The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Training camp news roundup: Rashawn Slater and Courtland Sutton get new deals, Cowboys and Rams dealing with injuries, clarity for OL in Kansas City and Detroit, and more

Episode Date: July 30, 2025

A whole lot has happened during the first week of training camp. A bunch of good players got contract extensions. Injuries are unfortunately already changing plans across the league. Storylines are emerging, and not all of them are your usual July camp silliness. Some of them are worth digging into! Robert Mays, Derrik Klassen and Dave Helman round up the first week of training camp news on this episode of The Athletic Football Show.Host: Robert MaysCo-Hosts: Derrik Klassen and Dave HelmanExecutive Producer: Michael BellerProducer: Michael BellerSubscribe to The Athletic Football Show...⁠Apple⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠YouTube⁠Follow Robert on Bluesky: @robertmays.bsky.socialFollow Derrik on Bluesky: @qbklass.bsky.socialFollow Dave on Bluesky: @davehelman.bsky.socialFollow Robert on X: @robertmaysFollow Derrik on X: @QBKlassFollow Dave on X: @davehelman_Theme song: HauntedWritten by Dylan Slocum, Trevor Dietrich, Ruben Duarte, Kyle McAulay, and Meredith VanWoert / Performed by Spanish Love SongsCourtesy of Pure Noise / By arrangement with Bank Robber Music, LLC Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to the athletic football show. I'm Robert Mays. Training camps are in full swing. We're about a weekend recording this on July 29th. Most teams started practicing on July 23rd. And enough notable stuff has crept up, whether it be contract news, usage for certain young players we've never seen, injury news that's crept up. We couldn't let another day pass without addressing some of this stuff.

So me, Derek Klesson, Dave Hellman, took on all of the first wave of training. camp news, tried to parse through it all, talk about where these contracts have fallen, what sort of things we can glean from the way that some of these players are being used, and discuss what sort of impact some of these early injuries may have on their respective teams. Really enjoyed the conversation. I hope you guys do as well. Let's get to it right now. All right, we're about a week in to NFL training camps, and we were going to do something a little bit different today. And I'm just sitting there in the airport last night looking at all the news that's rolling in looking at all the storylines that have started to develop and Derek it was time to call on audible we need to talk about some of

this stuff we're a weekend there's enough stuff that has crept up and piled up over the first week of training camp that it's time to dig into the news and the storylines because there is plenty of stuff that you on here it's definitely worth doing because the first week of training camp is is when a lot of teams have some realizations about players and and who they need to move and who they need to sign and stuff. So a lot happens in that first week. And again, that's why we're calling the audible here. Plenty of contracts have been handed out, Dave. Some injuries have happened. We've seen some interesting nuggets from player usage when it

comes to how some of these guys are being deployed. Some of the questions we had heading into training camp. So we're going to hit a little bit of all of that today. I do love trying to find the balance because I saw you, you made a good point on social earlier this week or last week, whenever it was of like there's so much coming at you and so many people commenting on things that is very easy to lose the plot and overreact to things or react to the wrong things. And you don't want to do that, right? Especially when you have a regular NFL podcast. But at the same time, yeah, you got to strike that line of like, oh, no, this matters. The one-off rep in practice of somebody getting picked off probably

doesn't matter. But there is plenty of stuff that does matter happening around the league. Thank you very much for framing it this way, because I didn't want to come across Cross is like a killjoy when I was saying that. There's so much actionable stuff that happens around training camp news. We'll talk about some of it today. How are players being deployed? Who's working with the first team? What position is a guy playing?

If a guy's consistently popping over multiple practices and showing out, let's talk about that. That stuff does matter. But this entire culture of like so-and-so is washed because he threw one interception or eyeball emoji, oh my God, this guy's going to be a problem on a ball that it's thrown five yards out of bounds or something that should be a sack. Like there's just so much stimuli coming from training camp with zero context or added nuance to it that I just feel like there's so many things that are making me roll my eyes.

That doesn't mean there's not a ton of needles to kind of come through and find in the haystack here. Like that's why we're doing this. There's plenty of stuff that is substantial that is worth digging into. There's also just a whole lot of bullshit that I have found increasingly. frustrating as somebody who has to live on the football internet because you have to be sitting there looking at the scroll or looking at the crawl to catch all the stuff that does matter. Like I would love to just turn my brain off for these first couple weeks, but then you're

going to miss all the important things that are actually happening. I know I've seen like a hundred or so training camp clips. I don't know if I can recall more than like three of them. And the ones I can recall are just like, oh, that was a cool one-handed catch from a player that I know can do that anyway. Like it doesn't, I don't know. I just, it's a funny time of year. Let's start with the contracts that have been handed out over the last few days

because there have been a bunch of them and there have been a run specifically at one position that we'll dig into. Roshan Slater is now the highest paid offensive tackle and offensive lineman in NFL history. Dave, four years, $114 million, $92 million guaranteed. Anything notable or surprising about this to you? To me, it just kind of feels like the natural extension of that market based on where Tristan Worf's was. And we knew Rashan Slater would be getting this sort of deal.

And this landed about where I would expect it to. He is a good, young, still ascending player that is worth paying at this point in the market, in my opinion. If I was looking for something notable, I would maybe throw out there that this is coming after not like a crazy outstanding year on Rishan Slater's part. He's credited with three sacks allowed, which it's not bad. but I don't think anybody would try to convince you he was the best left tackle in football last year. But actually, I commend the Chargers for doing it anyway because he's 26 years old.

Like how much do you need this guy to prove to you? He was the second team all pro as a rookie. He's been good ever since. Just get it done. I always, we always say, like, the faster you do it, the happier you'll be in the long run. So I commend the Chargers for not needing him to be the best left tackle in football because odds are over the next. four years, he will be in that conversation. He will be on that short list. So I think if I was looking for something that stood out, it would be that, but a very unsurprising deal.

One of the refrains when I was down there in San Diego about maybe why the chargers weren't a little bit more aggressive in free agency was that, well, we're going to have guys that we have to pay. Like, that's part of the thinking. It's not all of the thinking. I feel like this is going to be a front office. And when it comes to the analytic bent, then I think some of the the ways that they're going to approach it, which is kind of counterintuitive when you think about Jim Harbaugh, but when you think about the history of their front office specifically, I do think there's going to be a lot of Ravens-centric analytical thinking where you don't want to pay premium prices for non-premium players. That's part of it. But the other part is,

we knew some guys were coming down the pike here that we were going to have to pay at the top of the market. And Roshan Slater was absolutely one of those guys, Derek. Yeah, I mean, it's kind of midsense. Like he's, again, he might not be the best left tackling football, but you pay the fifth best left tackle in football who's entering the prime of his career every single time. And I think it's also less just like the quality of player. But yeah, when you have Jim Harbaugh as your head coach, he's always going to want to build through the trenches. And so to immediately pay one of those guys as you're entering an era where you're going to have to start paying guys like, you know, some of their other best players

like Deion Henley is going to have to get paid pretty soon. There's some guys coming up. So make sense to get out front and out in front of it as quickly as possible. The Bernard Raymond deal a little bit maybe more notable in some of the details there. Four years, 100 million, the left tackle for the Colts with 60-ish million guaranteed. I'm not sure if that number has been totally confirmed, but those are what we initially saw. If you look at that number compared to the rest of the tackle market, it's about 9.9% of the cap by A.V., which is 10th among tackles. And to me, it's interesting because there isn't really that group of young left tackles getting paid. Like it's been really just the guys at the top of the market. So how the second

tier was going to shake out with Raymond, Zach Tom, Luke Gedecki, guys like that, Derek. That was a portion of this position. I was interested to see what that would end up looking like. And Raymond got a pretty good payday when you compare it to Brist Slater and all those guys getting paid totally at the top of the market. This is probably coming in a little bit higher than I might have expected based on how I expected that tier of players to get rewarded this offseason. It might be coming in a smidge and high, but to me, I really like this deal.

Raymond to me is a really, really good player. And I think guys like, you know, Zach Tom, obviously Luca Decky with as good as the bucks have been the past two years, they're playing on offensive lines that are a little bit more high profile. And I know a few years ago, we thought that of the Colts. But I think last year, because of the general stink around the Colts, we haven't really thought of their line that way. So to pay one of their tackles, you know, near-ish, the top of the market seems a little

bit off. But to me, he's like a Pro Bowl caliber left tackle. I know he hasn't made it yet. But he reminds me a lot of like. peak Jake Matthews where he's not always moving people in the run game, but he's such a solid pass protector. He's a really smart mover. He's just a guy where in the best way, you kind of forget he's out there. And I think to me that that's a tackle worth paying every time. This is a perfect way of framing it because the deal, if you look back historically, this is a

contract that was handed out a few years ago. But again, if you look at percentage of the cap, Dave, his deal slots right in where like Colton Miller got paid a few years ago. That's kind of the caliber of left tackle that we're talking about here. So even if 20, million for Bernard Raymond seems like a lot. We still have to put into context how much the cap is growing, how other guys have gotten awarded over the last few years. So I don't think it sticks out like a sore thumb compared to the other tackle contracts that we've seen.

I think that's just becoming true across the sport. And obviously, these guys are, they're making a ton of money. But relative to the way the cap is increasing, I just, I don't bat an eye at high numbers anymore. Like $25 million a year for Bernard Reimann, that doesn't, that doesn't register with me. I'm just like, yeah, like, that's what you pay for good quality starting left tackle play. And of course, it's an astronomical amount of money, but not relative to how much we've seen the cap jump. I just, this deal got me really excited more than a lot of the other ones because it's a draft geek's dream come true. And that's when I saw the news this morning, I was just, I was thinking back to

his draft cycle where like I did I want to I want to shout this out in case anybody forgot you're talking about a guy from Austria who got recruited to play college football in the Mac off of one year of high school football he was a tight end and they're like hey man you want to play tackle you might be better at that and he made the switch right as COVID shut the world down so he does that switch in alone basically because his program's not together and he goes on to play well enough to be a top 100 draft pick and like this is the exact type of guy where maybe us draft geeks get lost in the sauce and people are like you guys are crazy like you're just drafting this guy based on traits he's barely done anything he's barely played college football he just switched and now he's a 25 million

dollar a year player. Obviously, not every gamble that the draft creates is going to pan out this way, but this is why it's so fun. And that's why like, you know, like when Dane and I get to talking about the draft, give me all the goofy stories you can because somebody with a goofy story is going to turn into a $25 million a year player. I just think it's awesome. I mean, short arms, older prospect. There are a lot of interesting layers to who Bernard Reiman is. And again, this is going to be a theme with him and Zach Tom getting paid. typically we aren't finding tackles in the third and fifth round. But these two franchises specifically, I think, have done a good job of consistently producing

offensive linemen. The Colts have done that. And Derek, the Packers getting Zach Tom four years, $88 million, $30 million guaranteed. You look at that deal, it's like a small markup on the deals for like McGlinchie and Spencer Brown. And that's kind of the player that Zach Tom is. So you're finding these guys in the middle rounds. And that's not normally where we find starting caliber tackles.

But I think both the Colts and the Packers have really. enjoyed the benefits of that over the last couple years. They have. And they've been teams that consistently throw darts at it, right? So, like, they've kind of given themselves more bites at the apple to find these guys. I do kind of think that you can find this tier and, like, average tier, offensive linemen in, like, the third and fourth rounds and stuff like that. It's, to me, it's when you want an all pro. You're never going to get them in the third and fourth round.

And that's not what these guys are, right? These guys are capable starters. Right. They'll probably never make all pros. They're guys who are good, solid. maybe one or two Pro Bowls throughout their career. And that's, again, that's a guy who, if you can get him for the right price, you'll keep around your building for 10 years.

So I think locking up both of these guys, again, they might not always be needle movers for you, but I think along the offensive line in a lot of ways, you kind of just want some degree of security and some degree of, I don't have to think about that this week. Those guys, I think, give you that to you. Yeah, you see the layers of that second tier of the tackle market starting to form. And when Larry Jackson and Dan Moore were getting $19 and $20 million, respectively this spring, guys that have been multi-year quality starters like Ryman and Zach Tom,

they're going to get a little bit more than that. So it's not surprising to see the numbers come in where they have. The two deals in my opinion, Dave, that look pretty good in retrospect now that we've seen the market settle, are what the Eagles paid for Jordan Milata, which comes in even as a percentage of the cap, a step below Bernard Raymond, and then what the bills paid Spencer Brown. I feel the exact same way about that deal when I look at the Tom deal. And so you look at it, just how that market is kind of unfolded over the last calendar year. We really have started to see what the layers of tackle contracts and what the layers of tackle talent in the NFL look like as we've kind of moved on from the mainstay group of

tackles in the NFL. Tyron Smith is no longer here. You know, it's an aging group overall in Tosso to see some of these young players start to reform what this pool looks like has been interesting over the course of this year. We talked about that with quarterback recently on the show too where, yeah, Like you're just, we're phasing out an older generation of guys, which obviously it makes us feel old. But you've got to replace that as well. Like you've got to sort of re-resort the tiers in your mind of like, okay, well, who are the elite guys?

Obviously, we know those names. But what does the upper middle class look like? What does the middle class look like? I mean, that you just made me think of this. Like not to give the Eagles more money that they need to hand out. But the Milata thing makes me wonder if like that's a guy deserved. of a pay bump sometime in the next year or so because it is it is a good enough discount where it's like all right well jordan my lota deserves to be paid a little bit higher up the chain in my

opinion that's something the eagles consistently do yeah he's a little bit more in the instead of solid can maybe make a pro bowl he's in the pro bowl you hope to make a couple of all pros that's that's definitely a tier worth thing one of the deals that got handed out over the last couple days that i do think has maybe some wider ranging impact is the one the court went sutton got from the broncos four years, $92,0.41 million guaranteed. So you're slotting in there are $23 million a year. And for Cortland Sutton, I think it's a fine deal. We've talked about the Calvin Ridley contract and kind of where that sits in the wide receiver market. It's right about in line with that Calvin Ridley deal. And Cortland Sutton is 29 can be in his age 30 season. To me, Dave,

the biggest impact of this is, what does this deal do for Terry McClorant? Because I assume, coming into all of this, McCoran wants something that's closer to the DK Metcalf contract. who was also in his draft class. D.K. Meckhaff's making 33 a year. So for the Broncos to give Cortland Sutton, who's almost the exact same age as Terry McCorren, and it was very productive last year, a deal that's $10 million a season less than Metcalf's,

that's probably not a good data point for Terry McCoran's people as they're arguing for what he deserves right now. Terry McLaren's people must be dog cussing Corlin Sutton and his people. Because, like, really, I've got it. I'm looking at it. I've got it pulled up on stats. head right now. I've got their head to head. And Terry McLaurin was drafted the year after Cortland Sutton. He's only played one fewer game despite getting into the league a year later.

And his numbers are better basically across the board. Like whichever number you prefer, Terry McLaurin's been the better player. But I think we would agree, other than just the obvious stuff like production, but age is one of the most important numbers that I take into account for a position like this. And if a guy who's turning 30 took this deal and I'm the commanders, I'm sure Adam Peters is talking to Terry McLauran's agent right now. I think I saw that they were at commanders training camp. I'm sure they're talking and they're just like, yeah, man, this is more in line with what

a 30-year-old receiver should get. We're a little bit worried about what Terry's going to be doing. And when he's 31, 32 years old, we'd be happy to pay you. We could even top the Cortland Sutton. deal. We'd be happy to give you 24, maybe 25 million a year. But if you're trying to flirt with 30, maybe that's where we draw the line. And I said on this show a couple weeks ago, just pay Terry McLaurin. But yeah, if Cortland Sutton is willing to settle for this, now all of a sudden I'm like, okay, well, let's play a little bit of ball here. And maybe the commanders get a little bit of a

discount for an older player. That's the problem is that if you look at the like the archetype of receiver, lower end. Did I mean lower end is like a step down from the truly elite guys, right? I'm not like disparaging Terry McCorn here. He's a very good player. But if you look at kind of those lower end number one receivers, I think McCorin, Cortland Sutton also falls into that category. McCoran's been more productive than Sutton, but he's older than Metcalf. They're in the same draft class, but Terry McCorne came into the league much older. So again, I'm sure that Terry McCorn wants to be paid by D.K. Metcalf, and I'm sure Washington is saying, well, you're going to be 30 the same way the Coral and Sutton is.

So it feels like there are factors here kind of pulling in opposite directions, where it's hard to find the right comparison to settle on the right number if you're Washington and McClorin here. Yeah, they're kind of are in a weird spot because to me, I think obviously D.K. Metcalf has the advantage of being a little bit younger and that's going to help him. He also had the advantage of he got traded to a team. So he, you know, that kind of helps you in contract negotiations. And since like they kind of have to pay you, they already brought you in. So I do think Terry McClearn's number, whatever it is, is going to end up lower than that. And to me, when I look at

that range of receiver, the Calvin Ridley's, the Cortland Sutton's, Chris Godwin is making about this number. That is, again, like the wide receiver 1B type of players, where it's like they can be the engine for your offense, but they're probably not moving the needle in the same way that, you know, Jamar Chase, Tyree Kill, those guys can do. So I would assume Terry McClorn comes in a little bit above Cortland Sutton, just because again, you mentioned him being a little bit more productive, especially coming off the season they just did. But to me, I don't think he's like, a significantly better player than Sutton. So I don't know if the number is going to come in that much higher than that.

Yeah, it's, again, there are, I think two data points you're pulling in opposite directions and how they find a middle ground is going to be what to watch for. Two more to hit here that I think, again, kind of makes sense when you look at the rest of the market. George Carl Loftus, which is still happened a little while ago, but I don't think we've talked about it. Four years, $88 million, $62 million guaranteed. Kind of filling out that second tier of edge guys, like him and Greg Rousseau, it's a very similar sort of deal that they both got this offseason.

Derek, you'll appreciate this. I was talking to a GM this week and we were just discussing the types of pass rushers you want in your room and how if you don't play with power at this point, it's almost a non-starter. That is the first thing that's necessary based on just how the league is right now and how much quarterbacks can maneuver around the pocket every single one of them. So it's condensing that space becomes a premium. And George Carloptus was the first name out of his mouth. It's like even if George Carloptis is never going to be a 12 sack a year guy consistently,

he's somebody that you can plug in as your number two edge rusher and stylistically fits what you need in the league right now to a T. And so I think George Kallofta says a player and as an archetype in this sort of range, it makes a lot of sense for just where the NFL is at this moment. Yeah, I still love him, man. He's not a finisher. Like you said, he's never going to have that. He doesn't have that speed in that bend.

But I think the best way to describe him and his value, and I think it's even heightened when you get to play next to a star, like Chris Jones, is that he's just, he's just frustrating to play against. And obviously, part of that is he's consistently crushing the pocket. But he's also just, a lot of his sacks are late in the down because he is always a guy who's like hunting. And he has like a good eye for where the quarterback is leaving the pocket, which I think helps him. He's also a guy who, I don't know what the numbers were last year, but I know for at least the first few years of his career, he was really good at getting his hand up on like screens or like checkdowns and making sure that

he was getting hands on stuff like that. And then he's not like an elite edge setter, but he is a really good run defender. Like he's just, he's like the ideal second best guy on your defensive line to have. And obviously Chris Jones is number one. Last one here, Dave. Jake Ferguson,

four years, $52 million, $30 million guaranteed from the Dallas Cowboys. It's about right under what the Texans gave Dalton Schultz. So just the, I'm trying to describe, to figure out the right way to describe these guys. But like the third option with when you're, passing game like middle round Dallas Cowboys pick tight end that that is the range of the market

that we're getting into here and Jake Ferguson coming in right where Dalton Schultz got paid by the Texans I think makes a lot of sense in a bunch of different ways. I think it does too and it's it's very funny timing given their history with Dalton Schultz. It's very funny timing given what's going on with Micah Parsons. And it's funny because Jake Ferguson battled injuries last year and struggled. And, you know, he was a player who the arrow was going up, up, up, up, up. Everybody sort of thought he was going to just jump into this conversation among the top titans in the league.

And last year just did not go the way anybody wanted it to. And the Cowboys paid him anyway. And, like, obviously a big part of that is Jake Ferguson being willing to slot in and say, hey, if I start out at seven, like, if I'm at seventh or eight, that's perfectly fine. And that is such a Cowboys thing where they are open for business. if you are willing to take that sort of discount. Like if Jake Ferguson doesn't want to bet on himself that he can get more money on the other side of this season, if he wants to be in Dallas, they do those sorts of deals all day long.

It's when a guy is trying to be at the top of the market, is trying to push the boundary. That's where we wind up in these standoffs. And it's not, I don't think, a coincidence that the Cowboys very often do these sorts of deals during contract standoffs. You know, back when they were doing this with Zeke Elliott, they signed Jalen Smith and Lyle Collins. It's very normal for them to hand out a deal and be like, look, we love doing business. If you're willing to come to the table, it's not us. We're not the problem here. We love signing guys.

But can't help but notice. It's always the DACs, the Cs, the Micas, the guys that really have a case to push the envelope where we get into these stalemates. Well, and I think what's interesting from Ferguson's perspective is I think you probably signed the deal knowing he has a quarterback who he knows likes him and is going to throw at him a lot in like very high leverage opportunity situations which again if you're not clearly one of those elite tight ends where you think you could hit the market and bet on yourself and just make a ton of money elsewhere it's like i'll stick around with the place where i can get like 90 targets that's that seems pretty good to me we there are a couple of those standoffs still going

on micha parsons trey hendricks and we talked about mccorne a little bit i don't think there's enough to really update the conversations on those from the ones we were having before training camp started. I assume the Parsons thing will happen any day now. And I'm not sure how much movement there's been on the Trey Henderson stuff. So I think that we'll wait and see when it comes to updates on that and we'll react to them when that news happens. Same kind of deal here with the Christian Wilkins news from last week. Christian Wilkins released by the Raiders. They're trying to reclaim or nullify. I think the remaining $35 million in guarantees he has on his contract stating that he didn't follow a proper rehab plan coming back from that foot injury. Obviously, so much has been,

I was going to, but really just alluded to with some other things potentially going on with the situation with Christian Wilkins with the Raiders. You know, Adam Schaefter talked about an incident with the teammate on the Pat McAfee show earlier this week. But I just feel like we should probably wait to get a little bit more clarity on all of this stuff before speculating as to why this happened. There's going to be plenty of back and forth here with Wilkins and the Raiders and about that money. I'm sure there's going to be some sort of appeal filed by the NFLPA if there hasn't been already. So I don't really want to dig too far into this before we get some more information on it. So we're going to leave that one alone for right now.

But we have plenty of other stuff to get to here, including some big time injury news, both good and bad, that has crept up over the last week. Before we dig into that, let's take our first quick break. All right, let's run through some of these injuries here. Some of them, I think, a little bit more impactful than others. Matthew Stafford is dealing with the back injury. he started out as day to day, but the Rams are now calling it week to week. Dave, I was just there, and I didn't really ask much about this.

I didn't get a sense they were overly concerned about it. I think this feels like maintenance for a 37-year-old quarterback who's played in this offense for really a long time. I didn't get an indication that they're overly concerned about how long this is going to linger and that Matthew Stafford is in danger of actually missing real time as he deals with this. You read my mind because I was just, going to follow your lead since you've been out there. And there's there's two ways that teams do this. Sometimes it's very legitimately just maintenance and veteran rest days. Obviously,

older player has familiarity with the organization. Like Sean McVeigh and those guys, they know what Matthew Stafford needs. They know his history and his tendency. And then there's the other type where you're trying to keep a secret and very obviously things are worse than they seem. It's hard to really know without being there. But I trust given, you know, Stafford has had stints like this before where they've taken it easy on him or he's taken some time off. And again, this seems like a very Rams thing to do. Like they're not afraid to be proactive or sit guys down.

So my alarm bells are not going off right now. And it makes me feel better if you feel the same way. This to me is way less about like, is he going to miss any significant training camp time or or miss week one or anything like that. It's just kind of a reminder that by November, we, you know, this stuff might continue to creep up on him. And like he might just continue to get banged up and there's going to be little injuries that are nagging away at him.

And I know that, you know, this has been the case with him having like some of these rehab moments and slower periods during the offseason for the past few years. But it's just again, when you keep doing it year after year. And again, he's what you said, he's 37. Like it's just even for as well as I want this to go and I do think they're obviously handling it the right way. because he has so much experience in the offense. It's just, it's a reminder that in the back of my head,

there's the little, there's the little alarm waiting to go off. It's not going off yet, but it's, it's there. It has to be there. I mean, I think it's always, there's always that alarm on when it comes to Matthew Stafford and the Rams at this stage of his career when you consider how banked up he's been, some of the offensive line concerns. Dave, I think my bigger revelation, injury-wise, from being at Rams camp is that there seems to be some growing optimism that Alaric Jackson might be ready for the season.

Like, I mean, with some of the. blood clot stuff, we've seen guys miss entire years. It doesn't sound like that's where things are trending with Jackson, which would be absolutely massive for this team who has really gone the way the health of its offensive line has gone. That is music to my ears. And the Rams are definitely one of those teams. Ironically, their division rivals, the 49ers are the same way for me, where I really

don't feel like I can formulate a full opinion on them until we get through training camp. and assess who's available, who's hurt, who's on their way back. I mean, if Jackson really can be ready for the start of the season, that does wonders for my optimism about the Rams. And yeah, the older your roster, the more that I just kind of want to get through these three or four weeks of hard practices before I start setting my opinions in stone. There's a chance that the Rams avoid a disaster with their left tackle. The Cowboys absolutely avoided disaster with errors earlier this week.

It's always, anytime there's a news update during training camp, it's always terrible. And so that initial Ian Rappaport tweet came across the timeline yesterday about the worries about him having torn his ACL. I'm sitting there in the airport in Nashville and I'm like, fucking damn it. Like, really? Like, we're sitting here with this young, you know, young offensive line. Clayton Adams is there.

I think the run game is going to be dynamic and interesting and Guyton is such a great athlete. And I can't wait to see how they're going to use them. And now a guy going into a second year who's a first round pick is going to miss the entire season with a torn ACL. I mean, it changes the entire complexion of the Cowboys offense. And then you wait half an hour and everyone gets to exhale, right? So he has a broken bone in his knee or in his leg somewhere. I don't know exactly where it is.

Not great. But out four to six weeks, Derek, is a hell of a lot better than you lost your starting left tackle for the season. Yeah. So like it still stinks that he's going to be, you know, behind the eight ball a little bit in learning a new offense a little bit, learning, you know, with a new offensive, you know, run game coordinator and all that stuff. he's going to miss that time and, you know, maybe he misses week one. But the fact that he's going to get to

play this season and get more reps. And he came into the league, right? I think this is why it's especially important for him. He came into the league as a guy who we all knew this was going to take some time. He was going to be a little bit of a project. He was a guy who kind of played over his skis a lot. And so the fact that we're going from, like you said, in the span of 30 minutes going from, wow, he's not going to get his second season. This might throw off his entire, you know, projection as a player to like, okay, maybe he'll miss the first couple weeks out. most, but he'll ultimately be fine and be able to play. That is a huge, huge deal. And especially because, too, like you were saying, I think so much of the framing about the way that we think about

this Cowboys team is one of the first things that you would list off about why this team is exciting. It's like C.D. Lamb, Micah Parsons, Dak, Prescott, a really young offensive line that has a ton of like first and second round picks on it. Like, that's, I think, a super important thing. So if they were to miss him, it would have really taken a lot of the air out of that. I'm going to remember this one for a long time as just the the picture perfect example of what it's like to be a football fan in 2025. Because like it had everything, man. Even you can take it back earlier in the day. Like Guyton went down during team drills in the middle of practice.

They're on the West Coast. So it's a little bit later for us. And like the trainers are on the ground with him. And you're like, this looks bad. But he gets up and walks off under his own power. And you're like, okay, there's no cart. Then it probably isn't that bad. but we'll just put a pen in it until later.

Then you get the Rappaport thing about the torn ACL. Cowboys Twitter is about to jump off the nearest ledge. Then the better story comes out. Shout out to our guy John Moshota, by the way. I think he was one of the people that had that first, that it's not a season ender. And so literally in the span of like an hour, you're going from the worst case scenario after dreading it all day.

And then, yeah, like I was joking with people about Tyler Smith probably needing to move to left tackle. Like you're your waist deep in contingency plans. And then all of a sudden you're relieved about a guy missing six weeks. Like you're just breathing in that copium. I'm like, all right, he can play like at least week two, if not week one. And just what a freaking roller coaster of emotions. And now, you know, even the most optimistic cowboy fans are like, oh, great.

Now we can audition a bunch of guys for left tackle without needing Tyler Smith to move over and Tyler Geithen can just slot in. It's just, it's the perfect distillation of rapid responses to the football updates from the internet. It was incredible. And why this was potentially even worse is that if you had to kick Tyler Smith out to left tackle, if that was your best option, because they do not have a lot of tackle depth.

If you want to go listen to my conversation, which Ima showed it from last Saturday before any of this even happened, we talked about the depth on that offensive line and how the interior was much better set up for attrition than tackle was. well Robert Jones has broke a bone in his neck and he's out two to three months. So your guard depth has already taken a hit if you were to move Tyler Smith.

So they really avoided some disaster here. And this is not surprising. This is a theme every single year, but I think it's just worth mentioning. I ask everybody I talked to over the course of this trip, GM's head coaches, what are you worried about? Like what is the spot on the roster where it's given you a little bit of anxiety

where you think it needs to be settled? Every single person to a man talks about offensive line depth. Every single person talks about it. And we probably don't think about that enough as we consider the fortunes of an NFL team over the course of the season. Because it's very tempting to look at the starting 11. That's how you derive how you're going to see a team going into the year. And having 6, 7, 8, 9 offensive linemen that you think are capable and able to play,

that's at front of mind for these teams right now. And so for the Cowboys to potentially lose two of those in the first week of camp would have been a disaster. And so the fact that Tyler Guyton is going to be back sooner rather than later, a huge thing for a Cowboys team that is going to rely on their offensive line in a big way as they tweak that running game. Speaking of tweaked running games, Joe Mixen, placed on the non-football injury list, Eric, to start camp with the foot ankle injury that he had been dealing with from last year. He is expected to miss the entire preseason be re-evaluated near the start of the regular season. There are some things about this that worry me. The non-football injury part of this is a little bit weird. The fact that it kind of came on a little bit later,

the lack of clarity about the timeline. And Joe Mixon last year, I think was surprising in what we saw from him and what he brought to that running game. And so them losing that and then now having to rely on Nick Chubb coming back from injury, Woody Marks, who's a rookie, this is potentially a huge blow to a Texan's running game that relied on its back to create last year in a way that very few teams had to. Yeah, I mean, we might very quickly be getting to a point where Woody Marks has to be the lead back in this offense because Joe Mixen obviously is going to be dealing with these injuries. Nick Chubb, we don't really know what he's going to look like or how much he's going to be able to handle moving forward.

Damien Pierce is a guy who has struggled obviously with injuries for a very long time. So like we're going to get to a point where it's Woody Marks like JJ Taylor's on the, like they have like a bunch of other depth guys who have played before. but I think none of them in 2025 would have been expected to be serious role players. So we're looking at a spot where, and I think this is especially troubling for them because outside of Nico Collins, Joe Mixen was kind of the only player

who could get explosives in this offense. And it was still few and far between because the offensive line wasn't very good. But if they lose that, Chubb at this stage in his career is probably not giving that to you. Pierce isn't if he can go. And like Woody Marks is a rookie.

You just don't know. And I mean, there are a lot of guys that there's been a lot of turnover with that skill position group, period. Right. Christian Kirk is there. now. They obviously drafted two receivers on day two. They're seeking out different avenues for those explosive plays, but that's all theory other than what Nico Collins and Joe Mixen have provided

this offense. Your boy, Christian Gonzalez, Derek, came out yesterday that he has a hamstring injury. He is going to miss some time of the New England Patriots, but he should be ready for week one. I assume, how are you feeling about this right now? That was, I think, of all the injuries that I saw coming across the time. that was the one that hurt my heart the most. Thankfully, he should be ready to go. Also, my other copium angle is like, just let him play man coverage anyway.

He doesn't need to learn how to like how they're reading route combinations and certain sound stuff to still put him man to man. We'll be good. As a proud member of team bubble wrap, I love it when a great player has a reason to not be out there. I know, I know that the guy, I know guys need to work, right? I understand that practice is a good thing.

But if you are as good as Christian Gonzalez, If you've made an all-pro or have all-pro potential, I want you doing as little as possible. So great, awesome. Christian Gonzalez, I'll see you at the end of August, and I'm not upset about it. Some injuries stacking up for the Cleveland Browns over the last couple days. Right before we started recording this, as we were recording this, Martin Emerson goes down, the cornerback had to be carded off the field. Zach Jackson of the athletic reporting that the entire secondary I gathered around him after he went down.

Eric, this is particularly troublesome just because if you were trying to build a case for optimism for the Browns this year, it was the defense getting back on track. And like Martin Emerson is kind of the best player to exemplify that, right? He was really, really good in 2023. He takes a step back in 2024. That can happen at corner. We know that. But the defense getting back to a level where they're dictating games was going to be the best path forward for the Browns to be competitive.

And you lose one of your starting corners potentially a week into training camp. And then the calculus starts to change about that potentially being a driving force for this Browns team this year. Yeah, I feel for him, man, because I do think, obviously in 2023, he played, I don't know if anyone thought he was going to be like a superstar corner, but he was a guy where you thought, okay, when he hits the market, someone's going to pay him a decent amount of money. Obviously, 2024 is a little bit more volatile. I think especially down the field, he just got beat more often than you would like. But I think, like you said, like corner can be especially for those guys who are a corner too,

those are really the guys who I think can be up and down on a year to year basis. And I think there was a very good case that with a little bit better of, you know, some better down in distances helped by the run defense. Maybe the pass rush turns it up a little bit that Emerson could just play better. So the fact that he's not going to get that chance potentially I think is really, really sad. It also raises a question of like, are they going to shuffle bodies around? Like does Newsom maybe play outside now? They signed Nick Needham this off season.

Maybe he goes in place the slot for them. I don't know what they want to do now with the cornerback room. he's not going to go. Kenny Pickett, also dealing with a hamstring injury, he's going to miss some time. Typically, this wouldn't be something that would cause a lot of ripple effects at this point in the calendar when, I don't know, your backup quarterback at most in a bunch of situations has a hamstring injury where he's going to miss time. But David, any sort of notable changes to the four-man quarterback race in Cleveland seems

noteworthy because it changes what the hierarchy might look like. It changes what the reps might look like. the Kenny Pickett injury, does it do anything to alter how you are handicapping this very sad race that is going on in Cleveland right now? It doesn't change the way I handicap it, but I mean, if anything, it probably helps. Like we talked about this going in, right? That there's only so many reps to go around and we said Kenny Pickett might be the odd man out. Kevin Stefansky said he's going to come back as quickly as possible.

But it's just easier to manage a practice. and you only have to worry about Joe Flacco and the two rookies. And from the sounds of it, Flacco is doing the vast majority of the starting work, which is what I expected to happen anyway. I guess I'll be curious to see if Shadur Sanders gets any sort of elevation from this. It doesn't sound like it's happened yet. Maybe he can play his way into more reps with the ones.

But it makes it less confusing, even if it sucks for Kenny Pickett. To me, I was going to say to me, like Kenny Pickett being in that room. Obviously, I think that like you said, Dave, they expected Joe Flacco to be the week one starter and that's probably going to be the case. To me, Pickett being there, obviously when they signed him or traded for him before the draft, I think that was a little bit more of just an insurance play just based on who,

you know, they don't know if they're going to be able to draft whoever they want. But now that the two rookies are in there, picket is kind of the line where it's like if our rookies are at least as good as that guy, we feel okay about what we did in the draft. And if they're not, then it's like, okay, we have a little bit. bit of a problem here with where we drafted guys. And so the fact that now you don't even get that barometer out there for a little bit might hurt. Jimmy Haslam came out on Tuesday and said that pretty openly that Shadur Sanders was an Andrew Barry selection in the draft. It was not Jimmy

Haslam putting his thumb on the scale. I'm sure some people will hear that and kind of rolled their eyes and be like, okay, what's he going to say? I will say that my understanding is that was always the case. Like them deciding to take Shedur-Sanders was not Jimmy Haslam tapping Andrew Barry on the shoulder in the middle of the draft and being like, we have to do this. If you think about where Andrew Barry comes from, the way that he sees player acquisition, how he thinks about all this stuff, Shredor Sanders was a distressed asset by the time he reached the fifth round. This is a team that did not have an established starting quarterback.

They need as many bites of the apple as possible. We could talk about the veracity of that thinking, maybe, and whether that's how you should see the quarterback position when you already have three guys that are going to be in that room. I think that's a, we're stockpiling options here, not thinking about the mechanics way of thinking about things. And it's why it's led to this situation. But I am not surprised, Dave, to hear Jimmy Haslam publicly come out and say, this is not a decision I was making. This is a decision the front office made on its own. Okay. I want y'all's help parsing through this. Because on one hand, I appreciate Jimmy Haslam saying this because the easy, in the,

when all of this happened was to assume that Jimmy Haslam put his thumb on the scale. Like we saw the video on draft day of Andrew Barry and Kevin Stefansky looking like somebody ruined their picks though. Either way. It was like it was easy to guess that Jimmy Haslam forced them to do this just based on what we knew about the situation and their reaction, whether they reacted to other picks that way or not. It was just an easy thing to guess. So I appreciate Jimmy Haslam clearing it up and saying like, hey, I let my GM do his thing. Like that's what you want from an owner really is like empowering the actual football decision

makers. But the other thing, guys, is I think it's weird timing. It's weird timing for me to do this after a dozen offseason practices and a week of training camp. Because like for me, to hear him say this now, I'm kind of like, wow, does Shadur look that terrible that you want to distance yourself from this decision already? And like, I don't know if that's what he actually thinks, but that was my reaction when I heard this is like, why are you saying this now after we're already playing football? Like maybe say this on draft weekend when

everybody's still excited about it and just be like, yeah, I'm the good owner who's going to empower everybody. But right now, it just looks like you're trying to step out of the limelight and get away from a bad decision. And I'm not saying that is what's going to happen. But That's just what it looks like to me. In fairness, we don't know what line of questioning led to him saying this. Was he directly asked, is that part of it? So without knowing the questioning, I think I'm tempted to give them the benefit of the doubt in this situation. But this idea, this conspiracy theory that Jimmy Haslum is the reason that the Browns drafted should doer Sanders.

Asking somebody from the organization about that in the immediate aftermath, it was kind of laughed off. It was like, no, that is not how this went down. I will say it would have been really funny if Shadir Sanders was like clearly quarterback two pushing for quarterback one if Jimmy hasn't would have taken a little bit more credit for it. It would have been funny. We're going to take one more quick break here and then get back with just a couple of player centric storylines, a couple usage-based things that have unfolded here over the first week or so of training camp. All right, I want to start with what I was, to me, was one of the biggest questions in all of training camp coming into it. And I happened to be in Jacksonville this morning watching how to do. Travis Hunter went through practice. And that's what is this going to look like? Where is he going to be? How is he going to spend his time? So, Dave, this is how it was communicated to me. And obviously, this has been

something that's reported and people are taking notes ad-nauzing you about this. I walked into my hotel in Jacksonville this morning and I was watching ESPN and they had his snap counts on offense or defense, according to Michael Doroko, the Jags beat writer for ESPN. So in talking to a couple people today, and Jeff Howe did a story about this earlier this week about the athletic and same sort of things were said to me that were said to Jeff. He's spending a lot of his time in practice right now on offense. That's all it was today. He's wearing an offensive jersey. When they go to special teams periods, which they did in the back half of practice, he's over with defensive coaches just talking through stuff and taking mental reps. So there's a little bit of a time split that way,

but he's spending a majority of his practice time on offense at this point because they feel like he needs more work on offense. The direct quote to me today was, we think he could play corner today. Like he's ready to play corner. That is his natural position. The work he needs is on offense. It's a more nuanced position. You're talking about releases, secondary releases.

It's a much more technically demanding spot. And at college, he didn't really work on receiver stuff to that extent. So that's what they're really trying to focus on is just getting him to harness and really refine some of the receiver elements of his game. and when it comes to how he'll to be deployed in games, I think they're being intentionally cagey about this because they want it to be a mystery because they want to be able to spring him however they need to based on that week's game plan.

And Derek, we talked about this coming into it. That seems like a dicey proposition because I just don't know if you can do that defensively. So I asked, I was like, oh, what are you worried about? Are you worried about communication? Are you worried about cohesion on the back end if he's going to moonlight on that side of the ball? And that actually apparently played into how they built the secondary and free agency.

Dave, you'll appreciate this. Jordan Lewis kind of being what he is as a veteran player, Eric Murray being a veteran. The guys in the core of their secondary are players that have played a ton of football. And so they hope that that allows Travis Hunter to kind of be worked in a little bit more seamlessly when he does start playing defense. So I think there's still a lot of questions to be answered when we actually get to games about where we'll see him play. but that is kind of the plan as it was communicated to me on July 29th. That explanation for why he's playing more offense actually makes more sense to me

because I think when they drafted him, the way they talked about him when they drafted him and then obviously bringing Liam Cohen to be your head coach, I think my assumption was, oh, they're putting him on offense a lot because they just want him to be a very good wide receiver too next to Brian Thomas. And that obviously might still be true. But it makes more sense that he, relative to what he did in college, just has a longer way to go to play that position. So they might feel it's, you know, the 70-30 split doing a little bit more work at

receiver does make sense just to get him at an even level and then they can decide where to deploy him. I'm still of the belief that I want him to play as much corner as possible and really moonlight as a receiver. But again, maybe with the work that he's doing at receiver, maybe they get to the season and they're like, that is the best deployment of him. It's like we've only gotten him up to speed where we feel like 15 reps a game is the right spot for now.

and then we'll reevaluate in year two, year three. Robert's explanation of how they're handling this legitimately made my heart rate spike. Like that is so, that's so exciting. I mean, we'll see if it actually comes close to being that fun. But if this guy could jump into the defensive game plan and just trust that the guys around him know enough about the scheme to sort of let him do his thing.

And yeah, I mean, Derek, you're not the only one that feels that way. There are plenty of people that think he's, just a gifted enough corner that he like he can just do that without a whole lot of problem which it is crazy i consider corner other than quarterback like the hardest position to play in football and it's wild that it could be that difficult but receiver is a more technically demanding job which i mean it makes sense when you think about it but it's a little bit backward compared to how hard it is to play a cornerback but that's so cool like if he could actually do that if he could jump into the defensive game plan while handling a full load on offense.

I mean, like I said, I just, I hope the reality is half as fun as what we can daydream up here in the summer because it could be so entertaining. I think part of it for me with him at corner really quickly is it is a very difficult position to learn, I think generally, but I think we also just don't see athletes like him at the position. Like he is one of the most naturally gifted corners we've ever seen come into the league. Like to be as springy, as agile, quick on his feet for his size, the length, it's just like, he's going to be the unicorn.

And that's why I'm like, I'd rather see him at corner. Even if like in theory we've said for a very long time that that's a harder position to learn. Two more layers to this that I do think are worth mentioning. One, I think some of the ways they can work him in on offense, Brian Thomas Jr. makes it easier because with Brian Thomas Jr. being your true ex receiver, you can use a lot of different levers to give Travis Hunter free access within the offense. So he's not having to be a release technician in the same way a guy who's going to play on the line of scrimmage all the time might have to be.

And so that just frees you up in how much you want to play him because you're able to put him in more advantageous spots because you're not having to help one of the other receivers on your team with any sort of consistency. One of the problems there, though, in terms of which side of the ball he might play on is where the depth exists. And I think as it currently stands, Monterrick Brown is banged up, but they think that he is a capable outside corner.

And then Jerry and Jones, who played in the slot for them last year, is now playing outside full time and I think is taken to that pretty well. You can make a really solid argument, Derek, that they are stronger depth-wise at corner, especially when Brown comes back, than they are at receiver.

Because a receiver, you're really looking at Brian Thomas Jr., Travis Hunter, Deaami Brown, and then it's really just Parker Washington. So if you want to play some 11 personnel, you're having to put, there's going to be a lot of Parker Washington. I think they're probably better insulated at corner for him not to play there. So there's a chance just the pieces they have at a couple of these positions force their hand one way or the other. That actually is a really good point.

The fact that you could field like a capable secondary without Travis Hunter, even if obviously he could take you to the next level. You could field a capable secondary without him. I don't think they can field a capable of receiving court without him. So that's actually a really good way to frame it. A lot of other rookies, you know, this is the first time we've got looks at these guys, how they're going to be used, what they look like in pads.

Dave, we talked about this on our training camp question show. I was sitting there being like, if Josh Simmons is healthy, there's just no question here. Like, he's going to be the left tackle. Like the health was such a big part of his evaluation. When you watch him on tape, it's tantalizing.

Like, it's intoxicating the traits that he's bringing to the position. So we're like three days, into camp a couple days in pads and Josh Simmons apparently looks like an absolute animal for the chief's offensive line and now Jalen Moore is working in at guard and swapping off right tackle reps with Joanne Taylor. So I assumed that if he was healthy, he was just going to be the left tackle and apparently it took about 72 hours for the chiefs to land on that exact same outcome. I'm already at the point where I'm just trying to remind myself to calm down that it's week one of training camp. And like I saw the clip today.

of like, did you see, you saw the fight clip? I didn't see the fight club. I heard about it, but I've not heard. I have not seen it yet. I'm not even trying to be a smart ass. Like his Twitch with the punch, I'm just like, does this guy have, does this guy have a fighting background? Like, he just looks, he looks like such a natural and like vicious athlete in everything

that he does. Every time I check in on the chiefs, he's kicking someone's ass as a pass protector or in this case, literally punching somebody. It's, it's awesome. And like, I'm already at the point where I'm like, I can't believe that the league let the chiefs get this guy at pick 32. And it's, it's way too early to feel that way. I got, and that's, I'm just trying to remind myself to calm down, but I'd be really, really excited if I was a chiefs fan. Yeah, like this, if he's healthy and he's going to be ready to go, he's, he's going to be a good play. I think almost everyone in the draft community kind of agreed that he was like a top 15 talent and just, with,

some of the injury stuff just ended up falling. And so if he is ready to go and they're getting him all these reps, like, I feel so good about it. Because again, you know, I mentioned this before. I think last year with Kingsley Suoamataia, we knew he was a project and stuff. And that was a matter of, is he going to be quick enough on his feet to be able to play left tackle? And it became pretty quickly evident that that was not going to be the case. That's why he's playing guard now. With Simmons, man, all the tools are there, the length, the twitch, the movement at the second level.

so if he's taken to the offense well, I don't want to say he's going to be a weapon immediately, but again, I don't want to get too out of my skis, but he is a very, very talented player. I'm excited to see him. A couple more offensive line things to sort through here. Derek, you want to talk about the Jordan Morgan yo-yoing

that's going on in Green Bay. We knew this was going to happen. We knew they were going to play everybody. It's so funny to me. So Zach Tom gets a contract for $22 million to be the right tackle for the Packers. In the press conference announcing the deal, Brian Kukuts mentioned how he's, Zach Tom can play multiple positions.

Even though he doesn't do it, they still, it's almost like it's an affliction. It's like it's a compulsion with them where it's like, well, he can play multiple positions. Did you know that he could play that? It's so funny how much they hammer this stuff over and over. It's clearly such an organizational value that they're going to handle the offensive line this way. So if you, as you've watched Jordan Morgan kind of bounce around from these different positions, what have you found notable about the early camp reports? Yeah, they are more highbrow about.

offensive line flexibility than I think any team has ever been, which I mean, it's worked for them, obviously, you know, over the years they've never really had a bad offensive line. The Morgan thing is just funny because they, he was a tackle in college. They draft him.

He plays right guard a little bit last year. He doesn't finish the year. He ends up being hurt. He doesn't play a whole lot. Coming into this off season, my expectation was that he would be the right guard, what he played last year. And they,

because they already have Rashid Walker left tackle and they would just roll it out that way. At some point, Brian Kudikun, in one of his press conferences, was like, it's an open competition at left tackle between Walker and Morgan. So that caught my eye a little bit. And then a day or two later, Morgan is just with the first team at right guard again. So I did like, I don't know if I know where they think they're going to play Morgan. I don't know if they know where they're going to play Morgan, which, again, we thought going in,

but the fact that they're doing even more moving around, not even just on the field, but like with the way they're talking about it, it just we're going to have to wait until week one. figured out. I feel like I just want to pull you aside and just like put my arm around and you'd be like forget about a man. It's title town. There's no no use in just spending all this energy worrying about how all this is going to go. It's really not. But here I am and I'm probably going to until they settle it. It's probably going to work though. That's the other thing. I know that it will. That's why I don't even know why I'm worried about it. I know they'll be the ninth best offensive line in the league and it's going to be fine. But I just, I want to know. The other big bit of NFC North office,

line news. This is an objective, real intrigue for me when I was there, was Tate Ratlach was taking the early reps at center at the start of training camp for the Lions. And it took about three days as they got into pads for grab Glasgow to become the starting center for the Lions. And I, the calculus, Dave, I thought was interesting because I thought Glasgow at Center always made the most sense because he gave them a floor at the position. And that's how it was communicated to me when I was there. You know, Dan Campbell, in talking to him, it was like, we know Graham can do it. If we feel like we need to tap into that, we know we can slide him over there tomorrow and feel good about it.

But with the offense and the way that had been constructed over the last couple years, the ceiling that an elite center gave them and the things they could do because they had a big, talented, hyper athletic elite center, it really gave them options on offense other teams don't have. And so trying Ratledge out there, to me, felt like them chasing that same sort of construction, but it seems like they're going for the higher floor, more reliable set here with Glasgow at center and route which at right guard than the potential higher upside but more volatility that the flip of that would give them.

My question for you would be this. And I know the lions have been in camp a little bit longer than everyone else. So they've had more opportunity in pads. But this early in training camp, obviously you haven't played a preseason game. You haven't done a lot of the physical work. Does like making this change so quickly to me says, that Tate Ratledge is maybe just not as ready from a mental perspective. I mean, it's a heavy load to put on that position, IDing things, knowing what you're looking at.

A rookie sinner is probably not going to be a help to Jared Goff at this point in his career, whereas a veteran center, I would expect would be. Even if he's not Frank Ragnow, he still has a better idea of what he's looking at. So I wonder, is it more just about the mental acumen required of the position than Tate Ratlidge? his athletic profile. I assume that's it, but I still think that Jared Goff at this stage of his career in year four of the same system for the most part, right? Like even if it's a new offensive coordinator, I think the DNA of who they are is going to carry over. You'd assume Jared Goff would be able to take some of that stuff off of a young center, which is why they were probably willing to

try it. I just think this is a, you know what, we know this five works. Let's get the most work we possibly can with these five before we get to week one. I think there are two schools of thought about that. The Packers are obviously being like, we don't give a shit if there's like cohesion going into week one. We want to know what we have and we want to know what each individual combination looks like. There are other teams where I think they're just clamoring for a little bit of certainty so they can get those guys working together in those roles as quickly as possible. So that's kind of what it feels like with the Lions where they're saying to themselves, you know what, we know this works. Let's roll with this so we can just get these guys on the same page and just get them as many reps

in these positions as we possibly can before the season starts. And it's also like the other starter that you're putting in it, the other young starter you're putting in the offensive line is Christian Mahogany at the other guard spot. Like do you really want a rookie center next to him who has never really played the center position before? Like that makes his job a little bit more difficult. Like it kind of makes sense to have these two younger first and second year guards

with a center who, again, he's not going to really be a needle mover, but a guy who's done it before and can do it. next to them to kind of help them out on getting to a lot of these double teams, making sure they're seeing things the right way. It just feels like that makes it more sense. Let's talk about some of the roles shaking out for the rookie defensive players, a lot of whom were taken really high in the draft and had some positional flexibility and we were curious, all right, how is this going to go? This guy was using a bunch of ways in college. How is he going to be used in the NFL? Derek, let's start with your guy, Jehahad Campbell.

It seems like he is primarily playing offball linebacker instead of moving to edge, which we thought might be possible based on his profile coming into the draft. What are your thoughts about Jihad Campbell linebacker being dropped into this Eagles defense? I need it so bad, man. And like I when I watched Jihad Campbell, I was like, yeah, he should be an offball linebacker. And then you can just do some of the weird edge stuff

the way that like, you know, Donta Hightower did early in his career. Frankie Louvo has done some of that. Like that to me is what he always was. But it seemed like when he got drafted, there was a little bit of stuff in the press conferences where they were like, well, he used to be a defensive end. Maybe we'll use him a little bit more that way. And so I was worried is the wrong word, because I think he would still be a good defensive end.

But I want to see him more at offball linebacker. So the fact that it sounds like he's getting a lot of the first team reps at offball next to Zach Bond. That is music to my ears. And then it does still sound like he's getting some edge work, especially like later in practices, just getting some of the individual stuff down, which again, that to me makes sense because that's his role is that he's 80% in offball guy. And then sometimes you're going to put him on the edge, which big Fangio does that with

a lot of his backers. He's always liked to do that. He did it with some with Bonn last year. So now I think if anything, it's more interesting that they're going to have potentially two guys out there who can do that because for as well as I think Nacobi Dean played last year and obviously he's going to be banged up this year. Dean was never really a guy you put on the line of scrimmage. Like it kind of had to be Bonn if they were going to do that.

Now the fact that they got two guys, I'm very interested to see what Fangio could potentially. do there. I don't mean this is a knock on Jehad Campbell because I love him as a player, but I'm happy to hear that he's working off ball because I think there's a tendency to look for the next Micah Parsons. And that's just hard as hell to find, man. Like there just aren't a lot of guys that do that. And it's tempting to see a 6-3, 230-something pound guy and be like, oh, he can be our Micah. And I don't know if you're doing him any favors by putting that on him. and he's probably going to be better off. Like, of course, get him up by the line of scrimmage, blitz him through the A gap,

find ways for him to affect the passer. But there just aren't that many guys that can move to D-end in week two of their rookie season and become an all-pro. And I think you're going to do him a disservice if that's your goal for him. And that's not specific to Jihad Campbell. That's a ton of dudes. That's just not an easy thing to do. It's interesting watching how teams weigh the scope of what they're trying to put on these

rookies. How wide do you want to make it? Some teams are giving a guy everything and they're going to narrow it down. The next two guys I want to talk about here and I've made stops at both of these teams. Jalen Walker in Atlanta, Nicom Anwari in Seattle, they're keeping the scope very limited for both of these players. Jalen Walker has not practiced the last couple days, but he's working Derek almost exclusively as an edge rusher. Because I think that's how they want to use him. That's where they see him.

And it's something where he needs to develop in that area. He needs to develop a pass rush plan. He's not a very refined player in that way. And so they're having him work on that almost exclusively just to get him up to speed as much as possible. And talking to some of the coaches there, you know, they've kind of challenged him, not in a way where he needs it, but apparently he's just like an incredible self-starter, son of a coach, all of that stuff, 10-year pro, everything you hear about guys in a good way this time of year. But they gave him like cutups of Dwight Freeney, Elvis Dumerville, Von Miller,

some of these guys who were a little bit shorter as a way to kind of give him ideas about, you know, certain ways to use leverage and just how those guys develop their pass rush plans as shorter, more powerful players. And so that is really where they are putting the focus on it for him, where this is where we want you focus on this, get as good as you can at this specifically. And it just makes sense, right? Like, I think the idea of flexibility and oh, he can play wherever is like a really nice thought going into the draft. But then like once you draft the guy, you kind of want to hone in on it.

And honestly, truthfully, they're offball linebackers. Like they, I think already have guys they feel comfortable starting anyway. So it's not like they needed him to do that. I even saw quotes from Walker where he was like, yeah, I love the fact that I can be flexible. But I'm focusing all of my energy on being a pass rush. And it makes sense because even coming out of college, he was obviously productive and he was effective. But a lot of what he was doing was he just had really good burst and he was really long. And he could kind of leverage that against, you know, not so good offensive tackles at the college level.

And in the NFL level, he's going to have to be a little bit different. but, you know, I don't know what it's going to look like as a rookie, but one, two years down the line with those tools, I think that's what they're really looking at. So the fact that they are limiting his scope, I think honestly does make a lot of sense. And we were also curious, Dave, about what Nickyman Wari's usage would look like

with the Seahawks as somebody who played all over the place in college at South Carolina. He has played exclusively at nickel up to this point in training camp. And so he is their big nickel. He is working in this slot, you know, when they go into some of those looks with Devin Wetherspoon bouncing outside, and he had some reps in camp that I was very impressed by. I mean, he's like shutting down like option and whip routes from Cooper Cup. And the way he's moving around there in space, I think that's encouraging.

I think there could be a point this season for the Seahawks where we get to a place where their best five DBs include Emin Worry in the slot, Witherspoon and Tarikwollen outside, and Julian Love and Kobe Bryant at safety. I don't think they're there yet, but I do think there is a chance that we get there. So they're keeping that window very, very small for him. And I also think that Mike McDonald learned about how to bring these guys along with Kyle Hamilton. And there's just less downside to having mistakes come at nickel than there are having mistakes come at deep safety.

And so I think you're limiting just how bad. Yes. And so I think you're just, you're limiting how bad the downside is by getting him going at nickel primarily and having him be your third safety who may have to play if an injury happens, but not having that be the primary plan for him. Not to mention, yeah, you just, I mean, you have to be a rare player to step into the NFL. And I mean, ironically, you know, we're talking about Travis Hunter. Travis Hunter is a freaking really rare player.

You got to be a unicorn to step into the league and have two, three, four, five things on your plate. Odds are it's a better idea to just get him started at one thing and see how he does. I saw he, he had the pick six of Jalen Milrow and practice. the other day. It was a really fun catch, a really fun play that he made. It's very encouraging. I would guess Mike McDonald's dream is for all those guys to be as flexible as possible and move all over the place. But again, I don't think you're doing that guy any favors by asking that of him in July of his rookie year. I also think with Emin Worry specifically, like when I watched him

coming out of college, to me, the flexibility that he could play a little bit everywhere was cool. but to me a lot of his worst plays were taking angles in space and taking them from depth. Yeah. And so if you just put him at the nickel, I mean, you don't have to really do any of that, except for I guess if, you know, there's a perimeter screen. Maybe you've got to play in space a little bit. But like, for the most part, you're limiting how often you're asking him to really take angles and tackle that way.

So from that perspective, I think this makes a lot of sense for them. The last rookie I wanted to hit on, I was in Arizona for a day, the day before they started practices and heard about the Walter Nolan injury news. he's now on the populist with a calf injury. He's going to miss a good chunk of training camp. It's just disappointing because when you look at how this Arizona team is building and being there two years ago and talking to people in that front office versus being there now, the lifespan of a team changes, Dave, we know this,

where early on you're just trying to put a couple in the fairway. And I think that's what Paris Johnson, Marvin Harrison, those guys kind of were, where even if these guys aren't explosive, like nuclear athletes at the position, we know that they're going to be solid players. They're wired the right way. These are going to be guys who could start for us for a very long time. You make those picks as you're setting the foundation of who you want to be as a team. And then you get to a point where, okay, this is set.

The locker room is set. The culture is set. We have established a floor for ourselves. Now, let's take some swings. Let's do some stuff that's going to take us from point A to point B. Walter No one is that sort of pick. Will Johnson is that sort of pick. They need this stuff to come together for the Cardinal

to kind of break through that ceiling that has started to form over them. And so for Walter Nolan to start off his career being hurt and have that kind of derail whatever he can be earlier in the season, I do think that's more notable than it might seem just for a young player who we haven't seen anything from. It's crazy notable. I mean, I'm generalizing a little bit. No two players are the same. Walter Nolan missing this time, it doesn't doom him to being a non-factor as a rookie,

but I'm readjusting my expectations for a rookie who doesn't get to have much of a training camp. It is so hard to not get those reps and come back in and be who you want to be right away. It's a hell of an adjustment. There's the conditioning aspect of it. There's just the getting time on task, the confidence that comes with playing more. And so, of course, Walter Nolan could defy all of that, but I just think it's smarter and safer to adjust what you expect of a guy who just doesn't get that time. And I don't think anyone thought Walter Nolan was like a ready made prospect to begin

with. I think we all knew that this was going to be, because he was an incredibly explosive player coming out of college. The flashes were there, but the consistency was not. You were betting on his five best plays a game. And you were just hoping that with the right coaching and the right time that it would come together. And so the fact that he's going to miss some of that time this year, I think hurts. It's also like how many times this is going to happen with their young defensive linemen? Like they draft B.J. O. Jolari in 23. He struggled to to stay healthy really early in his career. Last year, Dary's Robinson, same thing.

He was never really healthy for his rookie year. And now they're going through it again with Walter Nolan. So it's like, it's one of those things where they've clearly thrown resources at their front. It's just all their young guys have just kind of been befallen with injury, unfortunately. Thankfully, they're a little deeper there this year than they have been in the last couple of years. So they can withstand it from just a how many usable defensive linemen do we have. But when it comes to realizing their ceiling as both a defense and a team, I think this is, something to pay attention to. All right, that is the first wave of training camp news.

We're going to have plenty more of them here over the next few weeks. We'll be doing a similar sort of check-in like this, I believe at the end of next week we have scheduled. So be on the lookout for that. And we've got five shows a week coming your guys' way all the way through training camp, our four normal shows over the course of the week, followed by our beat writer notebooks on Saturdays. We're going to have the next one of those coming your way this Saturday. So please be on the lookout for that. For now, that's all we got. Appreciate you guys listening. We'll talk to you soon.