The Ringer NFL Show - 33 Preseason Questions - The Belichick Boost, Broncos May Bust, and Giants Leap Backwards (Ep. 125)

Episode Date: August 15, 2017

The Ringer’s Robert Mays and Kevin Clark continue their 33 Preseason Questions leading up to opening day and discuss which teams could win the Super Bowl if Bill Belichick was their coach (02:30). Then, the guys talk about why a pair of AFC West teams could be in for the season from hell (09:45), and they welcome Ringer FC host and long suffering Jets fan, Ryan O’Hanlon for a special guest question (17:30). Finally, Robert and Kevin explain how the Giants O-line may prevent Beckham and Marshall from shining (28:00), and why the Raiders may be vulnerable on defense this season (29:30). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Download the Seek app and enter promo code Ringer NFL today. To the Ringer NFL show, part of the Ringer Podcast Network. I'm Robert Mays. Joining me today, it's Kevin Clark. Kevin, how are you? Still in camp mode. Yeah, I mean, that's kind of how it is. We've had some preseason games so far.

Can't get enough preseason games. You know, not a lot. I mean, we can't learn much from the first beginning of the preseason. It's going to take a while before we get some fully formed opinions of these teams. But before we do, as we do, we are back with our 33 questions. We've answered 10 of them so far. We'll be answering three more today. As always, we come to you on Tuesdays and Fridays.

until the start of the season. We're going to have some bonus questions along the way, some guests, some people from Twitter. And today, our guest is a very somber Jets fan, one Ryan O'Handlin. And current host of the Ringer's newest podcast, Ringer FC. That is a much more exciting moniker for him in this situation than the Jets fan, because I'll tell you guys,

it is not going to be a fun conversation. I can promise you that right now. But before we get to that, as we mentioned, we're going to take some questions from Twitter, and sometimes they are so good that they're better than the ones we've come up with for our 33.

Sometimes. So we just kick ours out and we slot those in. This is one of those scenarios. Hell yeah. We're going to go with a question that Alex Johansson sent us. Alex, if you're listening, incredible question. Just a really, really good.

And he wants to know. Be weird if he wasn't listening. I'm not looking. I'm not weird if they weren't listening. That's a good point. I don't know if it's he or she. I'm just looking at his or her name. Randomly like, I'm going to contribute.

I don't listen to this pod. I don't know these guys. I got a great question. The question is, what would be your one Belichick away team? The ones that would make a huge jump forward if they exchange their coach or GM with Bill Belichick. And awesome question. Kevin, I want to start with you. Love this question.

Okay, so there's two of them. And I think they're in different universes. I think that if there was any roster right now that you wish Bill Belichick had had at one point, it would be the Los Angeles Rams. because if you would give in, I'm still worried about the quarterback thing. Okay, I understand that. That's why I didn't pick them.

That was one of the first ones that came to mind for me because it was like, oh man, think about that defense a couple years ago. But the quarterback thing, even Bill Belichick can't win with nobody. Okay, first of all, they bossed around the Texans last year

and apparently Jacoby Brissette is maybe not very good. And if you've read the training camp reports, after 16 games, they still beat the Patriots and they still be the Texans. Pretty damn good. I understand that. Okay, so would Belichick make golf into a star?

No, what would he do? He would turn that defense. First of all, he wouldn't have screwed around and gotten rid of Genoris Jenkins. He would have not. The good players would still be there. He would have found a way to not have Todd Girlie's career be ruined in his second year. He would have put something together on the offensive line more. He would not have given Tavon Austin.

A, he would not have selected Tavon Austin the draft. He would have taken the top 10 pick and turned into 36 second and third round. picks. So you, but we had this in 2013. Yeah. That's what I'm saying. That was the point.

I agree with you. I wish that we had gone back in time and Stan Kronky had said, congratulations Bill Belichick. You now run the St. Louis Rams. Bill just living it up in L.A. Oh,

St. Louis. I'm sure Bill would make that move. He loves the Cardinals. Seriously. He and he and Lerousse are boys. Oh my God. forgot about that. What a pair of those two are.

I know, I know like three things about baseball and one of them is at LaRoo's not in St. Louis anymore, but he does, he does have a history with the St. Louis Cardinals. It's true.

So now the second part of that, and that's why I said they were in two different universes. Now we're back in our universe. Okay, cool. Now we're back in our universe. Time travels the best. Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Because you have all that talent and you have Dirk Cutter at the helm. Do we know Dirk Cutter's not a good coach? I'm not saying he is one. Do we know definitively that he's not? I haven't ruled it out, but I'm certainly not.

I'm not going to bet the farm on dirt cutter being a good coach. You know he's not better than Bill Belichick. Is that what you're going with? That's what I'm saying. I'm saying he'd whip that defense into shape. I would like to see the game plans he comes up with with that offensive talent. O.J. Howard, Deshawn Jackson.

I mean, Bill Belichick would find ways. Did you watch Hardnecks? Did you watch the first Hard Knocks? I did not yet. I've been in the road. Deshawn Jackson is the greatest player in the history of the NFL, according to Hard Knocks, which I don't disagree with. He's one of my favorite players ever.

But, man, Deshawn, tear it out. read about Deshaun Jackson picking up James Winston at the airport in his Ferrari? No, that that was not in there. I'm kind of into that. Just like, I'm going to bring my fur. Don't worry, I'll pick you up in front of the Delta term and I got my Ferrari. I tweeted out after I watched the episode that Gerald McCoy seems like a real dick. And I was being totally sarcastic because Gerald McCoy literally seems like the nicest man that's ever existed. Every day in the way on the way in from practice, he takes three of his teammates' helmets. But I didn't want that tweet sitting out in the universe out of context, just if people didn't while I was talking about hard knocks.

So I quickly deleted it. He evacuates an entire children's hospital that someone just retweets that out of irony. Yeah. So I mean, that's a good one. That's a really good one. I think that there is a ton of talent there. It's super intriguing.

My two are kind of similar in the sense that ones from a couple of years ago, the potency of how impressive universe. Yeah. So mine would be the Bengals. Even this current Bengals team, I think that it would be interesting with Belichick. I think they have a lot of talent.

But if we're talking like the 2015 Bengals, when you knew who their offensive linemen were and Reggie Nelson was still there, that group is, whew. I mean, that team would have a chance to be really, really good under Belichick. My current one is the Lions. I just think that you look at the talent. Wait, are you saying Jim Caldwell is not a good coach, Robert? Here's the thing. I don't know if Dirk Cutter is not a good coach. I know Jim Calvill is not a good coach.

Hey, Jim Caldwell made the playoffs last year. Dirk Cutter did not. The guys they have on that offense. They were both, by the way, both Cutter and Jim Caldwell were extremely mediocre college coaches and no one ever talks about it. Who was Jim Caldwell the college coach of? You could stay for 30 minutes and never guess. I have literally no idea. He was the head coach at Wake Forest.

Are you serious when? I mean, every... First of all, I didn't know Wake Forest at a football team, which I think is fair. It's the Stan Van Gundy was the head coach at Wisconsin. That I know, though, because that's such a... Stan Van Cundee looks like everyone in Wisconsin, so it makes total sense. Also, you're from as the head coach thing. Nobody in Orlando was talking about Wiscoe basketball back then.

So, God, that's terrifying. But I love the talent that they have, especially this year. I feel like I don't tell what Decker's hurt, which sucks. But that team at full strength with Belichick, I think that he could piece together the defense. I think Toronto is a decent coach. But I just feel like the level Billalichick could bring that defense along with what I feel kick of milk out of that offense, Detroit gets really interesting, really fast to me.

I totally agree with you. I want to say one overarching point. This is a question. Obviously, we had to narrow down the teams that are one Belichick away from the Super Bowl. The actual answer is every team. Every team is one Belichick away from the Super Bowl. Is that true? Are the Jets?

There's no way the Jets are won Belichick away. How many years would it take Bill Belichick to turn the Jets into the Super Bowl team? Four, three and a half? Yes. I think it would take that many drafts. I mean, you get the quarterback this time because you have the number one pick probably. It's done. But there's so more players that are needed.

He's going to take some huge nose tackle first overall. Or he's going to turn them into every single third round pick and then hit on a quarterback in the seventh round. That's the thing. Next year, he would have 17 second round picks just to replenish the entire roster. Before we move on, I want to point out that for over 20 years, DirecTV has been the exclusive home to NFL Sunday ticket. The only way to get every live game every Sunday. Good news, NFL fans. Direct TV has expanded their service.

If you live in an apartment or you're an enrolled college student, now you can get NFL Sunday ticket without a satellite. To see if you're eligible, go online to NFL sundayticket. TV and stream every NFL Sunday ticket game this season to follow your favorite team no matter where you live. Use promo code Ringer at checkout to save 15%. Again, that's NFL Sundayticket.tv promo code Ringer. All right, Kevin. So a couple shows ago, we did the bounce back team, the team that we fell underachieve last year for one reason or another.

Sure. They're going to be back to prominence, make the playoffs. Which team is a candidate in our boss's words to have the season from hell? The playoff team from last year where it just all falls apart for one reason or another. Well, I mean, there's a lot of ways you can look at it. I think the most obvious candidate, just because of the quarterback situation, would be the Houston, Texas. but that's kind of, that's kind of cheap, right? Because they barely made the playoffs last year.

Watson's playing, man. I, seeing him play that first preseason game, I believe it more and more that that dude is going to be the quarterback of that team and they're going to be pretty good. Okay. Kansas City Chiefs? That's one you've been out for a while.

I figured that was coming from you. Lay it out. I, okay, so first of all, we have Mike Lombardi at the Ringer, and one of his big things is that you can't have Mahomes just sitting behind Alex Smith. I mean, Alex Smith is a lame duck quarterback.

Yes, he is. And the clock starts, the reason you trade up in the first round is because you want to play Patrick Mahomes and you really don't believe in your quarterback. There is no, I don't care about this lip service stuff. There is no greater indictment of your quarterback than trading up and taking a top 10 quarterback.

Correct. That's ridiculous. A top half of the first down quarterback means we really don't believe. Now, sometimes you do it on accident, all of a sudden, you know, you didn't know you had Drew Brees. You know, it's that sort of thing. Or Rogers. Or Rogers. The guy falls so far.

Rogers was also not top half of the first round. Yeah. And also Brett Farv was much older, I assume, than Alex Smith is now. That's probably true. Fred Farb was born in 69. How do you know that? Don't worry about why I know that. Okay.

That works. So he was 35, which is older than Alex Smith is. Yeah. Alex Smith's been in the league for 12. It's probably right there, actually. I know he was born in 69. I'll just tell the listeners, I think that's weird.

It's because Brett Farber and I have the same birthday. And I, but not, but not the same year. Alex Smith is 33 years old. It was not the same year. So I just always knew that he was born in October 10th, 1969.

It's one of those dumb things you learn as a kid. So anyway, when you have a lame duck quarterback, it starts and the questions start. I was there a couple days ago. A lot of questions about that quarterback competition. Alex Smith's got to play really well to hold off Patrick Mahomes.

and I don't know how capable he is of that. I just think that if Mahomes doesn't play, we've discussed this with the Chiefs a lot. They didn't do anything to get better. They didn't use their first round pick. They didn't spend any money because they didn't have any money. The roster for the most part is the same roster that it was last year. And you can see those are the types of teams that I feel like kind of start falling apart.

Yeah. My team in a similar way is Denver. Why should the Broncos offense be any better than it was a year ago? Paxton Lynch can't beat out Trevor Simeon. That's a problem. Their offensive line is still an issue. Ivankos didn't make playoffs last year. This is a cheap.

I'm sorry, but they were so close. All right, fine. That's fair. I went against my own rule. Dude, dude,

the Texans like barely didn't actually make the playoffs in this universe it exists. I think Denver is a team that was a fringe playoff contender last year. Listen, that could fall apart. There are playoff teams and there are playoff teams, right?

And so I don't know. I mean, I said Houston, and the reason I said that was cheap is because they won a really crappy division where everybody was injured or bad. It's fair. So, no, I think that in the spirit of the question, you are, I got on the right.

I got the letter of the law. Let's go a slightly different direction then. How about the Giants? For a couple different reasons. One, when you have a defense that takes that sort of leap from 30th and DVOA to second, which is where the Giants went from 2015 to last year, you're going to move back. There's no way you maintain that, even if the improvement is easily traceable with all of those signings. you still feel like for the most part, there's no way they're as good just because they're somewhere in the middle of that.

They're closer to two than 30, but I don't think they're the second best defense in the league again. And there is a chance, even with Marshall and Evan Ingram and the guys they brought in his past catchers, that Eli is just on the decline. And he is not going to be a guy that is a playoff caliber quarterback at this point. That is in the cards to me. I don't think it is a guarantee that with those guys coming in, we get a better Eli Manning than we got a season ago. I think it's interesting the strategy they used. Eli Manning is not particularly good quarterback at this point in his career,

but you surround him with a really good talent, and you take a really talented, fast, athletic tight end in the top half of the first round, and you basically just say, we know Eli's pretty mediocre, but we're going to surround him with some great players. I still think Eli is capable of destroying him. distributing the ball in a way that gets them to be at least a slightly above average.

That's totally possible. But don't you see a scenario in which Eli is pretty brutal over the first four games? Brandon Marshall starts chirping. Otto Beckham is also in that locker room. A bunch of guys with some strong personalities. I just feel like there is a version of the giant season that gets pretty bad. Yeah. I mean, yes, absolutely.

did you see Ben McAdoo is doing this cross-coaching thing where he's making guys go into different position rooms that sounds like a terrible idea it sounds like a massive waste of time that sounds like a terrible that's like when the Eagles made Juan Castillo the defensive coordinator for no reason that's exactly what that sounds like to me

hugely ridiculous waste of time why would you do that to learn about the game or something I don't know dude oh my God it's like you know Bob Dylan was famous for making guys play instruments they weren't they weren't aware of. Yeah, that's fine. But it's August. The games are in a month.

Everybody was high in that studio. Like they made much more sense. That makes no sense. August 8th. And they're just like, yeah, this sounds good. That's like, here's the thing. When you have a guy, Bill Callahan is good at what he does because it's what he does. It makes no sense for him for him to go visit with the cornerbacks for a day.

That seems so stupid. Even more so, I'm sticking by my answer now. I feel like the answer doomed. You're going to get owned so hard when Callahan coaches the Redskins cornerbacks next year. And they're the number one overall defense. All right. Coming up, we're going to talk about some contenders that we feel are not going to have the season from hell. What their fatal flaws may be and what may prevent that from getting to the Super Bowl.

We're also going to get a question from Ringer FC host Ryan O'Hanlin. that is about the Jets. So I guess technically it's about the NFL, but not really. Before we get to any of that, though, we're going to take a short break. I want to talk to you guys about our friends at mybooky.ag, the number one rated online sports action site for three straight years. You can also score big on the NFL preseason

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Sign up today. Okay, welcome back. It's time to welcome our special guest for today. It's the host of Ringer FC, our new soccer pod and a long-suffering Jets fan. Rhino Handlin. Ryan, how are you, buddy? I'm doing good. I can't wait to talk about the Premier League with you guys.

I was going to say, you're not going to be doing good for very long here if we start talking about the Jets. Robert, who's your team, buddy? Premier League? Yeah. I don't really have one. I enjoy watching soccer when I watch it,

but I am not a habitual... It requires getting up before 11 a.m. Yeah, I don't do that. Yeah, I know. That's why I moved away from the West Coast so I can watch football at noon.

Ryan, what's your question heading into the NFL season? The 2017 NFL season, which the Jets will be a significant part of. This is the most important question sort of circling 2017. And the question is,

should the New York Jets completely punt on the concept of quarterback for the 2017 season. So what is your proposed solution then if there is no quarterback? Do you have a version of this in your mind? Now, to be clear,

there's going to be no quarterback no matter what happens, but this is the physical manifestation of the quarterback not existing is his proposal. Christian Hakenberg is, if starting Christian Hakenberg is as close to not having a quarterback

as you can get. Is this as simple as like just snapping the ball to Bala Powell, every play and having him run it? Or is it more complicated than that? Christian Hagenberg, he's sort of an anti-quarterback, which is still a version of quarterback. I'm talking about, I mean, in my ideal world, well, in my ideal world, Nick Mangled would still be on the team. Sure.

And then rather than ever snapping the ball, this is probably illegal, but he would just pick up the ball and run forward, and he would yell hike. And you would see, just sort of try to figure out what happens when a player does that, because I've never seen anyone try it in a game. But more seriously, I mean it from the standpoint of quarterback is such a difficult position to play, right? And it's, as you guys have talked about, more important than it's ever been. So if you can't do it properly, which the Jets obviously can't, why even try? So why not, you know, put a running back in the quarterback position, put two more running backs in the backfield. don't use any of your wide receivers because, I mean, they're all essentially create a madden player.

It is an incredible thing where when you lose Quincy and Nunewa, the sky is falling. That is just the most depressing state of affairs for your skill position group I can possibly think of. So there's a couple things I want to address. Number one is that the Jets already tried this. It was called Tim Tebow and it didn't work. Number two is that I like the idea

that Christian Ackinberg is the anti-quarterback, almost like he's like an evil. like he's the warrior of quarterbacks. He's just the exact opposite of what you need in the quarterback. I kind of like that idea. I would have, I would actually

go with more of a Tebow type. Like I would just have a really athletic guy who could at least run around and take the punishment. I think Tebow wasn't the guy there were a million problems with that whole experiment. But I really do think that they really should just sort of disrupt for lack of the term in the quarterback position and just do something. Mays, what do you

think? It couldn't be. any worse than what they've got going. I'm intrigued by this idea of if it's illegal for Nick Mangold or whoever the center is just to pick up the ball. Theoretically, if you move it backward under your legs and just hold it, is that illegal? Because you did snap it. That's what I'm saying. That's the kind of... I literally don't know the answer to that question. That's the kind of disruptive thinking that I've been wanting from this team. So who's their center now? God, your team is so bad. Oh, Hanlon. I'm sitting here looking at the

depth chart. It is rough. Who's their center? Wesley Johnson. Street free agent. 2014. Former Clippers small forward, Wesley Johnson. Now playing center. The third overall picking that draft. Yeah. He couldn't can't be any worse at center. Oh my God. This is rough. It's, it's dark.

It's probably darker than it's ever been, which is really Robbie Anderson, Jalen Marshall Sharon Peak. That's a person. I know that it. He's the Jets Cameron Meredith. Oh my God. Cameron Meredith can actually play football. No, I know. I was just joking.

We didn't know Cameron Meredith was the entire season last year. That's totally fair. Ardarius Stewart is an interesting player. I think he could turn into something, but there's no way we'll ever know because he plays for the Jets. Sharon Peak recently said the Jets definitely have at least one 1,000 yard receiver on their roster. Wait, wait. He doesn't know who it is, though.

The Jets have Charco Thomas and Morris Claiborne? Yeah. I mean, the Jets, everything about the Jets is hilarious. The wider receiving court is definitely number one. the offensive line isn't that much better. I mean, Oh, Henlin, I understand that you're worried about the quarterback position, but it's not as if the other spots on your team are even slightly usable.

Like, Ballal Powell is the best player on the Jets offense by a wide margin. I would give that Ted a little lucky whitehead based on the like rapturous reception he got when he came over from the Cowboys. You would have thought that it was, um, it's incredible. The second coming of Rocketish Mile. Matt Forte does not deserve this fate. I love Matt Forte

way too much to just send him to the wolves like we're currently doing. It's not, it's, it's like a humanitarian hazard to be on the Jets roster. This is a serious question. Why would you watch this team every week? Like, how are you going to be able to do this to yourself?

I don't care about you. It's a good thing, Ryan, that you started the soccer pod, so you have an excuse on Sundays to be like, actually, I have to watch Huventon. play Udnese. You're on to me.

There's a good, like, there's no reason to watch. I love football so much, and I would not watch this team. The only reason to watch gets back to my original question is if the Jets tried to, if they tried to just do something super weird.

You know what I mean? So you're just going to wait until Sunday night of week one and be like, okay, did the Jets do something weird? if not, I'm out, not tuning in. I'm so far in that I'm probably going to watch at least eight of the games this season. Here's what you should do. I did this last year.

I wrote this. If your team sucks, here are the players you should start watching. You should just go to USC games the entire year and watch Sam Darnold play. That's your answer to football season. No, because the thing we know is that the Jets are going to manage to fuck up tanking.

So I'm going to, fall in love with Donald, and then they're going to end up with this dude from Wyoming. And it's just going to be Hackenberg 2.0, anti-anti quarterback, which maybe... Hey, maybe we're going back the whole other way then. Maybe he turns into Mario and this actually works. I just Googled Jet Schedule and my computer stopped working. The problem is that you might be right, Ryan, and that maybe Leonard Williams just turns into the best player in the league and somehow the Jets win five games and they have like the third overall pick in this draft.

Yeah, that's, it's just a bizarre, a bizarre world where five wins is both the best and worst case scenario. Would you, that's exactly right. It's pretty much the worst thing that could happen and the best thing. Will you actively be rooting against them every single week? 100%. I've basically been doing that my entire life, though. So how weird is it going to be when you're sitting there cheering on Tom Brady on a Sunday?

I think I want to just, I want to end this call. I'm not going to answer that question publicly. Do you and Sean have like a support group that you've started every like Tuesday at 7 p.m? These guys get in a room and start chatting and just, hi, my name is Sean and I'm a long-suffering New York Jets fan. Yeah, although, you know, I'm essentially being used as Sean's human shield in this podcast right now. Yeah, there's, no, you couldn't pay him enough to be in that room right now. guarantee it. I don't know if we said

this full name. We're talking about Sean Fennessee. The editor and chief of our website. We're not talking about on a random friend we have named Sean. Yes. The ringer.com's chief

is our captain is a Jets fan and he refuses to come on. He's hiding from us. Way too scared to do this. Mallory just hates us. Sean is afraid. That's the difference.

That's how much I care about this website. I'm willing to throw myself in front of this bus. I'm genuinely sorry, bud. I'm genuinely sorry. It's awful. A dark year. I think the best,

best case scenario for me. is that this is the last time the Jets are ever discussed on this podcast. That's probably fair. That's fair. We will be happy to oblige that request.

Christian Hakenberg would need to be so demonstrably bad during the season for it to come up. He'd have to throw seven interceptions in a game for us to actually talk

about them for a while. That's fair, right? I think you're right. And off of that, I think as much as I love you guys, I think I never want to appear on this podcast about because that,

that goes in keeping with my hopes for the jet season. Well, I'll be looking forward to Kevin showing up on Ringer FC sometime in the next couple weeks. I'm retired from soccer potting. I was the Christian Hakenberg of potting, of soccer potting. Well, I'll see both of you bright and early Saturday morning for a Premier League kickoff. Thanks for having me on. I appreciate you joining us. I'll talk to you guys soon.

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Paid for by the United States Army. All right, Kevin, let's get to our last question of the podcast, our 13th overall. Which Super Bowl contender to you has the most fatal flaw? Mine, again, about to draw the ire of the Giants' Twitter. I have two. The Giants' offensive wine to me, we did not discuss them in the previous answer because I knew I'd be talking about them here. Even with Marshall, even with Evan Ingram, whatever, I just think that group is not good

enough to sustain a very good offense for the entire season. I don't think the running game is going to be there. I don't think their past blocking and protection is going to be there. Eric Flowers still left tackle, you know? This is still a situation. where that talent is not very good. They decided to try to diminish that by getting as many high-profile past catches as they could.

I'm never usually a fan of that plan. Man, their deep passing is going to be terrible. Yes. They are not going to be able to have time. And it's not as if Eli is a guy that can overcome that kind of stuff. We joke all the time about how the Giants just run one plane to Slant to O'Dell Beckham. They're going to run two plays.

It's a slant to O'Do Beckham and Slant to Brandon Marshall. Yeah, Brandon Marshall was really good at like those dig routes, the ones where he can use his. body, comebacks, box people out. Those are slower developing. You have to run and turn around. I don't know if he's going to have time to run 10 yards and turn around. Brandon Marshall may never catch a pass in the Giants offense.

Yeah, I totally agree with you. I mean, all those weapons, if Eli doesn't have the time, it doesn't matter. And so that's why I really worry about the Giants at this point. Who should you have the team? The other one I had is the Oakland front seven. And this is excluding Kalomak. This is nothing to do with Kalomac. He's enough to kind of buoy your pass rush.

But I just think that they didn't do much of anything in the way. way of beefing up that group. They finished 17th and run defense TVA way last year. That's kind of surprising to me. I feel like that's higher than I would have guessed. They don't have a lot of thumpers on that team. I don't like their interior defensive lineman. Mario Edwards can be back this year.

He's an underrated guy that does a couple different things for them. But I just feel like they don't have that many guys in that area of their defense. And if they don't and teams can run on them, teams could definitely throw on them last year, which they tried to make up for it with the guys they drafted. But I just think that that group isn't exciting to me. And their offense might be good enough to overcome it. But when I'm just looking at every team that could win the Super Bowl, you know, and Seattle's offensive line is probably the easiest answer to this.

You know, we talk about it all the time, though. Seattle, that their defense is going to be great. Their offensive line is a problem, but, you know, we'll see. Atlanta doesn't have any fatal flaws to me. I just think that they're maybe not as good in the areas they're going to need to be. Carolina, it's hard to find one. I mean, I think that with the moves they've made, their offensive line isn't great,

but it's still better than the Giants, still better than Seattle's. So when I'm looking at every single team, it just seems like Oakland's Front Seven and the guys they have there are, I'm the least excited about it. It's interesting to me when we talk about the Front Seven. I've talked a lot at this camp with a couple of GMs,

couple of coaches, couple of coordinators. And they've talked about sort of the diminishing importance of the edge rusher, which I think is a thing we have to watch as a league because the sack rate was the lowest ever been in the NFL last year. And if you're going to have a Colomack, he's going to be hugely important. He's going to get those strip sacks. He's going to be incredible. But you really have to have John Robinson this other day. It has to all work together more than it ever has. You cannot have one player on the defense just wreaking havoc. It's why

Aaron Donald deserves to make the amount of money that Calil Mac makes. You have to push the pocket. You have to get your hands up. The front seven needs to work in concert. That's why Colomac is, I think, you know, as incredible as he is, he can't do it alone. And that's why I totally agree. The front seven of the Raiders has to be better. Yeah. And if the run defense isn't good, that's what teams lean on them. There are a couple times over the last couple of years where Kansas City's had this problem.

And when Derek Johnson got hurt, their run defense has not been very good. And even if you have a Justin, Tom, Bali, D. Ford kind of rotation, if you don't have a team that can stick and just really slow teams down in the run game and guys can run all over you, Denver had this problem against Oakwood. I mean, it's just those are defenses that slowly start to crumble. And I could see that happening with the Raiders, even with the moves they've made in the secondary. All right, that'll do it for today's show. We'll wrap it up today with number 13 of our 33 preseason questions. We're back Friday with another new batch. As always, thanks for listening to the Ringer NFL show here on the Ringer Podcast Network.