The Ringer NFL Show - 15 Most Interesting People in Football | The Ringer NFL Show

Episode Date: August 21, 2020

The Ringer’s Kevin Clark is joined by Pro Football Focus’s George Chahrouri and Eric Eager to pick the 15 most interesting people in the NFL including Cam Newton (3:19), Kyle Shananan (33:05), and Tom Brady (59:32). Hosts: Kevin Clark Guests: George Chahrouri and Eric Eager Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Sports are finally back, and the only way to celebrate the returns with Buffalo Wild Wings, where wings come in 24 sauces and seasonings. When you watch at home, make sure you watch with a wing bundle. Sports are back and there's no better way to watch than with Buffalo Wild Wines. Hey there, football fans living in apartments in big cities, sympathizing with all of you out there who want every game live, every Sunday afternoon, but can't get directed to where you live. Well, good news.

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one person right now is not wearing sleeves and is wearing a tank top and that would be George so I'm not sure which role that puts him in. That's Konseco. That's probably Konseca. Mark McGuire did not wear a lot of shirts when he didn't have to in the 90s. It's also what I'll say about that. We are a couple weeks away from the NFL season starting. Most importantly, pads are on a practice so we're getting actual honest to God training camp report. It's something that I didn't know I missed.

I saw a report this morning and the Washington football team was just totally out of sorts on offense and things started to feel normal a little bit is what I'll say about that. I saw some Evan Ingram practice updates. Joe Judge talking about it. So we're getting to a little bit of normalcy

here even in the weirdest season that any of us can remember. Pretty simple concept today. Most interesting people in football. We all have five. Could be anybody. Player, star player, role player, GM, coach, assistant coach,

whatever it is. It's just the people who are going to define this season will start with you, Eric, number one. A running back, right? Todd Gurley to unlock the Falcons offense. Actually, Kevin, you didn't mention running back specifically. So I'm not sure if running backs even qualified. We're doing a part two of just the 15 most important running backs in football. That's going to be when you come on our podcast. This is going to be where I find out that I can't name 15 running backs. we were going to focus on the on the next episode we're going to focus on how frank gore will affect and unlock sam darnald which i think is really a storyline that i think supersedes anything we're talking about

today all right eric eager number one so i i think that there are a few teams that are kind of locks to be where they're going to be this year which is like kansas city new orleans uh you know those teams, maybe even a little bit of San Francisco, like those teams are kind of going to be what they're going to be. They don't depend upon, you know, weak links and things like that the way that some of these teams do. But there are, but there are a few, the first player that I think can be a domino in the NFL this year is none other than Cameron Newton of the New England Patriots. I'm not surprised. I'm not surprised at all. In fact, I would go so far as to say that it was stolen. one.

Whoa. Stolen from whom? It was already trouble with the Bash brothers? All right. Eric, how good can the Patriots be? And this is post six opt-outs. This is obviously the expectations have been recalibrated because of that.

But Cam Newton, if he gets to be 2018, Cam Newton can do some relation things on offense. How good can this Patriots team be? Yeah, it's a really good question because last season they were second in basically percentage of drives on defense that ended their turnover, but even that regressed. Their front seven, you know, they lost, you know, they lost flowers two years ago.

Then now they lose Hightower, Collins and, you know, Patrick Chung and they lose Harmon as a role player in the secondary. But their, and their schedule is a lot harder than it was last year. So to me, I think if you get 2015 Cam Newton or even first half of 2018 Cam Newton, I think that the Patriots are warranted as being a favorite in the AFC East. If you get any perturbation off of that, so like if you get the second half of 18, you get the first couple games of last year, you get 2016 Cam Newton. I think that the AFC East is up for grabs and in a way that can really solidify sort of the

standings of teams like Baltimore and Kansas City, which I think a lot of people are handicapping as the top two seeds, I think New England can get in that conversation if they get something out of Newton this year that's sort of a little bit higher than what we're expecting. I love this one. I think it's a great one to start off with because I was going to say if Cam Newton is, I want to put a good percentage here. If he's 85% of Pete Cam Newton, there's a big part of me that thinks this Patriots team could be a pretty decent amount better than last year's Patriots team.

Because I thought last year's Patriots team was so poorly built to help Tom Brady be a good quarterback. He had no opportunities to throw to open receivers. And Cam Newton gives you that Lamar Jackson-esque element where you can run with the quarterback and you can force defenses to do things they don't want to do. But at the same time, you get like 30% of Pete Cam Newton. And are the Patriots looking at Trevor Lawrence, Justin Fields, Trey Lance.

The range of possibilities for the Patriots is so wide. That's what makes this Patriots team so funny to me because they would be in your group, Eric,

of guys that you go, they have no variance. I am pretty confident I know who they're going to be, right? And now that's not the case. Well, at least I don't think they are.

George, who's your number one interesting person? My number one, interesting person, are the Rogers. Ooh. And I'm cheating here.

because it's both Aaron and Goodell. Oh, okay. Yes. So I had to, I had to mention Goodell because of such a, what a weird season. You know, this is already shaping up to be. Of course. And just thinking about, man, I really hope we get to the Super Bowl, Roger Goodell's leadership, like to me is maybe the part of this thing that allows all of these other guys.

Leadership, leadership and huge quotation marks. The biggest quotation marks we've ever seen. Right. Actually, like having, you know, strong leadership is going to be key. And I don't think that's too far off from the other Rogers, Aaron Rogers, who like, no matter how you feel about how he's played and there are a lot of objective measures that say he really hasn't been as good as Aaron Rogers can be over the past five years, the league is better with him being great. and if he is a leader and like uplifts the players on his team as opposed to kind of saying you know what you guys drafted a quarterback screw you all I think those two guys showing that ability has a huge positive effect on the league I mean Rogers it was interesting we were talking to Josh Hermesmeyer the other day

and he was talking about DeMonte Adams how great he was and he brought up like he's so good why aren't his stats better and I thought that was really interesting you know like Can Rogers start taking the guys that are pluses on his team and really building them up and get back to being a top five quarterback? Same question I had with Eric with your number one, George. How good can this Packers team be? Because I think the NFC, I think, unfortunately, from an entertainment standpoint, we saw what happened when the Packers played in the NFC championship game and how much, how huge that Gulf is. And we saw that twice, actually, in 2019. The Samfonskiv 49ers are a lot better than the Greenwood Packers as of right now.

Are they still there? Did they make any leaps or are they going to regress a little bit? Well, 13 and 3 is a farce. You know, like they're not that good of a team. They weren't that good of a team last year. Now, the whole draft thing, and Eric talks about this a lot, and I give them a lot of credit for pointing this out, like that speaks to down the road, maybe how you feel this team will be.

How much it really impacts them this year, okay, they didn't get like a ton better, but how much better is a rookie going to make you this year? And it was Denzel Mims turning this team around? No. So I think that the Packers can win that division again. And I say that because most people are kind of like, oh yeah, of course they're going to win the division. No, of course. That's not the case at all.

Like the lions are good. The Vikings are good. The Bears are not good. Hang on. Hang on. I wouldn't say the lions have a good. chance to win the NFC North. They are not good. What is going on on this show? We are eight minutes in. We're at the Lions are good.

Just off the rails. You guys have, you guys have horrible definitions of good. I'm sorry. All right. All right. Let's let's unpack what is your definition of good? Capable of winning 10 games? Yeah. Okay. Okay. And what percentage chance? Eric, you know, but, but we've seen, look, every single year, there's a team that's not that good that wins 10 games. You know, like, you look at like Buffalo last year. Buffalo, I would say if you weigh the quarterback properly, we're not a good team last year. When you look at, you know, I think, I think Denver's going to win 10 games this year and not

be very good. Like, I think they have a good chance of winning the NFC North. Let me define it this way then. They can legitimately win 10 games because they could legitimately have a top seven offense. So, oh, okay. I'm actually surprised by this take. I did not see this happening. I think that they could be good.

I mean, on offense, for sure. I mean, they were a 500 team and almost all their games were sort of like one score games when Stafford was playing. And, you know, when he got out, they were, they, you know, lost base. They were, what, 0 and 8 without him. I think defensively, there's, it's a tough yarn to spin, but they do get Desmond Troufant. They get Daran Harmon, Trey Flowers, you know, uh, Jamie Collins. like they have a shot. I would just say it's mostly about the NFC North being pretty poor on the top.

Yeah. I'm, I'm fascinated. I mean, Darrell Bevel, Matt Patricia. I mean, I think Matt, I think that the Lions can see what we could win 10 games because I love Matt

Patricia. That's Matt Patricia. Oh my God. I don't love Matt Patricia. I love Matt Stafford. But I equally think that there's as good a chance of Matt Patricia's first coach fired. I agree. There is a massive fork in the road.

This is like John, John Kasich sitting at that crossroads there. And just imagine that, except it's first coach fired or 10 wins. But if we got to week eight and the lines were in first and the Packers were in third or fourth, like I wouldn't be surprised. And one of the things in picking these players, I was thinking about guys where there's a lot of variance, you know? And Rogers being a top five quarterback again lifts this team really far. And him being 10 through 12, that this team isn't good enough to pick.

pick up that slack. George, when was the last time Rogers was good enough to turn a team like this into a legitimate Super Bowl contender? Because that's like kind of where I rest is, I think 2014, obviously, the MVP of the league. 2015, if he plays like he did in 2015, that's not good enough. No. last year. They were not, like they, they, they're, if you look at the teams, they were in a different

class in Baltimore, different class in Kansas City, different class in the San Francisco 49ers. There were clearly below those. If they're to leap into that group, how good does, like, what comparison to Rogers do we have to make? So if we go, if we look at, let's say 2014, you know, that was his highest graded season for us. If you have in Fuego Rogers, does that, and maybe we'll talk about this guy, at some point too, does that take Matt LaFleur and say, look, buddy, let Rogers do his thing.

Stop with this exotic smash mouth or whatever it is that you're preparing to do with, you know, eight fullbacks and AJ Dillon's. Mike Mularky died for this. Yes, exactly. Like, does that, because I thought one of the big problems last year was we talked way too much about how much Aaron Jones was lifting up that Packers offense and not enough about how their passing game needs to be more elite if that's where you're going to invest your money, and that's where their money is invested with Rogers.

So if you have that guy to me, that can turn around the whole way this team plays football. And I'm not saying that they are a Super Bowl contender, but I mean, we talk about this, right? In the playoffs, if a guy gets hot and is there anyone besides Patrick Mahomes that if they were hot and they were on fire and they're at their peak, you're more scared of than Aaron Rogers. I don't know we haven't seen it for like five years. Hey, it's in there somewhere. I'll say this. That's better than some quarterbacks.

Analytics guys are particularly scared when Rogers gets hot just because their Twitter mentions. It's just like, you don't want to be an anti-Roggers guy when Aaron Rogers completes a deep pass. That's how Twitter works now. All right. My number one most interesting person, because again, Eric, you made the point. There's a nailed-on group at the top of football. Kansas City. We know what they look like.

Baltimore. We know at least that they're going to be one of the top two teams in the FACC and probably from our perspective, one of the top two teams in football. New Orleans. We get it. San Francisco. I think the most interesting person who can,

who's capable of getting a team in that group is Mr. Pete Carroll. Because here's why. And I think you know what I'm going to say. But this is a let Russ Cook segment. That's important to get out here. You know, Warren Sharp put together his guide, and he pointed out a couple of things about Russell Wilson. Number one is it is expected completion percentage based on tracking data has been bottom five in the NFL the last two years.

He's not supposed to complete passes, and he does. There is not a lot of separation. Receivers haven't been very good. And yet he has become a magician. That's what he is. And it's a matter of fact thing. His ability to complete passes when he shouldn't. his completion percentage over expectation has been top five in the NFL in both of those seasons.

Now, we know how good Russell Wilson is. That's not over debate. And now what Pete Carroll has done with him is a matter of debate. And that's why we keep talking about this. So Russell Wilson has come out and said he wants everything to be like the fourth quarter. And what he means by that is the fourth quarter is when the Seahawks start getting aggressive. And they have an incredible stat. They are 57 and 0 when leading by four more points at halftime.

But that's true of almost every team, right? That's, that's, if you lead a half time, you are going to win games. That's just, for God's sakes. I mean, that's a major. Only, only Chuck Baganos, Colts have failed that, have failed that metric. I remember, like Joe Banner used to say this all the time with Andy Reid, like Andy Reid, a huge halftime lead guy, okay? That's what you do.

You get a halftime lead and then you win. Pete Carroll apparently does not believe in this. Okay. and in Warren Sharp has from weeks 1 through 13, the Seahawks trailed at halftime in seven games, and Wilson willed them back in the second half in six of those seven games, including twice in overtime. So Russell Wilson is the exception to the rule.

He is able to erase second half deficits when nobody else is, really. I mean, we've seen some outlier seasons. Derek Carr did it a couple years ago. Matthew Stafford did it a couple years ago. I mean, that was 2016 season. when they had all these crazy comebacks. But Russell Wilson is able to overcome the situation he's put in,

which is not having a halftime lead, but that's not repeatable. Get a halftime lead. This should not be hard. Be aggressive in the first half. You have a quarterback who can do things. You shouldn't be able to do and overcome his circumstances. If Pete Carroll,

and I'm, listen, I think Pete Carroll was a really good coach. This is something we've talked about all the time. I think his ability to build a culture there is great. I think his ability to, I think taking that job in, 2009 when he did it, I think that that was a building job. I think he's been underrated by how much success he's had. He came into a pretty pedestrian job and built a, in the beginning of this decade looked like a super team. And he ended up winning one super bowl. Should have won more.

But he's a really good coach. But I feel like a little bit of a philosophy change could get this Seahawks team 12 wins. I don't know. I mean, we got to remember. This team did not have that philosophy last year and they were a couple of yards away from winning the division over a team that made the Super Bowl pretty convincingly. Where are we on the Seahawks guys? They were a team that had a seven point differential in terms of score last year. And so like, but at the same time, like you said, we're a yard away from, you know, basically, you know, competing for like the three seat in the conference. I agree with you. I think that this is a separate, an issue separate of building a group.

Like the interesting thing with them in 2010 and 2011 is like they had something like 500 transactions or whatever. Yeah. Like he was finding Carroll guys and you look at that team and we've always been like more high on them because like I think we overrated stars a little bit. But like the Wagners of the world, the Earls of the world, Richard Sherman. He's there, Doug Baldwin. And like they've done a good job of like being stars and then the adding the scrubs that I think can actually like help them win. But the hard part with the Cocks is I think that they have to improve fundamentally this year to stay the same record wise. And, you know, because the division gets tougher, you know, just the way that like sort of things work in terms of regression.

So does, does Jamal Adams give them that? Does Quentin Dunbar give them that? does a little bit of passing more on early downs get them that? Maybe. But we've also seen, like, to Warren's point, an outlier season in terms of being able to pass. I mean, we're only a couple years away from like, you know, the rumors that he was on the trade block, right? Like, if he regresses even a little bit to 1617, what becomes of the Seahawks? Well, here would be my question to you, Kevin, on this is like you mentioned the teams that are nailed to the top.

would you nail Pete Carroll's mindset also in that same category? Because, and you bring up a great point. And I would just say, look, here are the teams that the group of teams that ran 600 or more plays when trailing last year. The Jaguars, the Bengals, the Giants, the Panthers, the Falcons, my Falcons, our Falcons, the dolphins, the Redskins, the Eagles, and the Seahawks. Those teams all pretty much suck, right? but he saw he always looks at the results and goes oh yeah that that's going to can you know that's going to confirm my my way of playing they go get jamal adams does this only make the i need to run

the ball i need to kick field goals on fourth and one i need to keep russ out of the kitchen does that just make that mindset more in it like just set in in stone i don't know i mean the weird paradox here is that pete carroll is totally in tune with the outside world. He knows what everybody is saying about his football team and him and the way that that offense is run. And so I'm sure he's seen the research. I'm sure he's heard the calls. And now obviously Russell Wilson himself has said it. He is he is not, I believe he is not retweeted the phrase let Russ Cook. I believe he made that that that that that proclamation. He is not specifically endorsed that hashtag, but he might as well have with with some of his comments,

this training camp. But I think that Pete Carroll at some point has to say, why don't we just try this? And Sam Monson was on this very podcast a couple weeks ago. And he did make an argument kind of against, a little bit against the let Russ cook thing, just in the sense that when he has a higher volume of throws, the success is not like a Patrick Mahomes, just a little bit different. But I think that you have to give him, maybe you don't give him a kitchen to himself because I think Pete Carroll is a little bit uncomfortable. with that. But let's just let's let's let's let them have some dishes here. Okay. Let's let them have some dishes 2020. What I would almost want to see from Wilson though is like the same number of attempts but this distributed differently. Like Sam brings up the stat about the number of throws. But that's true of like almost every quarterback except for maybe Mahomes. Like if if you're throwing the ball a lot from quarter one to four, that means you're playing a team that's good enough to go

toe to toe with you, specifically Russell Wilson from quarter one to four. I mean, if they, like last season, again, this is not a great example because they're not in the same class. But if you were, let's say, Minnesota and you're Kirk Cousins and you're throwing the ball 450 times last year instead of

600, people are gravitating and say, well, they were a run first offense. Well, no, they were a team that played well against some bad competition, got leads, and then, you know, ran the ball out of, you know, the ball for like the last two quarters of the game. If I'm Seattle, I got to think about, okay, I want Wilson to throw the same

number of passes. I just want them to be in quarters one, two, and three. And I want to get a lead and not have to rely on him late in games. I think that's more to George's point, which is that the, they sort of run to get behind and throw to get ahead. And it's like, well, why don't you just throw to get ahead at the beginning of the game? Yeah, it is, this debate will never end. It will never end because it's almost unanswerable unless Pete Carroll changes his philosophy dramatically. Sports are finally back and the only way to celebrate their return is with Buffalo Wild Wings. There's no fans in the crowd, but that doesn't mean real fans aren't at home cheering louder than ever from the edge of their seat. And they can still get that sports bar feeling with wings from B-dos.

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and not valid with any other offer. All right, Eric, number two. So for me, this goes against a little bit of, of, you know, the nailed on the wall here. Because I think, I think Lamar Jackson is still in this list. And here's a couple reasons why. When I look at the, when I look at the Baltimore Ravens relative to a team like Kansas City and even a team like New Orleans, I see it being a more of a system than anything. They only, like last season, it was something like a third to two-fiths of their payroll was offense. So they put a lot of eggs in the defensive basket, right?

And, you know, we saw the good of Marlon Humper. You saw the good of Marcus Peters. We saw Earl Thomas, you know, stay out of, we saw a pass rush that was good enough. And then they, you know, Chuck Clark had something like 100 pass rush plays last year. Those are, those are defense is a weak link system. If any of those things go down, now you're talking about more pressure on Lamar, who was sort of the other side of Wilson last year played less snaps when behind than anybody else. And so, like, if, because we know Kansas City has sort of spanned the space of game outcomes.

They've been ahead. They've been behind. They've done all these things. And Andy Reed and Patrick Mahomes have answered the call at every stage. When I look at Baltimore, I still, there's still half of those situations that I need to be answered. that need to be answered in the affirmative before I consider them in a one B in the AFC. George, break this time. Where are you in the Ravens?

Man, it's tough because I love Lamar Jackson and I love the, like, ethos of the Ravens so much. And I can tell you do it too because you're wearing a purple shirt. You're showing your true colors there. Yeah, that's it. He's not a Vikings fan. I didn't even, I didn't even cross my mind. Where I'm at with the Ravens is can we be, can they be okay with winning, you know, with not winning as many games and improving in some areas that they need to improve in in order to win, you know, when it really matters in the playoffs, even if they're dealt a bad hand. What were those areas last year to improve on?

Well, you just have to be able to drop back and pass. Yeah. Right? You, you, when you know, when the defense knows, hey, Lamar Jackson is going to take a five-step drop and throw the ball, and I'm not worried about anything else. Can they do that? And if you can, if you can find a way to like troubleshoot those things throughout the season, because you're probably not doing that in the off season, and then get to the, you know, and you can put up with taking a few lumps in the season, to me, that would be how I'd be attacking it. And I'd be saying, look, all that matters, last year, what mattered to. to them was proving, hey, no matter who comes into our house, no matter where we play, we're going to stop on you guys, right? It was like a statement season. Now the statement doesn't, there's no statements to be made until the playoffs happen. And that's where things need to improve. I mean, look, Lamar Jackson, as incredible as he was, his accuracy went from

basically Josh Allen territory, really, really bad, to not so bad. But he had guys open. He's running for seven yards of pop. No one can tackle the guy. And that makes up in leaps and bounds for efficiency that you lose when you're not that accurate. If he can take that up a little bit more, right, he can just be a little bit more accurate. He can drop back and throw. It doesn't have to worry about threatening with the run as much. To me, that's how you get them, how they go from, yeah, they're dangerous in the regular season. But when we get to the playoffs, you're not worried about it.

So let me ask you the question. So John Harbaugh comes out and says the next step for Lamar Jackson is deep passing. And I think he's capable of becoming a really good deep pass. when you consider that the stress he puts on defenses and just how flat-footed defenses can be against him. Because listen, I talked to a lot of guys last year who played against Lamar Jackson or played with Lamar Jackson. And they said that these linebackers are looking over to the sideline being like, what am I doing here?

Most reminds me when they were describing it almost like, I'm a huge fight fan. And it reminds me of when someone just getting their ass kicked and they're just looking over to their corner, like, what am I supposed to do? do, you know? And that was the way people described how defense would react to Lamar Jackson last year. I think that continues in perpetuity as long as he's healthy. So you take that confusion and you start deep passing on it. And I'm curious what you guys know the data more than me, how good of a deep pass or how many times just you need to connect per game for that to become valuable versus, you know, the whole thing in soccer used to be if you take a long shot,

if as long as you connect on one of every eight shots and score a goal, it's worth it to shoot from anywhere. Like the old Stephen Gerard thing, right? That was the old data thing. Is there a deep passing kind of baseline where if he connects X amount, then he's valuable, even if he's not, even if he's not,

you know, 85% on throws over 30 yards like Kyle Murray was last year? Well, it's interesting, and I bet Eric is doing something right now to figure some of this out. So I'll give him a minute to do that and say that actually, Lamar Jackson was above average in terms of just ball location accuracy on throws 20 plus yards down field.

And that was really the one area past the line of scrimmage where he separated himself. So it's interesting that Harbaugh says that. To me, I hear that and I go, yeah, deep passing is great and sure, let's throw it more. But that still makes up for at most maybe 15% of your throws where he needs to really make strides is zero to nine yards he needs to be above average or at least average and not below average 10 to 19 yards he needs to be above average and not below average that's where the meat of those throws are and to your point like if you're going to take advantage of the guy of the linebackers looking over to the sideline going please help me god you know throw in the towel um you've got to be

able to hit guys in that intermediate range yeah no it's interesting Eric yeah yeah he's He was, I mean, he was somebody last season who sort of middle of the pack in terms of, you know, accuracy on deep balls, you know, just like pure accuracy. But then as George said, the ball placement stuff, even put him in a better vein. He had 11 touchdowns on passes that traveled more than 20 yards down field. You know, and then he actually did it, you know, the percentage of his passes, something like 13, 14 percent was top 10 in the league. So he, I don't think that that was really his, his biggest issue. you know, when I look at, when I look at, you know, Lamar Jackson, I'm thinking about, you know, the intermediate stuff where he, I don't know, like, I'm trying to think of, I'm trying to look at where he currently was, but, but yeah, I mean, yeah, so 20th middle of the league in terms of, in terms of very accurate passes in the, you know, accurate plus accurate passes sort of in the 10 to 19 range. That's really where like quarterback separate themselves year to year. I mean, you look at Tannahill a season ago. That's where you. You saw his efficiency jump, you know, Stafford, Cousins, even James.

Like, that's why James led the league in passing yards because he's hitting those intermediate passes. And, you know, I just need to see when the Ravens are a team that, like the Ravens are a team that when they want to throw are really good. When they have to throw, it's, it's a little rough. And part of it starts with, and I don't think it's Lamar's fault. I mean, you need Miles Boykin to emerge. You need Devin Duvonne.

Howlode Brown is going to be. healthy this year. Yeah, you need Devin Duverne, James Prochet, a couple rookies that I kind of like. You need them to emerge. Like, you know, I'm being a little bit unfair to Lamar when he's thrown to Willie Sneed all the time, you know, kind of

disparaging his ability. No Willie Seed Guff, please. Okay. But, you know, but at the same time, like, you know, that's just my issue is like when another team knows you have to throw, like how efficient can you be on offense? Because last season, it just wasn't there as

much for them. And so it's not it's not so much a he sucks at it. It's more of a there's just more unknown. I mean, he was our highest graded. He had the highest passing grade of any quarterback when leading when trailing he was 28th. There's no bigger drop off. And so. Thank God. Thank God. Pete Carroll is not his head coach. I mean, we'd be in, it would be a deep and dark, uh, conversation if that was the case. But I mean, when you think about throwing, when you think about throwing the ball deep when someone knows you need to versus when they're just holding on for dear life. I mean, that I think says it all. And look, we saw him make and we saw the Ravens make a quantum leap last year. So I'm not going to sit here and go, oh, I don't think they can make it because

they're about as, you know, with the exception of what wide receiver, and you mentioned Hollywood Brown, they're about as talented a team as there is out there, right? Yeah, I totally agree. All right, George, who's your number two? I've been waiting for this moment. It is Kyle Shanahan. Yes. It is my guy, Kyle Shanahan. And the reason that I picked Shanahan over Jimmy G.

Is that I just think it's Shanahan. If Shanahan approaches Jimmy G's season the way he needs to approach it, he can unlock all the things for him. And that's schematically, obviously, as well. But there's such a narrative out there about how Kyle Shanahan did not trust Jimmy G. In the playoffs, in the Super Bowl. And that needs to be stomped out with, like, the most fury of anything. You could stop one narrative out.

And you're a San Francisco 49ers fan. Like, that's the one that you just have to kill. And I think that there is a real chance that the Niners go, you know, what we have to do, we have to establish the living hell out of the run. And to me, that would be doing the wrong thing because last year they were more efficient. They were a more efficient team throwing the ball in terms of looking at the league overall where they ranked versus where they ranked running the ball. And I know that shocks people to hell. but they were a top five passing offense in terms of expected points out of play, and they were, I want to say, like, 10th or 11th in running the ball.

And that will shock people, but that to me is the key for them being successful this year. They need to keep that up because there's going to be defensive regression. I mean, I love Robert Salo as much as the next guy, but you're going to regress defensively. That's just what we know about defense. and for them to pick up that slack, it's got to be throwing the ball. I mean, we've seen him do it too. That's the thing in that New Orleans game, which I thought was maybe the most exciting, most fun to watch game of the year.

Eric would disagree with me, but whatever. They did. They believed in Jimmy G. They threw the ball, and it was impressive as hell. So Kyle Shanahan's decision on how to treat the 49ers offense and Jimmy G., to me, we'll go a long way towards how this season looks. Eric? Yeah, it's a good one.

I mean, they were, I think, like, 14th in success rate at running the football. You know, if you just look at percentage of runs that got positive, expected points, they were like top five in terms of expected points, which was, you know, just says that there were a lot of long breaking runs. And, you know, while I think Shanahan's pension for supporting really fast running backs helps that, it's not necessarily something that's sustainable year to year. I think the success rate bit is probably a little bit, you know, something to glue on to. So if they become a run on early downs team and a hope Jimmy G. can convert on late downs, especially given that their wide

receiver situation is, you know, earmuffs George, bad, then, you know, I think that, I think that's going to be a recipe for a little bit of regression there, especially given that I think that their defense might not be necessarily the most brilliant thing in the world this year just because of the way defenses work. So I agree with George. I think this is the year where, you know, Shanahan leans on Jimmy G. And we find out if he, you know, as a quarterback that can support a Super Bowl offense or if he is kind of like more in that Kirk Cousins range. I almost put Brandon Ayuk on this list. And here's why, because he is going to be with Jalen Hurd going down and, Debo Samuel being out for at least a little bit, he's got to be pretty good right away.

And I think he can be. Danny Kelly's been talking him up since January or whatever it is. And I think it's going to be interesting. Kittles got that big contract now. I'm intrigued to see this, but I think that when you have one of the top two play callers in the NFL, and I think you have a pretty talented roster, and you have an executive in John Lynch, and we'll get to executives here a little bit later. But I think that when you have, this is a year of scheme, talent,

and having adaptable executives we're able to make really quick, good decisions when things go off the rails. And I think for some teams, they will. So I like the Niners, and I, these are all very good points. All right. Next one for me, Mr. Ben Rathesberger.

So, Aaron Chats, in his football, Outsiders Guide did the biggest offensive declines in history, or since 1986, since I was born. And the Steelers last year were the fourth biggest of all time. 2010, Arizona, 2005, Jets, 2006 Seahawks are the only three teams above that. This is the value of Ben Rathsburger. I've often joked about the fact that we should award retroactive MVP. like remember when Earl Thomas left the Seahawks for one game

and they just stopped being able to play football. I mean, that's the kind of thing. We see this with linemen sometimes. Like, you know, every time Lane Johnson goes out of the game, Carson went, you know, looks rough for a little bit. Ben Rathesberger should be in the MVP conversation retroactively for some of these years now. Obviously, the Steelers changed their philosophy on some of these things.

They played more sixth linemen on the field. They continue, by the way, Shatsman at this point, to be bad at play action. So it's not just a Rothensberger thing. It's just, it's just, the Steelers will just never be good to play action. But, you know, your Sam Monson made the point that this defense, the Stewards defense, is ready to win now because there's no turnover in the COVID off season for them. They have Minkup Fitzpatrick who's obviously very good. In 2011, when they had no train, when every team had no training camp and an abbreviated free agency and trouble signing players, the most analogous season to this year, defenses were.

were flat-footed early in the season and the offenses had the advantage and the ability to have a defense that creates turnovers, the ability to create plays and just have no turnover, be able to hit the ground running, have really good coaching staff who I think proved themselves even more last year. I think the Steelers team, if Ben Rothsburg, gets back to health and normal production can be very, very good. Do you remember the opening night in 2011 was like a 45-40 game between like Green Bay and New Orleans? It was like the start of that whole season. and being like cam newton through for like 500 yards this first two starts it was like i feel like if that's what we get in september it'll be a lot of fun can i tell you a small trivia question a small

trivia question that is the night i met my wife so there you go i met my wife that night really yeah yeah were you guys both watching the game or no i missed the game i remember thinking like i can either go to this work event or watch randle cow go for 230 yards Mark Ingram gets stuffed in the last play of the game. Those are the days. Man, you'll never get that game back. I'll never get it back. I'll never get it back.

I watch it over and over again. Randall Cobb's breakout. Randall Cobb's breakout. All right, guys, where are we on the Steelers? I am, I thought that was a very interesting choice because there wasn't a lower graded quarterback room in PFF grade than the Steelers as a whole. with Duck Hodges and Mason Rudolph, which is funny to think about, man, like going back and thinking about going into some of those games, you know what, if Duck Hodges can just

be decent, man, the Steelers could really, they could win this one. I remember thinking that against the bills and that did not pan out for me. That was a low point. I wonder, though, with Ben Rathosberger, how much of Ben Rathosberger being great was having the best receiver in the NFL on his team. And what will he look like without that? This gets to sort of maybe the difference in why, you know, bless Aaron, you know, he, like there, a lot of their derivations are based upon, you know, efficiencies and ours

might be based partially on efficiencies but partially on grades. Big Ben did not grade particularly well for a quarterback that threw for 5,000 yards in 2018. And I think a lot of that, you know, when you look at Antonio Brown, progressing a little bit in 18. Smith Schuster was great, but like sort of the plays, you know, he was more of a, I would say like the throws that Rotherspurger was getting that were getting the yardage were more receiver driven in that year. And then, you know, early on last season, he didn't particularly grade while in the game

and a half he had. So when I look at, when I look at that, that team, I'm sort of thinking, okay, yes, if Big Ben, and I, that's why he should be included in this list, I think this is a great point. if Big Ben can support a really good offense. And Pittsburgh doesn't decline defensively as much as a lot of teams do. Like they were first in the NFL and turnovers generated per drive. Like they were awesome. Their secondary all comes back.

They were mostly healthy a season ago. If they stay healthy, they could change the complexion of the AFC because no longer is the AFC North, Baltimore, and then a bunch of crap. We have Cleveland's probably going to be okay. They have a really easy schedule. They have a pretty good head coach by my estimation. Cincinnati's probably going to be okay. If you look at that offense, there's a lot of firepower there and they rebuilt their defense.

And Pittsburgh. Like if Pittsburgh is good, then that changes the complexion of the AFC because there are other teams, you know, that are in much easier divisions. It lowers Baltimore straits and, you know, causes kind of a, you know, a cluster for that like probably number two seed. Who has more question marks? Because I think you could make this same, a very similar argument for Baker Mayfield being on this list. I agree. I have a Cleveland candidate as well here. I just, I'm excited.

I think that there are, there is every capability that the AFC North, if things break right, could have three playoff teams this year. I would not be surprised by that at all. In fact, when I make my predictions in a couple weeks here, that that might be the The AFC is going to be very weird for me, and I think that I really like the Browns. But I just, I feel like the Steelers in a really crappy season last year to show me something. No, I think, you know, there were tons of talk with us about like Mike Tomlin kind of being on the decline. They don't, they don't play.

Like, if you look at like fourth down decisions and all that stuff, they're not particularly good. You know, Rathusberger, you know, had declined in our, like, there was a lot of like questions that we, I think, rightfully had about the Steelers going in the last year. And then of course, they almost like, they almost went over their season win total.

They almost made the playoffs, all this kind of stuff. Yeah, I do agree that like they showed us something. The only issue I have is, I do think Big Ben is going to improve things substantially on offense, obviously, but does,

is that enough to correct some of the, like their defense was outrageous last year. Like there's, you know, and, you know, to a point where like the turnovers they generated, the field position they gave,

the opposition or themselves, it was so, you know, their offense could lean into the game and still score enough points to win some of them. If that, if that gets worse, whether it be due to injuries or COVID or, you know,

whatever, is Big Ben good enough to sort of avoid the mistakes that he was making in 18 and the reason why they finished, you know, nine and seven or whatever that was? Yeah. It's also the one outstanding question I have to go along with that is that Fenrnathsburg is old and at some point production stops and at some point he's too banged

up but let's for the sake of my argument which is we'll just put a pin in that and does he have the big Ben method is the big Ben method coming out the exact opposite of the CB12 method what did he say he was like I do I drink a beer night and do yoga once a week well look at least the effects of beer every night are well known and not fake he he got to halftime with a lead and said, you know what? Thanks, guys. Packing this one in. All right.

Let's get to your third one, Eric. I'm going to go with Mike McCarthy of the Dallas Cowboys. Yeah. I have a Cowboys one that I'll draft off of this one, but go ahead. Yeah. I mean, I think McCarthy has the opportunity to be one of the greatest comeback stories in modern league history. Were you guys around when he visited PFF?

offices? We were the ones. What do you think he visited? Okay. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. All right. So let's get the inside story on this. McCarthy, McCarthy actually gave us like a couple. Like he just gave like us some fun things to study. For one, just stuff he would say. But to me, here's the, here's the, the anecdote that I will, I will give out for McCarthy as far as like, I really respect this. When he was head coach for the Green Bay Packers, he called play. all but one half of one season.

2015, Tom Clement called plays, and they were so bad by midseason he took over again. Takes over Dallas Cowboys, and, you know, that team was a cluster last year. But what they did do is they led the league in yards per play. And he said, you know, he said to himself, I have a lot to learn from Kellynne Moore. And the whole process of, you know,

whether it's, you know, his interview with Peter King, his meeting with us, like all that stuff. there was a sense of, there was a sense of like, I need to get back to the drawing board about football. And, and I feel like that's a, that's a virtue that is lacking in a significant fraction of people who have any sort of power in the NFL. I will give, I will piggyback on your anecdote with the anecdote from him coming to visit us that stuck out to me, which was, he chartered a plane to bring himself and his group of decision makers to Cincinnati, Ohio, on purpose.

No one's ever done that, by the way. Cincinnati, Ohio has never been the... I mean, look, and I know he's a wealthy man because he's made a lot of money. But, like, to do that shows what Eric was saying, his commitment, I think, to trying to innovate. And what we see is the coaches that are successful, and there's probably no better example of this than, you know, than Andy Reid. And we talk about Kyle Shanahan, guys who continue to get.

try and get better and continue to try and innovate on what they're doing. And you're right, Eric, if he can actually put that, you know, actually put that into motion on the field, the potential is there because of what we already saw with Dallas and Jason Garrett last year, right? Like you go from Jason Garrett, who God bless his heart, but like some of those decisions, you know, they're kind of timidness as a team like when it mattered. if that goes away, that'd be exciting. Okay, I want to quickly get to my Cowboys one,

and they'll have a broader Cowboys discussion. Okay, so my interesting people, it's a group, it's Jalen Rieger and Cid Lamb, NFC East rookie receivers. And I think that grouping those guys is important because if either of them has a really good season this year, that can mean a lot for that division. So quickly on the Eagles, Carson Wentz last year became the first,

the first quarterback to have 4,000. passing yards, not a 500-yard receiver. Miles Sanders got 509 yards, but that wasn't, he's not a receiver. So that's what they were doing with last year. To have a first-round elite talent like that changes things. The Eagles really addressed athleticism in the draft. I think that they were the most athletic. Next-Gen stats has an athleticism score.

I think the Eagles were number one in that for the draft class this year. And I just kind of like what they're doing. Now, C.D. Lamb. Michael Irvin compared to C.D. Lamb coming to the Cowboys. to Kevin Durant joining the Warriors. I'm going to press pause on that particular conversation. No, that seems spot off. No, that's it.

No, that's it. PFF, you guys have CD-LAM. I thought this is interesting. His force mistackle per reception ranked second in college last year. Yards after the catch per reception was 11, which is third among receivers who were high volume last year in college. We've seen the value of being able to break a tackle. at this level and all sorts of players can do it.

You don't have to be George Kittle. You can be A.J. Brown and going back, Golden Tate was a bit like that and created value by being able to mall guys in the open field. So I really like what this Cowboys team can do. Having brought up Mike McCarthy, Eric, and knowing Mike McCarthy, as you guys have, what are your expectations for the Cowboys? Is it, are they, could they get into the top of the top?

What we've been talking about? one of the most interesting stats from last season, and I think this speaks to your CD-LAM, you know, bring up. Randall Cobb averaged 10.5 yards per target last year, despite dropping nine passes. They were scheming Randall,

the corpse of Randall Cobb open last year. You stop. And Amari Cooper, Michael Gallup, obviously, they had, you know, Jarwin was actually a really efficient tight end

on a per-out basis, but then they didn't have him. him on the field as much as Witten, that type of thing. Like, I, this season is going to be a really, like, interesting, uh, litmus test for how do, you know, how do we, in cards, it'd be like, uh, basic strategy. Like, the, the value of basic strategy, because I think him coming in, keeping Kellen Moore in the fold, I think there probably has to be some regression out of DAC, but he also led the league last year in number of drop passes by a quarterback.

Like, I think if those things come together, their defense actually regressed. If you get Jalen Smith, Leighton Van der Esch and company playing like they did in 2018, like this is a team that could challenge for the one seed in the NFC. And because their division is so weak with the football team and the Giants on the bottom end, like, I think, I think this is a team that has a pretty high ceiling. I would, I'm going to go ahead and give you my third guy because it's DAC. And I'll start by saying if this warrant as offseason with a pandemic, I would have no problem saying that the Cowboys are right in that second tier of Super Bowl contenders. That being said, continuity matters.

And so I'm going to say that going into next season, they are that trendy pick to be a Super Bowl winner. I mean, provided they re-signed DAC, right? That's like the trickiest thing of this entire bit. That's why DAC is my guy because DAC last year was good. He improved in an area that we had to see him improve. He took so many sacks the season before. And he cut down on that dramatically last year. But he still has room to improve.

He still, he graded in the low 80s. His accuracy was average. And yes, they managed to perform really well because he didn't take as many sacks and because Kellamore was scheming guys open. him because he had two bona fide number ones like michael gallop is the guy that they isolate seth galena pointed this out to me they isolate step uh they isolate michael gallop on the outside so they single him up he's the guy out there just killing you know uh in one-on-one situations and now they have three potentially three number one wide receivers you have a top two three three four

tackle duo you have mike mccarthy and kellen more as your coaches Like, it says something to do, to be pretty good when you have, you know, pieces around you, but can DAC deliver when everyone expects him to deliver? And if so, like, is this the beginning of a Dallas Cowboys dynasty? Or is Dak Prescott playing for the Jaguars next year? That's a crossroads, I guess you could say. Well, I think the big thing is, is also with his uncertainty, it kind of leaves Dallas open to doing some things that I think would be, you know, indebted. of that. Like, they should be running him more on designed plays. He's an extremely good athlete. We know that running quarterbacks increase the value, you know, they, they increase

the yards per carry of the running back next to them on an expected, you know, yards per carry, expected points basis. Like, this season, they could also just throw the kitchen sink at it with respect to DAC because there isn't that like long term liability on his, his end either. I'm curious, guys, because, you know, listen, I've talked to a lot of people in the analyst community over the past five years. And a lot of them have said when they meet with coaches or GMs who have been established that they take the meeting, even if they work for the same team. They take the meeting and then they realize that either don't want to understand analytics or want to have a very narrow view of analytics or, you know, we'll just want to know, hey, how many,

I remember, I don't know if I've told the story before, but I remember an analytics guy told me that he couldn't, he worked for a team and he couldn't get his head coach's attention or anybody. this is 20, 13, 2014, couldn't get anybody's attention on the coaching staff. And then one day, coach walked in and analyst guy, get all excited. And the coach said, can you tell me how often a team wins when they win the turnover battle? And the only guy was like, okay. Like, this guy's sitting on like, you know, millions of data points. He could tell them anything in the world.

And all this guy wants to know is like, I really want to. part of my team how important the turnover battle is, right? So that's a long way of saying that not everybody has bought it, right? My question to you guys is, and I actually don't know how Mike McCarthy interacted with the analytic staff at Green Bear, whether he used it. But when you met with Mike, how open did he seem to change? How much did he embrace it in that meeting and what stood out to you guys just as far as him changing his worldview this year as opposed to maybe three years ago?

I think that he's always been open to it. I mean, they had somebody who, you know, who has since retired, but they've had somebody on their staff as a football researcher for as long as he's been there. You know, our friend Ben Baldwin pointed this out. It's like they went for fourth downs at a pretty okay rate. There were some high profile ones, the Seattle one on a Thursday night football game was not great. But like he was, I think, a little bit ahead of the curve. I think where his issues were and where he was looking for answers was schematically.

You know, I think the basic strategy he's fine with. it was more of a, you know, things got stale with, with Rogers, you know, it's, it's really this, this interesting thing that happens when you have a quarterback of that ilk. You know, Andy Reed has seemed to create a system that is super creative, but also leans into the improvisation of Patrick Mahomes. There are other guys who are sort of more on the, on the very restrictive end. And there was probably a case where having to coach Favre and having to coach Rogers for a decade, you know, made it was like, well, why do I even scheme up something creative when

Aaron doesn't even buy into it? Like, he's just going to, he's not even going to look for that first read. And I think that there was some staleness that came along with that. To me, like, that's where the openness was. The openness was to sort of look backward and say, you know, I got, I got, you know, things got kind of flat here because of the circumstances I was in and eventually got swept up in it, you know, getting a restart, I think was extremely important for him. I got the sense that in just listening to him, and he asked us questions, you know, he pushed back on things. Like he wasn't going through the motions just to do it. Like he clearly wanted to try and get better.

And it gave me the sense of maybe I played it too safe. Maybe I was too worried about failing, which being risk averse is like it's a pandemic in the NFL coaching society. Right. And maybe it's time to just to toss that away and to play to be great and not try and avoid failure because I know how that'll look if I fail with Aaron Rogers or whatever. And so I'm maybe a little more optimistic about some real changes than maybe most would be. But I agree with Eric in the sense that it was definitely earnest. I also will say that my very first day on the job at PFF, an NFL team who will go unnamed, put in a request to know the number of sacks needed to guarantee victory.

Is the answer like 70? The answer is 15, yeah. If team runs 70 plays and gets sacked on every single one of them, then I, I mean, if you're looking for an actual guarantee, all you have to do is sack the quarterback every time and you'll, one of my, turn off sides off in Madden.

Favorite games of all time is when Derek Thomas sacked Dave Craig seven times and on the last play of the game, he had Craig in his grasp, and he got away and threw the game winning touchdown. So apparently it's eight if you're looking at individual players. I do think I don't remember the end result of this incredible analysis, but I just for the heck of it looked at like sack differential and record. And I think a sack differential of like eight or nine teams were like four and oh or something in that. So it's like, hey, no teams ever lost in this situation.

Go with the sack battle. Goddow in the sack battle. All right. Eric, eager, number four. Okay. This one is,

again, this is a team that I think has the widest set of outcomes in the NFL right now. Teaser. I love it. I love a deep sigh before a take because that that indicates this. There's trouble ahead. It's sort of boring in the sense that we've talked about him for years, but I think Tom Brady.

Yeah. Like, there are so many, is he is average depth of target a receiver stat we're going to get to find that out this year in Tampa Bay is uh you know who you know the Belichick Brady question like we're going to get a little bit of clarity on that this year um is Bruce Ariens capable of coaching a team that's not just fundamentally good not just good on paper not just good in yards per attempt and you know Todd Bowles for example like their defense was legit good last year interestingly like are but are they

capable of coaching a contender, you know, is they, are they going to, are the Saints like a for sure NFC South champion like they've been the last three years? Like all of those, like, if Brady comes out and plays, like I think he probably will. Tampa Bay is going to be a legit contender in this, not only in this division, but in this conference. Yes. I think that I'm so fascinated to see. And again, this is, like you said, it's equal parts boring because we've talked about him so much, but just the newness of it all is so fascinating to me. And just the added wrinkle that this is a guy who likes routine and specificity more than anybody in the world. And he doesn't get that this year. He's been on high school fields. And he doesn't,

didn't get a chance to really know his coaches in the way that he has over the course of his career. This is a guy who, I've told the story a million times, but this is a guy who, I remember Tony Gonzalez told me, they would go out and they would play catch in L.A. And if he was, you know, half an inch off his target, he would just freak out. And you don't necessarily get those sort of workouts right now. And so I'm intrigued to see how he takes the next step in a new environment when he's in, he's in Tampa. George, Tom Brady. I am very curious on what, if you guys were nailed to a prediction for this year's,

Tampa Bay Buccaneers what it would be. And I'm going to go ahead and go first and try and add a little wishful drama to the whole thing. This season could be the season-long version of the 28 to 3 Super Bowl, where the first half of the season, we were all excited. We think they're going to come out guns blazing. And it doesn't. things don't quite click. I mean, a stat that we've tweeted out a bunch, but I think it's really fascinating is we've had,

we've seen three quarterbacks amass 40 or more turnover-worthy plays in a season over the past 15, 16 years. All three of those guys were a quarterback in Bruce Arian system in their first year. Tom Brady has never come close to having 40 plays where a turnover is 50% or more likely. Like, that just doesn't happen. And there, I think, is a point, and I hope it's during this season and not next season, where things, he figures it out and things click. And all of a sudden, it is the greatest, it is appointment television. Everyone has to watch it.

They're putting up 45 plus a game. They're way behind the Saints. They come marching back, pun intended. And, you know, Tampa in February is where they're playing. Yes. So just for full transparency here, my fourth was Byron Left Witch. And I just want to, he's the office coordinator. Bruce Ariens has given him the reins.

You know, Tom Brady, one of the things about Tom Brady is that he likes to be coached hard. He's not one of these guys who says, just let me do this or whatever. He really wants to be coached. So there's going to be pressure on Bruce Ariens, Byron Leftwich, pressure on everybody. He is a demanding teammate. And I think that it's going to be really fascinating to see how that will develop. And again, getting on the same page with padded practice to start in August 18th is not going to be easy. There's a lot of pressure on that coaching staff.

I think we have them as the ninth most likely team to win the Super Bowl, about equal with Tom's old team and also Green Bay. The interesting thing for them is I think the schedule is actually pretty favorable. I don't know when they'll be fans, but I know that there won't be fans in opening day. And so they go to the Saints opening weekend, usually one of the best home field advantages in all football, reduced a little bit. Then they get, I think, four easy teams in Carolina,

Denver, Los Angeles Chargers, and the Chicago Bears. And then after a home game against the Packers, they get the Raiders and Giants on the road. I kind of, like, I want to refute a little bit what George is saying.

I do think from a Brady perspective, you're probably right in that he'll be disappointing early and then improve. But I think from a team perspective, they could get off to a relatively hot start. And I think I said this on our show, George. We might be looking at a seven and two Tampa Bay team thinking to ourselves, why the hell did we, like,

what the hell were we doing, fading them at all early in the season based on this hype? That exact reasoning is why I'm even more confident in my prediction. If you've been dealing with acne, redness, dark spots, or wrinkles, finding treatment that works can be complicated. You need skincare that actually performs, but getting started can be overwhelmed. Thankfully, there's a solution. Roman makes it convenient to get customized prescription skincare that really performs.

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additional terms apply. George, number four. Number four here is a player that I don't think anyone would have expected and is on a team that both of you believe has very low variance. But because of that is a team that we are all penciling in to the Super Bowl. And that's the Kansas City Chiefs. And I'm going to bury the lead even further here. So last year, their EPA per play allowed went from 27th to 18th. Pretty big improvement, right? yet their pass rush was the 31st graded unit in the NFL.

Didn't have a great pass rush last year. Their coverage improved a little bit. Wasn't dramatic. They didn't go worse to first, but they went, they got back to average. Are we playing Scatigories? Yes. Any guesses on the player yet? So my player.

Anthony Hitchens. Yes, exactly. A consultant. So, So my player is Tyron Matthew because there are very few players that just, I mean, our first off, as likable as Tyrone Matthew, but are as versatile as Tyron Matthew. And that's what that defense desperately needed was a guy that can cover no matter where the hell you put him on the field. Because they couldn't cover anyone no matter who you were throwing to on the field the year before.

And that was their downfall. I mean, the Patriots motion Julian Edelman into the slot on 30 straight. third down plays in Kansas City and destroyed the Chiefs. That's how they did it. Eric and I were watching the game yelling at the television about that exact play. So if they're going to win the Super Bowl this coming season, it's going to be because Patrick Mahomes is great and he doesn't have an absolute sieve on defense because the Patrick Mahomes is great bit is the one that no one is betting against.

And that's why he's not making this list, at least for me, because I see no variance there. I know he's going to be great. And if Tyron Matthew continues to play at that level and be that chess piece for them, that's what helps me feel confident in putting them in the Super Bowl. It's hard for me. It's funny. You say that we all expect them to be pounsel in the Super Bowl. I actually have, it's really hard for me to pick between the Ravens and the Chiefs right now.

And I just, I don't know. I haven't done enough thinking about what this season's going to look like and what the impact would be. But I'm in agreement with you of the Chiefs serve. Can I give you my pseudoscience? way of telling those two teams apart. Sure. We love pseudoscience here at the ring around show. Hydroxychloroquines.

Yes. Football. Well, my version of that is looking at social media and looking at what I see on Instagram and Twitter. Yes. I love this already. Okay. So I'm very keen on this.

This is one of the reasons why I have trouble with O'Do Beckham Jr., despite his tremendous talent. I have seen Lamar Jackson almost get, you know, know, decleaded or did get decleted by a, um, a C-Doo, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've seen, basically what I'm saying is I've seen, I've seen, I'm not saying he isn't working, but I've seen Lamar Jackson having a lot of fun this off-season. Everything I see about Patrick Mahomes is this dude working out, throwing the football,

being impressive on a football field. And every quote about him is about how this guy is maniac. And so if I'm going to tell apart these two teams, It's going to be the guy that's already the best quarterback in the NFL who still thinks he has room to improve, continuing to get better. I'm not saying Lamar Jackson isn't going to be great. I'm not saying he's not working hard. I'm just saying there's a difference between great and legendary. And I think Mahomes is in that latter category.

My thing with the Chiefs is that their defense being not very good is table stakes for them. Like they go into every, like they know. Yeah, that's my thing. It's like it's almost incidental. Yeah. They know a priori that like they're going to have to be this way. And they bake it into what they have to overcome. Now, they lose Rashad Breland for four weeks.

Their first four weeks are actually fairly tough. They got by last, like they were injured last year, but kind of in the right way, weirdly. I know they lost Thornhill for the playoffs, but they got Kendall Fuller back to replace him. They got kind of lucky that Rashad Fenton, who was a six-round pick, ended up being decent in the nickel. I do agree, though, that Matthew is sort of the guy that makes Daniel, Sorensen not look so bad or Anthony Hitchens not look so bad. Like he is a linchpin there. The Ravens unfortunately for the unfortunately I think that the Ravens had perfect

circumstances last year and it's so hard to reach like like the the pay the the the Ravens are so smart they went out and got Marcus Peters for a fifth round pick while still having three really good starting caliber corners. And so I wonder if those get changed at all. Like does that change the, like, we know that there's going to be bad defense on the part of the Chiefs, and we know that Mahomes is still going to keep them within a score every game. I just don't know those things about the Ravens.

Yeah, I was listening to a soccer podcast right before we started recording with James Richardson's podcast. And they were talking about Byron Munich. And Munich is in the Champions League Final. And they have, they've given up double the goals that PSG has, except that they just win, when they give up goals, they win like 8 to 2 or 7 to 2. Like, that's what they do. And the fact they give up chances doesn't actually matter, they're just knocking defense as unconscious.

And I was thinking about the Chiefs a little bit in the sense that like even if they have a bad defensive record and, you know, with a pretty bad defense in 2018, they were all sides away from getting there. And so I, the defense thing to me with the Chiefs is really interesting. Again, it's hard for me to pick between those two teams right now, Baltimore and Kansas City, but I'll figure it out.

All right, Eric, number five. The last one that I have is Matt Lafleur. Yes. And I think it's going to because we talked about this at the beginning. If the Packers, and you look at their starting, like their starting schedule is not easy. I mean, they're underdogs against the Vikings on the road in week one. They host a good team supposedly in Detroit in week two at Saints, Falcons at home, at Bucks, at Texans and then home to Vikings at 49ers.

So like the first eight games of the season, if they come out of that like five and three, four and four, I feel like that's a, that's a win. But from Matt LaFleur's perspective, if they start the season three and five, four and four,

and Rogers is as lukewarm as he was a season ago, does he say, look, we've had, it's been a good run, but it's time to sort of transition into this offense that I've always wanted to run. And if that's the case, I don't think that they're going to be that good. And I don't think Minnesota's going to be that good, which means that that division is just an absolute free for all, the eight, seven, and one. And I, and I don't know, like, and are we going to get another lions or good take? You're just throwing my 10 win lions out the window.

And I feel like, so that means is Nick Foles taking the bears to the playoffs? Is Kirk Cousins getting the Vikings to like a 2011 Seahawks 7 and 9 division title home game? Oh, man. You know, are the Lions 10 and 6 and win the division for the first, like the last time the Lions hosted a playoff game, Brett Farh was starting his first playoff game. Like this is like if the Packers bail out on like kind of trying to be contenders and they go. with what LaFleur wants, which is a long-term like 49ers-Ean sort of approach. Like the whole, like the whole NFC North and then with it the NFC, like it's turned over, doesn't it?

Yeah. Yes. Where are you guys? I forgot to mention this on my Rogers take at the beginning, but I think this plays into LaFleur here, which is the Rogers Redemption Tour. How much like, because I always struggle with the, oh, Mitch Trubisky is motivated by, by Nick Foles. Like, you're motivated because you're in the NFL, buddy, you know, figured out.

Is there really, is there something to Aaron Rogers getting, having all of the success being so great, you know, not having that extra chip on the shoulder? And now it's here. And that's reason to believe? Or is that just hogwash? What do you guys think? That's a great question. I don't, I don't know.

I don't know. I mean, here's what I think. I think no one is something we talked about a couple weeks ago with Nora Princiotti and Giacopadia, no one in the NFL was powered more by spite of Aaron Rogers. And this is something he freely talks about. You know, I mean, I, this is a guy who there will be press conferences. I have a friend who used to mention this, he used to point out this verbal tick that he would have where whenever somebody would be like, you know, Aaron, you're so good, you know, at throwing across your body. And Rogers would say, well, you know, in college,

that was actually, scouts said I couldn't do that. Like, he's one MVP's the one Super Bowl. bowls and he still got this like long list in his head of everything everyone said he couldn't do right and i don't think there's anything anybody in football quite like that as far as just his his encyclopedic knowledge of people who doubted him and now there's a lot of those and does it does he want to stick it to the packers by making the packers really good um i i think there's a paradox there but yeah i i think that that's possible i think that there are i think that's going be one of the fascinating seasons we've seen in Green Bay in a long time. And I think that both Green Bay and Minnesota are going to be in the 10-win range and one of those teams is going to win.

I think you're looking at, I think you're looking at like a week 17 loser leaves town mash type of thing. I will bring my Lions flag and tour bus to as those two teams are battling for a wild card. When the Lions have locked up the division and those two are battling for a wild card. The Packer, this is a disaster. The Packers play the Vikings on September 13th and then November 1st. And then they're done. The Vikings and Bears have played in U.S. Bank Stadium on week 17 for four years straight.

Is that still the case? Do they play the Lions? The Packers and the Bears play each other on January 3rd. So presumably, obviously, the Vikings and the Lions. Vikings at Lions. That's going to be, I mean, that's going to be the sick. get the loser leaves town Sunday night game. Yeah, we get the six and nine Vikings against the seven and eight lines for the NFC.

That's going to be the loser. That's going to be the loser leaves town game. And you guys are going to eat your words. The Rogers thing is fascinating because I think you're right. Like what if I'm thinking about all of sports and I'm going back to the last dance and it became personal for me when my napkin wasn't folded when I got to go to the restroom at this random, you know, restaurant in St. Louis. or whatever it is, that, you know, Jordan's maniacal tendency,

there's really, like, the NFL doesn't have that guy, and maybe this is Rogers' chance to get his, like, five-part documentary because he takes everything really personal. I think I'm on board with you guys. I'm fascinated by it. And LaFleur, I think everyone assumes his job is really safe, but isn't it just that kind of maniacal thing that Rogers would go, you know what?

They are all in on Matt LaFleur. I'll show you. Like, you either win. with me or you're not going to win at all. I'm split on whether Rogers is who we all say he is or if he's going to emerge. All of us including Olympia. Oh, my God. Oh, my God.

You are the first part of that conversation that you just had, we don't know if he is who he says he is, is going to go in a montage that Aaron Rogers will be watching on an iPad in 20 years and talking about the doubters coming into the 2020 season. George, who's your fifth guy? Yeah, well, it's not, my fifth guy is not Olivia Munn, though I wish I had thought of that. I battled back and forth between two guys here, a really young guy and Kyra, who I ended up not picking, because a really old guy in Bill Belichick, I think, is a little bit more important. And the reason for that is, you know, just like we are going to find out a lot of things with Tom Brady in Tampa Bay, we're going to find out a ton of things about Bill Belichick and the power of, of coaching in New England.

One of the reasons is that, you know, he's losing some pieces on defense too. And there's, you know, they've been a dynasty, obviously. Does this, is this the second part of a dynasty where I almost feel like Belichick is bringing these guys in to be, you know, to like, like Cam Newton, for example, he's coming in and he's rejuvenating his career. And Belichick's the guy like, I'm going to do this for you. And that's going to be my stamp. That's going to be the second part of my dynasty.

or is that just not his nature? And we're reading into this too much. And he's really making a play to get his next guy in there. And he's going to make sure he has the pieces necessary to go trade up for, you know, Trey Lance or Justin Fields or Trevor Lawrence. And, you know, how does this dynasty move on from here? It either disappears or it continues in a newish form. And that's for Bill Belichick to decide, I think.

Is this year kind of a, I, I, I guess I hesitate to do this. It's not a litmus test for post Brady Belichick because of all the opt-outs of how weird this season is. Maybe there were some advantages. People that mentions keep getting mad at me for continuing to bring up how good he was at adapting his defense 2011, but I'll just say it again.

He was really good at figuring out how to simplify his defense in 2011 and take that haters. And I think because, it's so strange, I feel like we're not going to get the answer on what Belichick can do with a non-Bradie offense. I think we're going to have to wait a year on that. Hopefully, hopefully Cam can stick around. Maybe if he's healthy, you know, listen, they could always franchise tag and whatever, or they could figure out something to do with Stidham or they have another plan. I don't know what that looks like. I wish that they had Cam Newton in a normal season

without all the opt-outs, and we could just see how how high Belichick. could take this. Were Patriots fans irritated that you weren't giving enough credit to Ben Jarvis, Green Ellis's 11 touchdowns that year? Yeah. No, it was, yeah, it was erasure of, uh, I don't know, I don't know. How dare you? I can't even, I wasn't even covering the league.

It was a year before I covered the league. So I was busy meeting my wife somewhere. That was, that's 2011 season for me. It's just, it's just not watching games and letting Bill Belichick simplify the defense. If Belichick, though, is as, I mean, if he's as great as he is, isn't this exactly the type of situation you want this test to be in? Because, yeah, for most people, you go, okay, having Cam Newton walk in, not be able to, you know, do all the things that you want to do in your facility and all of that. Yeah, that's tough.

But that's exactly how you find out who the great coaches are. And if Bill Belichick, I don't think anyone's going to argue that he's not a great coach. But this is exactly the situation that he relevant. is. And I am. Is that true, though? George is, is, is throwing down the gauntlet. It's put up or shut up time for Bill Belichick.

Because I agree. I, the problem, how. You don't think, you don't think Bill Belichick has been sitting in his, his Cape Cod home with his cute dog and just rubbing his hands together with a smile on his face. Okay, so here's the thing. So Belichick, it's like in, it's like in basketball, right? when you're the best team, you want to have the most,

you want to generate the most possessions in a game because the variance decreases and if you're better, you win more. I can see it both ways. I can see Belichick believing in his system so much that a season like this would irk him because there's so much variance that the cream won't rise to the top. And he's going to have to watch the Jets go eight and eight and win that division. I don't think he has to worry about that particular scenario. That's an interesting one.

But I can see it also if he, and he's, probably the most self-aware, although we've seen at times he's, you know, especially in his past, his deep, his distant past, where he's believed in himself maybe a little bit too much. Maybe he does see this more soberly and says, look, like, this could go either way. And if I embrace very, what I really don't want to do in this situation is finish eight and eight. I want to go 12 and 4 and win the east and get maybe a buy again. Or I want to go 3 and 13 and get myself a quarterback. Nothing in between is, is actually, you know, is actually.

you know, palpable for me. So I'm going to embrace variance by bringing in a quarterback who embraces variance better than anybody else in the league. I'm going to have a defense with no one, you know, where it's all up to my coaching and my wits. And, you know, and maybe I just talked myself into believing what you just said, I don't know. Let's embrace variance with my fifth guy, Mr. Bill Callahan.

Wow. Cleveland Brown's offensive coach. Listen, offensive line coach. There's a lot of ways you can go here. It could have made it Baker, like we talked about, could make it Kevin Stefansky, could make it Andrew Barry. But I think this is the broader point, which is we saw what the Browns were last year. We saw their holes. Baker and fixing his weird regressions last year and the bad habits he got into is the priority.

But that's a bigger task than just filling holes in the roster. But one thing that would help is if the offensive line became a lot better. last year it dipped down to 23rd in the NFL via PFF, you guys. And this year, you guys have them as number six. And the point you guys make is adding Jack Conklin and Jedrick Willis to play the tackle positions will shore that up. They will have Chris Hubbard, who was the starting right tackle last year, as a swing tackle.

That's good depth. And you start to think, and I certainly think this, that we have. hype up teams a year or two early instead of a year too late oftentimes. And I think it's valuable, actually, to go through one of those hype seasons because you had the talent. They have the pieces they had last year, the same reason we hyped them up. But now they're able to say, okay, let's not skip the basics here. Let's not skip the offensive. You know, the Vernon trade as exciting as we thought that was.

Well, they got rid of a really good interior alignment in that trade. And they weren't able to replace him effectively. So I think that Andrew Barry coming in and establishing himself with some really smart moves, not forgetting the basics that maybe we skipped a little bit last year with the Browns. Mistakes were made as far as predicting that. Remember, they were the literal Vegas favorite this time last year to win the division. The Ravens were third. Yeah, when we repeat myself, mistakes were made.

So I think this year, Cleveland has the capability to be the team. We thought they could have been last year, not the Super Bowl content. or whatever whatever we were all throwing out. Baker Mayfield on the cover of GQ and ESPN the magazine. O'Dell, Beckham and Jarvis Landry on the cover of Sports Illustrated. We did an entire week devoted to it. Let's pull ourselves out of that tailspin. The Browns can hit the reset.

They still have the ingredients. I think Baker will be better than it was last year. They have a third easiest schedule this year after having the hardest schedule in the NFL last year. This offensive line is where it starts. But the things that John Dorsey and Sashi Brown, it takes a village to make the Browns. good. And I think we might be there. Does anyone agree with me?

I'm so glad that you met, I mean, Sashi Brown died so that Baker Mayfield might live. And I think we have to mention that. The one thing that I keep, when I hear you say that, and I agree with a lot of things you said is what does it say about Baker Mayfield if you put, if you say Bill Callahan is the important piece, right? It's like, okay, we've got to get this offensive line to be Great. Is it saying, no, no, no, actually, Baker Mayfield's been fine all along and like it's someone else's problem? Or is it saying Baker Mayfield isn't the guy that can elevate over any sort of inferiority? And, you know, he's Jared Gough. Right. So I think that's that's a great question and a great dissection of that point. I think that Baker Mayfield is somewhere between the guy we saw who was setting rookie touchdown records in 2018. and what he was last year. I think that he can be coached up again, and again, some of those bad habits will go away.

But as of now, I view him as the type of guy who needs to be in a good situation. And he is in a good situation. The line is good. O'Do Beckham is a super-duper star. I know that there are some question about Jarvis Slandry's value, but he can catch a pass and he can do things.

The running game situation can be good, especially with the improved offensive line. Right now, Baker needs to be put into a good situation in order to be the best. Baker he can be. He's not going to be Russ Wilson right now. He's not going to be, even though Patrick Mahomes dropped in a great situation, he's not on the Mahomes level at all. He is a guy who needs to be dropped into a good infrastructure. And I think we saw that last year. When mid middle of the summer, I wrote an article about offensive line coaches. And generally

speaking, they don't matter as much as we think. But the Bill Callahan, you just mentioned, has generated as as an off his offensive lines have generated the second most wins above replacement since 2006 behind the recently retired dante skarnikia um so you know i i went to nebraska he's a swear word there um but i do think that uh what i like about stefansky is there's a level obviously this head coach you this coaching staff is a bunch of of veteran coaches. And Callahan used to be a head coach. You know, Van Pelt's younger, but, you know, then you have Chad O'Shea, who, you know, was an offensive coordinator a season ago. You have kind of a smattering of like young and old coaches. And, you know, it says a lot, in my opinion, that Stefanski had called plays for three games

with Minnesota, his entire coaching career. And they still wanted him to be the head. He was a candidate to be a head coach last off season. everything I've heard about him is just that he's an A plus person and an A plus leader. And, you know, I think, like, just identifying, like, here's the one, here was the biggest issue in keeping our quarterback from being good last year. And I'm going to go and get one of the most proven offensive line coaches in, like, league history, frankly, to go there. I think that that spells a lot of good things for the Browns this season. The biggest issue wasn't Odell Beckham, Jr. wearing a $300,000 watch during a game.

that was never is it never is by the way watches matter it would have if it was an apple watch would we be saying the same things I would say he was health conscious I think it helped him when you're just when you're figuring out

who is good at football the watches have to have to factor into that discussion by the way was there a bigger lock than Tennessee plus five and at Cleveland week one last year in hindsight like just like a more a more like

flat football team I want Maybe we got to identify who that team is this year. We need to go back and find the video footage of that where I was on the burn the Freddie Kitchens regime to the ground train well in advance. Well, guys, 90 minutes ago, I didn't know we would have so many the lines of good takes in our lives. And now that now that we do, I'm not sure where we go from here. But this is the end of the podcast.

It's been an incredible discussion. And I want to thank you guys. Thank you. We'll have the second part of the Lions discussion on the PFF forecast at some point in the future. Absolutely. I'm down. All lions and running backs all the time. Thanks, Kevin. Thanks for us on. Thanks, guys.