The Ringer NFL Show - 33 Preseason Questions — Don't Sleep on Seattle, the Raiders Might Be Overrated, and the Saints Are Marching (Ep. 131)

Episode Date: August 29, 2017

The Ringer’s Robert Mays and Kevin Clark continue answering 33 Preseason Questions leading up to opening night. They explore some preseason injuries that have more fantasy impact than Julian Edelman’s (04:00) and discuss whether the Falcons could be even better this year despite taking an offensive step back (14:00). Then, the guys consider whether the Seahawks defense is among the best of all-time (19:30), debate whether Derek Carr is a top-flight quarterback (24:30), and look at how the Cowboys have already fallen from NFC championship contention (28:30). Finally, Robert and Kevin imagine a major trade between the Patriots and Jets (34:15), and go over every NFL team that could win the Super Bowl this season (39:30). 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 May is here with you, and we've got some great news for 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 Sunday ticket without a satellite. Big time. This is extremely important news for both of us. We cannot get a satellite. We're millennials.

That's just how it works. We can't have anything. No. Now we have every NFL game at our fingertips. You can watch more than the Chicago Bears. which is very important to my long-term happiness. And health? Yes.

Well, health is already out the window. I've just kind of given up on that side of things. And I can watch more than just the Los Angeles Rams and Los Angeles Chargers. Which is still baffling. I didn't know their training camps were eight minutes apart from each other. I just did this recently. It makes no sense. There was no teams at Los Angeles, another or two, within like six minutes of each other.

I know that's not where they play and everything else, but I still don't get it. Wait, the Rams practice? Yes, they do. I watched it happen. Okay. Plus, you can get access to our favorite thing in the world, the Red Zone channel, which, incidentally, Sammy Watkins will never be on. The Rams will never be on the Red Zone channel.

No. There's another channel may be coming where he's just indicating that he's open and never gets the ball. Watkins cam. They have defensive touchdowns on the Red Zone channel, right? On delay. Sicilianus saying, look what happened at the Coliseum. No Aaron Donald, though, so I assume those are going to be fewer and further between as well. There will be none of those.

Golf pick sixes. To see if you're eligible, go online to NFL Sundayticket.tv and use promo code Ringer at checkout to save 15%. We also want to tell you guys about this new fantasy football app called SleeperBop. I just started playing around the other day, and it is one of the most active sports apps I've ever seen. There are other people talking about 24-7 football just like we are. It seems really cool. This app provides the fastest break news alerts and keeps you informed on pretty much everything happening in football, which is great this week because guys are winning.

jobs getting traded or being cut left and right. And once we get into the regular season, SleeperBot offers real-time scores, stats, and play-by-plays on Game Day, and even hosts its own season-long fantasy leagues, which you can play with friends. You seriously have to check it out if you're playing fantasy football this season and planning to win. I'm not sure how we went without the sap all these years. If you download it, just search Sleeper Bot in the app store. To the Ringer NFL show, part of the Ringer podcast network. We are sponsored by DirecTV and the awesome Sunday NFL ticket package, as always. Kevin, final week of the preseason is upon us.

And guess what's so great about the final week of the preseason? It barely matters. It's the final week of the preseason. There's a genre of football nerd take out there right now, which is that the 90-man roster stays intact throughout the fourth preseason game. That's a big change. You used to have the 75-man cut before that. And some people were saying, well, the fourth pre-season game is going to matter more

because guys are going to be fighting for jobs. It's third string, or second, second, I am not in agreement with those people. I still don't care. two long snappers got traded yesterday. We have reached a point in the preseason where my eyes start to glaze over. And part of this problem is that the third preseason game, there's tons of starters playing in these games. And we had a lot of starters get hurt this weekend.

So that is the most important thing that happened. That's so depressing. I'm just so done with this. My eyes glazed over on like August 3rd. Yeah, it's totally understandable. All right. Again, we come to you guys on Tuesdays and Fridays. We'll be back with our second to last preseason show of the week next week.

second to last one on Friday and then Tuesday we will wrap up these 33 questions. We're going to go out a little, we're going to kind of take a step back. You know, we've been doing some player specific stuff. We will do some players specific stuff as we look forward and kind of dig down into the specifics, winners, everything else. But we're going to zoom out a little bit for this show and talk more about the big picture, some contenders, who can actually do some stuff. But before that, let's swing back around to those preseason injuries, Kevin,

because I think would be remiss not to mention some of the bigger ones that have happened so far. So our 24th question, our first one of today, which preseason injury, whether from this weekend or a little bit earlier, do you think is going to have the biggest impact this season? So obviously the big news, Julian Edelman is just a huge blow to the Patriots. Yes. However, if you look at the context of the Patriots, is any team more equipped? I mean, we talked about this with Derek Rivers last week. is any team more equipped,

the old cliches, next man up or whatever, and usually it's not true. Usually next man up is some terrible undrafted free agent who is going to get you one third of the production, no matter what the position. With the Julian, but not only did you trade for Brandon Cooks, you have Chris Hogan,

who took the top off defenses in a way that impressed pretty much everybody in the NFL last year, especially against Baltimore in the playoffs, won them a playoff game. So I don't think that's going to be the biggest impact. We can get into your selections in a second, But for me, I look more like the Toronto Armsteads where, you know, I talk by this all the time, but there was a study a couple of years ago, two years ago, where they talked about the most

important positions as far as injuries go. And when guys go out, what happens from a positional standpoint? And quarterback was number one. Obviously, I think you lost four games per season if you lost your quarterback. And right behind it was tackle. And you can't lose your tackle. We saw that with Lane Johnson last year. in Philadelphia. Carson Wentz looks like

Dan Marino back there in 1984 and all of a sudden they lose Lane Johnson for 10 games and he looks terrible. And we'll see what happens when Johnson comes back this year. But for Drew Breeze, you got to stand up right. Obviously, he has the quickest release in the NFL. But I mean, you just can't take that sort of pressure. I think the Armstead injury we're going to look back on and say,

man, really wish we didn't have that guy with the torn labrum. That one hurts just because Toronto Armstead's so good when he's healthy. But I think a couple of different reasons for the Saints they can kind of overcome that in a way other teams might not be able to. One, on that team, it's always been more important to have solid interior protection than solid exterior protection. You do want tackles, but it doesn't matter as much for them just because of, again, how well, Breeze gets the ball out, stuff like that.

Two, they drafted Ryan Ramchick in the first round. I mean, they had depth there, mostly because they were planning for Zach Street to eventually leave. But in this case, now you get to slide him in at left tackle. He's a rookie. I mean, the shirt, he's not Toronto Armstead. It's not going to go as well. Can I say something very briefly? A lot of crap.

No, you can't. A lot of crappy. I'm not saying he's going to be this. A lot of crappy first round offensive linemen in the last like three or four years. Absolutely. I don't know. We know why that's happening as far as the college development. That's a whole other show.

But the this whole, this last three or four years have been a lot of scenarios. Well, they drafted this guy. We're going to be fine. And the guy is just complete horseshit. Like that's happened a lot in the last three years. That's fine. But that's a better contingency plan. than most teams can try out there.

And I'm going to include a team that has a first round tackle, but it's not a guy we've seen. We're not a guy. It's a guy we've seen. You know, the Lions also have a backup left tackle. He was also drafted in the first round, but it's Greg Robinson and he's been terrible for his entire career.

At least we haven't seen Ryan Ramchick fail over and over again, which is why I think you could argue that the Lions losing Taylor Decker is more impactful than the Saints losing Toronto Arstead. did she the lines cut cyrus quang joe sirees quadro has had a rough go of it so far speaking of just awful draft picks you're going to start with cyrus quang jo second round pick basically never contributed

yeah those offensive linemen that come into the league already hurt typically don't turn out super well apparently if they come in healthy they suck too everybody there's an offensive line crisis in the NFL FYI that's true so when you lose them it's bad but when they're rookies that we haven't seen be terrible yet, they were drafted in the first round,

it's not as bad as it could be for other teams. I agree with that. Obviously, you have to mention Tanna Hill just because we don't know what Coutler is going to be, even though Jay Coutler is not the worst replacement quarterback, I still feel like that offense had a chance to be really good with Tana Hill. We'll get to a question a little bit later about teams we think can make some noise late in the season. I feel like losing Tannahill takes the dolphins out of that conversation almost instantly.

Yeah, I mean, they certainly, it takes them out of the divisional race for sure. And obviously, when you trade for Brandon Cooks, yeah, I mean, when you trade for Brandon Cooks and you have the New England Patriots, you're sort of out of division race already, I'm saying it takes them out of the 11 to 12 win range. We talked last week about my belief that J. Keller can get them to eight wins. I still believe in that. But that's not exactly a lofty goal. I don't think that defense is going to be good enough to overcome an offense that isn't great.

I felt like with Tanna Hill, they had a chance to be that. Now I think the ceiling is lower. The other guy, and speaking of Jay Cutler, that I would throw out there, Julian Edelman's the biggest name pass catcher that went down this weekend. Cam Meredith was the most important pass catcher to his team's individual success as an offense. I know that that success won't even hold a candle to what the Patriots are going to do, but when you consider what else the Bears have, they couldn't afford an injury at that position. So now you're talking about Kendall Wright, you know, maybe stepping in and doing some stuff there.

But on the outside, it's a rough situation. I mean, they have Kevin White and not much else. And we haven't exactly seen Kevin White do much in his career. Yeah, I mean, the Meredith injury, we joked, Danny Kelly and I joked basically all of last year about how we didn't know Cameron Meredith was. And in all seriousness, it says a lot about the guy's development that when he went down, I mean, everybody. and this is a devastating injury for the bears. And so I just, this smells like,

like 2 and 14, Robert. I disagree with that. I think they're going to be much better than that, but I do think that this has a cascading effect in a certain way.

So you put Marcus Wheaton, say, in for Canada. Can I tell you what's going to happen? They're going to go like 2 and 7 and then they're going to fire John Fox and then some interim coach is going to go and it's going to lose the rest of the way.

I mean, honestly, that's fine with me. Okay. I'm just wondering you know what's going to happen. I don't think that's going to happen. the defense is going to be too good for that to happen. But my worry now is that, so you have, say, Marcus Wheaton come in for Cam Meredith.

And this is what injuries do, right? They have cascading effects. They start to affect more things than just the position where the guy got hurt. So let's say that happens. Now you do bring Chubisky in. Now his development gets stunted because he has worse players to throw to. It's just this is the type of stuff I didn't want to see. Coming into the year, I felt like they had a chance to be better than people thought.

but now Pernaud McPhee is not playing. Now, Cameron is out for the year. It's just a team that wasn't deep enough to take on these sorts of injuries. And now it's just, what am I excited about? Chubisky comes in and does one good thing, a game, until, you know, they go four and 12. It's fun. I'm glad this is how the year has begun. What a season.

What a franchise. Yeah, big time stuff. A lot of excitement going around. Really the only thing to care about is whether number 10 ends up being good. Is there anybody else you wanted to throw out there? No, I mean, I do think that the, I mean, I'm not too worried about Spencer Ware. Yeah, that's just a position where you can have somebody come in and play well. Also a spot where they drafted somebody.

Yeah. We thought Kareem Hunt was going to have an impact anyway. It's not as if Spencer Ware. They have weapons. And then Randy Reid is so, such a good coach. Matt Nagy, the office coordinator is so flexible. They'll figure out a way to get the ball in Hill's hands 10 times. Yeah, exactly.

And it's not as if Spencer Ware was this super. high pedigree guy they couldn't afford to lose. Spencer was a sixth round pick that just kind of stumbled in there and did some stuff. I mean, Cream Hunt is a better prospect than Spencer wherever was. So that's not something I'm worried about. The only thing I'm worried about there is if Spencer where, or excuse me, if Kareem Hunt

got picked up for nothing in your fantasy league and he suddenly makes another team much better than they should have been. That's the most impact that's going to have. Right. Yeah, no, I mean, that's 99% of things go, and this is a camera merit of thing too. I mean, these will have more of an impact on fantasy leagues and they do on the NFL as a whole. I mean, Meredith is a great player or a good player for the bears,

but like, you know, the playoff race is not rising or falling based on that. Absolutely. All right, Kevin, when you host a podcast like us, people tend to ask for advice. Usually it's what team to bet on this week. Yeah, the Patriots and the Steelers, Lions are the Bears. The answer is Detroit. Yeah, definitely now. I mean, after we just talked about it, absolutely is. Yeah. But also where you're betting is just as important as who you're betting on. That's why we send people to my bookie.ag. My bookie has been in business for years and the reputation is rock solid.

They do 100% cash bonuses, which is important, so off the bat, you're making money for doing nothing. And they have the fastest payouts. Seriously, it's just two business days. So lay down some cash and win big today. They have in-game live betting, the most rewarding player perks in the business,

and an all-new mobile site that makes wagering on-the-go a breeze. So join now, and MyBooky will match your deposit with up to 100% in both. bonus. Just visit mybooky.ag and use the promo code ringer NFL to activate. You play, you win, you get paid. All right. So let's get away from the bears and teams that have injuries that aren't going to matter and start talking about some teams that we think will. Yeah. So this is one of those points in the season, especially in the preseason, where we start talking about things we find

interesting or kind of curiosities about. And in a way, it causes us. to ignore the teams that are the best teams. Yeah. Because we know what some of these teams are, and we just treat them as known quantities. We kind of pencil them in. So for some reason, the teams that are going to matter in January

and maybe even February are the teams that are not teams we hit the most in August. So that's what our 25th question is going to revolve around. Which of these contenders are we not talking about enough? And I want to spend this two ways. Which contender are we not talking about enough because they're going to be better than we think they are,

and we should be talking about them right up there with New England and Pittsburgh and whatever? And which contender are we not talking about enough because we shouldn't necessarily be treating them as a team we should pencil in? Okay, so we had a lengthy discussion about this. I like your two selections. We have a lot of a large sample size now at this point

of teams we talk about as teams who are going to win in 2017. One team we have not talked nearly enough, about is the Atlanta Falcons. We have seemed to gloss over them. This is me. This is a me problem. It's not you. It's me. No, it's a me problem, too. I just think that regression and whatever else.

They just don't seem as dangerous to me compared to the team we saw last year. What's odd to me is even though they're so visually resting and they're so exciting, Julio Jones is the man and Devante Freeman and Matt Ryan, they play a great exciting brand of football. They almost seem a little boring to me

because they do the same. There's no X factor there. Does that make sense? Yeah. And all the players are players we know. There's no guy on that offense where it's like, well, what if so and so just has this huge year? I mean, we know what that offense looked like. We saw the best version of it. So there's no way to kind of project. And I feel like that's what we like to do this time of year is what's going to be different. And literally the best possible thing that could happen with the Falcons offense is that it's not different. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And so that's, you look at Christian McCaff.

in Carolina. I've talked about, talked about him and written an article, two articles on him at this point in the off season. I have not really spent much time on the Falcons at all because they're a known quantity. My problem is I wrote out every single player on the Falcons last year,

so I'm out of options. I loved your Aldrich Robinson, 6,000 word profile, Robert. That hasn't run yet, but I still can't do it. It's holding. So for me, I just, Vic Beasley, we've talked many times about how much I love that guy.

I think the defense is going to be good. I know that Steve Sarkeesian is pretty much objectively a downgrade from Kyle Shanhan. I don't think that will matter enough. You and Michael Lombardy are both co-presidents of the Kyle Shanahan fan club, along with John Lynch, I might add. And so I just, I think they're going to have enough to get back to 10 or 11 wins. And once you get into the playoffs, kind of anything can happen. So here's the thing, though.

I feel like the point I just made about the offense, the opposite is true about the defense. So I'm not that excited about what the offense is going to be solely because it can't be better than the one we've already seen. But the reason to be excited about Atlanta is that the defense has a chance to do something like that. There's so many young guys over there that you can see a lot of them taking a step forward to kind of make this the exciting unit that we really talk about. McKinley could be when you say, oh, well, they don't have anybody in offense. You're just going to ball out. McKinley might be that guy on defense. McKinley, but he's not the only one.

I mean, let's see, like, what if Don't Tarry Poe is a really nice year? You know, he's made a couple of nice plays during the preseason. He's been my bargain signing all year. And during the preseason, he's already done some stuff. I've watched him kind of changed the line of scrimmage in a way they didn't have anybody that could do it last year. The run defense is very poor. He has a chance to help shore that up.

You think about what Dion Jones could be in year two after how well he came along last year. The fact that they didn't have Desmond Trouvant last year. He's the best player on that defense potentially, and now he's back. Keanu Neal in year two. They have a ton of exciting young players on that side of the ball. So they got, and this is all credit to Dan Quinn, Thomas Dimitrop and Scott Peelly. They went, they got incredibly athletic really fast.

Yes. Really quickly. And they hit. You know, you can get on athletes. I mean, guys like Dion Jones, guys like Keanu Neal. I mean, McKinley looks okay in the preseason, but who knows about that. But, I mean, they are hitting on these athletes. And that's why they are going to be sustainable for a couple of years.

And one of the things that, you know, we can talk about the young guys all we want because that's what's exciting. But I feel like the underrated thing about why this defense could be much better is that they got hurt up front last year. You didn't have Derek Shelby, who was, they gave a decent amount of money in the off season last season. You didn't have Adrian Claiborne. They didn't have these guys that really kind of make or break a defense down the stretch. Players that aren't necessarily the stars, but depth at a position where depth matters more than maybe anywhere else on the field, just because you're playing more of these guys. So I just feel like you have four or five factors falling into place that can make this unit really exciting.

So even if the offense does take, which I feel is just an expected step back, something that's guaranteed, that that defense could be enough where this is another team that they win 12 games again. They get home field advantage again. They get to play in that brand new stadium and it becomes a huge deal. So I think you're right. I mean, we're not talking enough about them because we're, We saw the Falcons make their jump. Maybe they'll get one of those Saturday playoff games and they'll get to eat the Chick-fil-A thing.

You think that's what they want? They care more about that than getting a buy. All in for the Saturday wild card game. The team that I'm going to throw out there is we're not talking about them for similar reasons just because they made their jump like five years ago. So they're no longer exciting. The Seattle Seahawks more or less have the same core they've had forever. So we're on, you know, half a decade of. not caring whether or not somebody is going to burst out because they already all have.

So defensively, we're working with the same guys, more or less. I mean, these are the players that have made this unit one of the best of all time. I feel comfortable saying that. The run that they went on stacks up with most of the great defenses we've ever seen. And again, these are the same sorts of players. But the offense has a couple guys that you could make an argument that that's not necessarily true. You know, Paul Richardson just started making a ridiculous catch a week last season. He's a guy that you should be excited about. If he stays healthy, he could add a dynamic that they could really use.

And the other guy is CJ precise. I mean, we saw what he did in limited action last year. So I know that the offensive line is the offensive line. Losing Fant, we probably should have thrown that out in one of the more impactful injuries. Yeah, I thought about that. I mean, Reese Hedabo is not a guy that's going to be able to step in for George Fan no matter what you think of George Fan. So the offensive line is a constant question, Mark. I just want to say it's a really bad sign if no one can step in for George Fan. Yeah. Like this is bad.

However good the Atlanta defensive lined up might be, that's how bad the Seattle offensive line up is. Okay, keep going. So I just think that even with that, because that's what we do every year, even with that, they're going to be okay. I think that if Earl Thomas is able to play last year, it doesn't really matter that the offensive line is really terrible. That team is going to be around when it matters.

I mean, we've talked about this many times. Earl Thomas is as valuable players there is in the NFL. Do you know that five, five Seattle Seahawks have gotten that German blood manipulation thing going on in camp? Five? Five of them. Which ones? Cliff Averill, Jokkel, Lockett, KJ. Wright.

It's a DJ. Pay me, my way. the whole team's gotten it. So it used to be called orthokine in in Germany and Pete Carroll has innovated it. It's like platelet replacement. Platelet replacement. That's really good. That's a podcast word.

It was illegal for a while in America, but maybe they modified it a little bit. Pete Carroll is referring to it as regentokine. That sounds legal. Yeah. This is the podcast version of just slowly backing away from this topic. Yep. I just wanted to throw it out there. Well, I mean, none of those guys are actively injured, correct?

Well, now they're regenerined. So even if they were, they're fine. Do you think that are you with me on this? Yes. Yeah, of course. I love the Seahawks. I mean, I still think that Russell Wilson has the capability on his best day to be the best quarterback in the NFL. When he is at his absolute peak and they go four wide and he has the weapons.

I mean, it all comes down to the offensive line in the run game. The offensive line, you know, he's, Russell Wilson, we may look back on this era of Seahawks football and look at the way they treated their offensive line as one of those football malpractice things. Because he had the protection earlier in his career, we're not really giving them enough heat for what they're putting around Wilson. I know he can come in the pocket. I know he can scramble. I know we can do all this stuff. But he's got to get the protection he had earlier in his career. I mean, it's not Andrew Luck bad, but it's not, you know, he's not Derek Carr right now.

It absolutely is Andrew Luck. bad. No, no, no. I'm saying that Wilson has the ability to play better than luck does behind a bad offense. I'm saying it's not, it's not just a complete breakdown of the offense. Yeah, he's more elusive. They're not necessarily as built on as many deep shots now as they used to be. You know, they, with the luck and everything else, it's a lot of deep developing stuff just without play action. Early in Wilson's career, there's a lot of play action, but the line was better. You know, we saw it when he was really good, like you said, they're getting the ball a little quicker. With luck, them out practices from top to bottom the way the team is organized.

But with Wilson, it's really just the offensive line. Yeah. I mean, in a vacuum, Wilson's line is Andrew Luck bad. I'm just talking about the offense upon the infrastructure and target, his ability to overcome that.

I mean, yeah, that's totally fair. Andrew Luck, what the hell is he going to play again? I mean, I don't think it's any time soon and I don't really blame them. I don't think that team is good enough for it to matter.

And why would you risk getting him hurt? More time to come on the ring around NFL show. Yeah. That's right, which he cares more about. He enjoys more than playing football at this point. He doesn't care more about it. Let me make that clear. All right.

Who's the team you think we're talking about not enough because we shouldn't just write them in as a Super Bowl contender that's up there with everybody else? So your selection is my number one selection, but I'm going to go with my number, my one B selection here. That's fair. I'm sorry for stealing it from you.

Whoever, inside baseball, whoever gets to the Google Doc first, gets first pick. All right. So quick on the trigger. It's like Jeopardy. All right. It's the Oakland Raiders for me. And I love the Oakland Raiders.

I spent a lot of time with them last year. Derek Carr is as good a young quarterback as there is. Obviously, the financial backing that they put behind him shows that. Colomack is my favorite defender in the league. The offensive line is great. Their Achilles seal last year, there's two issues I have with the Oakland Raiders. Number one, their Achilles seal last year was the defense. They addressed that in some ways with a guy like,

and Connolly. Conley's been hurt in preseason. He has suggested maybe the general manager of the team was lying about his injury, which seems good. It's a good start for a rookie. It's a great start. You got to. When they do like the rookie symposium and stuff, the number one piece of advice is there, just accuse the GM of lying

as soon as you get there. It's number one thing. It's one of the first tenets of playing in the league. He's expected to play a week one. I don't know how that goes. And so I still worry about their defense. And then the other thing is, man, Derek Carr broke his leg last year, and it was in December. And I know that those sort of breaks can heal pretty cleanly, but I mean, I want to see Derek Carr. And so this idea that they're going to be penciled in again as AFC West champion, they may very well be. And when we do

our prediction show, I may pick them. But I'm not, I'm not gung-ho about the Oakland Raiders in 2017 at this point. Yeah, it's not just that the offensive, excuse me, that the secondary was a problem last year. Their front seven is not necessarily full of superstars. And that hasn't changed much. And Bruce Irvin was okay. Yeah, Bruce Servant was okay. And we've talked about Mario Edwards. I feel like him coming back and playing a full season would matter for them just because they desperately missed him last year, based on the other guys that they had. So yeah, I mean, it's not as if you can see all these, this roadmap, you can see this entire roadmap to their defense being much better. You can't.

So I have the same sorts of concerns about that defense I had a year ago. even if they added some pieces in the secondary. I do think the offense has a chance to be much better. I'm curious what the offense is going to look like stylistically. Are they going to, are they going to let Carr let it loose a little bit more? Are they going to be a little more aggressive? Todd Downing is the coordinator now.

And I'd like that because I feel like, we'll see. You know, Derek Carr is a good quarterback. He's not one of the best few quarterbacks in the league. I feel like people have. thrown him into that group before he deserves it. I think he's not there yet. I think these guys are on a curve because there just aren't many good quarterbacks who've come.

I mean, the spread quarterback pipeline that has basically existed since, you know, after the 2012 see. I mean, the 2012 draft class was a phenomenon at the time. Obviously, we're still seeing that in the league. But in the last four or five years, man, there have not been a lot of good quarterbacks. And so when Derek Carr comes in the league, and does what he does, I think people say, okay, well, he's the best of his, you know, three or four year draft class here. And so then he gets sort of graded on a curve. I do believe

there is some of that as far as the perception of Derek Carr. There are not a lot of good young quarterbacks. Albert Breer tweeted out over the weekend, the number of over 30 quarterbacks. I think it's over half the league. And that's sort of unprecedented at this point. They need to find a way. Maybe you'll read about this and their near dot com under my name later this week, but they need to find a way to find the next generation of quarterbacks. And so when a car comes along it looks like the real deal. We prop him up. Yeah.

I mean, that's absolutely true. But I think that offense is a chance to be good. But again, there aren't that many reasons to believe they'll be considerably better than they were a year ago. You know, it's kind of like Atlanta. So if you don't think the defense is going to take a step forward, then why are we more excited about the Raiders in August of 2016 than we were in 2017 than we were in 2016? And a team kind of in that same vein.

I mean, a team that we talk about a lot because everybody does is the Cowboys. Yep. I mean, is there a reason to think the Cowboys should be better now than they were last year? Definitely not. I mean, the pass rush not only didn't get better, it got worse because everybody on the defensive line has a four-game suspension at this point. The Ezekiel Lott is obviously out with the first six games of the year. I don't know exactly what to expect from Dak Prescott. I'd really like Dak Prescott.

But, I mean, I just, I don't know where the extra oomph is coming from. I don't either. And even if you think Lyle Collins is a more talented right tackle than Doug Free was, he still has his issues. And we're going to see those issues. And he's playing next to Zach Martin for the first time, full time. So it just seems like this is a team that in an NFC that probably could be one, could be taken, especially after Seattle and Green Bay at that top tier.

They just aren't necessarily the team you'd throw right in there without thinking about it anymore. They have too many questions. just say, yeah, they're better than Atlanta. I'm not going to do that. There's no reason for me to do that because, again, they haven't gotten any better. Even if you think there's going to be a step forward from Prescott, I'm not sure that matters enough to overcome the rest of the deficiencies that this roster has.

Totally agree. Totally agree. And, you know, it's not that everything, everything broke right for the Cowboys and the Falcons last year. Everything's pretty much in neutral with the Falcons this year. And everything's breaking wrong for the Cowboys. And I think that really does matter. Okay, we're coming up with another question from Twitter, and it might be the best one of the entire preseason, Robert. That's, I mean, I'm not necessarily going to say that.

I mean, we had a lot of good ones. It might be. It might be. That's all I'm willing to concedo. Wait, did you see the question we got yesterday. I texted it to you. I did see that. It was an amazing question.

Thanks for texting back. I appreciate you, Rob. I'm sorry. I was writing. I was texting. I was texting. I was just staring at my phone for the past 12 hours. It was a question of what, you know, we did this.

New York versus L.A. total wins over under last week. And a guy asked, what would you do if Boston were in that equation? Who's going to win more games? The city of Los Angeles and its two teams, the city of New York and its two teams, or Boston, Foxborough, rather. I love that question. And the answer is the Patriots. Yeah, it probably is. The New England area will win more games than either of the coasts, which I'm sure we need to tell New England, by the way. Let's give them one more thing. All right. If you're like us, you're not so great at planning ahead. I leave everything to the last minute.

It's a miracle I've ever gotten to a hotel room. Yeah, I have no idea that I ever have. Why I ever have? Sometimes you haven't. Yeah, there are times where I haven't. I definitely leave everything to the last minute, hotels included. There is good news, though, if you are like us. And it's an awesome app called Hotel Tonight that helps you find amazing hotel deals at the last minute.

It may sound counterintuitive, but unlike flights, hotel rates get changed. cheaper at the last minute. Yeah, and Hotel Tonight helps hotels sell their unsold rooms, allowing them to pass those deals onto you. These aren't last resort type places. They're actually cool, top-rated hotels you want to stay in. Yeah, and they have partner hotels in a ton of different countries. So it's not just for work trips, not just for stuff you need to do, but stuff you want to do. Hotel Tonight can help you find a great hotel almost anywhere. It's perfect for a spontaneous getaway or finally going on that trip you've been wanting to take for a while. And Kevin, during the season, we don't know where we have to go all the time.

It can happen fast. Depending on who wins, depending on who loses. As we discussed during the training camp tour, I many times had no idea where I was, you know, you have to go drive from Cleveland to Buffalo or whatever. I would just get a hotel maybe like 90 minutes before arriving, basically. And apps like hotel tonight are just incredible, incredible resources. And behind the curtain a little bit.

I mean, the football season is so short that who wins and loses matters in terms of the stories that get done, and you don't know that until Sunday. No. So, I mean, there's a lot of Sunday to Tuesday turnaround for travel, and that's why apps like Hotel Tonight matter. Yep, even though the app's name is Hotel Tonight, you can book up to a week in advance.

All it takes is 10 seconds, just three taps and a swipe. So get in on these killer last minute deals and download the Hotel Tonight app now. All right, Kevin. Before we move on, I also want to point out that for over 20 years, DirecTV has been the exclusive home to NFL Sunday ticket, and the only way to get every live.

game every Sunday. This year, DirecTV has expanded the service. If you live in an apartment or you're an enrolled college student, now you can get Sunday NFL ticket without a satellite. To see if you are eligible, go online to NFL Sundayticket.tv and stream every NFL Sunday ticket game this season to follow your favorite team matter where you live. Use promo code Ringer at checkout to save 15%. Again, that's NFL Sundayticket.tv promo code Ringer. It's a lifesaver for me. It's a lifesaver for you, Robert. I don't know. We would be watching the damn Rams all of time. Yeah, I don't know what better sponsor there could be for this show than an NFL Sunday ticket. It's not even a sponsor. They're not even paying us for this.

We're just talking about it. We're just doing it by choice. Let's letting you know about it. It is our presenting sponsor, but only because we want it to be. No, we are very happy that they are willing to do this because it is such a relevant product to everybody that listens to this show. So again, NFL Sundayticket.tv promo code Ringer to say 15%. Okay, as a bonus today, we're going to take a Twitter question. Normally we do several of these, but this one is so meaty, Robert, that we have to take our time with it. David Chinchilla is asking, by the way, David Chinchilla, incredible name. I mean, I don't know if that's his real name, but really like that. Unbelievable. Would there be a situation in which you would trade an entire position group from

one team to another and both teams benefit? Robert, go ahead. This is a very cool question. I will say it's a little difficult because we tie in the identity of these teams. so tightly to what position groups are good. So that's really why it's hard because it's hard to take a good one from one team and a bad one to the other. Because then they almost no long, they cease to be those teams. But one that I felt like worked for me because it doesn't matter if the Jets of the Jets anymore is that if you took the Patriots wide receivers. So that's the current crop of them right now. Brandon Cooks, Chris Hogan, let's say Danny Mendoa.

And you traded them to the Jets for the Jets defensive. line. So, Muhammad Wilkerson, Sheldon Richardson, Leonard Williams, both teams are better, right? I think bowl teams would be better. It wouldn't matter if the Jets were, because it's all incremental, but I do think bowl teams will be better

when you consider the tight ends on the Patriots, the running backs on the Patriots, and Tom Brady. I have a question. What happens to the team that gets their position group depleted? Do they just have to go out and sign for agents? No, what have we just flipped them on that team? Does that make sense?

that's a little different. But yeah, okay. It doesn't matter. This is an exercise. This is a thought exercise. I agree with you. Both teams would get better.

It would be awesome to see Bill Belichick with that Jets defensive line. Belichick should just make that call right now. You have to throw in some draft picks, obviously, because the Jets defense line is better than the Patriots. The point is we're training position groups here. This is like for like. I love it.

But I'm talking about like in actuality, would Bill Belichick do this? And could he pull it off? Because I think there's a chance he would. Of course he would do it. Of course he would do it. There's a, you know, he loves, he loves athletic defensive line. Why did he take Vince Wolf for?

Why is there, I think it was in, it was in Warren Sapp's book that Bill Belichick watched Warren Sapp workout and said something so sexually suggestive about watching the workout and his excitement about it that we cannot talk about it here. Yeah, that's the least surprising thing I've ever heard my entire life. He is into defensive line play. All right. what's yours so i tried to do the texans defensive line going somewhere and it doesn't really fit because with the exception of quarterback and nobody's going up their quarterback my initial thought

was just send the texans defensive line to the cowboys for their quarterback but then i did you get into kellen more or that new guy yeah quarterback is tough that's a tough deal that's a tough quarterback I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to do that. So for me, I'm sending the Vikings defensive line to the Cowboys for their offensive line. That one's tough for me. Why? I like the Vikings part of that because they have so much talent everywhere else on their defense.

It seems like they might be able to overcome it. So just everyone knows we're talking here about Dennell Hunter, Linval Joseph, whoever you want to put a defensive tackle. I guess. Tom Johnson's pretty good. Yeah. Tom Johnson. And then Everson Griffin. Yeah. That's a really good group of players. That's a really good group of players. I like Mike Zimmer. I like the rest of that defense.

Obviously, they're the heart of that defense. But if you put a really good offensive line with Minnesota, I think that they get one or two wins. But they don't have what they had last year, which is a complete inability to play offense. I think the Vikings get better in that situation. I don't think the Cowboys

do. Ooh. That's my problem with that. I feel like the Cowboys' Offensive Line is too good. And again, like we were talking about too tied to their success. Okay, you don't think that the Cowboys' skill position players could carry them on offense. No, I don't. Okay. Okay. They're not, can I say we're not, I did not agree to the premise that they would get the Vikings offensive line. They would just get a league average offensive line. Sure. Yeah, that's fine. But I, I don't think that they would be good enough with that league average offensive line. I disagree. I think that they have enough talent around. And then you have a defense. If you put the, the, the, the,

Vikings defensive line on the Cowboys, that defense gets real good, real fast. I believe in the secondary. I've written it more than maybe people think just because they can jump high and that's my only, the only thing I care about in football is just the ability to jump high and far. It's my number, it's all I care about. That's how I want to judge wins

and losses. Everybody gets together and jumps high. And so, yeah, just combine data. So we wouldn't even do it that week. You would just go to the numbers. Yeah, exactly. It would be like, remember the old simulations on like, you know, the web, like 10 years ago.

You just play two games against each other. It would just be that. That would be football. But no, in all seriousness, I do believe in the predictive power of compound data, but that's neither here nor there. So, no, I do think that that would make both teams better. I really do. David Chinchilla, we would love to spend more time on that.

But if we do, we'll be here for like an hour. So we're going to move on to our 26th question. We're going to do our actual Super Bowl predictions later on, just because why wouldn't we do that in the last podcast? Because maybe because I'm terrible at planning, but that's why we have people that help me. Yeah. So instead of that, we're going to talk about it from a more big picture perspective.

And I want to ask you, and this is a question we kicked around a little bit earlier, which teams do you think could win the Super Bowl? And not only which teams, but how many teams? Yeah, I looked at it as how many teams could win the Super Bowl. And this says a lot about the league in general, because you could just say one team when it's the Patriots, but I don't think either of us believe that. I think there's maybe there's an argument we made for that, but it's not coming here. asses kicked for three and a half quarters last year. And then they won the Super Bowl.

Yes, but I'm just saying. And then they got better. And then they got better after that. That's fine. But it's also, we saw a team be better than them for a long time last year. So it's, and that team we thought I picked to be the 25th best team in the league a season ago. Okay. So it's 17 or 18 for me depending on the Texans. I don't know what to do with the Texans. Okay. So this might take a second, but let me list mine off for you. and see which ones you have that I don't. Because you have more than I do. I have 15, okay?

New England and Pittsburgh. Easy. Dallas, even with the question marks, could win it. The Giants, they're right there for me. I just feel like the defense is good enough to put them in contention, even if I'm worried about EUI.

Philly, which is maybe a controversial we can talk about. Green Bay, Minnesota, team we talked about a bunch, Tennessee, Atlanta, we talked about today. Carolina was a bounceback team for us. Tampa, the Chargers,

Oakland, Seattle, Arizona. Okay, a few, a few I want to talk about. I have New Orleans. Wow. Why would you not have New Orleans if they're, we're talking about teams that could win the Super Bowl. You have Drew Brees throwing for 5,000 yards. You have a good infrastructure on offense. All you need, and this, when we came up with this topic, I specifically mentioned New Orleans, all you need is three or four playmakers on defense to change the game. I mean, that's how the Saints won their first Super Bowl. Get them to league average and you're there.

But they've been so far away from league average. That's my concern there. No, I understand that. But I mean, the Falcons have been, we're horseshit a couple years ago. I mean, all it takes is a jump from a couple of guys and you get to league average. It happens. It really does happen overnight. One day, they're going from giving up 35 points to giving up 19 points to all of a sudden they're winning the Super Bowl.

There's not a lot that has to happen on offense for them to win the Super Bowl. There's not a lot that has to happen on offense to win the Super Bowl. The Saints have been 32nd and 31st in DioA in previous in the last two seasons and I believe we're dead last the year before that. So you think that moves they've made this year can bring them from that bottom of the barrel thing?

This is a question of who can win the Super Bowl. So you guys are saying, do you think they can do this? Do you think the Saints could be league average on defense? Yeah, of course they can. That's a lot. That's a big ask for me. League average? That's a big ask. That's a huge jump. I am not saying it's going to happen. I'm saying it is extreme,

it isn't within their own possibility because this is the NFL. One of the things I always love about Bill Belichick is that he really does believe in his heart of hearts that every season is completely divorced from the season before it. And there is some carryover as far as talent, but as far as injury, as far as cohesion,

as far as the coaching staff, everything changes. And so I really do believe in the power of just flipping a switch. How good the players are change? Yeah, it does. It does. It does. I mean, all the players.

I don't mean like one or two. What if Sheldon Rankins takes an unbelievable jump? I'm not sure Sheldon Rankin. Sheldon Rankin could be Aaron Donald on speed. And I don't think it would matter for this defense to go from 30 first to league average. He's not, it's not going to be a Clio Max situation where he's a superstar and, you know, everybody else kind of is kind of mediocre. I'm saying it would take a jump from three or four guys and you would get there. It can happen.

It's the NFL. I'm not saying it's going to happen. I'm saying it's within the realm of possibility. four guys though. I don't. It happens every single freaking year. I just think that's a tall order. I understand what you're saying and I do ascribe to the idea that having a really good

offense every year is more important because defense ping pongs. But I don't think that there's the writing on the wall that says this team is going to take a step forward, even a small one, let alone a huge. They're starting two rookies on defense. Yes. And that's the kind of thing that they would need. Marchon Ladamore, Alex Ansela. alone. I mean, what if those guys

are both impact players? I think Kenny Vicaro is okay. Bonbell is okay. And then year two of Bon Bell, Marshall Latimer comes in and plays well. You have Rankins make a huge impact in year two after being hurt. I guess I can understand. Robert Mays just predicted the St. St. I'm one in the Super Bowl.

All right. I guess I get what you're saying. I just think it's not as reasonable as some of these other teams to me. Locked in. Okay. I have another one that we can debate because it goes off the news that came down this week. I think, I think that it is within the realm of possibility that the Detroit Lions could win the Super Bowl.

They would be my number 17. The Lions defense might be worse than the Saints. They were last year. I understand that, but everyone is bad on defense in the NFL at this point. It is unbelievable. If you were to look at the numbers last year, and I tried this out on some podcast last year,

there were a number of playoff teams who at the midpoint of the season were as bad on defense is any playoff teams in NFL history. I mean, it was incredible how much But they had one of the bet one or two or three best offenses in the league.

And Detroit does not have that upside. They can be exciting. They do. They absolutely could have that upside. They could have that upside. They're not that good. They are not good enough to be the second number two offense. My qualification for if you can win the Super Bowl

is you have a good quarterback. You don't have a come. How good is Matthew Stafford, though? I mean, he's good. He's good. That's the word for him. He's good. He's not bad.

Is he bad? Matthew Stafford's fine. I mean, like he's fine. I think he's good. I like the brand of football the Lions play in terms of watching it happen. I don't know how effective it is at winning football games. We study a league in which Joe Flacco won the Super Bowl five years ago. It's a strong point.

That's the best point you've made in this entire conversation. I mean, these things happen. I know nobody wants to hear it, but the long and the short of the conversation about football is that these things happen. It's a random series of events with kind of vaguely weighted probability. If you have a certain group elements, coach, quarterback, a good general manager who's going to get you a couple of impact guys

for low value, whether that's a fifth round, the sixth round of the waiver wire, undrafted free agents. There's certain ingredients to go into it. A lot of it is luck, timing, and injuries. And so that's why I always pick more teams that could win the Super Bowl. Obviously, we've never done this exercise before. But I pick more teams to win the Super Bowl than maybe most people do

because there's always an Atlanta out there. As you said, you picked Atlanta to be the 25th best team in the NFL last year. I think you'd put Detroit above that right now. Yeah, that's fair. No, it's a good point. So is that it? You just have two more than me? Is there anybody that was on my list that's not on your list?

The Chargers maybe? Yeah, no, I picked the Chargers because they have Philip Rivers. Yeah. So Tennessee, Carolina, Tampa. What did you think I had a tough time with this? What did you think of Washington? That was right on the cusp for me. I don't know how good their offense can be this year.

You know, without Jackson, without... Terrell Pryor is pretty damn good. Yeah, I understand that. I just feel like... I think Garsohn was better than people think. I don't think that offense is going to be as good this year as they were last. I feel like... If I'm putting Matthew Stafford on my list of quarterbacks who could possibly win the Super Bowl, if everything breaks right, I have to put Kirk Cousins on there as well.

I'm just going to throw them on there. Washington's defense is better than Detroit's. I can say that definitively. Yeah, I'm just going to throw that on there. Okay. And then who is your first team off? Washington was probably my first team off. Who was yours? Oh, I don't.

That's, if Houston's not on there, then Houston. Then it's Houston solely because you're just worried about the quarterback. Yeah. I mean, I don't trust. Bill O'Brien, there's a couple things here. Number one, Bill O'Brien seems to actually genuinely like Tom Savage, but he also has the quickest trip. By the way, why do we care what Bill Bryant likes?

He's liked a lot of guys that haven't worked out. I don't know if he decides who the quarterback is. Yeah, I understand that, but that doesn't mean that guy's going to be any good. No, I know. That's why I'm not picking them to make the Super Bowl. Yeah, it would be Houston for me. I just don't really like anything. Obviously, I mean, hey, if the Colts had a healthy Andrew Luck, he was just completely healthy.

He was ready to rock. He was in the cover of ESPN magazine this week. What would you do with them? It would be tough not to put them in, but I would have questions about their defense as well. But solely because they have Andrew Luck, I feel like they'd be in that conversation. The other teams that we have here are teams we've talked about before. Tampa and Tennessee are they're everyone's teams du jour. We've talked about Minnesota a lot, or at least I have.

We've talked about Philly a lot. just in the sense that that defense has a chance in my mind to be very good. If Wentz takes a stay forward, they could be in this conversation as well. So I mean, I feel like all these are teams we've discussed in the past and are realistically have a shot to get there. Arizona, same kind of deal. You know, the defense has a chance to be really good. You know, Palmer can be the guy he was down the stretch last year and not who he was over the first half of the season.

Why not them? So I do think that last year and what Atlanta did definitely pushes us to name more. team. So I feel like this is half the league for both of us, for you more than half the league. And I think that that's what's interesting about this sport and why it's worth watching. Is New England really, really good? Yeah. But they've lost the Super Bowl when they've been the best.

That's the craziest part about this. The two best Patriots teams were probably 2007 and 2011. They lost the Super Bowl those two years. It is going to be great when a team that was on none of our lists makes it. And wins. The Bears Super Bowl. The Bears. Bears Browns.

All right, bud. That's it. 26 questions down. Seven more to go. We'll be back Friday with another batch. Plus, we will have a special guest. The ringer's own,

Danny Kelly. He's back. Is he going to bail on us? Like everybody else at the ringer? Yeah. He's going to, like Mallory, he's going to tell us three times.

He's coming and then not do it. Again, Danny's going to be here on Friday. As we continue our 33 questions. As always, we want to thank you guys for listening to the ringer NFL show. part of the Ringar Podcast Network,

and thank you again to DirecTV. We all know things change. The weather changes. Your mood definitely changes. Based on Cameron Merritt's injury, I know that for a fact from this weekend. So why lock yourself into plans that might change? With Hotel Tonight, you don't have to

because you'll get incredible deals on awesome hotels even at the last minute. Booking on Hotel Tonight gives you the freedom and flexibility to play things by year, while knowing you'll score a great price and a great place to stay. So download the Hotel Tonight, to find seriously amazing deals now.