The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Which NFL Team Has the Best WEAK LINK?

Episode Date: June 22, 2026

Some topics are evergreen in the NFL. And some are so perfect for mid-June that it would be a crime not to discuss them. That’s where this week’s Mailbag Monday episode takes us…what are the best 3-year player peaks you’ve ever seen? What are the best single-season teams to never win a Super Bowl? What aspects of player performance still can’t be measured by stats? Robert Mays and Dave Helman discuss that and much more on this episode of The Athletic Football Show.0:00 Welcome to the show2:56 Teams with the best weak link7:58 Value of mythically elite kicker/punter13:29 Defensive players that scheme relies on19:45 Best 3-year player peaks31:29 Best teams not to win a Super Bowl36:42 Value of veteran qb vs churn of new ones44:12 Myles Garrett vs Jared Verse49:32 Statistics we still need54:46 Choosing OC over head coachHost: Robert MaysCo-Host: Dave HelmanExecutive Producer: Michael BellerSenior Producer: Katy DuffySocial Producer: Scott KrinchFollow Robert on Bluesky: @robertmays.bsky.socialFollow Dave on Bluesky: @davehelman.bsky.socialFollow Robert on X: @RobertMaysFollow 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. Another mailbag Monday for you guys. Derek is off today, but me and Dave answered all of the questions that Bellar served up for us. A lot of really good ones on this show. Somebody reached out to me this week, somebody in the football analysis space just like via DM on social media. And it was just commenting on how cool it is that we get to populate these shows with such thoughtful questions from our listeners. and we get to kind of take it in directions we might not otherwise.

And my response to that was just, yes. Like, I 100% agree with this. Like, that's why we continue to do these shows. It's why I have such a fun time doing them. And so I know I say that a lot, just kind of commenting on how much I appreciate all of the thought that you guys put into these questions and how enjoyable these shows are. But other people are also noticing. So thank you again for everyone who spent the time to send them in.

Got a lot of good ones today. let's get to this conversation right now. It's another mailbag Monday here on the athletic football show. A lot of good questions to dig into. Before we do, a couple things I wanted to hit off the top. I forgot to do this last week, and I'm very sorry if I missed the occasion. But Levi asked us to give a birthday shout out or say happy birthday to his friend K.H. On his 23rd birthday, very happy to do that.

If you want us to pass messages along to your loved ones, or friends on the show on mailbags, we will. I'm not above that. We are available via email. So, KH, I hope you had a fantastic birthday. Love to hear that you're a fan of the show. And so I hope you guys had a great week. And kudos to Levi for taking the initiative to send that in.

The other person I wanted to mention, Ruben Clay, who has sent in a very good question about injuries along NFL teams, just what training staffs can be doing a little bit better, you know, how much of injuries are random, all of that. It's a very good question. It's something that I would just need more time and research in order to properly answer. And so we are not ignoring it. I actually think it's too good of a question for us to properly address on a mailback.

I would say once a week we get a question where I'm just like, this is so good. But I need like a month or two to talk to people and actually research it and have a better take. And I mean, that's a testament to how good the questions are on these shows. For the most part, those, if we do decide that we want to do them in a somewhat more engaged fashion, those are going to be next offseason type things. But we have a running list of all that stuff. And so if you have a question like that we really like, it's not that we're ignoring it. There are oftentimes where we just want to hit it in a slightly different capacity. All right, Bellar, let's get to the actual questions.

Why don't you kick us off? All right, here we go. Kay Liang, Seattle. This is from Discord, says, an honest. of the World Cup. There's a concept that soccer is fundamentally a weakling sport because a single mistake by your worst player is incredibly damaging. This is on Friday. I think if we all, not that he's the worst player, but we saw it in South Korea, Mexico on Thursday night. One big mistake by one player, incredibly damaging. So in that spirit, you guys, which teams in the

NFL have the best worst player in the starting 22? Robert, take this one first. I had like four or five different options. I didn't go through every single depth chart. These are just the first few that came to mind. I think Seattle was the first team I checked. Like who's the worst starter on the Seahawks? Because we've conceived of them is just like really deep, complete team. I think they're in the conversation. I think Anthony Bradford's probably the worst starter among the 22 for the Seahawks right now.

I think he's worse than other team's worst starters. The Rams are probably a good answer to this as well. Like is it Coleman Shelton or Omar Spates now that they traded for the corners? Probably I think both of those guys at their position are better than Anthony Bradford is. So the Rams, I think, are probably a better answer than Seattle. The Broncos are a really good one. Like, who is it for the Broncos? Maybe like Justin Stranad.

So I looked, I did the exact same thing as you. And I wound up looking across the league and settling on a lot of guards, a lot of linebackers, maybe some safeties as well. All the teams you listed are teams that I landed on. It's tricky, though, because that language, it's best, worst player, which to me suggests that he's still a really good player, right? Because I'm thinking about it in soccer terms. Like, France played the other day. Like, the worst player on France is still a starter for, like, this amazing club team.

You know, like the worst player on France plays for like Bayern Munich or Barcelona or whatever. In the NFL, it's designed to not be that way. Like even the best teams probably have a starter where you're like, ah, we'd love to replace that guy if we could. So, yeah, like 22 guys. It's an incredible number. I mean,

it's really, really hard to have 22 guys that. And all of them are guys that you're satisfied with. Like, that's, it's not realistic. So, yeah,

Anthony Bradford is a good one. I said spates. The Denver linebackers are ones that I landed on. And then another one I looked at was probably Philadelphia. And like I said, guards and, and like safeties and linebackers, not linebackers for Philly, but looking at the Eagles, Tyler Steen, and then really probably both of the safeties like Marcus Epps and Andrew Mukuba, you look at that and you're like, all right, like, it's not terrible, but we, I'm sure Philly would love to or would hope for more from those guys this year. So I wasn't surprised when I looked through it and I was like, oh, yeah, these are these are a lot of the positions where we debate the value of it. You know what I mean? Where like, can you get away with spending less of these positions?

I don't think, yeah, I don't think it's a coincidence that a lot of the answers to this question play those sorts of positions. The other team I would throw out, I think Houston is in this conversation as well, especially if Rutledge plays center. I mean, who's the worst starter on the Texans if their offensive line left to right is Ursary, Teller, Rutledge, Ingram, Braden Smith? it's probably like Henry Toa Toa now that they have like a second safety that you feel pretty good about. I mean I get I see where you're coming from but so much of the stuff on the offensive line is projection.

I mean it sounds good but how good is it actually. But yeah, Henry Toa Toa, Toa, Tommy Togeyai probably if he's like penciled in. Tommy Togeyat was really good last year though. I mean that's kind of my thought. That's a testament to how good. Yeah, that's how good their defense is. Yeah.

And this is a different, this is a different, this is a different conversation than who has the best roster because obviously stars don't matter in this exercise and so like for the Texans offensive line I still think the ceiling for the Texans offensive line is very limited but I think the floor with a lot of those players is pretty decent outside of like injury so if we're assuming health I think the Texans are another competitor for this

I would probably if I had to pick one I'd probably go with the Rams of the Broncos now that the Rams have figured out those two cornerback spots. Those are probably the two teams that I would go with. I agree because criticize them all you want. I think like the linebackers in Denver are solid players, if not great players. And same thing with spates. And obviously, I mean, Landman was great for the Rams last year. So yeah, like if you're looking for the best weak link, I think those two teams would probably be my final answer.

All right. Let's get to the next one here. This one's all Dave. Meet Joe Kicker and John Punter. These men were made in a lab to kick footballs. Joe Kicker is capable of making 80-yard field goals with decent accuracy. He says about 80%. Even better than decent. John Punter can coffin corner the opponent inside the 10 from anywhere on the field, even from within his own end zone.

Are either of these players worth drafting first overall? How much would their second contracts be worth? Dave? All you, man. It won't surprise you to hear this, dear listener, that Robert didn't want to do this. And he said, because he couldn't come up with an answer for the question, or was it just because it's special teams? It is not because it's special teams.

It's because I think it's really hard to conceive of what the value of a player like this would be without doing like a very real amount of research. And again, we're prepping for these in like a day. I don't have time to figure out truly like what the contract value would be worth about a hypothetical player that could make 80 yard field goals at this rate. It is an absolutely insane question. And that's why I think we have a duty to try to answer it, even though it's impossible. Like it's, I was trying to put a value on what this punter would be worth.

Like the ability to no matter where you are pin your opponent inside their 10 yard line every single time. Like that is so tremendously valuable, but I don't even know where to start in terms of quantifying it. But I was curious about what a kicker like that could do for a team. So I just, out of pure curiosity, I just went, I pulled up the exact middle offense in DVOA last year. The Pittsburgh Steelers finished 16th in offensive DVOA, dead middle of the road, not terrible, not good. And I just went through their season. And I was like, okay, how many times would a kicker who can hit from 80 have benefited the Pittsburgh Steelers last year? Like how many times did they punt from a range where they could have considered?

conceivably kicked a field goal if they had a guy who could drill from 80. And I wound up charting 38 extra field goal opportunities if you really had Joe kicker on your team. And so if you calculate that for 80% accuracy, that is 30 more field goals on the year, which, you know, I'm not, I'm a journalist. I'm not good at math, but that's 91 extra points. The Pittsburgh Steelers would have jumped with. Joe kicker on their team from 15th in scoring offense to third in the NFL last year, if they had just let Joe kicker do his thing every time they stalled out within 80 yards. So I think that's tremendously valuable.

I don't, is it worth drafting first overall? It's hard to say, but I think that's probably worth a first round pick. Like if you're, the other thing too is I think you got to, because kicking is so volatile and kickers can just lose it with no warning. I think in this exercise, I got to be able to count on this guy to do this for five to ten years. But like, yeah, if a kicker could add that much extra value to your team for like six to ten years, that's got to be worth a first round pick.

Yeah, I think that's worth the first round pick. And the punting, I'm trying to figure. I think where you'd start with the punting is, if you did like, let's look at drives starting inside the 10 for opposing team. teams, what are the success rates and the points per drive on those drives compared to what you would get in a normal down-and-distance situation or normal field position situation? If you stack that up over an entire season, what is that sort of thing worth? Again, I think you could get somewhere close to an answer.

I think it would take a little bit of time in research to figure out exactly what that answer looked like. But yeah, my instinct is that, yes, both of those players would probably be worth first-round picks. I don't know what the second contracts would look like, just because, Because that's it. We have absolutely no conception of what that type of contract for a specialist would look like and where it would stack up to other positions, all of that stuff. It's impossible to answer.

Aubrey just reset the market. And the word on the street was he was gunning for like 10 million a year. And he, I'm being facetious, he can only hit from like 65. So what's what's 15 extra yards of ability worth to you? Like I think it would be a pretty damn big deal if that were actually possible. My Galaxy Brain take on this, my like, let's come back around on a take, is that this type of kicker would be bad for certain types of head coaches in their decision making. Well, for sure.

It would be, it would be miserable. It would. I mean, can you imagine if all you needed was a first down to be in field goal range, just what that would do for decision making and yeah, like how it would enable the worst instincts of conservative coaches? No, thank you. Do you think we've gotten to a place or we're getting to a place where there are fewer and fewer coaches where their situational decision making when it comes to like aggressiveness, fourth downs, are we trying to actually score points,

are making me lose my mind? Like I think the best example this year where somebody clearly was in his ear and now we've thankfully moved a little bit further past us than we should was Todd Bowles. Like as soon as Todd Bowles was making some of the decisions he was making this year, I think we're doing a better job league-wide of making sure that these things are optimized. But I think this type of kicker and punter potentially plays in. to a coach's worst instincts more often than it should. All right, let's get to our next one here, Beller.

Okay, Anthony Mangaluto says we often talk about how year-to-year defenses go through natural volatility. My question is, can one or two players who the scheme is built around make or break a defense? One game example I can think of is when the Giants beat the Eagles last season. They had Jalen Carter inactive, Quinion Mitchell missed more than half the game, and the defense looked like a shell of itself. Robert, what do you got here? it's an interesting question I don't think I've ever really thought of it

from this perspective like the reason that defense is a little bit more volatile is that it can be star player driven maybe a little bit more than offense is Derek has said that a couple times this offseason we've been talking about how defense can really be built around a couple specific star players

and like that's maybe why coaching goes a little bit doesn't go quite as far defensively as it might go offensively because the quality of your talent matters more I still think, again, this is just my hunch about why defense is a little bit more volatile, is that the end result plays on defense that can really have huge fluctuations. We're going to talk about this a little bit later with a couple of the stats. Turnovers and sacks are so, so, so important in determining, like,

defensive statistics, advanced defensive metrics, overall defensive quality as gauge by those sorts of things. And those things are inherently volatile. like turnovers are just going to ping pong season to season that's inevitably the bears had 33 takeaways last year the bears were a bad defense like that that's there those things are not always completely lined up with one another sacks are also something where we know we talk about this you can have a season the abdul carter year from last year is a great example you can have a season where you have a ton of pressures and for whatever reason your sack production just isn't

in line with your overall impact on the game and even if that doesn't necessarily speak to your quality as an individual player. That's obviously going to go a long way in hurting the overall quality of your defense. And then the last part of this that I think is really important, PFF did a study about this. Oh man, it might be going on like 10 years now. We're all getting old as shit. But they talked about how determining defensive quality and even team quality as we get into the playoffs was often a product of coverage quality.

Like how good was your team in coverage that year? and a lot of the downstream kind of conversations from that were it's hard to find a lot of team building lessons from that because coverage is volatile from season to season for individual players. So because defensive quality is often driven by the quality of your coverage, if that's going to ping pong from season to season just based on the nature of the position, it's going to lead to an inherent volatility that goes beyond whether or not one or two players is in the lineup. So I think it's an interesting framing, but I still think that there are three, four, five other elements that to me probably lend more to the volatility of defense. Yeah, I don't think that's the fun thing about football is you can't.

It's also interconnected. I don't think you can isolate any one thing and completely assign cause or blame or reason to all of these different factors that affect so much. but this question really the first thing it made me think of was our wonderful friend Bill Barnwell who had that stat last summer during the Micah Parsons saga where he pulled it out and I think he yeah he said this before Micah got traded to Green Bay but it was like when all of that was going down he said this is direct from Bill over the last four years

the Cowboys are the league's best defense with Micah Parsons on the field by EPA per play and then across a 1,039 play sample the league's second worst defense over the same stretch by EPA per play when Micah Parsons isn't on the field. So the answer is, yeah, there are players who can make or break your defense. Like if you have that sort of guy, I mean, Micah Parsons lessens the pressure on your secondary and your coverage to be right because of what he can do. And he makes life easier on the rest of your pass rush. Obviously, it's not just Micah. There's there's a dozen other guys who are capable of tilting the field that way.

But yeah, those types of players can drastically influence things. And if you have them in your lineup, I think it gives you a little bit better shot of surviving some of that volatility and being consistent. I mean, we had a question a while back about, you know, defenses being consistently great year over year. And we talked about like, well, the Seahawks defenses bucked that trend. and there were a couple other ones. And the through line for all of those defenses was generational Hall of Fame caliber players consistently playing in those defenses.

And yeah, I think that matters. I think there are two different questions that we're asking here. Like is the is can one player that's not a quarterback have, can removing that one player have a more pronounced impact on a defense than it would for an offense? I think the answer for that is probably yes. Like in the exact way that you're talking. talking about with my persons, but I think the volatility question goes beyond that.

Like, I think there are other more pronounced reasons why, like outside of injury, why defenses are volatile in a way that offenses might not be. And so, again, I think it's like two different conversations that we're having. But it's a good way of thinking about it. I've never really thought about that being the reason that defenses are more volatile, or are more volatile. My hunch is that that's not really the reason, even if what you're talking about, a defense feels very different if you're really.

move a player like that. Before we move on, we are deep into the group stage of the World Cup and the Athletics Podcast Network has something for everyone. You can wake up with the Totally Football Show from L.A., dive deep into the biggest talking points of the day with the Athletic FC podcast and watch the TIFO podcast fool around on their daily live streams in the afternoon. All of our shows are free to watch or listen to on your favorite podcast platform. All right.

Before we move on, let's take our first quick break. Okay, next one, simple and straightforward from Alex Barclay. Alex asks, what are the best three-year player peaks you've seen in your lifetime as an example? 1998 to 2000 Randy Moss. Dave, what do you got here? Bet my life, Robert's going to talk about JJ Watt in the early 2010s. So I'm just going to leave. I'm going to leave that to him.

That's his specialty. I mean, that's absolutely worth mentioning. I tried to focus because Alex asked us, we've seen. in our lifetime. So I tried to focus on guys that I actually had a pretty up close and personal view of, whether I covered them

or whether I just had a chance to watch them play on a fairly regular basis. So, I mean, I have quite a few. But really, for me, and I've talked about this on the show before, it starts for me with Aaron Rogers and you have a couple.

Which three period did you pick? That's that you have a, that's a really important question. here. You have a couple to choose from and here's the, again, this is purely subjective to me. So, like, you can bring all the stats that you want. The stretch where he won back to back

MVP is, what was that, like, 20, 2019, 2018 to 2020, I think. No, come on. That can't be it. No, no, no, no, no. It's not. It's not. That's what I was going to say. That statistically, you could argue, is much better. But for me, it's 2014 to

2016. And that's the stretch where you know, three Pro Bowls. He was first team all pro. He won his second MVP after 2011. 109 touchdowns to 20 interceptions. I mean, the statistics are obviously amazing. But the reason I say this is I just really felt like that is where the like the myth of Aaron Rogers really crystallized into this boogeyman sort of player where I'm cheating a little bit.

but, you know, he beats the Bears at the end of the 2013 season. And then from there, he was just like he was always pulling those plays out of his hat. Like 2014 to 2016 is when he, he did the Jeff Janice Hail Mary in the playoffs. 2016 was when he had the Jared Cook throw to beat Dallas in the divisional round happened right in front of me. Still can't believe that that happened. All of his Hail Marys as a Packer happened during this 2014. to 2016 period. It just felt like that's really when I developed this sense of like,

if Rogers is on the field, they got a chance. And that's not completely statistically backed up, but that's just, that's how I felt watching him in that time frame. It's a really good way of thinking about it. And I actually do think that's correct. Like the Hell Mary has obviously loomed very large in our minds about the magic that he could bring.

But the Jared Cook throw in. So in my opinion, still stands above the rest of them when it just comes to like, what just happened? Yes. I mean, I remember where I was when I watched that. I remember I was in New York, like at a bar watching that game. It's like, that's how much that moment is just crystallized in my mind. So I think that three-year stretch is a good one.

I still think in terms of like how dangerous he felt and just this like supernova of talent, this is fudging it a little bit. but I think if you did the back half of the 2010 season into the 2010 playoffs, and then that went into 2011 and 2012, that also has an argument. Like, what he was during that playoff run was insane. He averaged 0.28 EPA per drop back during the 2010 playoffs. He finished 90 of 132 for 1100 yards. He had nine touchdowns during that playoff run.

and then he goes from that into the 15 and 1, 2011 season where he wins the MVP. And so that to me feels like, again, even if I think you're right, the myth making might have been a little bit more pronounced in like 2014, 2015, 2016, that three-year run when he like announces himself as this just, again, otherworldly physical talent, that one, I think, has at least an argument. This is highly colored by the fact that I covered the Cowboys during this time period and Rogers just snuffed out two amazing Cowboys seasons. And like having a front row view to that will,

will color your perception. So the Rogers run there I had. This is another one where it's kind of cheating a little bit, but like three seasons in a row where he played, Brady's 07-09 2010. 08, obviously you lose because of the injury. But like three full Brady seasons, 07, we obviously know what that is.

he was incredibly good in 2009, and then he wins the MVP again in 2010. And then obviously 2011 was also insane, but if we're eliminated to three seasons, that Brady run probably sticks out to me. I'm sure you could have three or four more other Brady runs. My answer to this, a couple others just honorable mentions,

the three-year run Miles Garrett just had. Yeah. That one, two, defensive player of the years and that broke the sack record. Justin Jefferson's first three seasons were insane. At 1,600, 1, 1,600, 1,800, yards in his first three seasons in the NFL. So his first three seasons, not just any three seasons.

Aaron Donald from 2017 to 2019, he led the NFL and pressures for any player in 2017 and 2018. I appreciate that you picked a range for Donald because I just said pick whatever three-year stretch you want. Like it doesn't really matter. Three-year run. He wins defensive player of the year twice during that three-year run. In 2018, he had 20 and a half sacks in 25.

TFLs as a defensive tackle. It's just an insane season. So that's probably the three-year run for Donald that I would pick. My answer to this question, and I think the answer to this question, is what J.J. Watt did between 2012 and 2014. Yeah. And between 2012 and 2014. That's the exact range I chose as well.

Yeah. But I mean, those were he had, obviously, you know, his 2015 season, he had 17 and a half sacks. He had 29 TFLs. His 2011 season, he was a rookie. It's almost like the Rogers year. You felt what come on during that playoffs. He had to pick six against the Bengals that year,

and he kind of rode that into the 2012 season. But that 2012 through 2014 season, he had two 20 sacks seasons in that range. Two. Pretty good. During that same stretch, in 2012, J.J. Watts that line in 2012. I don't have the pressures in front of me.

I'm sure they're insane. He had 20 and a half sacks. He had 39 TFLs. in 2012, 39, he had 16 passes defense in 2012. And you could make an argument, and obviously the voters did, that his 2014 season was better. He was second in MVP voting that year. I was just extolling the virtues of Aaron Rogers,

but like, and I did not have a vote at the time, but I would have been willing to vote for JJ Watt over Aaron Rogers in 2014. he was incredible. He was a one-man wrecking crew. The year where I legitimately think he, I think he should have been the MVP of the league was 2012. That was the year when Adrian Peterson won it.

I think you could make a really serious argument that year that J.J. Watt should have been the MVP of the NFL. And that was that he had two seasons in this three-year period that were almost as good. And again, I think people would say 2014 might have been even better. So that's my answer. I had one more honorable mention

I wanted to throw out and it's it's I spend too much time on Twitter obviously but I feel like we're already we're already getting to an age where something that happened in 2014 is distant enough that people are downplaying it and I know he dealt with injuries and I know that he was in the media to an annoying degree but we do not have to minimize O'Dell Beckham Jr.'s first three years in the NFL because they were on Frickin real. Offensive rookie of the year, Pro Bowls all three years,

two-time all pro. I believe he's still, even with all the receivers that have come through the NFL in this time stretch, he's the only player in NFL history with 90 catches and 1,300 yards in each of his first three seasons. I mean, doing that three years in a row

right out of the gate is nuts. And yeah, I mean, injuries and a host of other things, you know, he didn't maintain that momentum. obviously, but 2014 to 2016, O'Dell Beckham was special. I was mostly limited guys I watched when I was covering the league, but obviously you can throw out, I mean,

pick your three-year Peyton Manning stretch. I mean, it's probably 2003 to 2005. If you had to pick a three-year stretch. Yeah, Manning's one of those guys. I thought about him, like I said, I was trying to keep it to guys that I really got to see. up close. And by the time I was covering the NFL, Manning was in his last few years in Denver.

Like I didn't cover or see Indianapolis Manning. But yeah, take your pick of quite a few seasons that are worth mentioning. If you're limited to two seasons, the 2012, 2013 Peyton Manning run in Denver is absolutely ridiculous. And then the other one I would throw out just because if we're talking about all the quarterbacks, pick your three-year breeze stretch. Yes, absolutely. That would be the other guy that I would throw out.

there again this is not an exhaustive list these are like the first people that came to mind so if you're thinking what about this guy sure he was great too yeah yeah he had a great run it's one of my favorite parts about some of the uh response to the 25 and underdraft and like guys we didn't mention there's i keep like just reciting 30 rock lines on the show but there's a stretch there's a line where tracy's talking about why he missed the birth of his kids and the the answers are making a French red pizza and forgot. That's such a good show. When you're trying to figure out why I didn't mention somebody,

the answer is forgot. Just, just forgot to put him on the list. It has nothing to say about that person. I just forgot to put them on there. You didn't do two weeks of exhaustive research for our mid-June fantasy draft, Robert? Come on. It's like the human warri one as people were pissed about

that the answer to that it's always this is one of those things where like never attribute to malice what you can attribute to incompetence i this is a perfect example i thought i would pick kyle hamilton forth so i didn't put nicky mowrie on my list it has nothing to do with like the quality of the player like it's solely about the quality of my process i love nick mowary somebody asked me that something similar about armand mbou who i also love but i just i was trying to avoid one year players because of the volatility there and, you know, not having a huge body of work. Like if I have the choice between a guy that's played two or three years and a guy that's played one, that's I'm going to go toward the guy who I've seen do it more.

That's all. But anyway, really enjoyed that show. Well, we're going to do some drafts the rest of this off season. You guys better believe it. We got more of them coming. I'm in a draft mode right now. All right. What's our next one here?

I'm always in a draft mode. I can't wait. Paul Wada's got the next question. Paul says, which are the five best single season teams that didn't win the Super Bowl in the last 10 years? So we're going back to the 16 regular season, 17 playoffs as the start of this through last year. I can't remember who went first last time. Robert, take this one.

I mean, if we're starting that season, you're just, you're just tempting me here. But I'll start with the 2016 Falcons. That's even if the defense wasn't good on that team, like the defense was there. That was truly a word just getting by defense. who's extremely young. I mean, I can't, I would have to look it up, but they were spending no money on that defense that year. So overall team quality,

maybe you can make an argument against them, but that offense is still one of my, the best offense have ever watched, one of my favorite offenses have ever watched. Some other ones I'll run through. Last year's Rams, I think, are in that conversation when you just think about where they were compared to the rest of the league.

Like, the Seahawks and the Rams were clearly the two best teams in the NFL last year. 2024, I think the Ravens and the Lions have an argument from that. season. Like the way that the 2024 alliance season ended because they were so banged up, I think we're going to forget what that team felt like

at its best when they were healthier early in the year. That team was awesome. And obviously the wheels come off for a bunch of different reasons. And that 2024 Ravens team, that offense was phenomenal. I would also throw the 2023 Ravens in there simply because the defense was so good and you had the

MVP of the league on the other side. And so that team is worth mentioning. The 2023 Niners were an incredible. incredible football team with that offense. And obviously the Chief's defense just hits a gear in those playoffs. Two more specific teams, 2021 Bills. Like the 13 seconds Bills team was really, really, really good. All the numbers back that up.

We need a trigger warning before we do this question, Beller. Like drop a trigger warning at the start of this thing. I mean, listen, Bill's fans at this point, there's nothing that can hurt them anymore than they've already been heard over the last 35 years. 2019 Niners, I would throw in there. that that defense was absolutely insane. That was top to bottom, a really good team. And then the last one out throughout, you pick your Saints team between 2017 and 2020.

Yes. Whatever one you want. Like, I'm not the differences between them. Like, it's all about it's rounding errors. They were all pretty much the same quality of team. And they were all so good. The fact that none of those teams won the Super Bowl or even played in it is so wild. Like, it's probably one of the stranger footnotes of my time.

covering the NFL over the last 15 years. Like those are the teams that I would feel the most compelled in exercises like this over the next 10, 20 years to like remind the young people. I got to tell you guys how good the 2018 Saints were. The 2018 Saints were really, really good. I do think the answer has to be 2018. Like 2020. You would have a better feel for it than I would.

Like 2020 was a good team, but like Breeze was very obviously a declining player trying to get over the finish line at that point. It's probably 2017 to 2019. Those are probably, those are probably, that's probably the actual three-year stretch. But I, like, I think the tiebreakers, 2018, I mean, you're in the dome. You're at home. I mean, that team was phenomenal. You had Mike T. at the peak of his powers.

It's year two for all those rookies. Like, it's, the team feels a little bit more seasoned than it was the season before, the year before. I mean, you could make a compelling case for all of them, but I think the one that stings the most is 2018. and that's not even just because of the no-call. It was just a phenomenal team. I think you named every single team that I was going to bring up except one.

Nobody feels sorry for them at all, but the 2018 chiefs were awesome. Yeah, no, that's a really good one. I almost forget that just because when you win three after, like it definitely eases the sting, but yeah, that's a really good one to bring up. It's a footnote, but I mean, Mahomes MVP highest scoring offense of the past decade.

Mahomes had the, Mahomes in that season had the fifth highest approximate value in NFL history. I mean, he was just unbelievable. Obviously, the defense was not great at that point in their build, but you had the Patriots dead to rights before D. Ford lined up off sides. So, I mean, just knowing how close they were and how insane that offense was. I don't think Chiefs fans lose a lot of sleep about it, but that was a really good team.

I've been to so many crazy, awesome games in part because the Super Bowls, for the most part, in the 15 years I've been going to the Super Bowl, have been incredible. I was at that game. I was at the D-Ford Offsides game, and I almost forget about it. Like, it's so far down the list of, like,

the most important playoff games that I've been to, that it's almost like an afterthought, but it's a hugely important moment in NFL history and, like, an incredibly memorable one. It's also very cold that day. I remember walking to the stadium, and having a really bad time. But yeah, the 2018 chiefs absolutely worth mentioning.

All right, let's take one more quick break and then come back and hit a few more of these. Babylon Bill gives us the next question. Babylon asks, I wonder if the NFL community underplays the benefit of having a forecastable quarterback situation on roster building. Look at the Panthers as a case study. Regardless of what you think of Bryce Young as a QB,

they've been able to project QB's salary across years and dedicate all of the remaining resources to the rest of the roster. We all know the types of resources the Browns have wasted on quarterback over the years, yet briefly they had a similar situation with Baker Mayfield, which promptly gave Browns fans the only hope they've had in seemingly forever. How do you quantify the value of one of these established QBs,

the value that they save the roster when compared to the churn for a team like the Jets, who have yet to find that guy? Dave, what do you think here? I mean, I agree with the premise of the question. I've said it on the show several times this offseason. And the Seahawks, the Seahawks doing what they did with Sam Darnold is it's so refreshing for me. And I think it's so refreshing for NFL discourse. And, you know, people having an open mind about how you can build a championship contender is that.

I mean, Sam Darnold had a really nice season last year, but I don't think anybody's confusing him with one of the elites of the elites of the NFL hierarchy. and for so long because of Brady and Manning and Breeze and Rogers and up to Mahomes and Josh Allen and Lamar, it was like, you got to have one of these four guys or else what are we even talking about? Why are we even doing this? And it's refreshing to see teams build contenders in other ways with quarterbacks who don't necessarily fit that archetype. I do. My only pushback on the question is like totally fair that, you know, just having a guy enables you to focus on other aspects of the roster. He's still got to be a baseline good player. I mean, you know, you brought up Bryce Young in the question and rooting like hell for the guy, but we talk about him so much because like, yeah, you're, I mean, you're good enough to win a bad division with Bryce Young and you'll have some moments where where he looks like the light bulb could be

coming on. But we talk about it every week because it's such an uncertainty. It's such an an important position. You still got to have that thing figured out. I mean, it's a moot point if you don't cross a certain threshold of ability. And so it is cool to see teams kind of start to figure this out and say, hey, just because we don't have a perennial all pro doesn't mean we can't win a Super Bowl, but you still got to cross that threshold. We still can't say for sure the Panthers have done that yet. But it is, it's refreshing to see them be able to build around a guy with some sort of semblance of baseline ability.

Yeah. The first, my first response to this question is, I need to know so much more information about the Panthers and Browns fan situation in play at play here. How? Why? That's a that's my bad. I didn't want to, it was a wordy question. But Babbel and Bill did start this off by telling us he is both a Panthers and Browns fan.

Yes. So I need to know more. How does this happen? Like is this a marriage situation? Is this like, so just I assume this came from Discord, Beller. It did. So Babel and Bill, please feel free to at me on the Discord and explain to me the situation because I would love to know more about it. My second response to this is, I think in both cases, the Brown situation and with Baker-Mayfield and the Panther situation for Bryce Young, I'm not sure it's about quarterback contract certainty.

I think a good portion of it is you're not paying the quarterback anything over those first four years compared to what you would be. I think the value of it is being out a rookie quarterback timeline. And that, obviously, we know the value of it. And so with the Brown specifically, I think one of the reasons that they traded Baker-Mayfield is they had to pay Baker-Mayfield. field soon. The Panthers are about to be in that situation. So those to me aren't the best examples because I think there's, yeah, you have four or five years of certainty, but it's more about the flexibility that comes with those four or five years as much as the certainty. When you start getting into veteran quarterback contracts

that you're paying out over a multi-year period, then I think some of the considerations that Dave is mentioning are really important. We've talked about this a lot over the years. Like, if you have a quarterback that's the 13th best quarterback in the league, but you're paying him like the third best quarterback in the league, that can be a bad thing, even if you have certainty to come along with it. So I don't think certainty is more important than flexibility or value in a situation like that.

The example of this that I think is actually kind of interesting where maybe you could make the argument that even if you're overpaying him a little bit, the idea that you know you're going to have him for a long time is worth it, is like Jared Gough. Like I think you could make an argument that Jared Gough, relative to where he is in the quarterback pecking order, is maybe a tiny bit overpaid,

even as somebody that likes Jared Gough, like if you look at those cap hits over the next couple years, but the lions know he's going to be on the roster. They're huge base salaries. They can move them around. So that, to me, would be maybe the best example of this working in the right way. And on the flip side of that,

Kirk Cousins' deals with the Vikings, to me as an example of on the other side, where because they were only three-year deals and you're constantly worried about what the next contract is going to look like, then you kind of, put yourself into a tough spot when it comes to like the multi-year team building part of this because every two years you're worried about a quarterback extension.

So I think that there may be an argument for this. I still think that making sure it's the right quarterback that you're paying is more important than having quarterback certainty. And I mean, yeah, like certainty is nice, but yeah, like where can you find an advantage in the margins? I mean, the Seahawks getting what they got out of Darnold at that that price. point is amazing, what would it look like if Darnold got a raise on his next deal? Because it is a pretty short deal. And like, and how much more difficult does it get if Sam Darnold is pushing up into the 50s on his next deal? I mean, I know the captain is.

Exactly the Baker-Mayfield conversation that's happening at this moment. It absolutely is. And so, I mean, I don't know. I, there isn't a 100% right answer to it. But I do think and and yeah like Bryce young doesn't really apply here he hasn't shown enough but like a baker a a Sam darnold i mean we talk about him every week for a reason like i'm of the opinion that you could build a contender around baker mayfield but at what price point because yeah like after a certain number i start to get a little bit nervous about how i'm going to fill out the rest of my roster even if i do like baker mayfield and that's i mean that's the delicate dance you mentioned Darnold at the top. I think the more important thing with Darnold is that Darnold had a 13.4 million

dollar cap hit last year for the Seahawks. It's not about the fact that the Seahawks are going to have financial certainty with their quarterback over a long period of time. They're not. It's only a three-year deal. But the fact that you could get him at a relative discount based on what he gave you last season, that feels more important than we signed a guy to a five or six-year contract and we know he's going to be around. All right, what's the next one here? Okay. Our next one is from Jeremy Lupowitz. Jeremy says, in light of of the Rams trade for Miles Garrett, how do you think about longevity versus immediate need when valuing a player in a trade? The Rams obviously viewed Garrett as worth a first, second,

and third round pick more than Jared Verse. Whatever you believe the typical career span to be for an edge rusher, we would expect Verse at age 25 to have roughly five more productive seasons left in the tank than Garrett at age 30. Are two to three seasons of elite production really worth more than seven to eight years of great production? When you add in the fact that Versus on a rookie deal and will be cost controlled for the next three seasons while Garrett is the highest paid non-QB in the sport, is there an argument to be made that verse was actually the more valuable asset in a vacuum in the trade and it was only the Rams win now mentality that led to them parting with draft picks in addition to verse as part of the deal. Robert, what do you say here?

I'd say two things to this. One, I get where Jeremy is coming from. I think that this mindset, I get how he's seeing it this way. I still think it's really hard in the NFL to project out more within three or four years in any scenario. So the idea that, well, if we trade for Jared Verst, we're getting seven or eight years out of Jared Verse, I don't think anybody is thinking in those terms when they're trading for players. You can't.

Even the guys that know they're going to have endless job security, the Sean McBay's and the Howie Rosemans, I don't think anybody's thinking about even five or six years beyond the next three to four. So I think that being one of the tipping points in favor of Jared verse, I wouldn't weigh that very heavily. on the other side of it, we're trying to win Super Bowls. That's the goal of this whole thing.

Like we're trying to win Super Bowls. And so even if the idea that Jared versus a more valuable asset in the long term, which I don't necessarily agree with, I still think Miles Garrett based on what he is for the next three or four years is a more valuable asset than Jared versus right now, I still think that if the goal is to win champions, the difference between those two players, especially for a team like the Rams, is what makes a trade like this worth it. I think they are more likely to win a Super Bowl because they have

Miles Gair in the next two or three years. I think the Browns are more likely to win a Super bowl because they made the Miles Gare trade in the next three to four years. So I don't, it's not, I'm not condemning what the Browns did or telling it. It's more about, I think on both sides of this, each of these two teams is more will, is more likely. to win a championship because they made this trade. And I think that to me is the most important thing at the end of the day. My biggest takeaway from this question is it's an admirable thing to try to analyze this in a vacuum, but it doesn't happen in a vacuum.

Like the Rams are in a very certain place, like the very specific place where this makes a ton of sense for them. Like if Matthew Stafford was 31, would they be doing this? Maybe not. But he's 38. Like he's every year could be his last year like this this is it you know I I don't know the veracity of the reporting But the the word on the street in the wake of the miles garret trade was that Philly talked to Cleveland as well and Cleveland wanted jalen carter and if that's true if you're philly you're saying well we have a potential blue chip player at a very premium position where it's hard to find somebody and the core of our team is much younger i mean jalen hurts

is 27 years old. I mean, Lane Johnson's getting up there, but everybody else on the Eagles, that core should be intact for at least the next two or three seasons. And that's the other thing. And I appreciate you bringing it up, Robert. I, at one point in my life,

made the mistake of thinking you could gauge this shit out five or six years in the future. And it's just, it's not realistic. It's not productive. Like, at most, at most, maybe three. But really, realistically, I think you're probably

you should be thinking of all this stuff in a two-year window. So like, does Miles Garrett give you a chance to get over the hump and win a Super Bowl in a two-year window? And yeah, the list of teams that would be willing to do this is very, very small for that reason. But the Rams, it checks every box for the Rams. And the other thing I would bring up, I wanted to look this up. It's not as crazy of a trade.

But in 2021, the Rams sent. a two and a three to Denver for Von Miller, who famously tore it up in the playoffs and helped them win a Super Bowl. Do you know who Denver got with the two that they received in that trade? Is it Nick Benito? It was Nick Benito.

Do you think anybody in L.A. gives a shit that Nick Benito is on the Denver Broncos instead of the L.A. Rams? Absolutely not. We're trying to win Super Bowls here. The goal was achieved. And I mean, this is all going to be colored by whether or not it works,

obviously, but yeah, like that, looking at it in a vacuum and all that other stuff, I'm here for a good time, not a long time. With Jeremy on this, right? Like, in terms of like how he's thinking about it, but I think for all the reasons that you stated, I think that's why being the most important or most valuable asset in the deal is not the most important thing to consider when making the deal. All right, what's the next one? Contrapaston says with the proliferation of advanced stat metrics like success rate, DVOA, EPA, etc. what highly consequential performance factors still cannot be isolated statistically. For me, the most important answer is the pre-snap work by the quarterback, but plenty of other responsibilities are tough to capture.

I can listen to a whole show just discussing what each of these newfangled metrics are good or bad at representing. Don't tempt us with a good time, contrapast on. Dave, what do you say on this one? I'm going to bet Robert has a smarter answer to this question, but where it took me when I was thinking about it is just, for all the tools that we have available, for all the tape we can watch, and analysis is smarter and better than it's ever been,

you still can't replicate knowing the assignments of the players on the field. Like there's just, there's always going to be a gap between what we can see and what players are being told to do. And that shows up across a variety of things, whether you're talking about how a quarterback reads a progress, progression and that can be different in multiple different offenses. So even if a guy who's played in the NFL is breaking down tape and saying, well, this is how I was taught to read this progression, doesn't always mean that's true of the offense that's happening on the field. And then obviously with stuff like coverages, you know, what is a defender's assignment?

You know, I'm thinking, and I mean, I use PFF all the time. I love their stuff. I'm not knocking them. But when you're trying to chart receptions and. yards that a DB has given up. Well, what was what was the coverage? What was being asked of you? What was communicated on the field? Like maybe a coverage was called and there was some freelancing going on for better or for worse. There's just so much stuff that happens on a field that we can't know unless we are in meetings and talking to coaches and players privately. And so that that's not a statistic, but that's just something I'm always trying to keep in the back

of my mind when I review things. A lot of these numbers are not good at portraying individual player performance or quality. Like that's not what they're trying to capture. And I think that's really important. You know, we talk about that a lot with like EPA and quarterbacks. The idea that quarterback X led the league and EPA per dropback in this one specific area, I think that it generally points to the quality of the quarterback, but those stats are more about the quality of the offense and the health of the offense overall.

all than they are anything else. Like, I don't think there's any one single, I know there's not a one single advanced stat that's going to capture the performance of any specific player even beyond like the quiet stuff that Contrappostlin is pointing out here. So I think that that's up starting point. Like none of those stats are going to capture individual player performance correctly. But even if you want to get beyond that a little bit, like some of the stuff that can't even almost be isolated statistically, quarterback pre-snap one is a good one.

The gravity, a certain skill position player has. like there's no possible way that we can account for the attention a certain player is going to be drawing away from other teams maybe other some like in-house metric people like teams and their analytics departments have like in-house modeling for stuff like that we don't have any publicly available for things like that the range or the amount of ground like a spine of the defense defender covers right like what a linebacker like linebacker coverage quality we don't have numbers for something like that outside of like what happens when you're targeted.

And Dave just pointed out some of the limitations of that. Safeties are the exact same thing. Like we don't have numbers for that. Even coverage quality for corners we don't have. We have the numbers when you're thrown at or how often you're thrown at. But in terms of what the coverage looks like down to down, we don't have publicly available information for that, not as far as I understand. With receivers, we have like open score and things like that now for at ESPN.

And there are some other metrics that do it. but I still think those are, you know, there's some doubt, I would say, and like how much you can just purely rely on those because a lot of it is tracking based. The ability to leave an offensive tackle on an island, what that does to the rest of your offensive line. Like we can look at how much pressure, how many pressures a tackle gave up?

Can we fully appreciate the value of what an offensive tackle gives you if you can just leave him one-on-one all the time and devote your resources elsewhere? So I think those are like the quiet things that, even based on all the numbers we do, have, there's really no way to kind of properly represent that. Okay, last question and emailers, discorders, you guys have warned me down on this. We have gotten a version of this question a number of times over the last few weeks. I have, don't blame Robert, don't blame Dave, don't blame Derek.

I've been ignoring it because I just feel like no team would do this in my opinion, but you don't care about my opinion. You care about their opinion. So John Heston, Derek 40, Owen Volkerich, and everyone else who send in a version of this, you win, I lose. Here we go. The question basically, guys, would a team ever get rid of its successful head coach to retain its hot shot offensive coordinator? So would the Lions have ever gotten rid of Dan Campbell to hire Ben Johnson? If the Chargers have an unbelievable offensive season this year, would they get rid of Jim Harbaugh to keep Mike McDaniel? Robert, what do you think here? I don't think. If that's what success is, like you were a really, really good team in that moment, I guess it would depend

on what your definition of successes. Okay. So, and like, where you want to be. And like, where you in the process. Like, I think the examples of this that I would point to you recently where a team just elevates its coordinator and fires the head coach, it's mostly that you feel like that version of the team has run out of road. And so even if you're a playoff team, you're still not as successful as you want to be, right? Like, I think that's what's hard about this.

So the best examples of this recently, Joe Brady just did this, right? Like, Joe Brady is the head coach of the Bills. But I think that's more about the McDermott era just running out of road than it is about them wanting to keep Joe Brady in fear of losing him. The Bucks did this with Lovie Smith. That's not successful, right? Like those teams were struggling. And they wanted to keep Dirk Cutter, I think, in part because of the work he had done with James Winston the year before. So I think that you either have to be disappointing in some way or you have to get to a point where this era has probably coming to a close.

if we want to keep this coordinator, maybe the easiest answer is just to elevate them. But the examples he's talking about here where like, Kellyn Moore in 2023, like you're not going to fire a head coach that just won the Super Bowl because you're worried about losing

the offensive play caller. The Lions with Ben Johnson, like you're not firing Dan Campbell over what he just did the last few years. Even if the Chargers, even Mike Daniels incredible this year, I can't imagine a scenario where the Chargers are like a 12-win team.

They go to the divisional round. and you can somehow convince yourself that it's worth firing Jim Harbaugh and keeping Mike McDaniel. Like it feels like you need a couple down years at some point in this process in order to justify something like this. If this were going to happen.

And that's, that is correct. Like, you know, the Eagles are just an easy one because of all the volatility there. And it's either really good or really bad. Like if they were going to fire Siriani, it would be coming after an early exit in the playoffs or you don't even make the playoffs. Like if the Eagles make another run back to the Super Bowl, you're not going to fire Nick Siriani outright. You're just not going to do it.

What I would say, if this were to happen, and I don't think it would. But if this were to happen, it would be very nudge, nudge, wink, wink. Like you wouldn't fire Jim Harbaugh. you would elevate Jim Harbaugh to an executive role in the front office and say, ah, Jim, Jim wants to be around the team, but he's just, he's, he's, he's been coaching for a long time, and he would just rather take a step back and Mike McDaniel's going to be our head coach. And Jim Harbaal get a nice payday not to tell anybody how he really feels about what happened. Like it would be something political like that, or maybe this never happens.

But if there was a trade partner out there who really wanted your head coach, coach, you know, like John Gruden and the Buccaneers comes to mind. Like if you could arrange a trade maybe, but that seems so unlikely. Like if you were really going to do this, I think you would have to like elevate the head coach into an assistant GM or advisor role. And it would have to look really kumbaya. Like it would have to look like everybody was on board with this decision and then you would just elevate the coordinator. It wouldn't be an outright firing where you just kick him out of the job. Yeah. I think, again, it's going to come down to what your definition of success is as you're defining it for this sort of question.

But the success on the level of the examples that were mentioned, I just can't imagine something like that ever happening. All right. That is all we've got for today. We will be back tomorrow with our next show for now. That is all we got. Appreciate you guys listening. We'll talk to you very soon. Thanks for tuning in.

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