The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - The teams with the most at stake in the 2025 NFL Draft

Episode Date: April 2, 2025

The draft matters for all 32 teams in the NFL...but it matters for some teams more than others. Robert Mays and Derrik Klassen identify the teams with the most at stake in the 2025 NFL Draft on this episode of The Athletic Football Show.Fill out The Athletic's listener survey. Three people will win $100 in vouchers at Amazon: theathletic.com/athletic/survey25Host: Robert MaysCo-Host: Derrik KlassenExecutive Producer: Michael BellerProducer: Michael BellerSubscribe to The Athletic Football Show...AppleSpotifyYouTubeFollow Robert on Bluesky: @robertmays.bsky.socialFollow Derrik on Bluesky: @qbklass.bsky.socialFollow Robert on X: @robertmaysFollow Derrik on X: @QBKlassTheme song: HauntedWritten by Dylan Slocum, Trevor Dietrich, Ruben Duarte, Kyle McAulay, and Meredith VanWoert / Performed by Spanish Love SongsCourtesy of Pure Noise / By arrangement with Bank Robber Music, LLC Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to the athletic football show. I'm Robert Mays. Yesterday, we hit some mock draft stuff with Danny Kelly. Continued our on-the-clock series, pick seven through 12. So kind of tying in the team needs with this year's prospects. A little bit later this week, we're going to be talking about the running backs in this year's draft. So really digging into this pool of draft prospects specifically. Today, all team-wide all the time. We're doing something that I think we've done pretty much every year I've done this show around draft time. were talking about the teams that have the most at stake in the 2025 draft. This was fun because me and Derek talked about a bunch of different kinds of teams. Inevitably, some of them are going to be the teams at the top of the draft. They have really important picks. They have really high picks. One or multiple of them are going to be picking a quarterback. But we also talked about teams that

don't have a lot of picks in this draft. Teams that have leveraged themselves because of where they see this group in the team building process. A team like Washington is going to be involved here. We're talking about teams at pivot points a little bit. Team like the San Francisco 49ers that needs a big draft and has a bunch of draft capital based on where that roster sits right now. So this is open-ended for a reason. A lot of entry points to this discussion. We hit about 11 teams or so. Really enjoyed the conversation.

Let's get to that chat with Derek Kossin right now. All right, Derek. We've done some prospect stuff over the last couple days that a mock draft-ish with Danny Kelly yesterday, the second iteration of on the clock. We're going to talk about some running backs a little bit later in the week with Dane Bruegler. But today we're talking about this from a team-wide perspective. We're going to talk about the teams that have the most at stake in this year's NFL draft. I feel like we do this show every year.

And I just enjoy it as a framing device to talk about what's actually on the line for a lot of these teams specifically that are facing big, big drafts. Every draft is important. Some drafts are more important. Yeah, I think it's a good one because, it's kind of an open-ended question. Like obviously the team- I give you zero direction. Yeah, the teams that need quarterbacks,

like that one is pretty obvious and we'll obviously talk about those. But after that, it's kind of open to interpretation. Like, who is this at stake for? Like, what is really their outlook for the next few years? So like how much does this one draft really matter? Like, it's just, you can take it in a bunch of different ways. And I think it's, it was fun to try to put a list together here.

There's teams all over the map here in terms of where they're at in their team building process, how many picks they have, how long certain people have been at the helm of these teams. So we're going to hit a bunch of teams that fit into a bunch of different buckets. Let's start with the most obvious one. A lot of mine were more obvious than yours when we were putting this list together. I don't know if you just assumed that I would hit the obvious ones, but several of mine were just like, these are the teams at the top of the draft.

Like this very much matters for them on a bunch of different levels. Let's just start with the Tennessee Titans. They have the first pick in the draft. They are likely going to draft a quarterback. That's all that needs to be said. Like, if you're drafting a quarterback in the top five, you have a lot on the line. There is a chance that the decision makers in that building have their jobs on the line. When you decide to pull this lever, push this button, whatever, you start the clock on your tenure as a general manager, as a front office, even as a coaching staff.

And I feel like that's kind of what's happening with Tennessee if they do end up picking Cam Ward. So they obviously should be one of these teams. I didn't put them on my list because, again, it's like it's so in our face that like, yeah, you kind of have to pick them. And I think the other part of it too is it kind of feels like the quarterback decision has already been made. You know, like there's a chance that maybe they trade out or maybe they do take Shitter Sanders, whatever it is.

But it feels like we've already arrived there with Cam Ward. So I think when I was doing some of this, I tried to view it from the lens of like, I don't know 100% what they're going to do with the draft. So it makes what they have at stake more interesting. Where at the Titans, it's like, yeah, they're taking Cam Ward. And they just really need him to be good. And lucky for them, I do think that there's a pretty decent chance that he could be good. And the more I look at the roster, I am starting to buy in that they can be decent for a

year one quarterback. But yeah, it's pretty cut and dry for them, it feels like. It's interesting alignment in that building. We've talked about this a little bit where the front office is in year one. You have a new GM. You have a new front office structure in Tennessee. I was going back and looking at some history about quarterbacks drafted in the first round and what the immediate or short-term future of the GMs looked like based on

the success of the quarterback. And it was just a reminder of how f***ed up Tennessee front office situation has been for like 20 years. Like I was looking at it when they drafted Jake Locker. And some guy, I don't remember his name, was the vice president of football operations and maybe the GM. But then the next year, Rustin Webster took over and that guy was promoted. And so there's been a lot of shuffling in that Tennessee front office over the last 20 or so

years, not a bastion of stability down there in Nashville. But if you look at the teams from a wider lens, the teams that drafted a quarterback in the first round and more so in the top 10 or top five, oftentimes the success of that quarterback dictates whether that person has a job two, three years after the pick is made. There are some exceptions to that rule. Ryan Pace somehow survived after the Justin, or the Mitch Trubisky pick was allowed to pick Justin Fields. That was probably a mistake on the bear's part.

And then there are other examples where how you dismount from the quarterback really ultimately can dictate it. Like Jason Light, James Winston didn't get a second contract with the Bucks. But if you're going to pivot from James Winston to Tom Brady and then win the Super Bowl, there are ways to do this. It's just very difficult. Joe Douglas tried to do that with Zach Wilson. Aaron Rogers was supposed to be his Tom Brady. But I think the lesson is even if you can survive missing on a quarterback in this range,

how much you have to scramble to fix it, the degree of difficulty is just really, really high. So if you miss on this guy, the clock is starting for you in terms of what your future looks like in that building. And I think that is probably true for this Titans front office, even in year one.

And I would honestly say to kind of jump off of that, the teams that can or the GMs that can survive it a little bit, it's usually because the rest of the roster is good enough that you can convince ownership be like, hey, give me one more try at it. Like the Vikings did this. When Rick Spielman was there, they were able to kind of dismount and change quarterbacks. He wasn't the GM in 2010 when they drafted Ponder.

He was like some weird vice president of football operations job. He was still the number one guy in the personnel department as I was looking at it. But I don't think he officially became the GM until 2012. So it was after Christian Ponder was drafted. Interesting. I still survived the quarterback. So I mean, good for him, whether it was necessarily him picking it or not. But even though the Jets, like the rest of that Jets roster, I think last year it started

to atrophy a little bit. But before that, it was like a really good roster outside of the quarterback. It's just a quarterback didn't hit and they were able to dismount and be like, hey, give me one more chance. And so I actually think that's the more interesting part of this with the Titans is that because Cam Ward is probably going to go first overall, there's really no mystery there. It feels like what they do with the rest of their draft, I think is really what is kind of at stake for them.

They only have a second round pick. They don't have a third round pick. And then they just have a slew of like fourth, fifth, sixth round picks. And so if they can maybe in a draft that seems to, to be pretty heavy on defense, even a little bit later in the draft. If they can land on one or two contributors on the defensive side of the ball, particularly at edge or at inside linebacker, I don't think they have many answers there. And then maybe you spend that second round pick on, you can go find a pass catcher.

Or maybe that's where they want to get their edge rush where they really feel like they can get a contributor. If they hit on those guys, that's where it feels like they can actually really take this thing home. If I had to lay down a bet right now, I would say it's Cam Ward at one. They try to find that pass rusher at 35. and then they use one of their fourth round picks on a past catcher, excuse, past Russia at 35, and they use one of their fourth round picks on a past catcher and hope that they can find one of those guys that's a contributor a little bit deeper down the draft.

I think we'd probably overstate how often those guys show up. Wasn't Tank Dell a third round pick? Right? Tank Dell was a third round pick. Puka was a fifth round pick. So there are times where you can find these guys outside of the top 75 a little bit deeper into the draft. It's not a consistent thing. If you're hoping to find your Puka Nakua in the draft, you're probably going to come up empty.

But it can happen. You can find contributors at those positions. And I think that's what they need more than anything else. They don't think they need a star in the fourth round, but I think they need, like, they passed on Josh Palmer and Diami Brown in free agency. Can you find a Josh Palmer or Diami Brown level receiver in the fourth round? If that's how it works out and, you know, they've obviously built the offensive line and free agency, I think there's a world where this is a decent supporting cast.

and support system for Cam Ward early on, even with how bad it looked last year. Yeah, again, like you said, it doesn't have to be a Pukunakua superstar level player. If they can find someone who can give them like 550 relatively efficient yards, that's probably enough to support all the other stuff they have, to not be a good offense, but to be good enough that you're not going to ruin Cam Ward day one.

I'm just looking at guys that were drafted like a little bit further down the draft. Like, you know, you're Khalil Shakir's. It doesn't have to be a Pooka Nakua or Amman Ross St. Brown type player. But you can find contributing pieces a little bit later in the draft at that position. I think that's the hope. You don't need a star, but you need somebody else because I do think that there's still a pretty big hole opposite Calvin Ridley right now. Let's get to our next one here. This is another one of mine.

I just think that the reason I wanted to put them on here is based on the contours of their offseason and how different this draft feels compared to a lot of their recent drafts. And that's the San Francisco 49ers. The Niners took a step back in terms of the talent they shed this offseason. We've talked about this ad nauseum. A lot of those guys weren't active contributors to the team last year. So I don't think this is a, oh, man, in terms of the on-field product, this is a much worse roster than it was at the end of 2024.

I don't really believe that, again, kind of adjacent to the conversation we had about the bills last year. But I think if you look at the drafts, specifically, this is a very different sort of draft class for the Niners than they've had in a long time because they have so many picks. They have 11 picks and they have five picks in the top 113. As we talk about the Niners and their struggles, I think that a lot of it's going to be placed on injury and I think that's totally fair. But the Niners' draft problems are really starting to show when you look at the roster and the overall roster talent and some of the depth. So the Niners have five picks in the top 113 this year. I want to read you off the picks the Niners had in the top 113 from 2021 to

23. So before last year's draft, which I think it's a little bit too early to tell even if there's been some positive returns. Trey Lance plus the additional picks you gave up to go get Trey Lance. Aaron Banks, who is not on your roster anymore, even if he's getting paid. Trey Sermon, Ambry Thomas, Drake Jackson, Tery and Davis Davis Price, Danny Gray, Jair Brown, who is a starter for you, Jake Moody, Cameron, Lott. two. Those are the guys drafted in the top

113 over a three draft span for the San Francisco 49ers. You feel that when you watch the Niners play and when you look at the Niners Jep chart right now. And so getting hot again and having picks that typically net better players, like in the first and second round, which they have not had much lately, that becomes very important for a team

that has reached a little bit of a pivot point. That was the issue for them. You gave up all your first-round picks, which those ones are easier to find good players. And then you just didn't really hit on many of your other, you know, day two and early day three picks. Like, the Latu pick is probably the most egregious in the moment to me. That was very much like a Kyle Shanahan does this once every two, like every now and then where he just drafts a player where he's like, I have this vision for them. But like nobody else had them even three rounds close to like where he picked them. He just, he loves to do that. And I think that's probably part of their draft woes. But like

you said, this is a roster that I think has atrophied over the last handful of years in part because of the Tray Lance trade. And I think they were able to paper over it a little bit because of the Brock Purdy thing. But at a certain point, like, you're going to have to start paying him. And now you just don't have enough good players. You know, we talked about this on the last show. Whereas three years ago, you had like 10 of these pillars on your team. Now you only have four or five of them. And it's because you have not been able to hit on a lot of these picks. So the Niners were actually the first team I put on my list because it just feels like, you Like this is a huge moment for them.

Like you said, it's a pivot point. And I think what's interesting to me is and why it's so important in 2020, the Niners, they won six games. And it was like, okay, bad season, all this stuff. I think Jimmy got hurt that year. It was just kind of a season from hell a little bit like we saw in 2024. But then after that 2020 season, they went to two straight conference championships and then a Super Bowl.

And so it was like, okay, it was a blip. This year when you look at the roster, it's like, I don't know, man. Like if a couple of things go bad again, they could be looking at only six or seven wins, which is why they really need to hit on a lot of these top 100 picks to make sure you have depth at certain positions, depth at linebacker, depth on the edge at all these other spots, whereas, you know, three years ago, none of this stuff was a problem. That's interesting. I still see their floor being a bit higher than that outside of a ton of injuries. So what's your case about them winning six games again if they stay? If there's an average level

of health across the Niners roster this year, you think there is a lack of debt, lack of talent to the point that they could win six games if they stay relatively healthy. I mean, six is probably on the lowest end of the spectrum, but I do think there's a chance they don't make the playoffs again. Because I think Brock Purdy is fine, but he does not feel to me like a ceiling raising quarterback. I think until they prove to me that the offensive line is better than last year, I'm not going to believe it is.

This wasn't a good offensive line the last year. And I think at this point, we're obviously going to be betting on rookies, and we just don't know how some of that stuff is going to go. I don't know what we're going to get out of CMC next year. And obviously that was part of the calculus last year. Yeah. Is he might just not be healthy. And if he's not healthy, then I think that just might be the going rate for the Niners.

And that becomes a problem. And he was the reason the offense looked the way it did in 2023. Like he was their pivot point for making the offense be more dropback and be able to throw more to the running back and be quick game and actually be explosive out of the backfield again. And so that's the big one. And then defensively, I know you still have Fred Warner. I know you still have Nick Bosa.

Like, Mulek Mustafa looks like a good player. But there's a chance that they just don't have enough good players up front. Like, the defensive tackle room still really scares me. I don't think they have enough good guys outside of Nick Bosa. And I'm still not confident in who is playing linebacker next to Fred Warner. So I just, there's probably enough to enough like true all pro level players for them to fail, fail. But I do think there's a chance that they just don't have enough depth that a couple of things going wrong, they could miss the playoffs if they don't hit on some of these draft picks.

They finished 22nd weighted defensive DVOA last year. And they did not really add talent of any kind this offseason. I mean, their splashy free agent move was to go get Shrey Brown to be cornerbacked up for them. Obviously, Sala comes back and you'd hope there's a little bit of a bump from that. But we have arrived at a place where there is a talent deficiency on this team, especially on the defensive side of the ball, that still feels a little bit jarring and new. and I think it's probably going to take a little bit to get used to that. And the hope is it changes so fast because of this draft that we don't even have time to get used to it.

But if it doesn't, we might have to settle into reality where this team just doesn't have a lot of difference makers compared to how we typically think about them. And I feel like that's going to take some adjusting too for a lot of people. Yeah, I mean, if you look at their defensive attack room, what if they just have one of the worst run defenses in the league and then you can't even really unleash Nick. both of the way that you want to. And then like Fred Warner's great, but if a lot of these double teams are moving straight up to him, like he's decent at getting off of blocks, but it's, it's not like watching Dante High Tower or anything like that. So it's just that you can see why this would unravel. And again, I still think, you know, like you said, six games is probably the absolute worst case scenario. But again, I think there's more of a world where eight or nine wins and they

just missed the playoffs. Like that is totally on the table without a great draft class. Well, what you think about them in the previous iterations of this team? You think, you know, top three, top one offense is the ceiling. This is one of the best offenses in the league when things are humming. Even without Debo, I still feel like there is a path to that sort of offense if McCaffrey is healthy. If they can get McCaffrey back, I still think that they have a chance to be really, really good offensively, even without Debo Samuel.

Because of the most part, they brought a lot of guys back. And even if the offensive line on paper is worse than it was last year because they lost a guy like Aaron Banks, I still think that there is a world where they can replace him. and the offensive line is good enough for them to still be a really good offense. Defensively, I just think we're talking about a different sort of ceiling than we're used to. This is a group that even if a guy like Salah can maximize the talent that he has on that side, I think you're still hoping you're an above-average defense. You're the 14th best defense in the league.

And that's just not how we've typically talked about the San Francisco 49ers, essentially since Kyle Shanahan took over or since Nick Bosa was drafted. Like that 2021 draft where they got Bosa, we have not talked about the Niners. It's like, oh, maybe they can be the 15th best defense in the league pretty much since that moment. But I kind of think that's where we are right now. Yeah, 15th best defense for them would have been the floor over the past like three or four years.

And now it's like they need three of these picks to be on defense and for them to hit for them to probably get there. Let's get to our next one here. I have the Cleveland Browns. Kind of a similar conversation to the Niners. almost like a combination of the last two teams that we just talked about. They're picking at the top of the draft, so the picks are very important. And they have a ton of picks.

All right? They have 10, they have 10 picks. They have five picks in the top 105. They have three picks in the top 75. They've had three picks in the top 75 in the previous three drafts combined. And they have three picks in the top 75 this year. That is outrageous. That seems hard to do.

They just don't, they didn't have. any draft picks over the last three years. They traded them away in the Watson trade. And then the guys they have been drafting just didn't hit. In the five years since Andrew Barry took over as the Browns GM, here are the guys that I think you can make an argument were like draft hits for them, like guys who have performed up to their draft status and bid consistent contributors, have gotten extensions or have had flashes. We're like, all right, that guy is really lifting what this team is.

I really just think it's Delpit, J.O.K., Greg Newsom, and Martin Emerson. I think that's it. I don't think there's anybody else that they've taken over the last five years that you can make an argument. It was like a real difference maker for them, even for a stretch of time. We'll see what happens with Cedric Tillman. But like at this point, I don't think you can get overly excited about that. Here's some of the other guys from like 2020 to 2023. Jordan Elliott, Jacob Phillips, Harrison Bryant, who is fine for a little bit, but, you know, was not, I don't think he signed a second contract there. Anthony Schwartz, James Hudson, the third round picks in 2022, Alex Wright, David Bell, Perion Winfrey, Siaki Ika, Cedric Tillman.

Those are the top 100 picks. Or top 110 picks in the last five years. Even out of those hits, they're all like starting quality level players. how many of them are pro-ball level players? Maybe Newsom at his best? Maybe you could maybe convince me on Newson. Exactly. Right.

And he's the only guy you can convince me of it. And even then he's kind of a flawed player. He's a little bit skinny. Like if you put him a little bit too close to the formation, he can kind of have some issues. Like even then they just haven't had that many draft hits. And like you said, it's like the 49ers thing where they shelled out so many of these resources

to go get a quarterback. And for them, it was more egregious for 100 different reasons. But then just haven't hit enough of the picks outside of that. And I think we've seen that, like again, the defensive line has kind of atrophied a little bit. And obviously in 2023, it was incredible because Miles Garrett was having a great year. And all they did was put competent defensive tackles next to him and it started to work out. But when you are having to consistently rely on like this little free agent class we put together is going to maximize our best players, it's hard to do that every single year. And eventually something is going to fall for you.

And that's kind of what we've seen with this Browns roster. They were dead last in the total draft capital they had last year when you looked at the total value of the picks, which again is not surprising considering everything they've traded away. I believe they're first this year. So it is very different in terms of the resources available to them in 2025 compared to the last two or three drafts. And I think they probably understand that. Jimmy has them yesterday. This is according to Mary Kay Cabot, I believe, who covers the Browns for the Cleveland Plain dealer.

He said at the owner's meetings, Andrew understands how important the draft is this year. he's got to nail it, but he understands how important it is everybody in our organization does. They need something to pull them out of this. They need one of those transformative drafts. And this is the sort of year because of how many picks they have, you could see it happening if things break right for them. I think more than almost any other team on this list, I'm kind of curious, like, what do you think is the best path for them to hit on a good draft? Like in theory, what are the things you want to see them target?

And like what would it look like if by, what is it, Monday, April 29th or whatever when all the draft stuff is done, that it would look like you'd be like, okay, this was what it needed to be. I think it starts with drafting Abdul Carter at number two. And it starts with having just an absolutely terrifying pass rush that reinvigorates your defense. Right. So if you get Carter at two, you know, they still have some players in the interior.

Like Mike Hall had some flashes last year. There's a lot going on there. But if you can count on him as a contributor, if you get Abdul Carter too, there's a coach of the Combine who was talking to me about the Brown's getting Abdul Carter. And he's like,

I don't even know how you would drop back to pass if those two guys were on the same defensive line. And so if you have that sort of pass rush, the players in the secondary are the same players for the most part that they had in the secondary two years ago and they had the best defense in the league. So if you can add some more juice up front,

where that's Carter, one interior player with one of those other picks, and then you get a bounce back year from a lot of your corner specifically. I think the defense could have a resurgent year. And I think that's probably where it starts. On offense, I mean, it's anything. It's any sort of difference maker anywhere. They need a receiver.

They need offensive line help. They need future players on the interior of the offensive line. So to me, the best path forward for them is having a really good defense again. And then you start to kind of transform and really, remake who you want to be on offense with this draft as a starting point, even if the returns probably aren't going to be there very quickly. I think I mostly agree with that. And in this scenario, are they doing the Kirk Cousins trade?

Probably it's probably their only option left to solve the quarterback. Which again, I think if you hit the right draft picks, I don't really think that that's like a bad path forward for this year. I really don't. So let's look at this. So they're taking Carter or two in this scenario. They're going to draft a quarterback somewhere. Right. It's a matter of, is it 33 or is it, you know, 80, whatever it is.

They have 33, 67, 94. So let's say, just for this exercise, they draft a quarterback with their second round pick. They either trade up to do that, they trade down to do that. It doesn't really matter. So you have 67 and 94 and 104. What are the three spots with those three picks that you would like to see them address? And if they hit, you feel like they would make the biggest impact about where this team is? For me, I think one more pass catcher. Like, Judy is fine, but he's not a true number one. Cedric Tillman, I loved the idea of him, but we talked about this before. Like, we just haven't seen a large enough sample size for me to feel super confident in that.

And then even after those two, you just don't have any options. So I would say receiver, I think they absolutely need a running back. Like Jerome Ford is a cool, like, change of pace explosive kind of back. He cannot be your leadback. And this is a great running back class. So it would be pretty easy for them to find maybe a Caleb Johnson in the, know, early third round or they trade back up into late second, whatever it is. I think they could do that.

And then I think defensively, actually, if they take Carter, they're like mostly fine. I would maybe want like depth at linebacker, but they're probably okay there. I think I would honestly probably want to spend one of the other top 100 picks on like contingency at the offensive line because a lot of these guys are older and they're going to start leaving. So even if that guy doesn't play this year and it doesn't help you save your job now, you are going to need some pivot points with where this offensive line is going. So those are probably the spots for me. That's kind of what I was thinking.

When I said that it's a, you start the transformation, even if you're not going to see the returns on it, I think that's probably where some of those mid-round picks have to get spent. You dropped at Zach Zinter in the third round last year, but who knows how that's going to turn out. I think they actually did a good job of adding guys who can be breaking case for emergency options along the offensive line. Like Cornelius Lucas in free agency and Tavin Jenkins in free agency,

that does protect you if you get hurt. Because I think Lucas can be, a competent starter at one of the tackle spots if you need him to be. That's what he's been for a long time. It wouldn't be as bad as like when they had to put James Hudson out there. Like when he was out there, that was a huge problem for them. Lucas is like, we can get by here. And that's enough for a backup tackle.

And I think that's, you know, Jenkins is guard depth when I thought somebody was going to sign him as a starter. I think that's fine. But the past catching spots and just the skill positions in general, I think need a little bit of a refresh. So Carter plus guys at those spots and then a quarterback somewhere along the way. If that hits, I do think that if the defense takes a huge step back to where they were, or let's say back into like the top 10, then this team could probably be a little bit better

than a lot of people expect heading into this year. That obviously is dependent on what happens at the quarterback spot. But here's the thing about this team. It'd be hard to get worse quarterback play than they did last year. I know that it's dangerous to say that. But if you look at the stats, I was looking at this today because Ben Johnson was talking about how passing EPA was more of an indicator of success and winning than 20. turnovers were at this point. So I was looking at how many like sack EPA over the course of the

season. And the Browns lost like 130 EPA on sacks last year. It's just, it's unbelievable. Like it's absolutely crazy. Just for context, the Bengals led the league in passing EPA, like EPA on throws. And it was like 200. So half of that gets cut off by how many sacks the Browns took last year. That's how bad it was. So even if it's Kirk Cousins, even if it's a rookie, there's still a decent chance that they would get better quarterback play this year than they got last year, and you hope the defense can bounce back a little bit. That's the optimistic case for the 2025 Browns. It is there to be made if you want to try to make it. It is dangerous to do that it can't get worse, but this is a situation where I'm pretty comfortable saying that as well.

All right. We're going to take a quick break, and then we're going to get back with the rest of our teams. we get back into the show, I want to tell you about the athletics listener survey. You listen to us. Now we want to hear from you. We're asking you to fill out a quick survey about you and your podcast habits by going to theathletic.com slash athletic slash survey 25. Three lucky entries will win $100 worth of Amazon vouchers. So whether you're a long time listener or a new one, we want your feedback. Go to theathletic.com slash athletic slash survey 25. That's theathletic.com slash athletic slash survey 25. The link is also in our episode description below. Let's keep rolling through these.

Next one we have here is the Seattle Seahawks, which was the second team on your list. Why did you have the Seahawks as one of your first teams that you wanted to talk about here? They built the whole off season to be like, hey, we're going to make everything work in the draft. They have told us that this is what they're going to do by shipping off Gino for a third round pick, shipping off D.K. Medcalf for draft capital, and being like, okay, we're going to, take a cheaper, younger option at quarterback. We're going to put them on what is effectively a one-year deal and see if we can just take all this draft capital and kind of pivot into a new realm, into a new era of the team. And so I think for them, and I think it's not just that they've said that they want to do all this. It's when I look at the issues I still have with the roster,

it is still the interior of the offensive line. And they made a pretty big commitment in free agency or a lack of commitment of saying like, yeah, we don't want to pay any of these guys. We'll figure it out in the draft. All right, man. You better be able to do it. You've got the picks to do it. You've got to hit him. This is very easy. If you, and I, listen, D.K. McCaff is, I am lower on D.K. McHaff than a lot of people are. And I think I was more okay with that trade than a lot of people were. But if you're going to deal a receiver that another team is willing to pay $30 million and a top half of the league quarterback, we can go back and forth on where Gino fits among the hierarchy, you don't need to throw a number on it. He is an above average top half of the league quarterback no matter where you land on

Gino. If you are going to trade away those two players and the draft capital and the resources that come with those trades are now central to your team building plan, well, you got to make good on that. Those draft picks have to become something for that plan to all come together. So in the fact that they have 52 now, in addition to their second round pick and an extra third round pick, if you're not going to use the cap space that came along with those moves, which they don't seem all that inclined to do, then you're going to have to hit on the draft picks that came along with those moves. So the Seahawks making good on that half of their plan, I think is one of the reasons that they undeniably have to be included in this conversation. Yeah, they have to be.

And like, I think what's interesting is their top 100-ish draft history over the last three years isn't that bad. Like, it's actually decent. And like they have, you know, they found Kenneth Walker in the second round, Abe Lucas, who obviously has been hurt. but like he was good when he was able to play. Boy, Amafet has been solid for them. Derek Hall is like a decent rotational player. They even found A.J.

Barner, who's like a solid tight end for them in the fourth round last year. Like they have recently not found many stars in that range where you would like to hit one or two. There's no stars. Right. But they've at least shown some ability to like be competent here. And so if they can uphold that competency and then maybe one of these third round picks turns into a guy, it's like, oh, that's an immediate pro bowler.

okay, then this can start to look good for them and I can start to believe in the pivot. But again, they've leveraged everything to say that this draft class is going to send them into a new era of Seahawks football. We'll see. That look at the Seahawks roster where there's a lot of competency

but not a ton of high-end difference makers. I actually think that's the most compelling reason to not trade DKBKF. I don't land there. I still would do it. But I've seen that argument from people. where they're like, we don't have enough high-end players to do this. Even if you have qualms or issues with what he is as a player,

he's still probably the best player on our offense. So we can't do this because we don't have enough of those other guys. I actually think that's a good argument because they don't have that many high-end guys. So this idea of, well, the opportunity cost that comes along with everything that we would have to forfeit if we didn't make the Metcalf trade, in theory, I like, like that argument, but now it has to, you have to make good on it. You have to actually use those resources to do something if that trade is ultimately going to be beneficial for you. And that's where this starts. I mean, that's a good point because like for, again, for whatever I would want

to say about DK Metcalf, like he is a field tilter. Like even with some of the inconsistencies and some of the particular details about his games that like irritate me, like he is somebody that can shift coverage and immediately turn a, you know, just whatever into a 60 yard touchdown. Like that can't happen. And yeah, when you take him out of the equation and you're probably downgrading a quarterback and we have no certainty that the offensive line is going to be better, there is a chance that your offense just doesn't have enough pop. And so, yeah, again, if you can't find that pop elsewhere, they could start to, yeah, their whole plan of this moving into a new era could not look so good. My next one here, I'm just running through the teams picking in the top three

because they all have a lot on the line. It's the New York Giants. I don't know how much we have to say about this one. They've essentially come out. Ownership has and said that this group is on thin ice. They need to start winning immediately or they're not going to be here for very long. They're pre-fired. Yes, they are pre-fired. So the only way to reverse a pre-firing is to go on an absolute heater in the draft because they've made some swings in free agency. Javon Holland, Paul Sin Adibo. I'm not sure Javon Holland and Paul a Dibo, specifically because of what this team needs to do offensively, are going to save this group, even if those guys play well.

So I think whatever they get, and maybe the quarterback isn't coming in the draft, but whatever they add in the draft in order to get the most out of this offense, I think becomes very, very important for Brian Dable and Joe Shane keeping their jobs beyond this season. So it kind of has to be Travis Hunter then, in that case. Like if we're going to assume it's not going to be the quarterback. But even if they get somebody in the second round, that's, that they can pick it into your offensive line,

and whatever. Like I just think doing something to lift the offense needs to happen because I'm not sure Russell Wilson and James Winston are going to be doing that for you. No, they're not. Which again, it kind of almost goes back to the DK Metcalf point. Travis Hunter like might be a year away from being like a fully developed receiver just because again, he hasn't played a full time.

But in terms of the exploits. He's going to give that to you right away. And so if you pair that and neighbors with a guy like Russell Wilson who at worst is going to give his guy's chances and those two guys are good at converting chances, if you can do that and show up the offensive line a little bit with some of these other picks, I don't know if that like changes the long term outlook I have for this team, but it might do enough to save their hide in this one season, which again, when you're pre-fired, it's hard to do. So I don't even know if I believe that. But that's in theory what it would look like to me. And I think that their draft last year is definitely a point in their favor for keeping their jobs. Because the draft, a lack of draft success in recent years has been one of the biggest issues for this team. But if you look at the way that they used their draft capital last year, you know, like Drew Phillips is a solid nickel.

We'll see what Tyler Newbin does in a year two. They use one of those second round picks to go get Brian Burns, which I don't think you deserve credit for giving a guy $25 million a year and trading a second round pick for him. I don't think we should, even if the move is good, I don't think, and we do this too often, where it's like, well, their second round pick they used on Brian Burns, that's not, that's not how that works. If you pay Brian Burns $3 million a year, that's okay. Well, I'll only give that to you if you go and make the Brian Burns trade and then he plays like the third best edge rusher in the league. Like if he way out plays what you paid from, okay, fine.

Like you saw something nobody else did. But like, if you pay that for him and then he plays exactly what he should be for. for that money and that pick. It's like, okay, good move, but I'm not going to be like, oh, my God, you did something crazy. Yeah, I agree with that. And again, looking at their offense, Greg Van Roten's back as their right guard. Like, I still think they could probably use an upgrade at that spot.

And then even Illumor is kind of a stopgap option at right tackle. This is all a downstream effect of what happened with Evan Neal. But even if the offensive line is more serviceable than it's been, you know, there's really nothing preventing them from upgrading there if they feel like they have an opportunity to. Let's get to your next one here. you had the Atlanta Falcons on yours. The Falcons only have five picks in this year's draft that traded one away and the Matthew Judon trade for last year, which did not work out super great for them.

He still is without a team. Why the Atlanta Falcons for you? So with the Falcons, I kind of looked at it as this division is there for the taking. They almost won the division last year with a hobbled Kirk Cousins and like five games of a rookie quarterback. They were one game off of it. Like it was very much. there for the taking. And I'm at this stage in the off season, not necessarily convinced that

the bucks are going to be any better. And I'm not that scared of the Saints or the Panthers right now. So like this, if they want to win the division and give Rahim Morris a little bit more stability in his job, I think it is absolutely there for the taking. And then the other part of this to me. This is a different framing than we've had with any of the other teams. I like this. Keep going. Because yeah, they probably shouldn't be a disaster. But this is a good way for them to like take the stepping stone in the division. And then the other thing is it is a defensive draft class. And this team needs deep. They could spend literally all five of their picks on defense and I would be happy with it. Because the offense is mostly put together. Like it's a solid offensive line. You've got the

rookie quarterback. You know you're going to play. One of the best backs in the league, a pretty good past catching core. You don't need any picks on offense outside of maybe depth if you want it. They could spend early picks on edge, which in this class, it would be hard to not come out of a starting, not come out of this class with a starting edge defender. You can throw another picket defensive tackle, maybe throw one more at corner, see if you can get a guy. Like, they have enough resources here that if they throw all their picks on defense and two of them turn into good contributors for them, that honestly might be enough if Michael Pendix is the answer at quarterback

to push them into the division lead. And like that to me, there's a lot at stake there, like to go from out of the playoffs into winning a division. There's a lot there. What do you think is the worst finish the Falcons defense can have for them to win the division? I mean, it's kind of tricky because it also depends on like how good is the offense going to be. So I guess that also plays into it. So that says a lot about your answer to this question, I think says a lot about what you think the offensive ceiling is.

I think the offensive ceiling like, again, I've probably displayed a little bit more like wait and see type of mentality with Michael Penningson what the offense is going to look like. But I think the infrastructure is so good. And I really liked what Robinson did as a play caller that you could convince me that they could convince me that they could. be like a 10th-ish type of offense. Again, if the guys stay relatively healthy. And so in that case, if the defense can get to like 20th, 21st, like, I think that could be enough to, again, win a division that is not that strong. And if you just get a couple of good bounces, you could absolutely go and win the

division. It's pretty much exactly what I was going to say. If they have a borderline top 10 offense, they could probably have the 20th best defense in the league and still be competitive in that division, depending on what you think about the bucks. And we've probably doubted the bucks at this stage way too often in recent years, and they've consistently proven people wrong. But it's another year where it's like, this is just a tough battle. It's a tough climb uphill having to replace your offensive coordinator again. Is there a chance that Josh Grisard is better than Liam Cohen in the same

way that Liam Cohen was better than Dave Canales? Yeah, there's probably a chance. I just think doing this year after year after year becomes pretty difficult. Right. And I don't think, I think the bucks will absolutely be in contention for the division again. It's just that if I'm imagining it, it's like, are the bucks so much better than they were last year that they're going to win 12 games and put this division out of reach? Absolutely not. So if the Falcons can do a couple of things to like get themselves a little bit closer to maybe 11 wins and take the division, I think it's absolutely on the table for them. I would honestly, based on this way of talking about it and why you had the Falcons on your list,

you could put the bucks in for the same reason. Because if they can find a couple defensive difference makers in this draft, if they can find an edge rusher in the back half of the first round, and we get a couple hits, they get hot with this group. There's a chance they could be, and the offensive, the schematics and the offensive play card and everything, that has to be really good again. Like you have to have the same sort of not like a top seven-ish output.

well, maybe. Maybe they probably have to, maybe they have to finish like seventh again for this to actually all come together where they're a real contender. But if they can just have as good of an offense as they had last year and then you get hot in the draft on defense and you can find that edge rush or you can find a corner, I think that there is a path for them to be very, very good this year if it all aligns. But I do think a lot has to come together for that to happen. It really is kind of funny that this division is going to be. It might come down to which of these two teams can draft more good defensive rookies. Like if it's one for the bucks and three for the Falcons, they might win the division.

If it's three for the bucks and one for the Falcons, they might go and win the division. Yeah, because there weren't a lot of splashy moves and free agency, you know, from these teams. Leonard Floyd was probably the biggest move that the Falcons made. And then you had Hassan Redick for the Bucks, but who knows how Hassan Redick is going to play at this stage. So I think that they're probably both in a pretty similar spot, which is very funny. The next two teams here are kind of linked to me, but we can start with the first.

to one that I wanted to throw out, and that is the Los Angeles Chargers. They have 10 picks in this year's draft, a couple of comp picks that they got from last year, which I think will probably be a familiar theme for this front office as things move forward. The Chargers have shown us that they are not going to be ultra-aggressive in free agency. Even in a year where they had money to spend, they were not ultra-aggressive in free agency. That's fine. You know, you have guys that are going to have extensions soon, Ray Sean Slater, you have a couple of expensive pieces already on your roster. you retain players like Khalil Mack instead of spending on outside guys,

a lot of modest swings with the Dante Jackson's and the Mackay Beckins. That's a completely reasonable way to build a football team. A lot of successful teams have done that. But if you're going to be a draft first team, you need to make sure you draft good players. A lot of the teams that would have been a year one of a new regime, and you hit on Ladd-McConkey, Joe Alt, you have that sort of promising draft, even guys like Cam Hart a little bit later,

that's when you are in the early stages of your team building process, not when you have like a borderline top fiveish quarterback. So this slow playing and this patience is usually meant for teams that don't have the upside driven by the quarterback that the Chargers have. So I just feel a little bit more urgency for their draft picks to contribute quicker because the ceiling exists based on the quarterback that they have. If that makes sense. I think other teams where it's year one of a new regime, it's like, ah, fuck it.

Like, we'll just draft some guys. And if we're good in two years, that's fine. But most of the teams where I frame it that way don't have Justin Herbert at quarterback. Yeah, a lot of other teams need a feeling out period in terms of just like, what are we really going to do at quarterback? What is our ceiling? You know the seal. Justin Herbert is amazing.

And you already have really good left and right tackle play. So that's not an issue for you either. I do think that they absolutely need to. it's almost a little bit like we talked about with the Seahawks there is that okay you've done a decent job of finding these contributors and I think both in free agency and in the draft recently

the Chargers have been able to do that but you're going to have to start to find star power at some of these other spots especially when you're kind of losing it in a number of other spots like Bosa obviously out of the building and obviously he's had some injury stuff but you're losing a star there Khalil Mack is I know he's retained

but he probably doesn't have very long on this roster. And so like you kind of need to be able to replenish the star power there. You still desperately lack it at receiver. And you haven't really had a great running back since probably the prime of Austin Echler. And I know they signed Najee Harris, but I don't think that necessarily stops you from going and trying to find a better player there in the draft.

And so I think they almost more than finding depth in the way that some of these other teams with a ton of picks need to find. They need one of these like third or fourth round picks to just be a home run more than some of these other teams do, I think. I think that's true pretty much all across the roster. The pass catcher is probably the one I'd be most excited about. Even if they took a pass catcher in the first round, whether it's one of the tight ends, receiver,

just a guy with some pass catching juice is a necessary component to where this team is. And even with Ladd-McConkie in the fold. On defense, they could kind of do anything. There's not a position on the roster, maybe outside of an off-ball linebacker. Because you have Henley, you drafted Junior Colson, year you still have Denzel Perriman on the roster where I could say,

you know, they don't really need an injection of talent here. You lose Puna Ford, even though you brought Tiretart back, so you don't have a ton of depth in the interior of the defensive line. You don't have much depth at all at edge rusher behind Khalil Mack and Tully. And we've talked about Corner. Cam Hart, I'm excited to see what Cam Hart can do. But Benjamin St. Juxt and Dante Jackson, those are, you're papering over by making those sorts of moves in free agency.

So just a higher end pieces at every level of the defense are still probably necessary. Like we talked about this team at the end of last year. There was a talent gap between them and the really good teams in the AFC. They didn't do much in free agency to close that talent gap. And so that gap needs to start closing based on who they find in the draft. And so finding guys in the draft becomes a necessary component of that plan. Yeah, I will say the good news for them with them having so many, you know, they could definitely replenish the front four, the Ravens for a long time did do a very good job of like third and fourth

round picks becoming like borderline pro bowl level players to them. Like Sedarius Smith was a good example. Pranelle McPhee they had playing at a really high level for a long time. Brandon Williams, I think was a third round pick. Like they that front off, yeah, Judon, exactly. Like they can find, or at least obviously with the Ravens and that's where Hortes comes from, maybe he can bring some of that magic back for them. That could honestly help them a lot. I think that's necessary. Like if you were going to build in the same way that the Ravens did, finding those guys in the middle rounds who can become contributors and even stars for you becomes a necessary component of wanting to be that sort of team. But the draft returns have to be a part of it. And so we'll see what happens there. Early

indications, they've done a good job so far, but they need to keep a roll and if they're going to be a team that doesn't want to be very urgent in free agency. Next one here, same sort of conversation. You and I both had this team on our list. And that is the Cincinnati Bengals. Why the Cincinnati bangles for you. This one is even more urgent to me than the Chargers because this, basically the way I framed it when I was like putting down my notes for the Bengals was you have proof of concept that your offense can be top five, even with an imperfect offensive line when you have Joe Burrow, Jamar Chase, T. Higgins and like insert one other competent pass catcher skill

player. And Chase Brown seems to be that at the running back position. So like they have proof of concept that the offense can be incredible. The defense just has to be like the 18th best, but like we said 100 times on this show before, they've just drafted so poorly, especially on that side of the ball over the last handful of years. Like, they haven't drafted a single Pro Bowl level defender

really since Joe Burrow has been on the roster. And that is, I think, the biggest issue for them. And like, it's tough to live that way. And that's been like four years now. It's hard to live that way when you're trying to win 11 plus games and really fight in a tough division. And I think the other thing, that makes us more urgent now than maybe even two years ago when they were trying to draft

all these defensive guys, the roster's expensive now. Like, Jemar Chase and T. Higgins cost you a lot more money now than they did a couple years ago when you were trying to pivot. And so when two years ago it was like, it would be nice if we could hit this pivot. Now it's like if you don't do this, you're going to be stuck with a roster that is both bad and expensive, whereas, you know, last year it was mostly just bad. And so that's why I think this offseason is really important for them. I love this because when they were trying to pull off this plan where they were trying to repopulate the defense with these young cheap draft pieces, it was always with, well, we're going to have to pay these guys, so we need cheap defensive players. Now it's real. Now the planning stage is over. We have reached that reality. I wanted to pull up the Bengals draft history while you were talking. I think, I don't even think it's close. Okay. So since Joe Burrow, so the year where Joe Burrow was drafted, they drafted Logan Wilson in the third round. That is solid.

That is the best hit they've had on defensive players since 2020. The other one, I mean, so since that draft, since the Joe Burrow draft, the best defensive contributor they've drafted is Cam Taylor Britt. And I don't even think it's really a conversation between him and the other guys. Your other options are Joseph Osai, Cam Sample, Dax Hill, Zach Carter, DJ Turner, Miles Murphy, Jordan. battle and then Chris Jenkins from last year. Those are all of the first through third round defensive players drafted since 2020. It's like it. The only other argument is if you want to say like the five games that Dax Hill played at

corner looks good, but that's such a, right. Maybe that works out. But to this point, he has not been a guy that's contributed to your defense in any meaningful way over a long stretch of time. Yeah, it would be a flimsy argument. And so again, that's why they are another team, almost. like the Falcons, you got to throw a lot of your draft capital at the defense, which they've tried to do and just hope that you get a little bit luckier this year than you have been in years

past. They did not spend money in free agency. They just didn't do it. And we've talked about this. They could have lowered those cap hits for Jamar Chase and T. Higgins if they wanted to and maybe found a couple starters at one on the interior of the offensive line, one in the secondary. They chose not to do that because of the cash that they're going to have to show out as part of

those extensions. Fine. if that's how you want to build, it's your prerogative. But if you're going to do it that way, then you need to start drafting good players. It needs to happen for you in a way that it hasn't over the last three years. Or we're going to be in just this cycle of suck if you are a Bengals fan, where you're sitting there watching those three guys do what they did last year and you have a defense that at best is the 23rd best defense in the league.

And you're sitting there like rooting for the dolphins to beat whoever in week 18 because of the season that you had. I just would, if I had Joe Burrow and those two guys, a receiver, and that was my life, it would drive me insane. It would be easier to just be bad. It'd be easier to have the life that I've lived where I'm 37 years old and my team has never had a top 10 quarterback. That is an easier existence than the one that Bengals fans would have to face if they had

to relive the 2024 season over and over again. Yeah, you can't live in perpetuity in that zone. have one season like that every now and then. It's happened to all the great quarterbacks where you just have a weird season, you get stuck. But if they get stuck there for like two more years or something like that because they can't hit these draft picks, it would be such a waste of what is like one of the coolest pass catching and throwing trios in the league right now.

We have three more here. My next one, I wanted to throw them on here. We talked about them yesterday, the show that ran today with Danny Kelly. We talked about the Saints picking at number nine and just my lack of feel for anything about the New Orleans Saints. continues to be an issue. Here's what I'll say about the Saints. I have them on here for one reason. This is a team that has traded away draft capital at a hilarious rate over the last 10 years or so. They do not treat their draft picks like they're real. The joke I made yesterday was I traded the 75th

pick to DK to move up as the Niners to the eighth spot and the Panthers move back. The amount of thought I put in to just throwing the 75th pick in there, that's the Saints strategy when it comes to trading up in the draft. I spent 10 seconds thinking about it. That's pretty much what I assume they do. They have more draft capital in this draft than they have had in a single draft since the 2017 year that completely transformed the franchise. They have an extra third round pick. They have an extra fourth round pick. They're picking in the top 10. They have a full arsenal of picks this year. I don't think the 2017 class is walking through that door again. It's maybe the best draft class we've seen in the modern era. But if you can find another.

their mildly transformative class in a year where you have a ton of picks, maybe that starts to pull you out of whatever rut the Saints have fallen into here. The Saints were a good one because I think they're one where I just have to force myself to view them through a different lens. Because when I just look at them kind of late in the process hiring Kellyn Moore, who is not super inspiring to me, you're still kind of stuck with Derek Carr over the next couple of years. I was just like, I don't know how excited I can get about this team.

But then I kind of tried to reframe that and be like, well, it's kind of a perfect pivot point because one, like you said, they have more draft capital now than they have in a while. They finally have stopped shelling all of it out to move up for Chris Oliva and whatever it was. They are also getting a little bit closer to the money actually being normal for them, which I think also makes this a good pivot point. And then two, even though Derek Carr is not an inspiring quarterback necessarily, they are committed to him for probably the next two years. And he's a competent. They can move on to this year if they want to. But either way, he's a competent enough quarterback that you could do like some version of what the chiefs did with Alex Smith where it's like he can get us by to where we can try to build the roster in a slightly better way and like make these pivot points and have the breathing room to not feel like we have to go make a change at quarterback. But he's also not good enough that we don't feel like, you know, we can still go through a fourth round dart if we want to.

Like they're kind of in this almost perfect. we can do whatever we want and have more flexibility point than we've ever had, which, again, I think I've had to reframe how I look at the Saints, because that's just not really a spot that they've been in in at least a half a decade. I think that argument's fair. I just think it's really dangerous. And they were never going to do this. But if we were just doing it as an exercise, I wouldn't want to be that sort of team.

I wouldn't want to be that sort of team with Derek Carr. and I get it if you're a GM in almost any other scenario where a bottoming out year would be really bad for you, where, okay, can you come back from a year where your team wins four games? Most GMs can't. It's really hard to do unless you've had a very explicit conversation with ownership, but this is why we're doing this. We understand that we have to take our medicine here. We're going to be bad.

Let me explain why that's ultimately in the best interest of the franchise. You can do that. I mean, the Bears had the worst record in the league, but that was part of the plan. The Falcons had a very conscious stripping back of the resources that they were spending. We know those Browns teams that ultimately tanked. The Texans were aggressively bad for multiple years semi-on-purpose because they were slow playing things. You can do it and get by if there's an understanding in the building.

The Saints are one of those teams where I kind of wish they would have just done that. Where they are as a roster, them just deciding to get rid of their car. playing whoever a quarterback. Let's play Spencer Rattler for 17 games. I would be down for that. Who gives his shit? I think ultimately that's in service of the Saints being the best possible version of themselves.

Because I think really tearing it down was probably necessary. And I know that Carr, there are a lot of details with his contract, etc. But could you try to trade him? Could you try to do something else other than restructuring it in the way that you did rather than saying we want to be mildly competitive? because Mickey Loomis is one of those guys. It's in a different situation than everyone else is in.

He's like barely the GM. He's like the co-owner of the team. So if there's anybody who could theoretically get away with something like this, it's probably him. That's just never how this team has operated and never how they will operate. But I do think this year specifically, it was probably in their best interest to do something like that. Because they're not good enough talent-wise to where you could say,

ah, they're just too good. You know, they're just too good. They can never pull that off because there's too much talent on the roster. Like, they're going to stumble in to eight, nine wins no matter what happens here. That's not the case with this team. It's much easier to push it the other direction and just say, we're going to be actively bad. And they decided not to do that. I don't want to sell myself on the Saints, but I do think there's a whirl or if the offense is healthier.

Like, they actually can be a fairly competent team. And I think they were, obviously the first two games were like completely nonsense. but I think what the offense was healthy last year, like they looked like a completely competent offense. And if they can hit on a couple of these draft picks on defense, like, I don't, again,

I don't think they would win the division and they probably would be better served scrapping it. But I really think because they've already inching more towards having more freedom with what they want to do with the books kind of being a little bit clear. And they didn't over leverage themselves for the first time in God knows how long. And you have a lot of draft capital. They did not leverage themselves. They had to do.

Usually they're more insane. Usually they're more insane. They had to do plenty to borrow from the 2026 cap. It was necessary. 2027 is where things will start to open up again. But if we knew that was the time frame where 2027 was going to be the time that things opened up again, I think I would rather be in play to have the number one pick in the 2026 draft. Yeah.

I mean, that's probably fair. I just, I guess with them, I just never assumed that that would be on the table the way that they've kind of constructed this. It's not. It's a frivolous exercise because they were never going to do it. But I do think it was probably the best approach. I will say this about that view of the Saints offense. I think we've put a lot of stock in two and a half games where they were playing a version of offense that would never sustain itself over the course of the season. I don't even mean those two games, but like Alvin Camero was really good last year.

Chris Olavie when he's healthy is pretty good. Rahit Shaheed is a solid number two. and like Derek Carr again, I don't love him. But you can convince me why and to Kellyn Moore offense, he would look okay. Like again, I think the ceiling for this is probably like the 15th best offense. But I don't think that like it would,

I don't think they're that far from being a like relatively competent offense. But I think that the ceiling being the 15th best offense, that's just not a ceiling that I would seek out. There's just no benefit to that sort of ceiling. And I think that's my issue with the way that they've approached this thing. All right. we're going to take one more quick break and then come back with our final two teams. Our last two here are both your suggestions, a couple of off the beaten path, especially this next one.

You had the Washington football franchise as one of your teams. Why Washington, who only have five picks in this year's draft? Well, so that's part of it is they've already out, they've already spent half of their draft picks. So I think like they are kind of going for short term gains over the, long-term health of the franchise, which I think is a little bit spooky with how incomplete the roster is right now. Like Devo Samuel, I think because of some of the health stuff and him getting a little bit older with his play style, this doesn't feel like a player who's going to be around or useful for you in, you know, two or three years. This is a we thought we were close this year.

This can help us now, which is fine. I think he's even in our contract beyond this year. Yeah, that, I mean, there you go. And like that just doesn't feel like, again, a move that helps you in three years from now and like for the long term. Tunsell you can maybe convince me on because tackles can age gracefully and he's really not that old. And so maybe you can convince me that in three years he could still be around and contributing for you. But you are leveraging a lot of your picks to go win today.

And I think last year they were a much more incomplete roster than we want to admit. It's just that Jaden Daniels was so good and they were doing some interesting stuff on offense. And they truthfully got really lucky in some of the wins that they got during the regular season that it felt like the stars aligned for them. And it feels like a little bit to me, they are over leveraging themselves to like go and win now a little bit the way that that Houston did last year. And the reason I take issue with that is you look at this defensive roster. It's pretty bad.

Like they don't have edge rushers right now. I'm a little bit dubious of them making the kinlaw for Jonathan Allen swap. I'm not sure that's going to do a whole lot for them. And then I still have a lot of questions about the way that the secondary is built. And then even Bobby Wagner, I said like he was playing solid for them, but he's getting a little bit long. in the tooth. And there's going to be a point where he just can't run the way that you need to to play high-level NFL linebacker. And so I think them kind of stripping themselves of picks and dark throws when the roster was already incomplete and didn't really get better, especially on

defense, this go-around, they really, really need these five picks to hit and be like long-term contributors for them. I think that's a really good thing to point out. And just looking at kind of the makeup of the roster in Houston and what Houston's previous couple years had looked like before this all-in off season that they had. The connection that's easy to make is the quarterback. So we hit on a young quarterback. We made the playoffs unexpectedly for Washington. We went all the way of the NFC championship unexpectedly.

Let's push all this in. But Washington doesn't really have the underlying level of young talent on their roster that even Houston did heading into last. offseason. So obviously tankedel got hurt. But Nico Collins, Tankdell, and then you look at the defense, Derek Stingley, Jalen Petrie. There are several contributors on that side of the ball. Will Anderson, who they directed in was strong. There's no real Will Anderson among this group for

Washington. You know, they have decent players on defense, but even if you like Jerry Newton, he's not the type of player that Will Anderson was. So I agree with you, especially on defense, they don't have the same level of building blocks that the Texans did when they were so aggressive trading away some draft capital trying to push themselves over the edge. And even the moves that the Texans made in free agency last year, I guess Tunsell is probably Tunsel is as impactful or more impactful than the Daniel Hunter move is. But Daniel Hunter required no draft picks.

The Texans could just sign him outright in free agency. The only move that they made that was a big swing draft wise was going to get digs. And I think the digs and debo thing, that's where the digs. thing is more aggressive and has a bigger downside. You traded away multiple picks to go do that. With Debo is a mid-round pick. But if you're looking at the Debo move to me, honestly reminds me a little bit of the Keenan Allen trade last year. That to me is the most analogous move. You trade a fourth round pick away for an expensive receiver that you're getting for one year. Maybe that's worth it. But there's a chance that you're looking at it after the year and be like, man, I really wish we

had that fourth round pick. I know that's how I'm feeling right now when you look at what the Keenan-A move is like for the Bears. So, I think the lack of underlying talent on defense and especially the lack of underlying young talent on defense for Washington is why this feels like a little bit of a high wire act that might come back to bite them. Exactly. They're just leveraging a lot to be better tomorrow. And in three years, it scares me a little bit. And the other thing I would say too is they were already like a top six offense and leveraging so much to try to go from six to three or whatever it would be. It's kind of risky because the margins for that are so, so small that maybe you just don't get there,

whereas they've left the defense out to dry. Like, they didn't really add talent there and they let a lot of their guys walk out of the building. And so again, it just feels like they're playing a very risky game with allowing the defensive roster to atrophy the way it has. I understand that to a degree, but I also think that it's dangerous to look at it that way by saying, oh, we're already the six best offense. Why would we need to improve the offense?

It's easy to go from six to 12. I think that the tonsill move to me doesn't necessarily feel like we need to close a margin offensively. It's we need to stave off regression on that side of the ball and make sure that we can win in more ways than we were able to win last year.

That's what the tonsill thing and the Debo thing say to me. So I don't mind that. I think overinvesting in the offense and hoping your defensive-minded head coach, your play style, a lot of other things, can lift the floor of your defense.

I think that's an understandable way to build a team. I just think that some of the moves they made in service of that, especially the Debo one, can get a little bit dangerous. I think that's a good point is like being able to stave off regression more than anything, which I think the Tunsel one in particular is that's what you're doing. I'm just, again, between the money you're shelling out for these guys and giving up some of the draft picks, I'm just scared it's going to not leave them enough resources to fix the defense the way that they need to.

The Debo move, I think people are going to look at it, like it was only a fourth round pick. It's a fourth round pick plus you're paying 17. million against the cap. That's a significant investment. There's real opportunity cost associated with that sort of move. And if he's not going to be a difference maker for you as part of that move, then that's going to feel like a very big hole. When you look at the fourth round pick in two, three years plus the 17 million against the cap, you could have to sign somebody for 17 million dollars. You could have kept Diami Brown for 10 and not traded away the draft pick. The upside here is obviously much bigger, but the downside is bigger too because of what you're pouring into this.

last one here for you you had the Jacksonville Jaguars why in your mind do the Jacksonville Jaguars have a ton of stake in this year's draft So there's a few reasons I pick them First of all Trent Balke is out of the building And you have a new GM

I think there is a good chance That this draft class Yes if you approach it in the right way It can just feel like a breath of fresh air And I think honestly for a franchise like this That could really go a long way But like a more serious and like nuts and bolts argument I had was they spent this entire off season with their

free agent spending just just trying to like bandaid over a lot of problems they were like we we want to walk into the draft having as much freedom to do whatever we want to do as possible and they have 10 picks and they have the fifth overall pick in the draft and so they do have a lot of freedom to do whatever they want in the draft and I just think that with them not having that many star players on the roster. Like you have, I think Brian Thomas Jr. You could make the argument is going to be that level of player. I think, you know, I'm going to say that Trevor is a star, but at the very least, he's

like an above average quarterback. And that's a good enough for that position to count it because of how important it is. And then on defense, you know, maybe you could say Trayvon Walker if you really want. Josh Hines Allen, you know, you could say that. But for the most part, this team is kind of lacking real deal star firepower. If they could land a couple of those in this draft, even trade up. form with those extra picks if you need to into the second and third round. I really do think that they could have raised their floor through free agency and then

raise their ceiling to the draft. And this team could get back to vying for the division a little bit quicker than, you know, maybe it looked like a year ago with how some of the bulky stuff was unfolding. I don't disagree with this. As you're looking at their roster, what to you feels like a hot streak draft for the Jaguars? Like what positions do you think contributes to the best? possible outcome as you look at those picks that they have. I would appreciate one more pass catcher.

I think that that could go a decent, you know, maybe a tight end, honestly. Like, Brent and Strange is okay, but you're giving up Evan Ingram. Like, I think one more pass catcher would be good. I love you so much because every time we have, every time we have a conversation about a quarterback that you like, it's every single time it's like, I just, I want to give him one more guy. I just need to give him one more guy. You were trying to put a ball winner on the Ravens last year as part of what you were trying to do for Lamar Jackson.

I... Do they not a criticism? It's out of criticism. I really enjoy that that's the... I want to make sure that my guys are properly taken care of. You going there so quickly every time. Never change. I appreciate it so much.

I just... For my enjoyment of the sport, this is the way that I would like to see a roster built. So that for them, I think, be pretty good. And then on the defense, we've talked about this before, throw one or two, maybe darts at outside corner, even if that's, you know, a trade back into the first for something like that. And then we've talked about it before. I think just by the way that they've handled some of this stuff, I think it's possible they still take a guy like Mason Graham at defensive

tackle and like really try to beef up the front as much as possible. So if they can maybe go like Mason Graham and he hits, you hit on a corner maybe on day two. And then you just get, again, like we talked about earlier with, I don't remember who it was, you don't need another star at receiver. You just need like a guy who can contribute and be in the right spot because you already have your star in Brian Thomas Jr. So I think those three things would probably go a long way for me. Cherry on top, you find a guard who can contribute for you. Because I know Patrick McCarrie again is like a decent bandaid and Ezra Cleveland is like a replacement level starter and not a complete disaster. If they could get any sort of upgrade there, kind of like the

Niners did last year with Dominic Poonie, that would be like the hot. streak. That would be it. I'd be so curious at how they approach the offensive line over the next year or so. That's why I'm fascinated. They could do anything. They obviously signed Hainesie and McCarrie free agency, but Hainesie is somebody who was, you know, he was a backup last year. He's here because Liam Cohen knows him. He knows the offense. But there's a reason that the Bucks went out and drafted Graham Barton last year and wanted to replace Robert Hainesie. There's a reason that McCarrie has been a rotational piece over the last few years. And then the other one that's kind of a wrench in this is Walker Little because he was signed to an extension, but he was signed to an extension by a bunch of

people who no longer work in that building. So are they a team where they could maybe be a surprise option to draft a tackle in the second round and then Walker Little immediately becomes somebody who is available via trade? There are just so many aspects with their offensive front and their defensive front, not even just the offense defense front, these position groups that are a summation of all the pieces together. The offensive line, the defensive line, the secondary. I just don't have a real sense of how this front office sees those groups and what they still need, even after adding a couple modest pieces in free agency.

So I think that the draft especially, we do this every year, what did teams tell us in the draft is the first show we do essentially coming out of draft week? We're doing it again. Spoiler alert. The Jags will absolutely be one of those teams just because there's so much newness among the coaching staff on the front office. the Walker Little thing is good. I kind of like, you know, in my head,

I was just like, oh yeah, of course he's going to be the starting left tackle. They shipped off their other starting left tackle to put him in there. But yeah, it's a different coaching staff. It's a different front office. Yeah, exactly. It's so, that's interesting. Yeah, I didn't even, an already interesting draft team has now become a little bit more interesting to me because of that wrench.

So that's a good one. All right. That is all we've got. That's it. We've had everyone who has anything at stake in this year's draft. We talked about all of them. None of the other teams have anything. on the line. So very good that we did that.

We're coming back later this week on Friday. Just a reminder, not going to have a show tomorrow. We're going to have our next show on Friday because we're giving Dane a little bit of time to finish up the beast tomorrow. On Friday, we're chatting about the running backs in this year's draft. We're going to just have some superlatives, some categories. I think that's how we're going to hit all the position-specific shows we have coming here over the next month or so.

We'll do pass catchers. We've got a defensive line show eventually coming. We've got an offensive line show eventually coming. So just position specific superlatives are going to be a theme on the athletic football show over the next. I mean, it's only really three weeks, right? We got three weeks until the draft, which is kind of wild to think about. But that's what we got coming on Friday with Dan. So please be on the lookout for that.

For now, that is all we got. Appreciate you guys listening. We'll talk to you very soon.