The Ringer NFL Show - 33 Preseason Questions — Can’t Tank With Tyrod, the Patriots' Weakness, and Luck Too Late? (Ep. 128)

Episode Date: August 22, 2017

The Ringer’s Robert Mays and Kevin Clark continue answering 33 Preseason Questions leading up to opening day. Topics include whether the Bills should trade Tyrod Taylor (05:00) and the increasingly crowded Jameis Winston and Marcus Mariota bandwagons (18:00). Then the guys award Earl Thomas with some retroactive MVP awards (27:30) and consider a Patriots weakness that could affect their playoff run (33:30). Finally, Robert and Kevin explain why Cam Newton and Andrew Luck had better be on the field in Week 1 (37:00) and why the Broncos might be in big trouble (41:00). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It's the Ringer NFL show brought to you by DirecTV. Kevin Clark and Robert Mays here with you, and we've got some great news NFL fans. Direct TV has expanded NFL Sunday ticket this season. So if you live in an apartment or enrolled in college, you can now get NFL Sunday ticket without a satellite. This is huge news for us, Robert. Makes my day. Your health and happiness will be dramatically affected when you can watch football other than the Chicago Bears. You would assume that I would have made that decision a long time ago, but just the fact that I can is empowering. that I can kind of control my own destiny as far as my football watching life is concerned,

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And I can just, even if I'm not home, maybe I'm somewhere else. And I want to watch Mr. Trubisky on my direct TV without the satellite. It's all important. Even if there's a lot of Mike Lennon, there doesn't have to be a lot of Mike Lennon because you can get NFL Sunday ticket anywhere. Plus you can get access to our favorite thing in the world, the Red Zone channel, which the Bears and my local team, the Los Angeles Rams, will never be on. No, there's actually a rule.

It's contractual obligation from the Red Zone channel that they're not allowed. Why wouldn't he? Yeah. I mean, at this point, that's the type of stuff that needs to be legislated. Yeah. So that will be a channel where you get nothing but good football. Yeah, touchdowns. We like touchdowns.

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It's Kevin Clark. Kevin, how are you? Can't get enough for this preseason football, Robert. Is that true? No. I think I've had enough of it to be honest with you. I'm done. I'm done. I mean, at this point, I love that the stories, oh, the NFL is considering getting rid of a preseason game or two. They always come out around this time because even the league office looks at this and says, yeah, that's, that's enough of this. I was looking at the images from Heinz Field. Just how empty the seats were. It's like, is this really a good idea? And just all the injuries that happen. I mean, so many guys, think about George Fan going down in Seattle, players that are crucial to their teams eventual and hopeful success. And their goal for the season. season even starts.

It just doesn't make sense to me. How many preseason games does the NBA play? Like five each? Like five. After the lockout, they played two each. It was great. And they were 802 NBA games. Let's just do some basic math here.

If there's 16 NFL games, why are there four preseason games? It used to be 14 and six. Oh, God. Well, that's exactly. That's what I want. Here's the thing is they used to,

and it's like every sport, same with spring training. They used to just like play these guys into shape. And also, you know, you didn't know a lot about guys, you know, bigger, you know, bigger question marks about guys needed to see them close up. Now you just, you know, you look at the film with these guys. It's a totally different era. Four preseason games is ridiculous. Well, we're halfway through the preseason. We're also halfway through our preseason. Of our 33 questions, we've answered 17 of them. Today we'll be doing

three more. We'll also get some questions from Twitter, which we haven't in a couple shows. Good time to do that again. As always, we come to you on Tuesdays and Fridays. And we're moving through these Kevin. I mean, the time we're done today, we're going to be two-thirds of the way done. It doesn't feel like we've been going that long. And we have a lot of questions left to go. I know. A lot of the bigger questions are still looming.

33 questions was not enough. Next year, it's 500 questions. We're going to start it after the Super Bowl. A couple years ago when Bill Simmons hated me more, we were doing like our first steps into the preview for the NFL. And he made me write one thing I was excited about regarding the NFL season, every day for 100 days before the season started. Every day.

Literally every single day. It was a horrible task. For publication? For publication, yes. I'm at Greightland.com. I do not miss doing that. I'm glad that is the thing that we've abandoned. And I'm really hoping that me reminding him here doesn't lead to somebody doing it later

on. I will apologize that person. We're rebooting that. It starts now and two times a day to make up for a lost time. All right. Here we go. Question number 18, the first one of this show. what is the biggest roster decision that has to happen as we move through these last two preseason

games? I think that this is brought on by us thinking about the fact that preseason game three is right around the corner here. What are the biggest moves that a team has to make with the little time we have remaining before the season? Why don't you go first? Okay. I think that the Buffalo bill should go into full tank mode. I think that's a great idea. What is that involved for you though? How far do they have to go? Well, I mean, obviously the Sauer Cap ramifications, they're one of these teams. they have less than $10 million in cap space, so they can't just be like some of the other guys and just say, screw it, we'll trade anybody,

we'll cut anybody. But obviously they've made some moves. You get rid of Sammy Watkins, you get rid of Darby, and you're sort of suggesting a path towards the 2017 season that does not involve the playoffs. So I think you go a step further. There's a lot of teams.

We're going to get to your team in a second, but there's a lot of teams that are with a huge question of quarterback. I would call and say, hey, Tyrod Taylor is available for a high pick. you're not going to get a first round pick for him, but I mean, maybe you get a second or third. You know, he's not, he's a really good quarterback. And I think that, you know, I think he's definitely a top 16, you know, top half of league quarterback. And a lot of teams need that. Right now, and nothing against Trevor Simeon, Trevor Simeon won a quarterback competition this week. That's not good for the team in question. We're going to get to that. Don't you worry.

Okay. So if you're doing, I would, if I'm Brandon Bean, I'm sending a 31 team. team mass text saying guess who's available, everybody. I think that's a great idea. There's no reason not to do that. Why not? Why? I'm probably screwing up the salary cap. Obligation. Is there any reason not to trade Shady McCoy? He's 29 years old. I don't think it helps them at all. I mean, there's a lot of dead money on that. 7.8 million, 7.9 million or so they don't save anything. So keeping him on the team this

year is not necessarily the worst thing. I think there are guys that it would make sense just to let go. aging. He's up there. He's not as old as Kyle Williams, you know, a guy like that could have a last little run with some team that needed an interior line help. By the way, 7.8 million in dead cap is not that much. He has an out after this year which would be 5.2 in dead cap. I do think that

maybe, I don't know. I mean, he'll probably get out of his contract next year and go go win a Super Bowl. I think there are guys that could have value. It's hard to trade away your whole team just because of the optics. Sure. And I know that that's not how you should make decisions when you're running an NFL team. And I feel like even the Sammy Watkins

trade is a move that takes some balls to actually pull the trigger on. I mean, just is saying this is the best player possibly on our team. We're going to deal him because we need a plan because the bills absolutely were one of our don't have a plan teams when we were discussing this earlier. They didn't have one and now it seems like they're trying to formulate one. And I feel like just throwing everything you've got at that plan isn't the worst idea. I will say they hedge the tank optics a little bit by getting Jordan Matthews on the same day. they got rid of Sammy Watkins.

Sure, but I mean, Jordan Matthews is that. He's last year in his contract. No, I get that. I get that. I'm just saying you can tell you're not going full, you know, Cleveland Brown's 2016, Philadelphia 76ers the last five years by getting a quality player on the day you shed an elite talent. I would be remiss during this segment of the podcast if I did not mention Anquan Bolden.

Yeah, that's obviously a big part of it. I mean, I'mquan Bolden retired. I wrote about it yesterday for the Ringer. He's one of my favorite players in the history of, football. Like, I've derived more joy from watching Ankle on Bolden than pretty much every single person I've ever watched play. I am sad that it is going to end because I was convinced that the way Bolden plays, he could have caught 60 passes a year until 2050. I still believe that might be true. He just chose to walk away. He was not kicked out of the league. He chose to do this. Yeah, I mean,

it's really funny to me. We talk so much about how old can these, this generation of players get and people, oh, Tom Brady can play until he's 47. Aaron Rogers wants to play 10 more years. And Glenn Bolden is somebody who could have just been 50 and still getting, you know, 800 yards a year. That's exactly who he is because he ran a 472 when he came into the league. It doesn't really matter that he runs a 5-0 now. He's still the same guy. It's amazing.

I'm really going to miss him. There's nobody like him. And that's what I wrote today. There's nobody that could survive. And not only survive, if he had played this season, he would have ended fifth, at least fifth all time in receptions. He's one of the most productive receivers of all time. And half the guys with his physical profile could even make it in the league.

He had a 70% catch percentage last year. He is a phenomenal player. He only had about 600 yards. But the idea to get eight touchdowns in a 70 was almost a career high for him. Yeah, I miss him. I'm going to miss him. I know that for certain. But I agree with you on the bills.

And I think that one of the teams that should consider making that Tyra Taylor phone call is the Jacksonville Jaguars. Uh-oh. Are we opening up two straight weeks of shows with who should the Jaguars trade for a quarterback? It's just they have to figure out a better solution here. And as I've, it's one of those things I was thinking about it this week. If you didn't,

if you thought for any reason that Bortles might go to the bench, if you weren't so committed with to him because of the pick that you spent on him and everything else, because you picked up the option, that you said 100% he's the quarterback all year, why wouldn't you bring in some quarterback to push him? Yeah, what the hell was that? It just, the only way you don't make that move is if you say right off the bat,

Blake Bortles is our quarterback. That's happening. We're not getting off that. So now that you have admitted that that's not true, they put a question mark in the quarterback spot on their depth chart today. Yeah. I mean, I mean, the question mark was always implied. Yes, of course.

Now it is more than implied. Now it is open and honestly a question mark at quarterback. Now, here's my question to you. So I'm sorry, so go ahead with your solution first. Bring in somebody. Just you have to do something. We've seen in recent years, it's been because of injury that the Sanpera effort trade happened last year, but it shouldn't be that level of desperation to make

you make some sort of move, whether it's calling about Tyraud Taylor, whether it's signing Colin Kaepernick, whether it's any of those things. There needs to be some move that happens at quarterback for Jacksonville because they're not in full tank mode. they gave out like $92 million guaranteed in contracts this offseason. They're trying to be a good team. Fifth consecutive offseason they've given out $90 million of contracts. They're trying to be a reasonable NFL team.

And to do that and then have, it's like if you had a Ferrari, but you put like a two-liter engine in it. It just doesn't make any sense. There's no logic behind the way that they're doing this. Saying that they just were willing to roll with those guys for whatever reason just doesn't make any sense to me. I'd be careful on the Ferrari thing with the Jaguars talent. I'm just, I mean, it's not quite to that level.

Even if it's like, I don't know, what's a mid-tier car? Not a car guy. It's an Accura. Yeah, sure. Yeah, that's fine. Whatever's like a decent car. A car I can't afford, but other people would aspire to. I drive an Accura.

There you go. It was a shot at me. I'm just saying, I have, there's something that has to happen here. And I don't know what it is, but there, you can't reasonably just say, and we're good with this and ride into the season. Not with the other decisions that you've made. Other teams can be patient. I think San Francisco can be patient.

I think Browns have been. But Jacksonville doesn't have that sort of timeline. That's not in line with the decisions that they've made. One of the things was so interesting to me, some of the coaches of Bill Belichick is friends with, talked about Belichick in Peter King's column this week. And the thing he's so good at is resetting everything at zero and starting everything year to year.

He doesn't care what happened last year. truly doesn't care that they won the Super Bowl at this time of the year. And I think that most NFL teams have to operate that way. It really is year to year. I know we're talking about the bills tanking and stuff, but unless you have, like the bills, a rookie head coach and a rookie GM, and in Jacksonville, you don't really, because Morone is a retread coach, and you have Tom Coughlin with lots of experience.

And Morone was there last year to watch boardups. It's not as if you just ran into town. Exactly. If you don't have that situation, you should try to compete as best you can. The rebuild is over in Jacksonville. I've written this many times. You cannot have a rebuild that lasts for more than about three years in the NFL because of the way contracts work,

because of just the windows and in players' careers. You only peak for maybe two and a half seasons. And so you have to start winning. And so this year, the Jacksonville Jaggores have to go out and swing for the fences. Last week, I suggest Alex Smith. I would also suggest, obviously, Tyrod Taylor. There's a couple of guys. I mean, anybody, man.

AJ McCarran, who cares? Who cares? Those are the names. Those, that's the level of name. I think Alex Smith is there. I mean, based on what Andy Reid has said, it doesn't seem like that's changing. No, I know, but you call them.

The other guys are in play. I don't understand why they wouldn't be, and I don't understand why you wouldn't be trying to work the phone. What is the highest pick you give up for Tyra Taylor? If I'm the Jaguars. Yeah. Would you give up your second round pick for Tyra Taylor? It depends.

It depends with the market. If you can get AJ McCarran for a third round pick, I'd rather have AJ McCarran for a third round pick. Just because I don't believe, I believe you just need confidence and see what happens. You know what? I'd probably give up a second amount for Tyrod.

That's yes, I would. I don't know, man. I feel the same way. I mean, you only know there's, he's only got two years on that deal after restructuring it, but it just is worth it to me.

You see if you can keep him around and see what that offense looks like. You imagine what it would look like with Tyrod Taylor throwing to Alan Robinson? I'm into that. I would like to see that. As the Jaguars receivers are known to want, he throws the ball in bounds.

No, in-bounds. He instantly makes Leonard Frenet better. Yep. Just because of his threat to keep the ball. If you saw what that kind of running game was with Taylor last year. Yeah. I mean, it would be a pretty big departure from what they probably tried to do with Bordals, but it still just seems like even midstream, it's a move worth thinking about.

Yeah. I, yeah, upon further reflection, he's definitely worth a second round pick. Although, you know, and also, you know, the Jaguars hopefully don't have like the second pick in the second round ever again. Especially with that, it just feels like you have to try to get the most out of this roster that you've spent so much trying to build. If they don't try to compete now, what is the point of the Jaguars? That's exactly my thought. I mean, it's like, I guess you could kind of argue that it's the new regime, but like you just said, it's not really. Yeah, Tom Coughlin started the franchise.

I understand these new there, but like there's got to be some continuity. Didn't you say it's like the same people, like bunch of same people are still there? I mean, come on. Let's go. And Morone's been there for what, three years? Yeah, I mean, there's enough continuity there and they've tried to formulate enough of a roster. And crucially, there are good players there. Yes.

Jalen Ramsey and IJ. Boy are like a top, I don't know, 12 cornerback combination. And I feel like there's more talent on that defense. The line still gives me pause, but the receiving talent, everything else, there's enough players there to say we should try to make some sort of run at this. They're not playing in the best division of all time. You know, like, it's not the AFC East. They don't have to beat the Patriots. They have to beat the Patriots.

they have to beat three teams that have question marks of their own, even if we're excited about a couple of that. Hey, I think that even with Bortles, I think that the Jaguars might win more games than the luckless Colts. That's totally fine with me. I do not disagree with you. I just want to throw that out there. I feel like the Colts,

if luck doesn't play double-digit games are headed towards like a complete disaster. They should bring Curtis Painter back for this year is what I'm saying. Oh, my God. Get the band back together. Get the band back together. Band back together. Get the band back together. They should just draft Sam Darnold after they go one and 15 just to piss everybody off.

Just hoard franchise quarterbacks. Every time there's a franchise quarterback, the Colts are just going to have a one in 15 season. All right, before we move on, if you're like me, and you're not so great at planning ahead, there's this awesome app called Hotel Tonight that helps you find amazing hotel deals at the last minute. It sounds counterintuitive, but unlike flights, hotel rates usually get cheaper at the last minute. And Hotel Tonight helps hotels sell their unsold rules. rooms allowing them to pass those deals along to you. These aren't last resort places. They're actually cool, top-rated hotels you want to stay in. And with so many awesome partner hotels

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So we're going to switch gears a tiny bit here. So the next question we're going with, who is this year as a bandwagon team? And I think we can kind of think about this a couple different ways. You know, who's going to be the team de jure early in the season? Who's the team that people are going to kind of fall in love with? I also would frame it as, if you didn't, have a team. Say, Barnwall and I got this a couple years ago. Somebody was like from Germany

I was just getting in the NFL. He's like, what team should I get into? Which team would be fun to like? And I like that question because it feels like you're looking at the entire league with clear eyes. Like, who do I actually care about independent of the things I believe? And so it's a good one. I think it's a good way

to think about the league going into each season. So let's start with you. Who's your first one? Okay, so the way we phrase this when we were talking was who's this year's Titans. And I don't think the Titans were so good last year that it precludes them from being from being this year's team. They may be the best answer to this.

They're going to, they were 9 and 7 last year. They're going to go 10 and 6 and they're probably going to make the playoffs. They're going to be in a dog fight with the Houston Texans and just depends what goes on with the quarterback there as far as who wins that division. Does one team win 11 games or not? I think it's going to be really exciting to see. Marcus Mariotta is going to emerge as a superstar this year. There's personalities on that team.

People are going to love people like even Delaney Walker. who obviously had a run at notoriety when he was with the Niners during the Great Harbaugh years, has sort of produced a lot in semi-animity in Nashville for the past few seasons. And I think he's going to reemerge. You know, some of those, they're just, they're a great team to be around. I was around them a couple weeks ago. I know there's a lot of jokes about Mike Mularkey. We've made a bunch of them.

But I think he's actually kind of an okay coach for this team. And John Robinson is a great GM. So I love them. I think the Bengals may surprise people a little bit, but I want to actually get to another team that I think will really surprise people in a vacuum. And that's the Cleveland Browns. Because we've mentioned this a few times, but I think people think they're tanking again and they're not.

They do have some nice talent. Gibral Peppers is going to make some plays. The tight end, David & Joko is awesome. So if everyone's healthy, if everyone can play, they're going to be extremely, they're going to be the most fun six to seven win team you can possibly imagine.

I think they'll be entertaining, but if we're looking at a team that could kind of become the darling of the season and I think you'd have to talk about somebody that's at least close to contention and I still feel like the Browns are far away from that. Oh, definitely. The Titans are there for me.

I think this is the year of the Browns start winning games against pretty good teams. This is like, right now I would say this question is about who was last year's Raiders. You know, the team that was exciting. I don't know if there is any. The Cowboys are a whole different plane.

I don't know if there is any either. Except one of the teams you're about to name. You think the Bucks are? I think they, if anyone is going to go from non-playoffs to, are they going to win the Super Bowl? It would be them. If anyone's going to do it, it would be them.

That's a, you know, the roadmap to that is pretty clear. You know, I think them and the Titans are the two teams that everyone is mentioning, in part because of quarterback trajectory, right? It's not an accident. that both of those guys were picked three years ago together. You know, this is their third season.

We just expect that jump. We're going to intertwine those guys forever. And I think the excitement is, you know, not all the way a product of that, but at least partly a product of that. The offense has a chance to be really good. I mean, if James takes a step forward and you have him and Deshawn and Mike Evans and O.J. Howard and Doug Martin looks pretty good again. People forget Doug Martin was great two years ago.

And that if he's even close to that, they're going to have a decent running game. The offensive line struggles in pass protection at times, but I think overall they'll be able to move the ball on the ground if Morton's back. There's a chance they're really exciting. The defense is fine. There's nothing to be sad or worried about. It's on the upswing, I think. Yeah. And I think that they have enough talent over there to be good enough to not hurt what could be a really good offense.

So yeah, I understand that one. The other one I would say, I don't know why I think this. Maybe it's just because I've watched so many Kenny Gallaudet highlights over the last week. Oh, no. I just feel like the lions could have a chance to be exciting. I don't know how good they'll be because I think their defense is going to be not so great, but I think that offense has a chance to be really good. And I know that they lost Taylor Decker.

That sucks. I feel like that line, how they retooled it, could have gone from a weakness to maybe a strength this season. But I think if Ghaladay can play, and it's him, Marvin Jones, and Golden Tate on the outside. And then you have Theo Riddick and Amir Abdul in the backfield. I love Theoretic. I've never been shy about it. that. I just think that brand of football could be very fun. And also, if you're trying to tell somebody to get into a team, hating the coach of that team is always a part of that process. And I feel like

it's the only thing that brings all football fans together. And I think that if you told somebody like from France that had never watched a football game, you watch this team, you will love them so much at times and you will hate Jim Call Well with this undying passion. I just feel like it'd be the purest instantaneous, like, it'd be the purest introduction to the football fan experience. Absolutely. The Kenny Goliday thing, you've just become, you've become one with fantasy football Twitter. Well, the guy's made some really nice plays. I know, it's always, it's interesting to me.

It always starts with fantasy football Twitter because they're mining all those, those gems, and then it grows, but you've, you've bought in. I kind of like that. Well, I mean, if the guy can make that sort of play, if he, that's a sort of receiver that he is, you think about, we just talked about Ankle and Bolden before, how many receptions and targets Bolden got in this offense. They have an outside, they have a spot that somebody needs to fill.

And that can be Kennedy Gallaudet. And it's, he could look worse. You know, the guy, I'm not saying he's going to be whole favor. No, no,

I know. He's still working with a second unit. Let's, let's call. I'm pretty sure he's with the starters now. No, he's back. He's back to the second unit. All right.

Well, we'll just say that I assume he's going to get some first team work before it's all said and done. He's back. He's back in his, Natural Habitat. No, I'm kidding. I'm sure he'll be fine. It's just, I love preseason hype as all. No, it's great. And again, I'm not saying he's going to catch 80 balls, but I think that having that element to go along with the rest of the players that they have, many of whom are pretty good.

I just think that it could be an exciting brand of football for people that don't have a rooting interest. I mean, I cannot think of a more exciting team last year than the Lions. I think the Lions had even a more exciting season in the Raiders. They had more of those insane fourth quarter comebacks in the Raiders did, even though everyone talked about the Raiders comebacks the entire year. And I don't know how good Matthew Stafford is, but Matthew Stafford is fun. I mean, Matthew Stafford gets some throws off

that he has no business doing. Hit the arm angle stuff and the way that he's able to improvise back there occasionally. Again, I don't know how effective and consistent a brand of football it is, but I do think it's an interesting one. Do you ever think about how good Matthew Stafford's going to be considered in five years when all the entire golden generation of quarterbacks retire? Or just

10 years from now or 20 years from now when people are looking at the numbers. Yeah, no, I understand that. Yeah, no, no, I understand that. I mean, people also, if they look at the numbers consider Drew Breeze to be, you know, maybe even, I mean, statistically, he blows guys like Brady away just as far as the 5,000-yard seasons.

But to me, for Breeze, it's not the counting numbers. No, I know that. It's their efficiency is in like the top three every single year. That's not the case of Stafford. If someone picks up the sports alman, if Biff Tannen picks up the sports almanac in 30 years, he says, his Breeze guy was pretty damn good. No, but in Stafford in like five years, when that whole generation goes,

Stafford is going to be like top dog. Well, it's kind of the conversation we're already having about his contract, right? Yeah, he's going to be the highest paid player in NFL history, like almost certainly. Matthew Stafford did a great job of timing when he came into the league. The 2009 was a great time to be a rookie with the first overall pick. Those two years, man. Domok and Sue and Gerald McCoy was on just fine too. and San Bradford ain't hurting.

That's phenomenal. He is the smartest man in football. Coming up, we're going to tackle your questions from Twitter, including one that points to a Patriots weakness that could end their playoff run early. I said could. But probably not. Nope. We're also going to talk some storylines that we think are being grossly overlooked right now.

Panthers fans and Broncos fans may not want to pay attention. But first, let's take a quick break for our sponsor. I want to point out that for over 20 years, DirecTV has been the exclusive home to NFL Sunday ticket. The only way to get every live game every Sunday. Good news, NFL fans. Direct TV has expanded the service. If you live in an apartment or you're an enrolled college student, now you can get NFL Sunday ticket without a satellite.

That's me. That makes me excited. To see if you're eligible, go online to NFL Sundayticket. TV and stream every NFL Sunday ticket game this season to follow your favorite team no matter where you live. Use promo code Ringer at checkout to say 15%. Again, that's NFL sundayticket.tv promo code Ringer. I, Kevin. Let's dig into our Twitter questions today. We got a lot of them. We can only have time for a few. Again, though, thank you to everyone that participated. We always appreciate it. First up, we're going to go with Crazy High 60 who wants to know outside of the quarterbacks. Who is the player on Super Bowl contending teams that they can't afford to lose to injury or have underperform? Well, we found out the answer to this question last year. I feel like this is not fair. And it has to happen again. And it's, how is it wrong?

wrong. No, you're right. I mean, this is probably the correct answer. It is Mr. Earl Thomas in Seattle, who famously was injured last year in a primetime game and that team forgot how to play football. I've never seen a more direct application of the, what would this team look without this guy? Because we've always talked about how valuable Earl Thomas is to the Seattle Seahawks. And we got to see it in real time with like 30 million people watching. watching. It was something to behold. Yeah. And we've had that, I was going to say it was an ageal argument, but that's not entirely true, considering Earl Thomas has only been in the league for like seven years.

Feels like, who is the most important player on the Seahawks defense? I was always an Earl Thomas believer. And I think we have a definitive answer on that. It's probably Earl Thomas. I campaigned for Earl Thomas to be named retroactive MVP for the past five seasons after seeing what they looked like without him. That's totally fair. I don't think you're off base there. I'm also going with a defensive player because I feel like on offense, if you don't lose the quarterback, you can still sustain.

You know, even if like the Falcons lost Julio Jones, them having Matt Ryan, they'd still be fine. They've lost Julio Jones for games in a time. Yeah. I mean, so,

I mean, not last year, really. I mean, he played most of the last season. But for the most part, yes, you know,

he's, we've seen that offense without Julio Jones. I think it'd still be okay, if less dynamic. With a defense, if you take out the most important piece, that can kind of become a house of cards. And I feel like with the Raiders, that would be true if they lost Kalil Mack.

I just don't think they have the defensive talent elsewhere on that roster, even with that influx of young guys in the secondary to lose Mack. He's just too good. He affects the game too often. They don't have enough guys getting after the quarterback that aren't him. I just feel like they would really struggle if they lost him for an extended amount of time. Agree. I think that the edge rusher in the modern game has been overstated.

I think there's too much quick passing. I think that there's too many smart teams that just know how to neutralize it. What Kalil Mac does is he wrecks games. There were so many games, three or four where he just directly just like basically got the game winning sack or had a strip sack or changed the nature of the game.

He was incredible. And so it doesn't take much. I mean, I think he was talking about getting 30 sacks. I mean, that's just not going to happen just by the nature of the sport now and the nature of the passing game in the NFL. But what is going to happen if he's healthy for a full season and he plays like he did last year is he's going to have, again, two or three games where he in the fourth quarter changes

the conversation of the game. And I think that is so insanely valuable. Yeah, I think that the edge rusher is becoming a little less important. We're going to get to that a little bit as part of a bigger conversation that we're having with our last question of the day. But there are some guys that have transcendent that. Von Miller is in that conversation. you know, there's guys that are so good, get to the quarterback so quickly,

and also our expert run defenders, they just are always affecting the game, even if the sack tolls are played there. Those two are one A and one B. Yes. And you know, you have sort of the second wave of those guys. You know, Justin Houston is like that. But, I mean, Miller and Mac are so far above everybody from an edge perspective.

Aaron Donald's a different conversation. Well, a healthy watt, you know, is right there. We'll see what Joe it most is. essentially becomes. We're doing this again? I don't know. People have heard about how good he looks this week. Oh, yeah.

I'm just saying, I'm not going to have this conversation and not mention J.J. Watt's name. The guy's one of the defensive player of the year three times in the last six years. I'm just saying. He affects the game pretty often. I'd like to see him healthy again. That's fine.

We can talk about it. I'm not going to have this be a part of a public record and not have J.J. Watts' name in this conversation. Public record. They're going to look back and they're going to be studying this in 100 years. That's fine with me, man. I just want to cover myself. And then Bosa.

I feel like we'll see what happens this year. Yeah. I mean, he was so good last year. But to me, that's the type of player. You could afford to lose pretty much anybody else. I think that the way the game has gone, you talk about edge rushers being less important. I think guys in the middle of the defense on the back end are more important. I think guys on the edge are still more important on the front under your defense.

So I think a pass rusher or a safety, two guys we mentioned would be the guys teams could least afford to lose. I agree. I agree. I mean, the Mac thing. If the Raiders had to play like double-digit games without Mac, I mean, they better score 50 points a game. I'd be really curious to see what the Pittsburgh offense

would look like without Antonio Brown. I mean, I'm not curious to see it. I don't want to because I enjoy watching them so much. But we've never seen that. You know, of all the guys they've lost, all the iterations they've had to face,

we haven't seen that offense without him. He missed a game last year. Yeah, just the one. I mean, just for an extended amount of time is what I'm saying. No, I know. We've seen months of life without Martavis, Brian, Ben Rathusberger, Levy on Bell. That's not true without Antonio Brown.

So I feel like they could be, they could afford a game or two, but six, eight, I just don't know how well they'd be able to overcome that. We were talking earlier about the Europeans who were trying to get into football. The one thing I don't recommend anyone watch for trying to get into football is a Landry Jones starting Steelers game. All right. We got time for one more today. and it comes from at roulette's dare on Twitter. Big Mars Valta fan. I enjoy the Mars Vista.

I like their styling. So is this is something that a lot of people asked me, just independently of us soliciting questions. Is the Patriots lack of a defensive line? Does that threaten a deep run into the playoffs? Oh, my God. What is the answer to that for you, Kevin? Oh, my God.

That's my answer. All right. So they traded Chandler Jones away, traded Jamie Collins away. They won the Super Bowl. they once lost Tom Brady for a season they won 11 games I don't think

the apocalypse the eclipse is come and gone and there's been no apocalypse so literally nothing can stop them from having a deep playoff run so I tweeted this and I very much believe it when you lose a third round rookie

and people are like oh no that's it it's over this is the worst thing that could have happened you know you're doing pretty well that is the state of the current Patriots roster It's like, oh gosh, Derek Rivers is hurt. What's going to happen? I believe Derek Rivers can be a good NFL player.

If people really like the pick when they made it. Two things about that. He's still a third round pick from this year. And second, edge rushers in this scheme have always been limited in what they should do compared to other teams. They've never been forced to do as much for the Patriots as they do for other teams. This is a read and react defense. And I feel like not having one dominant edge guy, they're not that a way.

from winning 16 games. They're going to be just fine. Yeah, I mean, I agree with you. I think that a lot of times you like to poke holes and oh yeah, this is the weakness here.

People are trying to poke holes here. It's not working. It's really not working. It is really not working. And so for me, there's just, I mean, Brady and Belichick are still there.

They'll figure out a way. And the defense is still pretty good. Yeah, they'll be fine. They still have a lot of good players. They have Stefan Gilmore. And I know Dante Howard Tower is hurt now, but Devin McCoy They're going to get some guy off waivers

in like a week from the Ravens and he's going to win three games for him. Yeah, I'm not too concerned about that. They found Rob Ninkovich on the 07, 1 and 15 dolphins. That's another thing. Rob Ninkovitch retired. What are they going to do? Yeah, oh wow.

Oh, what we can do with Rob Ninkovich? They got Shea McClellan who sucked for the Bears. He's about to be an 11-time pro bower only because Bill Belichick told him what to do. No, stop. No, we're still cutting this off here. Do your job. All he had to do is tell Chey McClellan to do his job and now he's going to Canton.

I haven't seen any evidence of that. I just know that that's what's going to happen. No, that's absolutely not going to happen. We've got one more question left today, but first I want to know who you guys are picking for this McGregor Mayweather matchup. It's the biggest fight in the last 20 years. So if you're looking to cash in in your sports knowledge, my bookie. orgie.ag is offering up to 100% signing bonus on your first deposit. With MyBooky, you don't have to go to Vegas for great sports betting or ask around at any of the CD bars to find a guy who know

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Last question for today. What has been the most overlooked storyline to you at this preseason? So something we've been sweeping under the rug even though we shouldn't be? Well, I mean, I think there are two things. I think they're two separate players and I think that they're both massive question marks. Cam Newton has surgery. He has shoulder problems and he's been pretty slow to get out there. I was out there in August and he wasn't throwing.

I think that on Monday he participated in every drill for the first time. But look, if you're doing that in late August, that's still a sign that there's a tough road to go. And I just feel like we're going to see him start very slowly. I think everything, we have a couple of times talked about the Panthers being a bounce back team with Christian McCaffrey and Curtis Samuel. Samuel, by the way, is healthy again for the first time since college, basically. And so I think that there's the big hiccup here is what if Kim Newton's not ready to play? And what if they go out he goes out there too early or they throw out Derek Anderson in week one?

I mean, I still have full confidence that Cam Newton in week one is going to look good. But I think, I mean, there's a chance there, man, that he starts slow and then the whole season goes downhill. Second thing, Andrew Luck. You know, he's still not where he needs to be. The Colts refuse to get a competent guy there. I mean, I guess that's to suggest that Andrew Luck is healthier

than people think and he'll be there week one. But man, that could be a massive disaster if he got Scott Tollesian in the Indianapolis Coles. And then what happens if Andrew Luck comes back after six weeks on Pup and he looks good and they win, you know, eight of their last 10 games and then their playoff run was screwed up because they had Tolsey in for the first month this season. It's ridiculous. I guess I understand that.

I also think the Colts just wouldn't care if they went six and ten this year. Like that part of me is just like that. Andrew Luck would care. I mean, Andrew looks really good, man. I understand that. We've seen him create a lot of crap out of nothing. I'll be curious to see how that unfolds. I feel like that's something that.

I know you've been interested in that. We've talked about it a decent amount. The Cam Newton thing, I feel, is interesting because it's not as if it's just a complete carryover with their offense. You know, the reason that we're excited, part of the reason, at least, about Carolina, is that we feel like the dynamic that could be there with McCaffrey and with Samuel is going to be a little different than the way they played before. So you kind of would have liked Cam Newton to get some time with those guys and with them. approach coming into the season. I know the term knowledge is going to be the same. I know that he spent a lot of time with Mike Shula. There's a relationship there. It's not a disaster. I just feel like,

again, not all continuity situations are the same. Sometimes it's different in terms of how much is going to change. How much do you know? Doug Morone's a first year coach, but he still has experience with Blake Bortles. Mike Shul has been the offensive coordinator in Carolina for years, but you would assume that this is going to look a little bit different. And with that in mind, you're right. I think I would temper my expectations for how good Carolina can be as this team that's supposed to bounce back in a big way. Brian O'Hanlon was on our show a couple weeks ago, and he asked if the Jets should go without a quarterback for the 2017 season. If Cam Newton can't play the first game of the season,

should they just direct snap to McCaffrey instead of starting Derek Anderson? And then send Curtis Samuel in motion every time. Or just have them both back there. Let's go, Mike Shula. Let's go, Mike. Kyle just picks who he wants to snap the ball too. It's a check with me. Who am I going to snap to?

Check with 67 every play. Oh, goodness. I, you know, I've got watching McCaffrey, though. He looks fun. I mean, I wanted him to be good. I think he's exciting. I wasn't sure how much pounding he could take. He's a smaller guy.

He still isn't going to break a lot of tackles. I feel like we've seen that already. He's going to go down pretty quick. But when you're eight yards into the defensive backfield, who gives a shit? Yeah, I totally. with you. Let's get, teams need to get weirder. That's all

you want. You just want weird shit to happen all the time. One time I asked Rob Ryan, I asked him, he was putting three safeties in the field after they signed Jarrah's bird and I said, how weird can you get on defense? And he said, I'm always ready to get weird, man.

I said, this is the worst interview ever done. Yeah, that has nothing to do with what he was doing on the field. No, he had no idea. He had no idea I was talking about football. All right. The one that I just have been thinking about all week, and I think it's relevant because of the news. Should we be talking about how the Broncos might be really bad?

Like, is that something that is in play here? Because it feels like it is. Wow. I don't know. I mean, I actually thought the Broncos are going to be pretty good because I had inherent trust in John Elway. Now all of a sudden you hear that not only is Trevor Simian, not only is winning and won the quarterback competition,

which we already knew was going to happen. But apparently it wasn't close. Is Pax Lynch just like not showing up for practice or something? So this is, I think, part of my point in the trust in John Elway thing. Obviously what he did in those first couple of years, especially assembling that defense. And just the way that we talked about this before, wasn't the most creative way,

but using every resource to make that team better. They did that in a way that Seattle did, in a way that the good teams do. But then I'm going back and I'm looking at, hit their draft history over the last few years. Yeah. And it's worrisome. Yeah.

So let's say starting in 2013. Derek Wolf is a good player. Brock Osweiler's not. This is 2012. 2013. Sly Williams in the first round. Monty Ball in the second round. Kavon Webster in the third round.

Fine. You know, like, Monty Ball is a huge bust. Sly Williams has been whatever. Year after, Bradley Robey, good player. Cody Latimer, not a good player. Michael Schofield hasn't been able to get on the field for them. Matt Paradise, really good center. That's a great pick.

2014 or excuse me, 2015. Shane Ray, okay. Tice Sambrelo in the second round. Nope. I mean, it's just every,

it's been rough. It's been rough and I think it gets to its nadir here with Paxton Lynch not being able to play. We don't see many first round picks not get on the field as rookies anymore. If you can go two years without getting in the game, that's a problem. Yeah,

that's a good sign that things are going south. And this is not, this is, by the way, the quarterback thing in Denver, this is not exactly Drew Brie's holding off Phillip Rivers here. Exactly. This is a seventh round pick that they had as a stopgap last year because they literally couldn't

sign Brock Osweiler. A seventh round pick who looks like a seventh round pick. Trevor Simeon is, he's a put what you'd expect, man. I mean, the fact that he can't, yeah, the fact that Lynch can't beat him out is a problem. I mean, God bless him for starting in the NFL and making money, good for him.

He's a hell of a lot. He's doing a hell of a lot better than I. I did a boxing class yesterday. I can't move. Trevor Simeon will be in the league for a while probably. I'm sure he'll be a backup. You be a guy people like to have a round. I don't think he's a starting quarterback on a team of Super Bowl aspirations.

And this team apparently does. So it just doesn't seem like their offense is going to get to a level that can not torpedo how good the defense is. Three straight losses. They went 0 and 3 in December last year when Simeon started. 10 points in one loss. The next lost three points.

The next loss, 10 points. it's not as if the Broncos offense has so much of an infrastructure that doesn't matter who the quarterback is. The line is still rough. We still don't know who the number one running back is going to be there consistently. I mean, it's not as if they have these pieces that are just like plug and play everywhere else. You like the receivers. You know, both of those guys are good. I think that Demarius Thomas is never going to be anything close to what he was three years ago,

but he's still solid. Outside of that, it's not as if you can just say, we can skimp on quarterback and be fine. Anyone who's ever said we can skip on quarterback and be fine has gone 5 and 11. I mean, that's not what I mean necessarily. It's just that we don't need the best quarterback of all time because we've built our offense in a different way. You know, they had the best quarterback last year.

The Broncos had the best quarterback of all time. And then he stopped, he had four neck surgeries and stopped, his body stopped working and they still won the Super Bowl. The other thing I want to mention that it just seems like we would bring it up once a week, but it isn't a big deal. It doesn't seem like Aaron Donald is going to play. But he seems very intent on sitting out. Yeah, I don't believe that. Well, if, I mean, it feels like he's more committed to it than most guys typically are. I mean, Leveon Bell is going to be there. Aaron Donald, it seems like he does no interest in this.

I just want to say something about Bell real quick. I love the Schaft Report that was like, Leveon Bell is going to show up. He doesn't know when. Has anyone like just more efficiently skip training camp? What do you mean? I mean, just like he clearly just didn't. I mean, like, if he's, if he's telling, if someone is telling Adam Schaefter, he's going to show up no matter what, then it's not really a holdout. He just wanted to do training camp.

Sure. I think that was a big part of this for him, probably. That was great. It was awesome. Great move. Jake Cutler skipped the first two weeks training camp with this little, you know, I work for Fox and now I've trained as a broadcaster. That was pretty suave.

I think that was a little more intricate. I'm not sure that was Jay's plan from the get-go. Kaiser Soza. with the Fox Broadcasting deal. Oh, by the way, I play for the Dolphins now. I'm just going to be so sad if Aaron Donald doesn't play.

That's all I'm saying. Was Sean Gilbert the last player who was of any significance who skipped an entire season? I can't remember. I mean, that was 20 years ago. I mean, I just don't. I don't think it happens very often.

Cam Chancellor showed up. Derelle Revis showed up. But Cam Chancellor missed time. No, of course he did. But I'm just saying, I remember Lance Briggs when I was, you know, back in the day, he missed a couple of games.

It's still not fun for guys to miss games. Aaron Donald is that important. Where if Aaron Donald misses two games, it doesn't seem like the Rams have any chance of winning those games. I'm going to skip camp next year. Just out. I'm going to show up like week four so you make sure that you're like you vest one year in the league. Yeah, no,

I'm going to get my game checks. I respect that. How early? You show up the day before the game the week before? A couple of Sunday morning. Sunday morning a week one. On the West Coast. That's palsy, man.

You have to get up pretty early and make that call. Yeah, man. You got to let them know your value. All right, buddy. That's it. That's all we got for today. We got 20 questions in the bag. About two-thirds of the way done. We'll be back on Friday with another batch as we count down our 33 questions for this preseason. As always, thank you for listening to the Ring around NFL show presented by DirecTV. We'll talk to you guys. Thanks, guys. Things change. The weather changes. Your mood definitely changes. So why lock yourself into plans that may change? With hotel tonight, you don't have to because you'll get incredible deals on

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