The Ringer NFL Show - 33 Preseason Questions: Cutler Mopes to Miami, Cam’s Comeback, and 2017’s Best Division (Ep. 122)

Episode Date: August 8, 2017

The Ringer’s Robert Mays and Kevin Clark tackle four more of their 33 Preseason Questions leading up to opening night, including how the Dolphins just gave the Titans a playoff spot (3:45) and which division you shouldn’t take your eyes off of this season (14:20). Then the guys discuss why David Johnson is the perfect NFL player (25:40) and how Cam Newton’s supporting cast makes the Panthers contenders again (27:40). Finally, Robert and Kevin point out some quarterbacks you need to start paying attention to (33:30), including DeShone Kizer, who could be the next great NFL leader (37:40). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Enter promo code Ringer NFL, and C-Geek will send you $20 after you've made your first ticket purchase. Download the C-Kig app and enter promo code Ringer NFL today. Welcome to the Ringer NFL show, part of the Ringer Podcast Network. I'm Robert Mays. I'm Robert Mays. Joining me on the other line. It's Kevin Clark. Kevin, how you doing, bud?

I'm on the side of a highway in Minnesota. I was going to ask about your whereabouts. This is the worst Fargo deleted scene of all time. The director's cut, baby. I'm into it. Just me potting for 45 minutes, talking about Jake Cutler. I have no idea where you are at any time anymore. Yeah, I'm in.

I was just in Mancato, Minnesota, home of the Vikings. And this will be the last time the Vikings are going to train here. And then I'm off to Green Bay tonight. So potting. necessary. I was in Green Bay last Thursday, then Indianapolis, then Cincinnati. I was in Bourbon A today at Bears Camp. We are just, you know, rambling men. I like it, buddy. This is fun. It's fun to be around teams again, talking to people. You know, it's getting a feel for how teams feel about themselves. I think they all feel better now than they will two months from now. But,

you know, I like optimism. It's fun that people are excited. They're all in the best shape of their lives. I saw something or heard something. I've never heard in my life today. It was in Minnesota and it was this guy who was cheering just for the offensive line. And a lot of people on Twitter thought it was me. It was not you. I understand that, but you, I've been to, I don't know, over the last five or six years, I probably average 15 to 20 camps a year, always rooting for the skill position guys, obviously the quarterback, maybe a rookie. I have never in my life heard offensive line being cheered. And they really, that is the psyche of the

Minnesota Vikings fan in 2017. The guy was yelling, come on, offensive line. Give him some time. I mean, I can't blame them after last season. He took a long time for him to come up with something to yell to the offensive line. I personally support this, obviously. If anybody in the world is going to understand where this guy is coming

from, it's me. Or Mike Zimmer. That's also fair. It was Mike Zimmer. that's the twist it was Mike Zimmer. All right, well, we're continuing our 33 questions today. We asked the first three last Friday. We're going to be doing four more questions today.

We'll be back with you this Friday. Things are happening. So we're going to get back into those questions. We're also going to be taking some bonus questions and some questions from Twitter as we go along here. We can't seem to get Mallory Rubin on the podcast because she hates us, but it's because she's so busy. We had Chris Ryan last show. So those kind of people will be cycling in and out. But today it's just me and you, buddy.

It's just us. Mallory has now canceled multiple times, which is fine. I'm pretty sure that's on you. She just doesn't want to talk to you anymore. Yeah, no, it's because I don't watch Game of Thrones. I do. And there's probably a good chance that's all she's going to want to talk about. But today we are going to get into our first question.

And it's probably the second biggest thing that happens Sunday, besides Game of Thrones. The Miami Dolphins signed Jay Cutler to be presumably their starting quarterback with Ryan Tannahill going down. And the question that is going to come out of this for our purposes here is, are the dolphins now a playoff contender and maybe a more dangerous playoff contender than the one they were with Ryan Tannahill at quarterback? Ooh, well, that's a tough question. I'm going to start with no. Now, it's a blanket no. It's a no to all of your questions.

We'll get into more specifics right now. So what's stunned me is that when Jay Cutler is healthy in the last three years, he has been Ryan Tannahill. They're not the same player. They're very different. But productivity wise, I mean, you're looking at 88 to 92 quarterback rating, I think around, you know, low 60s completion percentage. I mean, really, you know, pretty much the exact same yards per, yards per attempt in most situations. and so I think you could say they have comparable amounts of production. I think it comes down to, I mean, one guy just retired.

And so would you rather, if Ryan Tannahill were healthy, I would take Ryan Tannahill because one guy didn't just retire from a torn labor. One guy wasn't having extremely weird body language at a press conference in which he basically said he maybe doesn't want to play. I was very confused by the whole thing. And so it comes down to minor differences. And I would much rather have a healthy Ryan Tannehill. because he's younger.

You know, he's just not in the same mental spot as whatever Jake Keller has got going on. So in a perfect world, I would much rather have healthy Ryan Tannahill than whatever Jay Keller has got going on. But that's not what it is. You know, I can't see a scenario in which they're better. I can see them being the exact same, which means nine to ten wins. Maybe some of the weapons win one more game. We'll look at 11 wins and you're in second place in the end.

the AFC East. I'm of two minds about this. First, it bums me out because when I was looking at some of the units around the league that I was wanting him to retire a bear. No, that is, here's the thing. I am excited about watching Jay Cutler play football for a team that is not my team. That part is exciting to me. I just wish it weren't the dolphins because coming into the year when I was looking at

some of these offenses and defenses that I had, I thought could make a rise. I thought could in some ways mimic what the Falcons did this year. Maybe not the best in the league, but a big leap. I thought that Miami's offense was one of those groups because it's year two under Gase. And I thought Ryan Tanya Hill played relatively well last year. I really do. They finished the season 10th and weighted offensive DVOA. And that was a pretty big gap from, I believe, 16 or 15 where they were for the season.

They got better. And they really locked in at the end of the season. And I felt year two with Tana Hill under Gase with Devonte Parker, who I think is going to have a big year or could have with Ryan Tannahill. Landry, Kenny Stills, that running game. I still have questions about the offensive line. I think everyone should. But I was bullish on that group. Now you bring in J. Cutler.

And I can't even understand how people even think that J. Culler could make this offense better than Ryan Tann Hill in this moment. Jay Culler is 34 years old. he literally said today I don't need to be in cardiovascular shape I play quarterback he's the best I mean that guy is just the king of not giving a fuck and it's just like

I don't know man it it's not fun anymore it's not fun to think about what this dolphin's offense can be it's not having fun watching the dolphins anymore I am I excited to watch Jay Cutler just mope around all the time when things go horribly yes because it no longer affects my life

in a negative way. It's purely entertainment. So that part of it is something that I'm very excited about. But I was really pumped to watch this Dolphins team. And I just don't think it's going to happen. I know that Culler had the best year of his career under Gase. You know, he completed 64% of his passes and he only through 11 interceptions. The season J. Culler had under Adam Gase in 2015 is worse than the one Ryan Tannahill

had last year. Yeah. I just think a lot of this weird Cutler is a better option than Tannahill thing is just this weird outdated vitriol towards Tana Hill. I think Tanna Hill is developed into a solid sort of above average starting quarterback and I was really excited to see him. I was really excited to see him.

Exactly what you're saying. And you're 2 under Gates. I thought there it wasn't going to be a massive leap. He wasn't going to turn into Aaron Rogers, but I really, I could have seen them pushing. Listen man, the AFC sucks. It really does. And and and and and like you're, I'm rocking my brain here. The Tennessee Titans, if they're any good are like should make the playoffs. There's no, it's not, I don't see a good team winning 10 games and there's no room

at the end for them in the playoffs, okay? And so when I look at the Miami Dolphins, I saw a huge opportunity for them. I mean, I would absolutely have them as the five seed of Ryan Tana who are healthy going into the season. I totally agree with you. That second tier in the AFC is right there for the taking. And there's a world in which Miami still wins nine games and makes the playoffs. Oh, sure.

But that's different than being a contender. That's different than maybe with a puncher's chance, if that offense really developed into a potent group, they for one game could knock off Pittsburgh or New England. That, I think, has now gone out the door. I'm not saying that they're going to be a disaster. I think that the talent plus gase is enough to make them functional on offense. But I just think they could have been functional on offense with Matt Moore.

I really don't think. We've been robbed. We've been robbed of a good story. line because I think the dolphins have a personality type where they're confident, a little brash. They've got some guys in the locker room there who wanted to chirp at the Patriots. I think it was going to be a lot of fun to see those two matchups this year. And now I think that, again, I'm not saying they won't be competitive. I'm saying that they won't have the same confidence going into those matchups.

I think they're the type of team that just goes 0 and 2 against the Patriots and loses both games by like 15 points. I was talking to some people at Bears Camp today and there was just this feeling of now that Cutler's there, he just has this dour presence about him, man. And you can, they've been talking about it with the theirs this year. And it's, you know, even it's Mike Glennon,

right? No one's excited about Mike Glennon, but no one actively dislikes Mike Glennon. The guys in the locker room actually seems to really like him. So it's just one of these things where you have Matt Moore who is, I think really well liked among those players. People like Matt Moore as like, people like the back quarterback pretty often,

but Matt Moore seemed like a particularly strong case. And now you have this guy coming in, making $10 million for four months of work, a dude that never seems like he wants to be wherever he is. It just feels like Matt Moore may have been a safer choice. I know that the ceiling is probably higher with a fully functional kind of clicking Jay Cutler that we saw in 2015. I don't know if at 34 years old with an offseason not caring about football coming

off at Torn Labrum, he can be anything close to that guy. There are a lot of sad training camp tweets. a lot of them. I mean, any sort of Jets quarterback play-by-play bums me out. I mean, there is a wide genre. I have not been more bummed out this training camp, though when Adam Beasley tweeted out, I think it was this morning. Matt Moore still believes he's in a competition with Jay Cutler for the starting job. Oh, Matt Moore. Matt, buddy, my dude. I compared this to the San Bradford trade today and what I wrote for the ringer about color. If you guys want to go check it out, I would encourage you to do so.

In the sense that it just seems like it's a team wanting to get the most out of a group they're excited about. I know you're not trading a first round pick for Cutler. The risk isn't even comparable. But the biggest difference to me was that with the Vikings, Sean Hill is not a quarterback that should play in the NFL. That's why you need to go get San Bradford. Matt Moore is. I know that Matt Moore is the ceiling is defined with Matt Moore. You know how good you can possibly be with Matt Moore.

The ceiling is literally the roof. That's the only time that that applies. The ceiling is the roof with Matt Moore. But it's still, you watched that offense with Matt Moore last year, and it was an offense that looked like an NFL offense. It just feels like they could have rolled with that, signed a guy that's your backup instead of somebody that is presumably going to start. But I would just cede the floor to Adam Gase in this situation. He knows both of those guys.

And if he's the one that want to cutler in there, if he thinks the offense can be better than Culler, I tend to believe him in this case. he has done pretty good as a pretty decent track record with quarterbacks. Yeah, I agree. I mean, I trust him. I think there was a lot of weird reports. Oh, is you going to look at Tebow? Is you going to look at Kaepernick?

Like, Adam Gase is a top five quarterbacking mind in the NFL, in my opinion, as far as coaches go. And so I trust that he knows what the dolphins need. And so that does give me pause as far as short in the dolphins this year. And that's why I'm a little more optimistic than I would normally be. All right, Kevin, before we get to our next question, I want to talk to you guys about our friends at mybooky.ag. The number one rated online sports action site for the third straight year. People have been regularly cashing out on the MLB action recently.

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All right, buddy, that's enough Jake Cutler talk for right now. I assume we'll get to plenty more as the season goes on. I know I'll be watching a lot more Dolphist football than I might have been otherwise. But our second question is pretty, you know, red meat type of question. And that is, what do you think will be the best division in the NFL this year? Ooh, this is a good one. It's a fun one. There's a lot of options.

I don't think there's a lot of options in a weird way. I think it's the NFC South. You know, obviously you have the last two NFC champions in that division. But I also just see an incredibly high ceiling. First, I thought you said the last two NFC South champions. And I was going to be like, yeah. Man, it goes really, there is a long streak of NFC South teams winning the NFC South. It's really one of those crazy coincidences.

It's remarkable. No, so. They've won the last two NFC championships. That includes all the teams of the NFC, Robert. And so I just don't see kind of a floor that's that low on any of these teams because they'll have at least in three cases, really good quarterbacks, Cam Newton, Breeze, and Matt Ryan. And then you have James Winston, who I think is on the Ascent. And so it just comes down to defense. If any of those defenses can be dominant, then you're looking at the runaway NFC championship.

champion. If any of those defenses can be really good, you're looking at the probable NFC champion. And so I just think when you have a division that has tons of good quarterbacks and, you know, stars. I mean, they've got defensive stars. They've got guys like Gerald McCoy. They've got Luke Keekely. You know, I don't really know what to expect from the Falcons defense this year, but I love Vic Beasley. And then you have sort of X factors in New Orleans. They're not the most talented defense in the world, but they've got guys like Sheldon Rankins, who if they improve, you're talking about a team that can really do some damage because as we know, Drew Breeze is in that little Westworld lab right now coming up with the 5,000 yard season with Michael Thomas, Willie Sneed, and then the third guy, whoever that may be.

The wax figure, yeah. He doesn't know who it is yet. He's still, he's in the lab and he'll come out and we'll find out on like September 12th, who the, who the thousand yard receiver in New Orleans is. He's chatting with Anthony Hopkins, which, you know, that's a weird conversation. I'm sure. Breeze is very confused, but he's picking his brain. Unbelievable.

He did it again. And so I just, I feel like all those teams are so dangerous. A lot of times with the strong divisions, you just look for who the crap team is. I don't see a crap team, man. There are no easy wins in this division. And that's what I think differentiates it from some of the other divisions. So I understand what you're coming from. And I feel like looking at four teams that have to find floors is a good way to do it.

I'm doing to do the same thing, but I'm thinking about it in a slightly different way. My division is the AFC West. And I think that my outcome is the same. same, but my input is a little different. I think all of those teams also have defined floors, but I think it's because at least one part of their team is going to be elite. So if you look at those teams, Oakland's offense is going to be really good pending disaster, right? Denver's defense is the same way. The chiefs aren't necessarily in that camp, but I just think there's so much talent there that they can only be so bad overall, even though I know you're a little down on them. And I think

that the Chargers defense last year was not smoking mirrors. And they're a top 10 defense by DVOA. They have a ton of talent on that side of the ball. So that unit's going to be really good. You still have Phillip Rivers. Even though the offense seems to be falling apart instantly before the season has even started again, I still feel like every single one of those teams have a side of the ball that is going to be really, really good.

And in my mind, if something doesn't go catastrophically wrong, that puts you in right there for seven to eight wins no matter what and I think every single one of those teams falls into that category. Did you just say if something doesn't go catastrophically wrong and you're talking about the Chargers? I know. I feel so bad for them, man. At this point they're like the softball episode of the Simpsons where everyone, it just has their own little misfortune

and eventually just going to be Phil Rivers and like 52 guys you've never heard of. Oh, poor Phil Rivers. Ozzie Smith fell through the fun house. Philip Rivers, I've had this conversation so many times but I always come back to it just because I feel like if he had gone to Pittsburgh or the Giants instead of one of those other two guys, we would talk about him differently. His career would be considered differently. It just feels like that guy can never catch a freaking break, man. Yeah, I'd say. I mean, Eli Manning. He's so good. Eli, Eli Manning really, I mean, we don't talk about this a lot because it was still kind of an ass move. But, I mean, he did play his cards right going to the Giants instead of the Chargers. Yeah, I mean, it definitely went better for him than it has for Philip Rivers.

Okay, so we think those two are going to be the best. I mean, each of us have our own opinion. I think that the NFC East is right there for me. And I think for a lot of people just because the teams are so high profile it is. But you don't think they're even close to this conversation. You think that's going to be a down year for that division. So I think it's going to be a super competitive division because I think all those teams are vaguely similar. They all have a pretty good quarterback.

Wentz obviously being the worst of the bunch for now. But then Wence has all those weapons and there's a slightly higher ceiling on him than there was last year. So I'm not shorting any of those teams. I'm just saying I don't, that that division in early December of last year had two Super Bowl contenders. We were both talking about the Giants and the Cowboys of Super Bowl contenders. I just don't see it for any of those guys. Certainly don't see two teams like it was last year. I see maybe one team winning 12 games out of that pack and getting really good. But I think last year was sort of a special year for that division. I don't know necessarily if they had the talent to replicate that because Dallas

lost a lot of snaps. And I know that was on the defense, but that's still, I mean, I think they had the second most snaps lost in the NFL last year. I think that's really, really pivotal. Washington, you know, I kind of believe in them, but they've still got holes. I love what Terrell Pryor's doing. I was a Redskins camp a couple days ago. Terrell Pryor is, I've never used this term before, I don't think.

but it's a very football term. Trow Pryor is a man. He's a man. I mean, like, I was shocked at how good he is. And so I'm sort of getting on the Redskins bandwagon, but I still have a long way to go to believe in any of those teams of Super Bowl contenders. I feel like Washington's kind of in that same boat in terms of their floor. When you think about some of the elements of that offense,

if Pryor can come in and replicate the receiving talent they had last year, if he can be that number one guy and Cousins doesn't have much drop off with him and Jordan Reed and I like Jameson Crowder. So you think take all those guys, if Doxon come in and play, even though he seems banged up already, their offensive line is always going to be at a certain level because of Bill Callahan. And I feel like Jay Gruden's a really good offensive coach. So if that group can, again, provide that worst case scenario not being that bad, then I

think that they can be in that conversation. And I think Philly is going to take a step forward. So I understand where you're coming from with the NFC South. I think the quarterback thing is a good way to think about it. but I still feel like the NFC has a chance to be right there by season. Did you see Jay Gruden lost like 30 pounds because he drinks apple, apple vinegar every morning? I've heard about that, yeah.

What the hell is that? You know, I've never tried apple vinegar before. Maybe I should try. This training camp thing has been rough on me, man. I am bad at traveling and staying healthy. I need some apple vinegar in my life maybe. That's the answer. I'm not.

I go the other way. I lose tons of weight because I'm just grinding and I forget to eat. I literally, it's dinner time here in Minnesota. My dinner tonight, because I'm in the middle of nowhere, was literally a lunchable. Wow. Which kind? Turkey or ham? Ham and it came, they switched it up with the luncheables, came with a Reese's peanut butter cup.

Oh, that's a pleasant little surprise. I'm sure you were happy about that. Yeah, it's good. I mean, you want to talk about lunchable desserts. I mean, that's up there. Oreos are good. The Green Bay Drive, they're just too many culvers. they call to me.

There's too many of them. There's one every 20 feet. How can I not? It'll be closed. It's great. You got to play. If you fail to plan, you've planned to fail,

Robert. All right, but it coming up, we're going to talk about our bounce back teams at 2017. We're also going to talk about some quarterbacks who may not be

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Our sixth question of the 33 actually came from Twitter, but we liked it so much that we decided to incorporate it into our main set of questions. Jimmy Crawford asked us, who is your bounce back team of 2017? Great question. Jim, Robert, why don't you start on this one? So this may just be my literally Cardinal red colored glasses that I seem to wear every year. Yeah, but I do think.

I do think Arizona has a chance to come back and be in the playoff mix again in the NFC. I just feel like that defense, they quietly were great last year and finished third in DVOA, and I know they lost some guys. Tony Jefferson, great player, Callias Campbell, the underrated centerpiece of that entire franchise in a way over the last. five seasons, the way they've played run defense, everything else. But I feel like the moves they've made can stem the tie with some of that stuff. I think that Dice can come in and play well in the interior. Buda Baker can come in and make some plays and give them flexibility in the secondary that

they really like. I just feel like they have enough playmakers on that side to keep that unit right among the best in the league. And I think that offense isn't as bad as the one we saw last year. Palmer was not great at the beginning of the season. Pass protection was an issue. I just think that in that system, they're going to be much better than they were a year ago. And I still believe David Johnson is as good as centerpiece of an offense as we have in the league right now.

So I think with that defense being as good as it can possibly be and the offense bouncing back a little bit, they're not going to be the 13 and three Cardinals that we saw a couple of years ago. But I think they can make some noise in the NFC. I thought it was interesting. Bruce Ariens a couple weeks ago said that the loss to New England, the Jimmy Garapolo game, ruined their season. And I think you see that a lot of times in the NFL where a team has Super Bowl hopes and they get off to a bad start and all of a sudden the whole thing's cooked. Yeah. I love Arizona.

I don't I don't love them as much. What do you like about them? Do you have a different reasoning than I did? I've already on the last show talked about how much I love Reddick, the first round pick. Yeah. David Johnson, I mean, we're and here's the thing, man. We are entering an era of sort of unprecedented positional flexibility. I mean, I am of the theory that in 10 years you're basically going to have.

five of the same guy on offense and defense outside of the quarterback in the line. And so David Johnson is the perfect modern player for me, in my opinion. And so I love him. I love, you know, I love Bruce Ariens. I love the idea. We're in year like four of, we're in Bruce Ariens last ride. Like that's been a long time coming. And maybe it's Larry Fitzgerald's last ride. Maybe it's Carson Palmer's last ride. I tend to believe in the power of those things. I'm not totally sure what the hell happened last year because I think everyone thought maybe it was their last ride last year. But at some point, in my new statistical model for last rides being on, the Cardinals are number one on the list. Is that a multiplier or is it's just one straight number?

You stack them. Gotcha. Okay. Yeah, that makes a total sound. It's a counting stat. It's a counting stat. They're there at three. Three last rides. That leads a league. Since I stole the Cardinals from you, who would be next on your league? Oh, yeah. All right. So I'm actually going to say both 20, 2016, 2015 season NFC championship game participants because I'm right there with you, buddy. Yeah, I kind of believe in Carolina. You know, one of the things,

I did a story a couple of a year ago on last training camp about you know, the youthfulness of the NFL and how the teams are getting too young. And one of the guys I talked to and about in that story was Josh Norman. And I think that the interesting thing about Josh Norman is

everyone generally agrees he was pretty, he was pretty much terrible for the first two and a half years of his career, something like that. And that, you know, he bought in and Carolina really developed him into a really, really good player. And so throughout the reporting process and, you know, I was in Carolina the other day talking to some guys, I really do believe, even though they've lost Sean McDermott, I really do believe in that that team's ability to mold players and make them decent NFL players. They have a young defense outside of Luke Kikley. They got rid of Connie Ely But I mean, in my opinion,

I think that having a full year To plan for this stuff, I really do feel like they will have built Some sort of good defense that can compete in the NFC. Last year, getting rid of Norman in the summer Was such a dumb mistake because you cannot recover from that. You don't have time. That defense is going to be much better this year than it was

Over the course of the 2016 season. They finished fifth and weighted DVOA compared to 10th for the year overall. And it's easy to trace how that happened, right? You have two rookie corners who started off very slow and eventually came to be pretty good players by the end of the season. You have James Bradbury on one side, Darrell Worley on the other. Now Captain Munner one's back in the slot. He's not as good as he was a couple years ago, but familiar with the system, pretty seamless there. I feel like that town in the secondary, they have a chance to be a really good group this year compared to what held them back last year.

And then the front seven is the front seven. It's the same guys we've known forever. K.1 short is a star. Peppers, I don't know if him coming in and getting the work I assume he's going to get snap count wise here compared to what it was in Green Bay is going to affect how impactful he is, but he's still got some juice in the tank, man. I think this defense overall, if Kikley is right, that is the biggest question mark for this team. If he is right and he can play the entire season and be the guy we know he can be,

then I think they can be a top five defense with their eyes closed. walk to it. I totally agree with you. It was interesting to me last year, this sort of journey that Panthers fans had in my mentions. And that's how I don't watch, some people watch tape. I just look at my mentions and just see what happened. That's your own version of tape, man. That's good enough. Yeah. Just check the tape, man. Check the mentions. No, I'm kidding. I barely ever look at my mentions. But I would, I would talk all the time about how much the secondary needed to improve with the Panthers last year. And as the season went along,

fans kept telling me that I should stop saying that because it was outdated. And the secondary was getting much better as season went on. And I do think, having viewed it a little bit, that I do think those guys are both players. And I think that they're going to be much better this year. Obviously, I mean, they got torched in some games last year, man.

That was, there was some foul of embarrassments last year. There was some embarrassment last year. And that's just not going to happen this year. I think, again, getting rid of Norman in the middle of summer, I mean, no team can reckon with that. That was a gambit to sort of say culture above all else. We don't need Josh Norman causing problems in the locker room. But man, they really needed Josh Norman for one more year.

And I know that the offensive line stills questions. And we all laughed at the Matt Khalil deal. I was talking to a GM this week just about the market dictating some of the decisions these teams have made at that position. And it really did this season with the lack of talent and the draft and the guys that were available in free agency. but their offensive line was such a mess last year that even if you're not necessarily excited about Matt Kahlil and Taylor Moton likely being the starting right tackle as a rookie, I still feel like if they can stay healthy on the interior,

the group is going to be better than they were a year ago. So you combine that with the element you hope McCaffrey and Samuel bring, an element that has been missing from every single Panthers team of the Cam Newton tenure there. And I think that you can talk yourself into this. group being more exciting, having a higher ceiling, just having more elements and layers than the one we saw a year ago. And combined with that defense, they really are a contender and a candidate to win, you know, five, six more games than they did last year. Who wins the NFC South? I'd still bet on Atlanta. I'd still bet on Atlanta to win the division, even though I don't think

they're going to be nearly as dangerous as they were last year. Me too. But I think I also think that they, I think they're handling the Super Bowl loss better than Carolina did. Yeah, and considering how devastating that was, I also think, you know, Rivera is a good coach. And what you said about McDermott was a good point. I think Rivera is the kind of guy that can lessen the impact of losing someone like Sean McDermott. But I just think, you know, talking to Quinn and I love Ron Rivera. Everything else, I just feel that Atlanta team is well suited to deal with what happened. And I just think the talent there on defense is good enough to make up for whatever they're going to lose on offense.

probably agree. I'm not quite the same. I don't think they're a bi-week team that rolls to the Super Bowl, but I think that they're very much in play to make a playoffs. Yeah, definitely, definitely. Both Arizona and Carolina are definitely in play. If either of those teams played in the AFC, I'd have them in. If you're like me and you're always waiting to the last minute,

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Download the Hotel Tonight app now. All right, but let's get to our last question for today. And I wanted to talk about this when it kind of came from some of the news that's trickled out from camps over the last couple of days. And I want to discuss which quarterbacks, us and fans may not be caring about more. much now, but maybe they should because the situation and what could happen based on who eventually starts playing could garner some interest, could be something worth watching moving forward. So which quarterbacks that us and fans probably don't care about now are people that we should be looking at? I think that this is a question that just depends on who you actually

care about or who we're talking about. Because I think Patrick Mahomes is somebody that's really interesting to watch. But I think every Chiefs fan is watching Patrick Mahomes and every rep in practice. I think nationally, I think that there's a lot of people who think that Alex Smith is going to be the starter all year. And that's that. And the Mahomes is a developmental prospect. I think that, A, the Chiefs obviously love Mahomes if they went up and got him that high in the draft. Andy Reed is not afraid to make a quarterback change. I think that, you know, I love Kansas City. I love Alex Smith. But I think that at some point, they've seen Alex Smith, he's done.

And, you know, we talked last week about about the first quarterback benched. I don't think it's going to be Alex Smith, certainly, but I could see around Thanksgiving, the chiefs, if they're in contention and the offense is giving them nothing, maybe, maybe Ty Hill, maybe West, maybe those guys are getting it done on the ground. Maybe, maybe the chiefs make a move. Mahomes is an interesting name to throw out there. And I agree with you. It's a similar situation as far as the quarterbacks go in both Chicago.

in Kansas City, right? Yep. You have a guy making starter money that would seem to entrench him as the guy this season. In Chicago, I couldn't care less who plays quarterback over the course of the year. If for some reason, Glennon's bad

and Trubisky plays, fine. It doesn't matter. For some reason, yeah, for some crazy reason, Mike Glennon isn't great. Well, the reason I don't mind is that it doesn't matter who plays in Chicago because the rest of the roster

isn't in a place for, it's a matter. They're not going to be good enough no matter who's under center to be around in December and January. Sure. With the Chiefs, there is enough talent on that roster that if Mahomes comes in and gives them a new dimension offensively, things start to get interesting. That's why I think he's somebody worth paying attention to in a way that Trubisky is not. I agree. And that's just, you know, those are not necessarily who wins the competition or who's going to emerge as the guy from camp, but guys that are worth looking at going forward. You know, week five, week six, depending on how the season breaks.

There are other teams that the quarterback competition is this big thing that I just don't care about. Do you really care who ends up becoming the quarterback in Denver? It doesn't matter to me. I think it would be interesting if Paxton Lins couldn't win it this year because then that means Paxton Lynch is pretty much done. Yeah. To me, it's just when I'm talking about what the team could be, that's why I don't care.

Yeah, no, no, no. I know what you're saying. I'm just saying I'm actually a little bit interested in that because I'd like to see if he's actually going to bust like this. Yeah, that's a good point. But there are kind of situations around the league that I'm looking at more because I feel like, I don't know, there's just more to it. Like, it really matters to me that Deshaun Kaiser is the quarterback for the Browns. I just think that with some of those guys catching passes, Corey Coleman in year two, Kenny Britt is a solid player, that offensive line.

If Kaiser can come into that situation and be the guy from the start, that'll be something I monitor over the course of the year. I feel like that is an intriguing set of circumstances. Yeah, I'd say. I mean, I just think that in general, I mean, Kaiser, I really, I was at this NFLPA event in May or June. And all of the rookies were there. Josh Dobbs was there. Mitch Rubisky was there. Sean Watson was there.

All of the rookies were there. And I just named the quarterbacks just because they stood out. But they're, you know, every single. rookie was there. And it was really interesting to me to see who people gravitated towards. And Kaiser was a guy who sort of popped in the public in the public space there. And I think that, you know, I know that it sounds weird, but in general, like coaches and GMs look for that stuff. They look for the, the guy that everybody gravitates to her. He was holding court. He was, you know, obviously extremely popular with the other rookies. And so I think that Kaiser has, has some, uh, some intangible quality.

you know, you always heard those stories about Russell Wilson early on where he was just, I'm not comparing the two at all. Or DAC. But, you know, or DAC, right, or any of these guys. I mean, some of these guys, you know, I mean, you heard things about even Romo when he was an undrafted free agent. And he was, you know, this was 10 years ago. But, you know, you heard stories about his leadership and how much guys liked him. And so you start hearing these stories about guys' personalities and they matter, man. They matter. You didn't hear these stories about Ryan Tannahill. Yeah. And I mean, you're right. You're absolutely right. And I said when they drafted Kaiser in the second round,

when you have that war chest of picks, spending a second round pick on an incredibly high upside quarterback. His good was as good as anybody in coming into this draft. And his bad was worse. And when you have that amount of picks and all those dice rolls, spending a second round pick on a guy like that is worth it every single time to me. I loved it. And I just feel like everything that's come out,

everything Hugh Jackson said that's been reported, I'm going to look at that. I want to see what he can do in that offense. The other situations that are unsettled, it doesn't really matter to me. San Francisco, it's a stopgap deal. Brian Hoyer's there. He'll look fine half the time under Shanahan. The Jets are going to be a circus, and I would love to see just how bad they can be,

but at a certain point, it doesn't matter. So Kansas City and Cleveland, I think, are two good ones where the guys they drafted this year, if they do get in the mix and become the starter early enough in the season, it'll be worth monitoring as we go forward. Yeah. I mean, I think what's interesting to me is how many quarterbacks are just entrenched? I mean, I feel like five years ago it was okay to enter a season with just no playing a quarterback.

And really, there's only one or two teams that have that now. And we see that every year now with the free agency stuff. Like Mike Glennon didn't have that many options because most teams drafted a quarterback, they have an option. I think ownership cares now so much about having a guy. Doesn't matter who it is. They just need a guy, even if it's freaking Paxton Lynch, right? And so I think that's interesting about quarterback competitions now is even when guys get drafted high, there's an incumbent there because quarterbacks is, I know it's, you know, you read books from 60 years ago calling it the most important position in sports, but dude, it's gotten more important.

Much more important, significantly more important. And I just want to say, you know, Deshaun Watson is of the same mold that the guys we're talking about now. he does not apply here we care about the Sean Watson already Deshawn Watson is not a guy that we don't care about yet he's a name we've mentioned a hundred times on this show just to throw that out there because I know it seemed like we weren't we devoted the top segment in the last show to him exactly so yeah he does not apply in this case but Deshawn Kaiser

and I would say Patrick Mahomes certainly do all right buddy that's it that's questions four through seven of our 33 Friday we will be back with another batch as we kind of kick around to some more camps, see some more stuff. It's a fun time of year. I'm having a good time. I don't know about you, bud. Are you ready to host me for the pods on Thursday in Chicago at the

Chicago PODs? Yeah, I think you can come into my apartment. I think I can get it in shape by then for you to be here. Oh, wow. This is not going to be good. No, it's fine. It's fine. I know.

I cleaned up a little bit. So we should be good to go. As always, guys, thank you for listening to the Ringar NFL show. We sincerely appreciate it. And we'll be back on Friday. Ready to start. Strong, Army ROTC prepares you not only as a college student, but also as a strong leader, allowing you to earn the rank of second lieutenant.

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