likely thing to move on is the head coach. You can replace head coaches. Then it's probably once, right? Because if your evaluation was that, hey, you know what,

Doug Peterson's actually been doing a great job. I don't think they're going to determine that. I think there's clearly some sort of a disconnect there. Just by the game plan they had for Hertz the first time, they played him. It was ridiculous. That wasn't a plan. You're telling me, Sean Payton, he's scheming, and he can't wait to get Tayson Hill in there. And they're running a college offense. I mean, it's totally different than what they've done with, you know, what would do we would do if it was only a breeze. They put hurts in the game and it looked like he just ran the

offense. There was no special thing for him. So there's weird stuff going on there that they have to sort out. And I think it'll probably at this point be a new coach. I think a new coach is part of And then you're talking to coaching candidates. You have got time, right? You're not going to cut or trade Carson Wentz in January. Then you bring in three candidates. And one of them says, I think he's done. I think we go in the draft because where are they going to pick?

Are they tanking now with Hertz? Are they going to basically be in the top five? I also think that's part of this. If Hertz ends up playing well over the next month of the season and you think he could possibly be the guy, I don't think there's a scenario where you'd want Wentz on the roster. Right. If you don't think Hertz is the guy and you have to go a different direction, then maybe you keep Wentz in there because you're not worried about the dynamics.

Which is the whole weird thing about Hertz. What were you doing? What was your plan? Was it to use a second round pick on Tasham Hill? Was it because we didn't think it's almost like Jalen Hertz is the solution right now. But he's almost more of the problem. I know. Well, I think that the idea that he came in and kind of rocked the apple cart and people think that Wence is now insecure and all that stuff with the Hertz thing.

But here, I think that's so interesting because how he believes that unless you figure out the quarterback, nothing else matters. And he has shown that in his actions in the past. If you think about them stockpiling quarterbacks when they had Chase Daniel and Sam Bradford and all those guys on the roster at the same time when they drafted Wentz, that has been his MO since he got this job back, is we need the quarterback no matter what. And I think that's, if you have a single doubt about Wentz and you think Hertz could eventually be the guy, that's why you make that. pick. So there's a chance they think that Hertz can be. And if they do, then I think that you have to move on from once this off season. And if you do, you have to trade it. Right. Absolutely. But now your next coach has to be in on Hertz. Yeah, I know. And every coach is going to have a different

opinion on all these guys, right? And so I think there are a real crossroads here in more ways than one. And we need to see what unfolds in the out season. But how do you, it's hard to make a case for, it's harder for me to make a cage for the coaching part. I think what happened before this season. Remember that press conference when Doug Peterson said he's bringing back his staff on offense? And then like the next day they fired him. Remember that? I'm telling you, it is the desperate franchise handbook.

When you start kind of toying with your staff and you start bringing in different offensive coordinators and, oh, let's go get Rich Scangarello because we want to have a little dabble in this, in the Shanahan scheme. That's when you know you're in trouble. But big picture, do you think that Doug Peterson said that publicly to the beat reporters? that these had are coming back. And do you think then that he had a natural organic change of heart overnight and got rid of them? What are the odds of that? Zero? I think it's less than zero.

Less than zero. So other people, the owner, the GM, whoever has their ear, wanted staff changes, okay, right? Maybe they wanted dramatic staff changes. But instead, what did they do? They brought in a couple guys that Frank Reich was, that Frank Reich probably agreed to make changes, but he probably selected who came in. And now he's probably under the gun this year to get it right. Where's the boost, right?

Well, they're worse. So if you're the owner and the front office... They're worse than lost. I mean, it's... You're though, the owner and front office are probably looking at the coach going, look, we told you to mix up the staff and it gets worse. I mean, so who's going to pay the price? The owner, the $20, $30 million quarterback,

or the GM who's really aligned with the owner? or the coach. To me, it's clear what will probably happen. It'll be the coach. And then the new coach has to decide. Let's get to a team that a lot of people are going to be paying attention to because it is a quarterback friendly spot and many people are intrigued by what Kyle Shanahan is going to end up doing. What is the likelihood in your mind that the San Francisco 49ers move on from Jimmy Garoppolo this off season? Okay, I put 50% chance they would have a new starter in week one of next season. And the front office guy said it would be lower than that. So I, I'm thinking that they'll want to go in a different direction. I'm not 100% sure they'll have somebody that they like better, but I do think, I guess I lean towards, if I was on that 50-50 fence,

I may be convinced, you know, by the guy I was talking to with a team that it may be lower than that because it just seems like we can read between the lines on Kyle Shanahan's love for him. I don't think it's love. I think it was an opportunity that presented itself, and it was a good move to make. got Garaple at a good price, but he hasn't played enough and isn't the guy that Kyle Shannon wanted. And Kyle Shanahan drives that car there, right?

I mean, I think. And that's why I think that the next guy is interesting, because is there going to be another marriage of convenience like there was with Garapola? If Darnold is available for a fourth round pick and John Lynch comes and says, Kyle, you know, here's a situation. We don't have any money by better options. We're drafting 16th or whatever. it could be, there's nobody that's going to be available. Stafford costs too much. Is there going to be another spot where they have to make that choice out of convenience and ease again the same way that they did with Garoppolo? I can't imagine that Calhianan would be

excited about that. No, absolutely not. He would have to be driving it towards somebody he really likes, right? And I think, you know, there was some, you could have envisioned some way earlier in the year that maybe Kirk Cousins. That's the guy he likes, right? We know that he likes them, that maybe there'd be a way for him to get out of there. But, you know, they're sort of going to come back to 500 and, you know, I think that I don't. It's hard to imagine that. It's harder to imagine now. I remember when you had all those interceptions and it was looking bad, but I don't know.

Minnesota's not the sort of team to really shake it up, right? I mean, I think they stay the course probably. I think so too. Especially now that it seems like everyone there is going to be safe. I mean, the rumblings early that maybe it was, we're going to be in a post Zimmer Spielman world. Maybe they trade him, but it seems like everyone's going to be back there. But what if, what if they're the team that's, what if he likes to,

Stafford. And he says, you know what? Hey, Matt's been beat up a lot. I like to say Matt, like I'm, you know, a contemporary of these guys, but that's how they would say it. You know, Matt, Matt has just been done wrong there. They got the whole run. He's the actual guy who needs the John Elway late career treatment, right? We'll give him my dad, Mike Shanahan, save John Elway's career at the end and got him a couple of Super Bowls. And that's where Matt Stafford is right now. Now, Matt Stafford's not a legend like John L.A. was at that point. But he's a guy on the back nine who too frequently hasn't had enough support. Let's give him that type of help. And then, you know, when we still need him to go win the game, Matt Stafford can still do that. He can still take us down the field against Atlanta when

Gurley didn't score. And he'll get us the question. Speaking of Atlanta, I think the comparison is what Kyle Shanahan just did with Matt Ryan. Matt Ryan won an MVP at age 31. And I think you could see a similar resurgence from mass stafford i in my mind that is the guy they should go get and give up one because why wouldn't you if you're that you that is a team that is ready to do it they i mean they're going to have some decisions to make in free agency we'll see what happens with their you know the cap going down is our guys like richard sherman back what happens with d for there's going to be more changes there than i think people are ready for but i still think the talent base and the shanahan presence is enough for them to win right now.

And I think Stafford is the guy among all of these options, if we're taking cousins off the table, that gives them the best chance to win right now. In part because I don't think Matt Ryan is somebody you could pry away from Atlanta as little as it would take to go get Matt Stafford. Yeah, you got Martin Mayhew in the front office over there, old Detroit

guy, right? You have him just call up the ownership group and say, hey, look, you know, let's make something happy. What would it take? What would it take? You know, he's going to he's over there. You guys are, he's never won there. You know, he needs to change of scenery. do right by him. We'll give you this. I think that would be awesome. I'd be excited about for the 49ers. I'd be thrilled. I would love to watch that because it's so funny.

I was watching Josh Allen today. We're talking about the bills with Ted later. And I go back and forth. And I think that my football mind and how I see things is still relatively young. And I don't know a lot. And there was a moment probably a couple years ago where I would just kind of scoff when people would talk about how important arm strength and arm talent and all those things are. But then when you see it and you see what guys like Josh Allen can do and you see the problems that Mahom solves or you watch what Justin Herbert can do and you just see the ball get to these places and because it gives you so much more wiggle room. Your margin for error grows so much. And I just think that Stafford is one of those rare, rare talents. And that's why me and you and everyone else keeps talking ourselves into him because when you watch it, the possibilities on a,

talent level are endless. And when you pair that sort of skill with what Kyle Shanahanan can do, everyone that cares about football is going to get excited at the idea of that. Yep, absolutely. No, I'm with you. It's a San Francisco would be the great Stafford laboratory. Like to see, is it true? All those things you've been saying all these years.

Stafford's like automatic second tier every year and there's not much to talk about. I think he could be a one if, you know. And that's so interesting because if we talk about circumstances, he's been in the worst circumstances. and what are the best circumstances? Kyle Shanahan. That's the best circumstance. And the one wrinkle to this that I think is worth mentioned before we move on,

Jimmy Garoppolo, no trade clause. Very, very savvy move by Don Yee putting a no trade clause in just this year. This is the only year that they couldn't trade him is right now, which is a fascinating wrinkle to this. Yeah, absolutely. Because for like Minnesota, for example, right? Like if you were the Vikings and you were talking to San Francisco and you could say, all right, we'll take a two and Garapolo and we'll give you cousins.

They can't do that, which I think takes some like some of these avenues off the table in a way that we don't have to consider with other people. Yeah. Don E is good, by the way. He's kind of under the radar guy, but that, you know, remember he had Garoppel and Brady at the same time. I mean, he's kind of the puppet master back there, you know, that's pretty good. Very nicely done by him. So speaking of Tom Brady, let's move on to the New England Patriots who I, so,

So next, we can talk about this in a second. I put question marks next to every single category on this list because I have no idea. So in your estimation, what is the percentage chance that the New England Patriots will have a different week one starter in 2021? I put 80%. Front office guy didn't change that. I mean, I think there's some chance that both sides see that it's, you know, worth extending. I don't think it's going to be at a huge price. That's the sticking point of it to me.

If it's not at a huge price, I could see them trying to convince themselves that's worth doing again. Absolutely, yeah, yeah, in light of what else you have. But, you know, I think they would have to feel like there's more than that he's got more than what he's showing now. And that's a hard thing because they have, they don't have the weapons. And, you know, they're winning 45 nothing and he's got like 69 passing yards. What was it? What did he have in the game? I mean, it was 69 yards, I want to say.

Yeah. Look that up. What's the biggest win, you know, under seven? I'm surprised you don't know that off the top of your head. Yeah. I didn't write about that in my column this last week, or I would have. But it's like, you know, I don't think anybody, I don't think anybody put it to you this way. Most offensive coordinators, and I would put Greg Roman in this category too, don't want to play an offense where we have to be predicated on the run.

They don't want to do it. And there's a couple of reasons. Number one, you'll never get a head coaching job. Number two, number two, it's just hard and you get solved eventually. So I think they want Again, the margin for error is just very, very low. And you get schemed and all that. And eventually, I think they could feel limited enough by,

even if it's not all Cam Newton's fault, limited by their passing game this year enough to want to seek a higher ceiling. How they do that, I don't know, because remember, they weren't willing to pay Tom Brady. They weren't willing to pay Tom Brady. If it's not Cam Newton, who is it? because I sometimes it's easy for me to say oh I could see that or I could see this and maybe it's just because I have this 20 year backlog of Tom Brady and it's difficult for me to picture other people in that offense in that uniform but when I'm going through the options here like I don't it's not I picture Matthew Stafford in a Niners uniform I don't do that with the Patriots I don't know who it would be so what would your best guess be because they could be in a spot where they're not in a position to draft some

buddy, and they have to go in this free agent wheelerrama. Well, let's just, let's just profile Bill Belichick a little bit. When he went to Cleveland, who did he get? He got the Vinny Testa Verde, right? I mean, somebody with a good pedigree who became available after maybe underperforming or to have underperformed or underperforming. I'm not saying something from 25 years ago is the way it would go. But is that the sort of guy if he had to go for a veteran that he would try to get in the

absence of just being able to, you know, draft whoever you want, which they're not going to be able to do, right? They're not going to be in that situation. So, so who is that type of player, you know, I don't think it's necessarily James Winston because of the interceptions that he's thrown. But is it, is there a veteran player like that you just feel like you can win with? You know, is it a Ryan Fitzpatrick type almost, you know, do they go down that type of road? I don't know. I really don't know. I mean, I have zero idea what they're thinking, be. There aren't that many interesting free agents. Like last year's free agent class was much more interesting than this one. But the movement, I feel like, is going to compare to what happened last

spring. So that's why it's a little bit difficult because there aren't as many guys that you can just slot in if somebody's willing to pay them the money. Yes. What if Alex Smith became available? There's just a lot of those types of guys who you might feel like you can win with it, but I'm with you. I don't think we can pinpoint anyone over the others right now. That one is a total mystery to me. And that's the 20%. That's why I've only 80% they move on because I don't have a great feeling of what the 20% is, you know? I know, but even 80s is very high, but that's not surprising to me. But if you had said 10, and someone had told you that they like Cam, they think they can get the money done where it's, he's making 18 million next year and they have some

other resource they can spread out. That would make sense to me too. I could see any possible scenario with them. It's so hard to pin down. So I want to go through this one quickly. This is not one of the ones I've listened to for you, but I think it's important to set the table for everything else. Do you think Taysam Hill is the starter in New Orleans at the beginning of next year? I don't. I mean, the only reason I hesitate a little bit is because I think Sean Payton wants to prove that he is, you know? It's a $16.2 million cap it for a guy that wouldn't play quarterback for a team that has no money. That's one part of my idea. You're right. I mean, I guess there's two sides of this. I mean, I think the evaluation of him is that he's probably, it's sketchy that he's a 16

game quarterback, but the reality is that Sean Peyton is playing them, and you're right, they have made a commitment to him. So I think I need to see what happens the rest of the year. Is he going to play and play well? Almost easier to envision if he doesn't. Like, if Breeze gets back in there soon and finishes the year, it's easier for me to envision that the Tason Hill starts week one, then if he plays the rest of the way out and they lose in the first round of the playoffs, not saying they would, but I'm just a little skeptical on. Hill making that conversion to being somebody you want to go 16 games with. So let's do a couple more quick ones here before we spend too much time on the Bears.

Falcons, what is the percentage chance that Matt Ryan is the start of their week one of next year? Is it 100? I said that, yeah, I put 5% chance that he's not. And that's just because I was going in 5% increments. I thought about doing one or 2%. I don't think someone's going to come in there and do that. I don't think there's a real upside to doing that. I don't think that's what I think Arthur Blank's wondering why we're not winning more,

not how do we rebuild and get worse? And I think that the way the off, I talked about this with Charles McDonald last week. I feel like the offense is they're set. They are locked into this version of the offense financially and with the picks that they've made. It makes much more sense to say, how can we lift this? I will say this. I absolutely could envision a scenario where if they like the Tray Lance, Zach Wilson category of these guys and they're sitting there with the eighth pick like they are right now,

this would be their best chance to draft the successor. So I feel like they could draft somebody and still have Matt Ryan as the starter in 2021. And wouldn't that check the boxes for a new GM? Hey, then you're doing what a new GM does, right? The new GM comes in. He's not as under the gun as he's going to be in year two or three. You could make that type of move and justify it and maybe feel really great about your future. But that's also a hard sell for a new GM.

In year one, drafting the successor to Matt Ryan could be a tough sell to the city and to ownership if you don't feel like you've built up enough goodwill to do it. I think that's also part of it. Yeah, I don't think, though, the city is, look, I mean, I haven't been to Atlanta recently. I haven't left, it's kind of depressing. I haven't left my office here since March, but, but I don't, I mean, I think Matt Ryan's liked and respected. I don't think the city is, you know, I don't think it's.

I guess the organization is more what I meant. Yeah, the organization is. But the organization won't be as much when there's a new GM in there and a new coach in there, you know, I think they do want to, I, as great of a job as Rahim Morris has done, I feel like they want to reset. I would bet like they're going to change everything. You know what I mean? I think so, too.

But I think it's going to be a fresh reset and a new quarterback to market and build around without having to get rid of Matt Ryan right now. Could be the best of both worlds. I just don't see them winning. I mean, they could win enough games to get themselves out of this situation now. They're four and eight. There's a huge log jam there between those four and eight and five and seven teams. Speaking of four and eight teams, Denver Broncos,

what is the percentage chance they have a different starting quarterback in week one of next Well, I said it's a 50% chance and then I was corrected by my front office executive said lower percent chance that they have. That's what I love to hear, Mike Sando. That is what I like to hear because the Denver Broncos currently had the 10th overall pick in the NFL draft. And I would love if they talk themselves into one more round of Drew lock. It is. And this is all I care about in the world now. I don't know.

I look at the draft order 17 times a day. I look at the strength of schedule for all of these teams, and I think about every possible outcome where there are two quarterbacks left on the board as the Bears draft eighth overall. It's all I think about it. Yes, yeah, I know. And I feel like if I were being brought in there as the GM,

I mean, God forbid, the whole franchise would be down the toilet in about 20 minutes. But I would be like, can't we do better? I just don't feel it. Now, Elway's probably invested in them, right? And it can easily look at this year and say, we had injuries, the pandemic. We didn't even get the off-season.

It's an ease. There's a lot of excuses to talk yourself into everything. Talk yourself into it, baby. Yeah, exactly. They're going to do the Tribisky thing. And that sounds great. That sounds fantastic. That's exactly what I want.

And then people wonder, though, okay, the ownership, things influx, does that change? Could Elway some way be out? I don't think so. I mean, I think they're going to come back with Elway, and that'll be his guy. and they won't go down another road. Do you agree? That's what they'll do. I see them bringing him back because I think there are too many ways to explain it away.

It's the first year of a new offensive staff. You lose your number one receiver before the season starts. Pandemic. All of these are bad reasons, by the way. Tackle ops out. Yeah. Yeah, all of this stuff. He has been objectively, I think the worst starting quarterback in the NFL over the last two seasons.

They are dead last in offensive DVOA, at least they were coming into last week. There is no reason you have to stick with a second round pick based on what he has done so far. But I do think they're going to. I was doing this thing. Like last year and this year, I was stacking all the quarterbacks that have played 10 starts or something like that. He was like 36 a couple of weeks a couple of weeks ago.

There's like 36 of them. He's like 36th in things that you would say. If I asked you, hey, Rob, give me the 10 stats on quarterbacks that you think are important. You probably couldn't even get 10 because there's not, but you know, yards per attempt might be in the top 10 or some variation of an EPA, whatever your things would be. Adjusted net yards per attempt, EPA. He's like actually 36th in some of them. He's dead last in most of them. And that's why I would be thrilled if they decided to run it back.

And the reason I would be thrilled is because my Chicago Bears are probably in the market for a quarterback and are going to be on the verge of picking in the top 10. You said probably leaving open the possibility. So this is the question here. Okay. So now what would you say is the percentage chance? And so to me, I'm going to ask this question a slightly different way with the Bears. Not a percentage chance to have a different week one starter because that's 100. Mitchell Trabiski will not be there.

But let's say Nick Foles is that guy. Then what is the percentage chance that they will move on from Nick Foles? I put 95% on this thing thinking that I love to hear it, Michael. Either, you know, now I should do a very persuasive, well-researched piece saying why they should stick with them just despite you. I wouldn't even believe it. I would just be doing it. I would never speak to you again. I would buy it.

But yeah, I don't see how you can do that. I mean, do you? Well, number one, I think it'll be a coaching change. Do you? I think there will be a wholesale change in every single level of the organization and should be. Wow, you are very. Yeah. I mean, well, here's, so this is the reason, okay.

If it's a 95% chance and you were going to pick a new quarterback in some way, whether that's getting a bridge guy or a drafting one, give me one single reason that Ryan Pace deserves to be the guy that's going to make that decision based on his track record. Yeah, no, I'm with you on the quarterbacks. It's, you know, I'd have to get back to you. I would go do some research and I might find a couple, but I think it's hard. I think it's hard. So do you think if they like one of those guys there in the draft, they absolutely should take one?

If they don't, if they end up with a 12th pick, who do you think could be a possible option for them as a stopgap guy that's going to be available? This one's harder for me. I didn't have any good answers. Yeah, it's funny. You know, that's one that off the top of my head. I guess you, I guess you look at where those musical chairs go, right? And then who do you bring in? Is Garapolo suddenly available? Would you like him? I would. That's the type of guy that I would think about too. Yeah. But I think you've shown, Garapolo's at least shown that when you have, with a good defense, you can win with him. But I don't like the injury thing. I mean, he's missed a ton of games in like every time he's got a chance to start. He doesn't, he gets out of the lineup because of injuries. So you could be, you know, that could be the type of play. where are you looking at the, you know, Darnold in a draft or somebody like that? Or do you want them more of the veteran? You know, I think you could talk your way into,

hey, we got two more years of this defense. So, you know what? We should have done Cam Newton a year ago. We're going to do it now. We feel like we can get one or two good years out of them. You're obviously not going to get Stafford from in the division. You know what I mean? Is Alex Smith available?

Is that the type of guy with a good defense? I mean, heck, the bears are the Redskins almost. The Bears are the Washington football team almost. I am totally fine. My ideal outcome at this point is they draft somewhere around the top 10. A lot of these teams that are 50-50, like Detroit, like Carolina, like Denver, end up sticking with the guy they have right now. And the bears can pick a guy. They do pick one and they just bring foals back.

He has like a $6.7 million cap hit. So you have a veteran presence in the room. He's not that expensive of a backup. It would be more expensive to get rid of him than to keep him. So that to me is the perfect situation. a good guy, people like him. I think he'd be a really good voice for a rookie quarterback. That in my mind would be the best possible way this could shake out.

And by the way, who's your, who do you want for coach? Have you thought this through? Oh, and I haven't thought that far. I honestly haven't. I honestly haven't. And my concern is that they're going to go with a defensive guy in order to overcorrect because I just, that's not my favorite thing, especially if you're going to draft a quarterback.

If you're going to draft a quarterback in the first round in year one, that's another thing I wanted to ask you. This last thing I'll ask before we get out of here, do you think, that there would be hesitance from a first year GM to draft a quarterback. Who is the last general manager in his first year of the job to draft a quarterback in the first round? Did Gregson do it? That's probably a way. That was a no-brainer.

But that's a no-brainer. Because think about the other ones where, like, the bills passed, right? Or was Bean there? So Bean was not there for the draft. Bean was not there. That was a, yeah. But he had a whole, but he had an entire year to look at his roster to evaluate. the situation before he drafted Josh Allen.

I'm putting you on the spot, but this is something that I've thought about. Yeah. I'm going to the teams. Do you count Chris Greer was already the GM before they took to it, even though he kind of got the full power of the GM, right? He was there, though, for a year. He saw the rebuilding process, everything else. And he had been in the organization.

Oh, did John Dorsey come in and take Baker Mayfield? So John Dorsey was hired on December 7, 2017. So John Dorsey is a good example. But again, that's the number one page. So you have, everything is on the table. I think that, I think Buffalo is a good example where they could have drafted a quarterback in year one of that new regime, but instead they wait a year. Oh, Tom Dimitroff did it with Matt Ryan.

That was his first year and they had the third overall pick. That's a good one. They had third overall pick and they built it and it went really well. I think they should if they like the guy. But I just think that for the most part, we've seen teams wait and try to kick the can down road a little bit to get a better understanding of the roster, the building, the organization. I understand arguments against it, even if I think if you're the Bears, if you're in that space, you probably should draft the guy. Yeah, Ron Wolf came into Green Bay and traded for Farve. So,

you know, I think I think most of these things, you know, while some of those history and blueprint on what you want to do, really all of these things come down to, what are your opportunities? I agree. More than the philosophy of doing it. We all, we sort of get into that like, hey, Rob, what's your philosophy of building a team, that's totally different than what you would do if you took over the jets or if you took over the saints. Those guiding principles would be there, but you would suddenly have totally different dynamics to deal with. Within your organization, I think all of those come into play and deciding what's the best path. Awesome. Mike, that's all I got. We could do this forever, but I'm not going to make you do that. I really appreciate the time. This is very fun, very illuminating,

and we will definitely have you back on here in short order. Definitely won't be as long of a gap as it was last time. Oh, I hope so. This was fun. Really gets your mind going, doesn't it? Fun stuff. So I appreciate it. It's time for this week's team visit, and I'm not sure we could have gone any other place but Seattle this week. Please to welcome Michael Sean Dugard to the show. Thank you so much for doing this, man.

I think that there's a lot of anxieties happening in the Pacific Northwest right now, and it's a good time to dig into them. Yeah, the panic button has been pressed over here. If my group threads and my mentions online are in it. It's funny. I was going through it today and I was like, who are my Seahawks friends that I can ask about some of this stuff? Then I realize it's everyone I know on the internet. It's the presence of Seahawks Twitter and it's just imprint on my life is far bigger than I would ever choose for it to be. But this is the moment that we've reached and that's okay.

Yeah, there's someone, a local radio guy here doing like a series where he interviews people from Seahawks Twitter. Someone at the Seattle Times did a story about Seahawks Twitter. Like the faction of Seahawks Twitter online is just powerful, man. It created the slogan that defines the Seahawks 2020 season, one that has now been trademarked by the quarterback. Like, that's incredible when you think about it. They do wield a lot of power, and I think that they were given a lot of credit for that slogan taking hold.

And that's where I want to start with this, because the entire Let Russ Cook phenomenon and the way that it's, unfolded is very telling in my mind. It starts as this kind of grassroots movement on the internet where everyone watches the approach that the Seahawks took to offense over the last couple of years with some trepidation and with judgment because you have this amazing quarterback and you're marginalizing him in a way with your run past distribution and the way the offense is structured. This year, they come out of the gates after bullying the Seahawks coaching staff online for the last two years and they do whatever.

everyone wants them to do. They're throwing the ball at the highest rate in the NFL on early downs. For the first half of the season, it was 63.2%. No one in the NFL was throwing it more. In that stretch, their third in EPA per play, their seventh in dropback EPA during that stretch. They're six and two. Russell Wilson throws 28 touchdowns, and it feels like he's going to win the MVP. That's where we were halfway through the season. The nerds were rejoicing. It was an entire flawless victory for them. I had Jake Heaps on this podcast to talk about how great Russell Wilson is. And now we're in a very different place.

So what was it like watching the Let Russ Cook thing take hold after how run heavy and how conservative their offense had been over the last few years under Pete Carroll? It's really been weird to see because I would say Pete Carroll and probably Mike Zimmer in Minnesota, like two of the remaining guys who seem like the most stubborn in their offensive philosophy. Sure. And antiquated offensive philosophies at that. Because I think Bruce, Bruce Ariens is probably married to what he does.

It's just better than what like Pete and Mike. Sure. So like to see after that 2018 playoff loss to Dallas, the discourse, it was, it was not just people online. It legitimately, I think like Mina Kimes appeared on Brock and Sock on the flagship station for the Seahawks. And they were like, why didn't Russ throw more? It was probably the first time I can remember where.

after a playoff loss, which is when coaches usually get all the blame, that it was legitimate. I was there. It was unwatchable. That is just, it's football from like 1985. It was miserable to watch. And the more I studied it, the more I was,

because I was a big analytics guy, mostly because I'm not going to lie, I didn't understand a lot of stuff. When I, 2017, you'd have told me what EPA was in April 2017 when I got hired of like, I got nothing for you. Nothing. But the more,

where I said it, two things really have stood out about the phenomenon of let Russ cook. It's the underdog mentality of people who are from this region of the country. I think that's a big part of it because it's not just that Russ is good. It's that Russ is not acknowledged for being as good by the people that, you know, do the acknowledging. You know, like in this corner of the country, this is not the juggernaut part, right? This ain't like a New York or L.A. or some of the bigger markets. So that was part of it. And the other part was like, I always call the Seahawks fan base.

It's pretty smart. It's not howling into the wind, a bunch of nonsense. NFC East fan bases. The Seahawk fan base usually comes with, like, knowledge of the salary cap, knowledge of the true salary cap. Like, they understand the trade value charts that like, forget the Cowboys coach, like really made that thing. Jimmy Johnson.

Yeah, the Jimmy Johnson chart. Yeah. Yeah, like they got this stuff down, like even EPA and all this stuff. So it would kind of surprise me when I saw like Shottie and Pete Kirol a, adapt this in 2020. And then I really thought about it. It was like, well, they're just adapting something that's right. It's very different than like the other fan bases.

Like, mostly in the NFC East, those are all trash fan bases online. You've gone to that twice now. I really appreciate you sticking to this. This is commitment. I got introduced to Dallas fans and Philly fans over the last like year and a half. And it didn't take me long. You'd be like, wow, this is bad. Like, you guys are really, really just all over it.

Like, it's something else. Whereas I think the Seattle's fan base can be bad. Like, there are people tweeting me to trade Russ. but I think largely speaking, the fan base is pretty smart and pretty on it about how to make the team better. And it was really only a matter of time before the people in charge of making the team better

if the light bulb finally came off for them. And it did. And it was working. And it just felt like this was the right direction, the right approach, everything else. But now, like always happens with these movements or with just the lifespan of an NFL season, defenses react,

and it's up to offenses to figure out, all right, this is their counter, what's my counter to the counter? And the Seahawks have struggled over the last month. Russ has thrown four touchdowns in their last four games to three interceptions. They're 19th in EPA per play over the last month, and they've gone two and two. So it's a very different tone and a very different mentality to what happened over the first month of the season. Things are clearly not rolling the way that they were.

So now that we've kind of stepped into this second act, you know, figuring it out phase, of the Let Russ Cook movement, what would you say after watching it as much as you have is wrong with this version of the Seahawks offense over the past four games? Where are they struggling where they weren't over the first half of the season? I don't think the adjustments are being made.

Like the chess match that you mentioned that happens in the later half of the season. I don't think it's going well for Seattle. I'll give an example. Like, I think they took advantage of some really bad defenses early in the year. That's part of it. And not just because they were bad.

Their plan was bad. England's plan in week two was like, let's just play man on D.K. Metcalf. See, that's stupid, right? The New England plays a lot of cover one. That's what they do, but that was a poor plan against this. Philly was manning up D.K. a lot with D. Slaid, bad idea. San Francisco, he was manned up on D.C. The long touchdown, he was manned up on him. He was he had no help at all. Yeah. Let's see. San Francisco this year, they, I forget the guys. I want to say, Emmanuel Mosley, was manned up on D.K. A lot of the game and gave up like 120 yards or something like that. And then what do you see against the Giants? You see a lot of cover two. You see a bunch. You

see help what the Rams are doing. The Rams, a little bit more quarters than cover two, but same idea. Still a lot of too deep safety looks. Yes, exactly, to take away what you do best. Minnesota did it really well in week five. And I don't think since then Shadi and Russ and even the receivers too, they're part of this, have adjusted well to that. Because teams are just going to play you, I think every week, Pro Football Focus tweets out DK's yardage against single coverage. And I'm like, yeah, they should stop doing that. And some teams are like, stop doing that. The Giants DC was like, nope, no single coverage over here.

And they just kind of threw everything off. So I think that what's really wrong is the adjustment. They're just not coming into the game understanding like, hey, this defense is competent. They have a good plan. So we need to have a better plan. Earlier in the year, I think they were feasting on teams with the exception of Miami. that had bad plans against their offense. And that's exactly what I've seen recently.

I went back and I watched the Giants game this morning, and that's what you see. You see a ton of two deep coverages, and the Giants actually aren't a team that does that a ton. They run a lot of cover three and have all a year, but they didn't do that as much against the Seahawks. There was a lot of two deep stuff, and even they're underneath defenders,

getting tons of depth. And essentially, the plan that they've taken that the Rams took, the teams that have slowed the Seahawks down, is two-fold. You're either going to run the ball into the light boxes that we're giving you, or you're going to check it down underneath what we're running. And it's up to the Seahawks to make that adjustment. It doesn't seem to have happened.

If we want to take the Let Russ Cook thing a step further, it's almost like taking Aaron Franklin or some master barbecue guy and having him make you a grilled cheese sandwich. Like, it's boring as shit, but at a certain point, that's what they're, that's all they're giving you. Here's two pieces of bread and here's a piece of cheese. This is all you have to work with. And that's what they're making the Seahawks do and just not their strength. and I think you see them in that feeling out process right now,

and there have been some issues that have come along with that. Yeah, and I think, so I'm going to take it back to college up quick. So I'm in Washington State grant, right? So when I was there, my glitch was there around the air raid. And the air raid is very different than a lot of offenses that you see in the Pack 12, right, and which basically I could judge the opposing teams, D.C. Or how we were going to win the game by how you decided to play us. If you're going to be, if you're like Utah, and you're like, well, we usually run a bunch of, you know, cover three or whatever,

we're just going to stick with that because what we do well. So we're probably going to beat you. But meanwhile, like the Huskies with Jimmy Lake, they were like, it doesn't really matter what we do. They run a bunch of spread stuff, so we're just going to drop eight and make them have to dink and dunk it, right? And we never beat the Huskies. And that's kind of what I'm seeing in the NFL.

Basically Seattle's success is basically tied down competent the defensive coordinator is, or how arrogant, depending on how you want to look at it. These are legitimate, like, look, we're just going to do what we do well. And there's probably something to that. But like you said, the Giants are like, no, we're going to work to beat what they do well. And I think that's probably a better strategy. And it's why teams like Minnesota shut them out in the first half. It's why they couldn't throw the ball against the Rams.

That's why they couldn't score against the Giants. It's how competent your DC is. And basically whether he's willing to check his ego or adjust to what the other team does well. That doesn't mean that Seattle can't just like beat cover two. It's not like Reds never seen a too high safety look. He had a great whole shot to lock it in the first half of that Giants game was a beautiful throw. It was their best play of the day.

And I keep using Minnesota as example, he's literally never lost to the Vikings, right? And they do that similar thing. And they've had good defenses that he's beaten as well. So, like, he can still perform. But I think he's going to continue to struggle unless shoddy and the receivers and the other coaches in there really put their heads together and figure out how to still be explosive against those two high looks or find ways to do. just like exploit the underneath coverage and maybe get some yards after the catch.

So I want to talk about that in a second. Just laying out some of the numbers. Over the past month, as teams have coned more of those two high looks, the Seahawks are third in rushing EPA per play in early downs. When they've run the ball, they've been relatively successful because those looks are conducive to running the ball. They're 23rd in passing EPA over that same stretch. So you just see this stuff kind of coming to fruition with the way the defense are playing them. So now the question is, if they don't want to just keep running the ball,

which I can understand, because it's not that effective. If you can go to team into running the ball a lot, you're probably beating them. It's what you do, the teams do, the chiefs. That's exactly the same kind of approach. If we can take the ball out of Russ's hands, we've already won. So if you're not going to run the ball all the time and you're going to throw it, is this team, whether it's the coaching staff or the personnel,

are they set up to play that kind of game? Because it almost doesn't feel like they have enough of those kind of players to be successful if you make them fight left-handed like that. Yeah, that's the difficulty that Shadi and Russ are having probably right. It's Tuesday. They're probably having that discussion right now, like on time or something like that, because you do got to balance it. You take what the defense gives you, which you also don't want to eliminate, which

you do well. And in this case, that would be like giving it to Chris Carson and Carlos Hyde 30 plus times versus 30 Russ dropbacks. I don't care what Pete says about balance. That's stupid. Right. Like your best player is Russ. And balance is giving the ball to D.K.

and Tyler and even Will Dissie and Jacob Hollister, you know, as often as you give it to Carlos and Chris. To me, that's actual balance. That's another, like, thing I picked up from Mike Leach. Like, well, I run it 30 times with one guy. The other guys have to share 15 targets. That's not balance, right? That's, you're just, you run heavy at that point.

So I think, I do think they have the personnel, though. I think Tyler is really good at getting open underneath. D.K. can literally get open. He's probably open right now on his couch. Like, if you throw the ball, like, that's, that's how open D. can get, I think David Moore, who they have doing punt returns right now is a pretty shifty player. Not as shifty as like a Doug Baldwin, but he definitely makes the first guy miss a lot of the time, which is why he's back there doing punts. Chris Carson, as well

as a past catcher, he's going to run through or jump over or flip over. Honestly, whatever Chris wants to do. Do you can do that against guys, like if he just dump it to him. I do think they have the talent. I don't think they have the scheme right now. That's the, that's the difficulty. Shout to Shil Kapati, a show just tweeted out a staff. about how much easier life has been for like a Jared Goff, who basically fits the ball to Robert Woods and he takes it 60 yards. Like, they don't have that in their scheme right now, and you're seeing how tough it is to move the ball when you don't have that stuff.

It's so true. And I think that might be part of my issue here in imagining it is that everything they run and the way the offense is structured, it's just hard to bring yourself to that place. It takes a leap of faith because the underneath stuff that they've had that's been working is essentially a Tyler Lockett crossing routes against man or deep decay comebacks. Those are like the two things that are underneath throws that work consistently.

And they're very good, but that's still a limited menu. And in the last couple weeks, you've seen them go to some of that Rams boot stuff. They did it on that fourth down against the Giants, and it didn't work. And when they're doing it, it feels fake. It just doesn't feel like it's natural for them, and they don't get a lot out of it. Russ doesn't read that stuff as well as he does outside the numbers. When he's playing on the move like that, it almost limits what he can do. So the solutions they might have to those problems feel so out of character for them that I just don't know if they'll be able to do it smoothly.

No, and probably not. We'll see. That's going to take a lot of adjusting. It depends. That's actually going to be a really good thing to pay attention to these next few weeks. What's really unfortunate is I just feel like the talent is really there. I really think it is. And it's crazy because they have examples in their own division, too.

I watched the game. You watched it too. It was a primetime game. I think the Rams versus the Niners. I think the Niners had Nick Mullins this year. And it was just like a coaching clinic with head coaches who do not trust their quarterbacks. Both guys were basically throwing it behind the line to like Debo and Robert Woods and Cup.

And it was in both guys moved the ball very well. And that's just because that's kind of what they naturally do over there. I think that the optimistic view is that, yeah, Russ can adjust. He can get his guys the ball. in space. They can beat zone. They can beat, you know, the too high underneath looks. Or if nothing else, they just running down people's throats. And Chris Carson ends up leading the league in Russian. But yeah, I agree. It's going to feel forced at least for another game or two, unless they really commit to it. Like that was a thing about after the Falcons game in week one, it was like,

okay, are they really letting Russ cook or do the Falcons stink? Right. Like it was, I remember that question very well. Yeah, it's like, how committed are they to this strategy? And so they're committed to it. They sit down, say, hey, look, teams are going to play us this way. We have to do this now. I know we've been doing X for 13 weeks. We need to do Y and Z now. And I don't know how that'll look.

When your quarterback is great, it should look fine. Shoot, Jared Gough, I don't think it's very good. And their offense looks fine. So that's the glass half full. The glass have empty one is like, okay, this is going to be uncharacteristic. Pete's going to override it the minute it doesn't work. And then everything goes to hell. and they're out in like the first round of the playoffs.

I just think, when I would think about offenses, your point about the Rams and Niners is perfect because those are two offenses that feel so comfortable playing horizontally because it's the way they're built. The Packers are the exact same thing this year. You see all the meshes and all the rubs and all the stuff coming open in front of Rogers that there's easy completions. And that's what they major in.

The Seahawks, again, when they try that stuff, it just looks like they're fumbling it. It doesn't look like they're comfortable. doing it. And I just wonder if you can make that sort of pivot midstream and this late in the season when you're an offense that's predicated on verticality the way that they have. And I understand what you're saying with the personnel. I just, it feels like they don't have anyone close to what a Doug Baldwin is or even like what a Robert Woods is, where it's a guy that can like play in space or Cooper Cup even. Like they just don't have guys built like that unless you think

Tyler Locker can do that in a way that he hasn't before, which I think is fair. It would mostly be, I trust David Moore in that way, too. Like, if you look at some of David Moore's explosive players, they're honestly just him just making somebody miss. He had a big one against the Packers, I think, in their playoff game that they lost last year, like reverse course. Like, he can do, he's not great, but he's an option. All I picture him doing is catching jump balls near the pylon. Again, that's just me not having a deep enough knowledge of it, I'm sure. You know, it's, to really illustrate that point, and remember what I said, I didn't really know analytics that well,

As much as I've learned more about completion percentage over expectation, I see that like Russ is really great in that. Best really by far. Yeah, he shouldn't be. That's actually not. I think it's a great point. Yeah, like Mahomes is probably a lot lower, I would imagine, because he's throwing a doot tours open, right?

That's exactly right. Yeah, so and no one, I bet you know one in Kansas City's like, we want my home's higher and completion percentage over it. Because there's, that's not necessarily a, great thing to, like, be consistently good at. I mean, yeah, it's fine that you can make hard throws. Sure, the NFL is about that, especially on the postseason. But it's like, man, for a few weeks, can you just throw somebody who's open?

And if they can't, it's going to be ugly because, like, they should smoke the Jets, right? But look at their next opponents now. I mean, the Niners, I know they didn't look great against Josh Allen, but that's still a good defense. The Rams defense is probably the best in the league. And that Washington defense just made Big Ben look old. So who knows if they get a wild card spot, if they can't figure out how to move the ball effectively when teams take away what they're so comfortable with. I think it's interesting because, like you said, they made it so hard on Russ in the beginning of the year, but he was making it work.

The completion percentage of our expectation was crazy. But then it's just little stuff, right? Like the one he had to decay down the left sideline against the Eagles against Slay. That Slay broke up. That play was completed during the first month of the season. just falls incomplete because it's a high difficulty play. In the red zone, they were scoring touchdowns at an unfathomable rate, 90-something percent of the time.

Now it's 75. It's still really good. I think it's the second highest rate in the league. But when you're not dominating in those areas, things come back to earth a little bit when the offense doesn't consistently make it easy on the quarterback. And I think those are the cracks that you're starting to see. So the one bright spot in this is that the offense has been worse,

but the defense has been considerably better. So if the offense takes a step back to where they were, if they can be a top 10 offense again, this defense is average. So over the past month, they're 15th in EPA per play. What have you seen from that group and during that stretch that's different

than what they were over the first half this season? Is that as simple as getting a little bit healthier and getting Carlos Dunlap? No, well, yes. But also, it's the same thing we're talking about with the offense. It's doing what you're comfortable with. People have a like some running defense. It's a form.

man rush. It's protect your underneath zones with cover three. It makes sure your corner stay on top of everything. And you have favorable, like run defense boxes, meaning, you know, you got more guys than they got, you know, in there to run. So they weren't doing that because they couldn't. They didn't have, they didn't have reliable corners to play over the top. They didn't have a four man rush that could get there consistently. So what they have to do? They were like one of the highest blitz, they were like a top 10 blitz rate team for most of the year. It was weird to watch. It was just extremely strange to watch. It's not good. They had a lot too, too high looks. So you're taking someone like Jamal away from the ball and then Jamal was out. So it just didn't, it didn't work. They were

just trying a bunch of things. They were throwing stuff on the wall and seeing what sticks. And that's just not what they were good at, which makes sense, right? Because that's not who Pete, not who Pete is. So they got Jamal back. And then they got some corners who actually had two legs, unlike Quentin Dunbar, who was on one leg against him, which is really unfair to him. Like he was clearly out there hot. When they got corners with two legs, they got Jamal back, and they got Carlos Dunlap.

It fixed a lot of problems all at once. Now we got guys who can stay on top of deep balls. Now we got guys who can rush the passenger without the need of a blitz and Carlos. And then we got, you know, someone who can stuff to run like Jamal can and then give us even more pass rush. I'm pretty sure the top five pass rush teams

since getting Jamal back into the mix. Even getting smoked by Buffalo, they had like seven sacks. They're getting to the quarterback as well. as anyone in the league since getting Carlos and Jamal. So I think that getting more comfortable with what they do. Because that's what that's easier to plug in new pieces as well. Like you're plugging in like a DJ Reed and you're plugging in a Ryan Neal.

These are dudes who you didn't expect to play. Not only you plugging them in, you're plugging them into something you yourself can nor are not even that comfortable with. So how can you get them comfortable if you're not comfortable doing that? So then it's a lot easier to plug in a DJ read when it's like, hey man, we're just going to play a bunch of cover three today. That cool with you? Yeah, that's cool with me, coach.

You play well, right? Like, that's a lot easier. And it fits your personnel, too. When you draft big corners, we get their hands on people and you're playing off, well, you know, it doesn't work. You're doing the opposite of what you brought in all these guys for. I think the turnaround has really been, you're getting back to what Pete knows and what they can teach really well and just what they're overall comfortable with. So I think that the Jamal Adams thing is a good thing to go to next because they make that trade. They make the Carlos Dunlap trade.

These are moves made by a team that things. thinks they're close and thinks that we need one or two more pieces. If we shore those spots up, we have a chance to win a Super Bowl. That's what it felt like over the first month of the year. Now, I think it's a little bit murkier. I don't know if they're as good as the other best teams in the NFC. I don't know if they're in the same class as the Packers and the Saints are. So by the end of the year, we definitively know there aren't.

If this team falls short and they're sitting here again wondering, okay, now what? What is the answer to that? What is the next step for this team, if this version of it, when we let Russ Cook, when he had these guys on the outside, and it still didn't work. Where does this franchise go if that fall short? That's a really good question. I was actually talking to some people who are like personnel folks that are in the league, around the league,

talking about Seattle's situation. They only got four picks this year, and they start in the second round. They got a second or fourth or fifth and a seventh. They basically went all in on this season thinking that they could win a Super Bowl. And if it doesn't work, they don't have a lot of cab space. they don't have a ton of tradable assets unless you're willing to like trade lock it or something like that. They don't have a lot of great. Where does that get you? That's one step forward, two steps back. Right. Yeah, you know, it's like the Frank Clark issue they had. Like, yeah, trading Frank

Clark before the 2019 draft was great. It got you more assets, but it's like then you didn't have a pass rush or your pass rush stunk even though you got clowning after that. So, man, that's a really good question. Because the Seahawk fans can see the writing on the wall here. It's It looks very clear, like this team's going to go like 11 and 5 and then lose to the Rams in the divisional round or something like that. It does feel like that. And that's just such a disappointment after where we were a month ago. One of my homies from London, who's a Seahawks fan, he texted me. He was like, just that scenario was like, this is going to, this is how it's going to end, isn't it?

And I was like, yeah, man, probably going to end just like we're talking at SoFi Stadium or Lambeau Field again, freezing my butt off. I think that that's where it's headed. The difference between this team and maybe that 2016 team that lost in the divisional round and the 2019 team that lost in the divisional round, actually 2015 as well, is their ceilings are a little higher. 2019, you didn't have a run game anymore. You brought Marshawn Lynch back from the graveyard and tried to work it out. Your defense was just a mess.

Clownie was playing with a bad core. The ceiling is higher here because what we do know Russ can play at an MVP level, we know that the defense can be elite getting to the passer. So if you can do those things, maybe you get hot. I mean, Nick Foll's got hot, right? I mean, you can get hot. And McGaff is a different player now. I mean, he's much better than he was a year ago.

He's more complete. I think we've seen the offense have a different ceiling independent of what Russ can do. I just think on that side of the ball, the car is better built, but I just don't know how nimble it is. And whether or not it can change direction enough for them to figure out what they need to be in the second half of the season, and if defenses are going to continue to play them like this. Maybe they can.

Maybe I'm overstating it, but because we haven't seen it yet, and because we haven't even seen those types of plays consistently, it, again, just requires a lot of imagination that I'm lacking right now. Well, the thing, me too, for the most part, but I got to try to sell some optimism because, you know,

like, Reed is going to kill me. At the same time. But here's something I do legitimately believe. I do think the floor is higher on both sides of the ball than it was last year. I think last year they were really good examples of how low the floor was. I think Malik Turner, not in the league anymore, I don't think. Maybe he's on Dallas's practice squad, but Malik Turner dropped the pass in the fourth quarter

when they're trying to come back against the Packers. And then the very next drive, Delano Hill is matched up against Jimmy Graham and their dime package and ends up giving up the first down that loses them the game. Those type of players aren't on the field right now. It could be because injuries, you never know. But they aren't right now. So if you're 11th best player on defense is Trey Flowers, you're in a good place, I think. Or if it's Jordan Brooks, you're in a good place. Even if you go to your dime package, Ryan Neal is their dime safety. Now, Ryan Neal just forced a deflection against Evan Ingram that led to their only turnover in that game. He's played like two plays a game, but their amazing plays every single time. It's hilarious.

I think the floor is a little bit higher on defense, for sure. And I think if as long as everyone's healthy, your fourth receiver and the playoffs will be Josh Gordon or David Moore. So I think If you're throwing to those guys instead of Malik Turner when you're trying to mount a comeback, your margin for air is a little bit bigger. Still not huge because of the scheme and all the things we just talked about. But I do think those two things in particular, like it raises the floor on this team. You've got better playmakers on the field. I tend to agree with that.

But I also think that Josh Gordon is just die at DK-MECF at this point. And that's my problem. Is that I just, I love to. teams, like when I watch the bills, for example, right? I'm glad you appreciated that. When I watch the bills and you just see the different pieces and the way that digs Beasley and John Brown compliment one another and the different things they give you, I just don't see that with the Seahawks offense.

And whether that's a structural issue or a personnel issue, I can't say. Because I don't know if they tried to use Lockett in more of a sloth. space eating role, how he would do, but they don't. So I just, that's my issue, is that even if they have this explosive group of guys and they can burn defenses down when given the opportunity, I don't know if they can consistently get first downs often enough with the way that teams are playing them for them to compete with the rest of the teams in the NFC. That's my biggest question.

And if that's the answer, and if the answer is no, if that don't, and they sit here at the end of the season, it's like, what do we need to change? That's my first instinct. is that we need a scheme that's more of Russ playing a point guard than him pushing the ball outside the numbers, and we need a couple guys that can get open in space more than ones we have right now. Maybe that's a simplified way of seeing it. But when I'm watching them right now, that's what I'm seeing, is both a scheme and a group of receivers that can't eat up the middle of the field in the way that they need to.

Well, I'd see, part of that, for the most part, yeah, I would agree with that on the receiver part. Their tight ends could be that dynamic, too, to kind of fill that too. I don't know why Will Disley's not been using more as well. But I do think part of that is Russ, too. Because I forget. Someone was critical of Russ on Zoom, rightfully so, after the game, and said something to the effect of, we hold on to the ball too long, you know, trying to go down field,

instead of just taking what was in front of you. And he was like, yeah, I mean, but that's just kind of how I get down. He was like, look at that play against the Cardinals where I scrambled and found D.K., right? That doesn't happen unless I hold on to the ball. It's give and take. And he's not wrong. But, I mean, when you got a guy in year nine, that's hard. It's hard to unlearn that, that part of Russ's game.

Because that's why Russ is so magical. That's why the danger Russ thing works. You know, that's why teams had to, like, when you go to prepare for Russ, like, hey, you teach your edge guys. You contain him. Contain. Don't let him triple spin away from you and break the pocket, right? So how do you balance that if you're Russell?

Because he's a big part of that, too. Ultimately, he's got the damn ball. And so if Russ is determined, you watch the Giants tape, there's plays where Carlos hides in the flat. or there's Will Dissey or Hollister in front of him or Chris Carson's in front of him and he's staring down. He's like, let me get D.K. Ah, shoot.

Let me see Tyler. Oh, no. He's, but if you're Russ, you're like, well, that's how I made my, that's how I got here, is doing that. It's buying time for Germain Kerr's, buying time for Doug, buying time for Golden Tate. That's how I got here if I'm Russ. So how does he deal with that too? Because Shottie can scheme up whatever he wants.

Pete, too, if Russ is going to hold the ball, it doesn't matter. Like, how do you get that guy? How do you untrain the thing that made him great, or at least one of the things that made him great? That's a question, too, that they'll have to reckon with this offseason if the season ends in Lambo again. And the way they thrived in the first half of the season, not only what made him great for most of his career by extending plays, but again, pushing the ball outside the numbers in this explosive offense worked recently. And I can understand wanting to go back to it. And I think that the Carlos High thing is a great point.

He's passing up guys underneath because defenses are giving it to him. and he's also just seems to be trying to do so much. I'm thinking of the interception against the Rams where he goes super, super late. I think the Disley in the left corner, and he had 20 yards in front of him to run if he wanted it. And it's not like it was third and goal from the 18 yard line. I think it was like they had five yards to a first down.

Second down for sure. Yeah. And that's one of those plays where it's just like, it's him trying to be Superman all the time right now and defenses taking away the Cape. I think that's the biggest issue. And I think there are similarities in the defenses that have given them trouble. And like you said, a lot of these guys have really good interiors that push the pocket.

Think of the teams they've struggled against. The Rams have Aaron Donald and Michael Brockers. The Eagles have Fletcher Cox, Jafon Hardgrave. The Giants have all those six five, three hundred pound guys with crazy long arms. And they all have one masterful man corner, Jalen Ramsey, James Bradbury, Darius Slay, to take away Matt Calf. That is the formula for lack of a better word right now. If you have one corner that you feel comfortable manning up on Meccaf, you play too deep and you can crush the pocket, you can give them trouble because Russ isn't processing and he isn't given the options in the middle of the field in intermediate areas that he probably needs right now. I think that's the stuff that we're seeing start to compound.

Oh, yeah, no, for sure. And it's all beatable, too. Like, these are all the, I could probably go, we probably could both go through his whole career and find teams that have had similar, um, the Vikings are another good. I keep coming back to them, but like when they had Xavier Rose, right? And they had maybe not as much interior pressure as some of those other teams, but definitely had edge pressure for sure. They faced teams for sure. He's beating the Rams, oddly enough.

He picked on Marcus Peters in the game that he beat them, which now that I think about it, it explains a lot. I think you through like three touchdowns against Marcus Peters in one game that they won. Or maybe not. But he has exploited Marcus in the matchups, and it makes sense to the Rams. It's like, let's get him out of here. even though I think he's a really, really good player.

So, yeah, that's the thing. We can see that formula the other teams have, right? Neither one of us are offensive coordinators that are quarterbacks. So it's got to mean Russ can see it, right? It's got to mean shoddy can see it. It's got to mean at the receivers coach and see it, that the quarterbacks can see it. And, you know, Austin Davis, I think it's like in an offensive analyst-y type of role.

That means he can see it. And you guys beat it. This is one of those years where I would really want to be in a locker room. I want to be in it every year, but this in particular is to sit there and pick the brains of some of those guys, not even for a story. As they try to figure it out, I totally agree. It's how they're feeling because these middle parts and the feeling out process and the problem solving process is the coolest part of football. I can imagine it's frustrating not being able to extract that information and try to talk it through with those guys right now. I'm sure it's miserable. Yeah, especially when it was on defense when they were struggling because I've learned this over the years.

defense is a lot harder to analyze for the most part if you're not like in the building or in the room because like if your offense stinks you start with the quarterback can work backwards like it's probably him or related to him like 90% of the time but if your defense stinks okay where to we start like is it guys in the is it interior not helping the edge guys who then aren't helping the back end or is the back end not helping the edge guys but they help it it can work either way depends on the scheme it depends on the call philosophies like or guys hurt There's so many moving parts on defense. We always don't know who busts the coverage.

I've learned also when I rewatch the games now, I don't just watch the coaches film. I watch the broadcast version. What I've learned is, and this is no slight to any particular crew, but what they're saying does not help the fan understand the game at all. They still spew a bunch of cliches about antiquated ways of playing football. It explains why I get the dumb questions I get from my podcast after,

because I'm like, what? Oh, that's because Rondie Barber was saying that on Fox. That's why he's wrong. So now you guys are asking me about it as if it was a thing. So, yeah, offensively, though, this particular thing, I love to sit with Tyler Lockett, who's super smart, and go through how they're attacking this, how they're attacking that. I would never get that one-on-one with Russ.

But even if it's Gino Smith, you know, he's sitting there watching everything too. Like I said, Austin Davis is there. He played quarterback for these guys like three years ago. just to sit next to him and like, hey, man, how are you guys doing this? When Jalen Ramdy's doing this, how do you guys beat that? Oh, man, I'm ready to nerd out on football with these guys, and I'm basically limited to one generic question on Zoom, and it kind of stays. Yeah, it really sucks.

I mean, it's the thing that I think the football watching public and people at large don't really appreciate about how different this is, is because you guys can just do that. Even if they're not actual interviews or whatever, just sidling up next to guys, having a conversation, being able to ask questions you actually want to know the answers to. is just an element of this season that is different in the same way a lot of others are.

All right, man, really appreciate the time. This was great. Thank you so much. Definitely go check out Michael Sean's work on The Athletic. He covers the Seahawks in a way that no one else does. Appreciate the time, man. We'll talk to you down the road. All right, man.

Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. All right, guys, that's all we got today. We're actually going to have Ted on tomorrow's show with Lindsay to do a film school on the Bill's offense. We were going to do it today, but the show ran a little bit long. I didn't have as much time to prepare after the Monday night game

as I would have liked to, and I really want to do a good job with that because I think their offense is fascinating. So we're going to dig into that and do our normal Thursday show with Lindsay. Until then, please rate and review the podcast and your favorite podcast platform of choice. You'd be doing me a favor. I sincerely appreciate it. Also, please sign up for The Athletic. The Athletic.com slash football show.

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Until then, really appreciate it. This was The Athletic Football Show.