The Ringer NFL Show - 2023 NFL Power Rankings: AFC South

Episode Date: June 6, 2023

Nora Princiotti and Steven Ruiz return to rank the teams in the AFC South from best to worst. Hosts: Nora Princiotti and Steven Ruiz Associate Producer: Stefan Anderson Additional Production Supervision: Arjuna Ramgopal and Conor Nevins Musical Elements: Devon Renaldo Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Sean Fennessey, one of the hosts of the Prestige TV podcast. HBO's Barry is back for a fourth and final season. And that means I'll be back recapping the show with co-creator and star Bill Hader to dive deep on the themes, scenes, and major moments in the series. Bill will provide insight into how every episode was made and why it's ending. New Prestige TV Barry recaps will go live every Sunday night when the episode ends. So make sure you're subscribed to the Prestige TV podcast wherever you get your podcasts. Hello and welcome back to the,

ring our NFL show. I'm Nora Prince-Iotti. And after a nice little, little early summer hiatus, I'm back here with Stephen Ruiz. Stephen, good to see you. It's been a while. It has been a while. You went to Sweden and I stayed in American. It was sad. No, I wasn't sad. But I got a lot of work done. I did go to Sweden. We missed you. I appreciate. I appreciate it. I appreciate it. I think maybe you can, you'll get to Sweden something. We'll get, we'll get It's even take Stockholm eventually. I believe in it. Me too.

How are things? How is this wonderful June morning for you? It's good. The maintenance guy came through, fixed my AC, and I'm feeling cool. I'm feeling ready to pod. I'm not going to be sweating through the pod like I have been for the last couple weeks. That's great.

I need to call my superintendent and get my air conditioning filters changed. So thank you for reminding me and maybe all of our listeners. Everybody can get on that. everybody can have like fresh and roaring AC units as they head into the summer. But as we head into the summer, wow, transition. We're going to start a little series that's going to get us through really up until training camp starts where we are going to power rank the entire league. And this is how we're going to do it.

Every episode we're going to go through a division, rank the teams in that division, one through four. But at the end of that, we're going to add those teams to an overall list of the league. So by the end of this episode, we're going to start with the AFC South. By the end of this episode,

we will have power range the AFC South, 1 through 4, and we'll have a list of 4 teams, 1 through 4 in the league. Then we're going to come back next week, and I think we're into the NFC South. Yeah. And by the end of that,

not only will we have power range to the division, but we will have slotted those teams into the overall list as well. And we're going to keep it up, get through every division. And by the time we are at 32, we will have a list top to bottom best, worst for the entire NFL going into 2023. And then you don't even have to watch the games. You already know everything that you need to know just from listening to us. Right. Right. I like how we're doing this over time. By the time this ends, I feel like we're going to disagree with our power rankings as much as like the listeners are going to

disagree with it. They're like, yeah. Yeah, you're right. Those guys are idiots. I mean, I guess this is like a little bit of planning on the fly, but I suppose we should allow ourselves if we really feel the need, like if there is some big piece of movement, if one of us wants to motion to go back and tweak something in an order, I think if both of us agree to it, we should be able to do that. Yeah, sure.

The list will be locked once it is a complete list. But maybe if we have reason to do it, we'll discuss some happenings around the league and use that to tinker with the order a little bit. But, you know, it's a living, breathing document. We'll just see what happens. The AFC South. Should we get started?

Let's talk about it. Let's do it. So we started with the AFC South in part because this is one of the divisions that has been most clearly remade. over the offseason, not necessarily in the strength of the teams relative to one another, but could pretty easily, depending on what happens in Tennessee with Ryan Tannahill, could pretty easily have three new quarterbacks here.

And three teams, the Colts, the Titans and the Texans obviously, do have young passers now on their roster. So it's an interesting division to start with. It's division where we've talked about the teams in relationship to the draft and the offseason. a bunch and now we get to sort of go big picture. That said, the team that I have number one, and I don't think this will be particularly controversial, is the one team with the only actually proven good and healthy quarterback. And that is the Jacksonville Jaguars. I'm assuming they're at the top of your list as well, Steve.

They are. And like, I know that this division came down to the last game, Tennessee versus Jacksonville. But Jacksonville was like far in away the best team in this division last year. like by point, all the underlying metrics by point differential. They were plus 54. The Titans were closest at minus 61. Like there was a hundred point differential between first and second place. It was insane.

And the Jaguars had the eighth best offense by EPA, the 12th best defense. And really, and the Titans were 26 in offense and 22nd in defense. Like this was a competitive vision on paper. But like when you look at the strength of these teams, I feel like it's Jacksonville's to lose. And I don't see how like any other team can really amount a challenge to them if they stay healthy. Yeah, I mean, they're not a team that did a ton in the off season, but the addition of Calvin Ridley is going to be really, really interesting. And I do think that we last season, one of the things that even as in those underlying metrics, they were pretty clearly by a pretty

clear like head and shoulders margin above the other teams in the division, one of the clearest things that they were missing was, oh, I'd receive a presence like that. And that is something that I think could help them not just sort of maintain where they were last season, but they can take another real step there. There's one area in which they feel a little regression-y, which is just that they were very, very healthy last season. They and the Chiefs were the top two healthiest teams per man-games lost.

That tracker factors in. player career performance. So, you know, it can depend a little bit when you're talking about teams with a lot of young players. But in general, that's a very good way to assess not just which teams were the healthiest, but which teams were the healthiest in terms of keeping their good players on the field. So that could go in one direction. But I do think that they were already in first place by a good margin. And then when you talk about the Ridley thing, I think being important.

And two, defensively, we talked about this, I think, when we were talking about team needs. They should probably be in line for some positive regression there because they had the same number of quarterback pressures last season as the Eagles, but only half of the sacks. And that's the type of thing where you go nine and eight, it's not that hard to see, you know, over the course of the season 15 pressures end up being sacks instead of just being pressures

it kills drives it takes points off the board all of a sudden you beef up that record a little bit and that's a really really really really impressive season so this one was easy this is a good team

they should be the favor to win the division I think that's pretty obvious yeah I do wonder like what does the next step look like. And I think part of that is the sack thing. And I think it comes down to Trayvon Walker, taking the next step. They played him, I would say out of position last year. They had him stand up a bunch. They base out of three, four. I think getting his hand in the dirt, which apparently has been happening during offseason mini camps and training camps. If he can be that number one

overall pick, like if he could be a guy, not even a 10-sac guy, maybe like an 8.5 sack guy, I think that really does a lot for this defense in the regard you were talking about. And then you look at the secondary, that's my one concern about this team. I don't think it's going to be exploited by teams in this division. But the Jaguars,

I feel like they've kind of like grown past this division. It's not about winning the division. It's about competing with these other teams now. And I don't know if they have the secondary to do it. Outside of Tyson Campbell, I don't really like this defensive backfield. Andre Sisko, Rishon Jenkins, a safety pair. I think that's fine, but Darius Williams

as your number two corner, that just feels like something you can pick on, especially if you're a team that has stars. Let's say they have to compete with the Bengals. Like, what does that look like? What does Darius Williams on T. Higgins? On those giants, what does that look like? Trey Herndon.

Right, that's my one concern. But we saw this team give Kansas City a pretty good game in the playoffs. That's the funny thing is they actually match up pretty well with Kansas City because, yes, they're supercharged by having Mahomes, but the receivers aren't scary. And I agree with you that the, even though when you look at the defensive front, a lot of those guys, particularly Trayvon Walker, but also, you know, Josh Allen, like, they haven't exploded onto the scene with like the huge year or become sort of the cornerstone franchise guys that I think, you know, at, at one point or another, um, maybe still.

people have hoped that they would, people there have hoped that those guys would become. It's still a pretty solid group. Like, they're going to be okay. It really is the secondary when they have to go up against really strong receiver cores. And that's why the Bengals question is the really interesting one. Because again, like, it's funny to, it's just going to be funny to use the chiefs as like the big scary team in the division because then it's just like, yeah, man. Who's going to cover Cadarius Tony? Right, yeah.

Yeah, everything comes back to like just, oh, yeah, they have Mahomes and nothing else matters with them. That is a good point. But even like the other teams at the top of the division do have, like, bigger receivers where you can pick on these smaller guys. Yeah. Like the bills have Gabriel Davis. Gabriel Davis isn't the best wide receiver,

but he is a big guy. Stefan Diggs is going to be able to take advantage of anyone regardless of size. The Chargers with Mike Williams. There's some, I do think that. that's a potential pitfall for them. And I think that, like you said, the front seven is solid, like as is. I think it needs to be good to great for them to take that next step that I think they're looking for. And that means Josh Allen has to be the guy that we thought he was after his rookie year.

And I think he started to get back to that last year. He showed some flashes. And then Trayvon Walker, like I said, has to be, you know, a first round pick. It's a play like that. And if that happens, and Trevor takes a step. And Ridley is what we think he's going to be, or what do you, was before the suspension, this is a team, man. This is a team you have to take account of it in the AFC.

And I think they're capable of at least competing with like the bills who maybe have taken a step back. And it may be even the Bengals who could as they continue to lose depth every year as they plan to pay their guys. Ready to move on? Yeah. I'm really interested to see like who you pick as a second team in this division because I had so much trouble.

I did too. This is the spot that's interesting. Do you want to go or do you want me to go? I'll go first. I went with Tennessee. And I looked at the roster and it wasn't like, I'm like, oh, this is a great roster. It came down for me to, Rable gets the most out of his team. Every year they overachieve.

And I think you look at the roster and you look at the defense. You could see this defense being, if they're healthy and the secondary gets a little better, you can see this defense being a top half of the league defense. and if Ryan Tannahill is one, if they let him start the whole year, and then two, he stays healthy. We've seen this work before. I know the receiving core doesn't look great. Like, you still have Nick Westbrook Kinney.

Kyle Phillips is the starting slot receiver. Traylon Burks, there was a lot of questions about him during his rookie year. But like if one of those guys becomes an adequate number one target, and then you get the titanun Unconquo from Maryland, and he takes the next step. He's a really good athlete. and he showed some stuff last year, especially at the end of the year.

This could be like the 2020 Titans. They could win like eight, nine games. I think it's a decent team on paper. It was better than I thought it would be when I looked at the roster. So I don't disagree with that. But here's the first, we're going to have to iron out our order here

for the first time because I put the Colts second. I'm fine with that. And I literally have in my, and I put the Titans third. and in my notes for the Titans, I literally wrote down, Vrable gets more out of his rosters than he has almost any right to,

but. And the but is just, I think if you look at the positions that matter the most on this team, you have health questions at quarterback, you have sort of like, what does Ryan Tannahill have to offer at this point? Are they going to turn to Will Levis

at some point depending on that situation? Tackle where you have Andre Dillard coming into place, to replace Taylor Lawan, which I don't love. Wide receiver, which you just explained, just a little bit too much riding on Birx for having 400 receiving yards last year. And then edge rush or in corner, I don't love what they have in any of those areas.

And they're a hard team to figure out because, again, I do think that Vrable really, really, really consistently just like squeezes every drop that he can out of his guys. But they release Luan, DePrie, Robert Woods, Zach Cunningham.

It does seem kind of like there's a rebuild on. At the same time, that does seem like not totally like what they do. But I would have some concerns that if things aren't going great, they're going to hand the reins to Levis

and use this year as a let's get him some reps opportunity. in which case, like, that might be the good thing for the long term, but I can see that being a one step forward, two steps back kind of situation at least for 2023. And then when you go to Indianapolis, there's a lot of variability. Like, it's just an unknown. But I feel better about staking a claim to Anthony Richardson being ready.

like being ready to do something and his athleticism, his ability to influence the run game. Plus, hopefully a little bit of a bounce back year for Jonathan Taylor, you know, only played 11 games last season, went from over 100 yards per game in 2021 to, I think, 78 when he was on the field. If that doesn't have to go all the way back, but like if he is essentially himself again, I think those two factors can solve what,

was their biggest problem last season, which was the offensive line. Like, I still think that I don't think we're ever going to see like this generation of Colts offensive line be like the, the, you know, top five group that a few years ago, they were. Like, I think that ship has sailed. I think some people have, have regressed a little bit just as players. But I think the combination of a running quarterback, in Shane Steichen's offense and a healthy and hopefully returned to form Jonathan Taylor, I think that's going to mask that issue. And if that hadn't looked like an absolute disaster last season,

the Colts would have been a different team, not a good team, but they would have been in a different situation. And I just feel better about, I feel better about planning a flag there than saying the 24 things that have to go right for the Titans to just get the absolute most out of this team are going to happen. And like if I had to choose a coach to get like 16 out of 24, Mike Rable would be a really, really, really good choice.

I just, it just seems like so many things have to happen for that to work. Whereas an indie, it's just like, Richardson has to be really dynamic and Jonathan Taylor has to be Jonathan Taylor again. Yeah, like if you could tell me that Juan Richardson is going to start and he's going to be competent, which I wouldn't be surprised with.

Like, I don't think he's as raw as people have made him out to be. And that Stuyken is going to be a good rookie coach. He doesn't have to be like a good coach in a vacuum, just a good rookie coach, not a disaster, not Nathaniel Hackett. I would take the Colts over the Titans.

I just don't know if either of those things are going to be true. And I do know, like, okay, maybe I can't say I know. But I do kind of know that Rable is going to get more out of the Titans roster than what it looks like on paper. But I will relent here. I will give you the Colts number two because I almost put the Colts number two anyway. And I don't feel that strongly about the title. I'm certainly not going to, like, go to bat for a team that might play Will Levis 10 games this year. What a sentence.

What do you think about, like one of the things that, first of all, thank you. How generous of you, Stephen. I'm glad that we could reach consensus here. One of the things that was tricky for me with the Colts is how to look at their receiver group because I still think that it's a bit of a problem. If I put my optimist hat on, my hope would be that Stuyken's experience in working with mobile quarterbacks and designing offenses around mobile quarterbacks

in a way that helps use them to influence the run game but then also generate explosives on top of that could help make Michael Pittman return to being a little bit more of a downfield player and a little bit more of an explosive threat. I don't, I wouldn't bet my life on it, certainly. And there are like, I liked what they did in the draft, but it's hard to count on, you know, Josh Downs performing right away.

So the one thing that I had a little bit of like, yeah, with inputting Indie second is I just don't quite know how to look at this receiver group because I do like what they did in the draft, but I just don't know that it's going to matter all that much. There's a lot riding on Alex Pierce, like being, seeing a guy. Another sentence. Right. Something you don't want to say. You don't want to be banking your NFL season on a guy named Alec. Yeah, that's tough.

That's my team-building philosophy. And that's, I mean, he needs to be that downfield threat. And, I mean, he certainly has, like, the physical skill set to be that. That was his calling card coming out of Cincinnati was he was, He was a big dude who can move really fast and get down field in a hurry and has good hands. We saw flashes of that last year. I think he needs to take the step. And I'm at the point, I was high on Michael Pittman when he came out, but I'm at the point

where I'm like, all right, he's a good player. He's a useful player, but I don't know if he's going to be anything more than that, which means someone is going to have to be that dynamic there. Maybe it is downs. Maybe downs like burst onto the scene. We've seen third round rookies have good, especially receivers, have good years. Isaiah McKinsey being like your slot option. I'm not a huge fan of.

I didn't think he was very good in Buffalo and I thought he hurt that offense at times. So yeah, that would be my one concern. And I will say this about Siking. Like I know last year it's kind of playing on easy mode, right, with those receivers, with Jalen Hertz and then that offensive line. But the year before, we weren't talking about the Eagles offense as like some stacked juggernaut. And they were still pretty good.

And they were good enough to get into the playoffs. And I think they had like the 11th ranked offense by DVOA that. year. So we've seen him kind of, you know, produce a good offense at a lesser parts. So I wouldn't be too concerned about that. My concern with him is like, how do the head coaching duties that he now has kind of interfere with his job as like a guy who coordinates the offense? Sure. Sure. I hope not too much. I mean, you know, we'll see what this defense looks like. That's another situation where I really like what they did in the draft just adding like big athletic corners.

That's going to be important to Gus Bradley. That said, if he's got one way to really contribute here, it might be in having enough experience so that Stuyken can continue to focus a lot of his energy on offense. In particular, just because, like, he is so good at,

he's so good at calling plays. He's so good at like structuring the cadence of how you call a game and working with that stuff. And it just would be a real loss to them if that kind of falls by the wayside. And if it's not

his priority, you know, opinions on Gus Bradley can vary. But he's been around for a while. So I guess you hope that the experience ends up being something that they can use to their advantage.

I was going to say it's a good thing that he has like a former head coach on his staff to kind of lend him that advice. But then I realize it's like maybe the worst coach in NFL history by record and maybe that's not the best thing. It's fine. But Gus is like they have the 12th best defense

by EPA last year or 13th best by EPA like Gus. He beat Patrick Mahomes. True. He's been twice in like the last two years. I wish they had. hadn't traded Stefan Gilmore. Not necessarily for like, the league as a whole,

because I liked that trade in general. But just for the purposes of this podcast, if they had just like one more experienced solid cornerback, that would be nice. That would have made me be able to say like in a little bit more of a full-throated way, Colts number two in the AFC South. But we're going to say it anyway. Yeah.

Okay, so I had the Titans third. anything more on Tennessee? I really think this defense has the potential to be a top 10 unit. And it comes down to the secondary. I agree with you. Like, I look at that secondary and I'm not impressed.

But like the front seven, I know there aren't like a lot of like game-changing players outside of Jeffrey Simmons. But Jeffrey Simmons is just a wrecking ball of a player. Yeah. But like Arden Key,

Danico Autry, I feel like you can get something out of those guys. Even if they're not top 10 pass rushers, I do think that combination is really good. And then I like their offseason. Even though it was kind of weird, it was a weird offseason for them just because I thought

they would rebuild finally, but I don't think Mike Rable is interested in that at all. But like adding Al Shahir from San Francisco to linebacker, I really like that edition. I know they lost a couple of linebackers, but I think bringing him in just a physical guy who I think fits in

well with what they do. I think that could be like a bullying defense. And if that's the case, in Derek Henry, we didn't even mention Derek Henry. I'm at the point where like Derek Henry to me is like the new Adrian Peterson where I mean, we can keep predicting that the wheels are going to fall off.

But until they do, like I'm done predicting it. I need to see it first because he's a freak. He's like a physical freak and there's no projecting what he's going to be. And if he's the Derek Henry that we've seen in the past couple years and they have that defense that I think that they might be able to have, You can get a stew going. You got something going there.

I think you can win like nine games, like I said. But I'm fine with the Colts because I do. Like I think if the Colts are good, the league will be a lot funner. Because that means Anthony Richardson is playing and he's good. And Stuyken is bringing all that magic he had from Philadelphia. And that would be a fun team to watch. What do you think like, okay, it's June 2nd as we're recording this. So not going to hold you to this long term.

But how many playoff teams? does it feel like there are in this division? There's one. If this was the NFC, I would, I don't know, maybe I'm just like giving too much credit to the Titans, like for their ability to kind of overachieve. But if they were in the NFC,

I wouldn't rule the Titans out as a playoff contender, like a wild card contender. And the AFC, though, that ain't happening. Because who are they finishing better than? Not the Chargers, not the Chiefs, the Bengals, the Ravens, even the Browns, I think, are a way better team, way more stacked.

Yeah, I don't know. They might be the third worst team in the conference. And I picked them as the second best team in this division. Who is wide receiver one in Tennessee? Is it Burks? Is it Westbrook Aquita? I think it's Berks. I guess I do too.

Is it Racy McMath? I can't believe that's a real name. I still don't believe he's a real player. I've never seen him play. I've never seen him play. Pracey McMann. Get out of here. It's unbelievable.

That's the funniest thing I've ever heard. Nice to meet you. I'm Bracey McMath. I'm Steve McAlgebra. I'm Joshua McCalculus. Okay. Titans are Third of Division. Keep going.

I'm Colton McLong Division. Just name and math concepts. They used in Texas. Great transition. I have them last. Me too. As Racy McMap could tell us, they are fourth,

which in a group of four is last. I don't know about you, but I looked at the depth chart. And I kind of liked it more than I thought I would. Another team that I thought, like, I think the defense, the secondary, has a chance to be really good. and if you have like one good unit and you have a smart toch,

I feel like you get built something around that. Now, I'm not saying they're going to win like eight games or anything. They're like their ceiling is probably five wins. But I wouldn't be surprised if they get those five wins. That's exactly how I felt. This team is better than I thought it was also. That might mean they win five games. Right.

Instead of three. I think it comes down to Bobby Sloan. I don't know what to expect that. And like, that's just like, that's just like, very funny, like, again, just a tough. No offense to Bobby Sloick.

No offense, but I have no idea who you are and I have no idea what you're bringing to the table. You might as well be Racing Macbath. But he's coming from the Shanahan system. And like, I think we have like this image of what the Shanahan system has been, like the outside zone, the play action from under center. But like even the Shanahan guys have kind of dialed back from that. Like last year, the 49ers didn't use a lot of play action. They started getting in the gun more. they started doing more dropback

because after they got McCaffrey because he's like good out of the backfield. So and then you see McDaniel in Miami and that doesn't look anything like a Shanahan offense really. So I have no idea what this is going to look like and how effective it's going to be.

Usually you see one of these offenses go to a team install one of these offenses and you expect some positive regression. I don't know if that's going to be the case. I don't know if he's a guy that's able to adjust. I don't know if he's going to evolve. Like we've seen Kyle evolve.

we see Mike McDaniel evolve. So there's a lot riding on how good this dude is. And I have no inkling or no idea what to expect out of him. I think it'll look more like the Shanhan offenses that we've seen than, for instance, like it does with Mike McDaniel in Miami. Just because I think that makes a lot of sense for CJ Stroud. Yeah. And probably has a decent chance.

You know, if he's going to look pretty good fairly quickly, I think that's probably the situation in which that happens. And I don't feel like that's a long shot bet, right? Like, we have seen young and experienced, you know, not very good. I'm not saying that that applies here, but quarterbacks look pretty good pretty quickly in the scheme. And I think Strouds, you know, the middle of the field stuff, the accuracy, like it works. So I think there's a good chance that it looks like that, even though we have seen guys on that tree sort of branch off in all sorts of different directions. I bet it ends up looking pretty familiar in Houston.

The only question is just like often when that thrives, there are really good skill position players helping make that happen. And they've got a pretty good offensive line. So the protection should be decent. Damien Pierce is great. actually like their tight end situation. The Dalton Schultz deal was one, very good value, and two should help them. It's just, it's, it's just wide receiver.

It really is. Yeah, I don't know what to do about that. You know what it could look like is like the year Jimmy went to the 49ers and he like started those games at the end? And they had like no receivers whatsoever, whatsoever, but it was working. It was working because of the scheme

and because the quarterback was like following the scheme. And I think C.J. Stroud, to your point, is a good fit for this offense. I think every quarterback is a good fit for the Sanahan offense, actually. But I do think it will help him a little bit if he is, because we have the question marks about the playmaking. That was like the big question mark about him is, oh, is he a playmaker? Is he going to do stuff outside of the pocket? In this offense, you don't really have to.

We saw Jimmy G. not make any play. I don't think Jimmy G made a play over the last five years. over his total time in San Francisco. I don't think he made a play outside of the structure of the offense. And it was fine. 17 injuries, four points. Right. More injuries than plays made.

And still, a top five quarterback are, yeah, by stats every year. But I think it also comes down to is Domech O'Reilly's who we think he is, in terms of as a defensive wizard. And like I said, their secondary is really good. It has a chance to be really good. I really like Derek Stingley. I think Jalen Petrae was a good safety last year. Jimmy Ward comes over from San Francisco.

He gives them some flexibility. He can play safety deep. He can get into the slot. Desmond King is a veteran cornerback. I mean, he could play. Stephen Nelson comes over. There are some pieces there. And then they get Sheldon Rankins from New York,

who quietly had like a bounce back year with the Jets. Will Anderson. If Will Anderson is that guy that they traded up for and he, like, right away, like maybe makes a Micah Parsons-type interest. packed as a rookie, I can see this being a decent defense. And then if they get the Shanahan offense up and running

and they're able to work around the receiver situation, which I agree is that's like kind of the thing holding me back from thinking this team could be a little frisky. I think it could be a little frisky. Just like Robert Woods. Robert Woods is a great player for this team. He can catch it over the middle.

He can block. He can do all that stuff. The question with him is, of course, age and health. But if he stays healthy, I could see this offense kind of working a little bit. I don't know. I don't think the Texans are as bad as people are giving them critical. Yeah, I agree with that. I just, even if Will Anderson comes in and makes a really significant impact, like the Sheldon Rankin's move, I still, you know, he said, is D'Amico sort of who we think he is? Is that even like, are we even going to be able to say that? Because it's just,

even if those two things break really, really, really well, Will Anderson, Sheldon Rankins, Malink. Collins, Jonathan Greenard, Christian Harris, Denzel Perryman, Corey Littleton. I'm not sure those are the San Francisco 49ers. I am sure that they're not. I don't think there's a Fred Warner in there. Chase Winnevich.

Blake Cashman. Jerry Hughes is still around. He's still doing it. Oh my God. Jerry Hughes must be 110 years old. Right. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, the front seven is a concern. And, like, I don't know what Demico is going to be as, like, now that he has his own team,

I really don't know what his defense is going to be because he's come from so many different backgrounds in terms of scheme. Like, he coached under Sala, who was from the Pete Carroll scheme, that Seattle scheme. He obviously played under Sabin in college, and then he played under, like, the Belichick regime in Houston with like Cronnell and Vrable. I'm really interested to see what this defense looks like.

And the defenses he had in San Francisco, like that Seattle style has always been built like front to back. Like you need a good pass for us for that to work. Whereas I think the New England style of defense is always like secondary first. We need dudes that can play man coverage basically. And he has that. And I really want to see which way he kind of leans with his scheme.

And if it's towards that, like, New England scheme, I think this could be a decent one. Now, if he tries to do the same stuff he did in San Francisco where he had Joey Bosa just blowing up plays and he had Fred Warner doing Fred Warner things, don't think it's going to work. So I think that's a big question to you. Yeah.

When you look at the roster, I think the former kind of trying to do it back to front makes more sense, unless Will Anderson is just like the second coming, you know, like is clear defensive rookie the year from the moment he steps on the field and you're just like, oh my God, this guy is such a difference maker. You have to make him the focal

point of your defense. Barring something very, very, very extreme in that sense. That seems like what would make the most sense, but I agree with you. It'll be a very interesting sort of way to figure out how

Damico wants to run his own team thinks about this defense. And could make a difference for them. Also just because they have a little bit more, they have a little bit more depth than the secondary too. I think they're more solid overall and there's a little bit more depth there. That's the other thing. It's just like if this team gets hit with a couple

injuries in the wrong spots, all of a sudden they sort of are the team that it feels like people are talking about them as of like maybe they won't win a game. Especially on offense. Especially on offense. Would Racy McMath start for this team? I think he would be in. the mix for like the number two receiver position. For sure. Which he might be in Tennessee for all I know. I'm going to

be honest with you. I haven't been like following the Tennessee Reserve receiver race over the last couple years. Maybe Racing McMath is like a hidden gem that's about to break out and we don't know. Oh my God. Born June 14th, 1999. Almost his birthday.

Happy almost birthday, Racie McMath. Sorry about the jokes. Sorry about the jokes. Okay. Are we missing anything? I think we've got one through four, right? So we're starting off with Jags, Colts, Titans, Texans. Jaguars are the best team in the NFL.

As things stand. According to the Ringer NFL show, the Jaguars currently, as we record, June 2nd, atop the league. And let's see. it's all riding on Bobby Sloick for the Texans. It was all riding on Alec Pierce for the Colts. Who's the key player in Tennessee? It's not Racy McMath.

It's not Racy McMath. Derek Henry. Let's just say Derek Henry. Derek Henry. All right. And then let's see. Still just Trevor for Jacksonville or do we give that to Calvin Ridley, maybe? I think Ridley, maybe even Walker.

But yeah, I would go with Ridley. that's going to be. I think we're at the point where we can like rely on or count on Trevor to be good, I think. Okay. Just if we're keeping track by the completely unplanned and random list of who is this team counting on the most that we just came up with, the Colts should be dead last because we gave the Jaguars Calvin Ridley, the Titans, Derek Henry, and the Texans, I mean,

at least a coordinator. And the Colts got Alec Pierce. So. And the Texans don't count, really. And let me just reiterate one thing, because we were very optimistic about the Texans. If everything that we said breaks right, they'll win like six games. I just want to make sure that's clear. We're not high on the Texans by any means.

You could put in the paper that we think the Jaguars are the best team, but don't put it in the paper that we think the Texans can win like eight games. That's offensive. All I was doing while you were saying, Matt was like thinking of things like John McSocel studies in my head. That's his brother, okay? This has been the ringer NFL show. Thank you to Stephen Ruiz. I'm Nora Pinceati. We will be back with the NFC South next week.

In the meantime, Stephen and Ben are going to be on the feed on Friday. What are you guys going to talk about? We're talking about the AFC. Who is the biggest threat to the Chiefs? The Bengals are the Bills. It's like a Bengals-Bills kind of thing comparison. I'm trying so hard to make a racing math joke, but it's not working. That'll be great stuff.

Thank you, as always, to Stefan Anderson for production. episode and to Connor and Evans and Arjuna Ramgapal for additional production supervision.