The Ringer NFL Show - AFC North Offseason Grades

Episode Date: May 13, 2025

Sheil, Steven, and Diante put their microscopes on the AFC North division and discuss each team's offseason moves to determine what their level of success could be in the upcoming NFL season. Baltimore RavensCincinnati BengalsPittsburgh SteelersCleveland Browns The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ www.rg-help.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Hosts: Sheil Kapadia, Steven Ruiz, and Diante LeeProducer: Chris SuttonSocial: Kiera GivensProduction Supervision: Conor Nevins and Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When you hear the word Seattle Supersonics, what comes to mind? Maybe it's Sean Kemp, The Rain Man, or Gary Payton, the glove, or maybe an image of a tall and skinny 19-year-old rookie, Kevin Duran. For fans in Seattle, it's something else. It's tragedy. It's theft. An iconic team with an incredible fan base that packed its bags and shipped off for Oklahoma City. From Spotify and The Ringer, I'm Jordan Ritter-Con.

And in my podcast, Sonic Boom, I talk to players, Paul. politicians, owners, and fans about how Seattle lost the Sonics. You can listen to it on the Book of Basketball feed on Spotify or wherever you get your podcast. Welcome to the Ringer NFL show. Shield Capadia here with Stephen Ruiz and Deonté Lee. We are continuing our division by division offseason series, taking a look at each team's offseason, grading it.

Are they better or worse than last year? What's one way too early prediction that we've got in May? as we look ahead to the 2025 season. So we did the AFC East last week, and the AFC North is up today. So that's what is on the schedule. But speaking of schedule, Deonti, when you see the 400 tweets about game,

this game on Black Friday, this team playing in Spain, I'm just kind of zooming past everything and waiting for Wednesday when it all comes out. Are you doing the same thing, or are you taking all this in the NFL just, you know, leaks a game each hour, seemingly, for the entire week. It's so funny how your perspective changes when you go from being outside of working in football

to inside working in football, like 10 years ago, I would have been all for this. I would have been retweeting every release. Oh, this team's going to be playing in prime time. Okay, I got a prediction for this game. I've got a prediction on how these things are going to play out. Now that I've got a few years under my belt working in this thing, I'm waiting until Wednesday. You guys can't trick me. You are not going to own this much of my brain space all throughout the offseason.

After the draft, I have released the NFL, and so they have something pertinent to give me, and I'm not going to fall right back into their traps. Yeah. Ruiz, if the NFL had a lottery, like the NBA just had his draft lottery, it would be, they would announce one team per week for two weeks, right? They would just be doing all this in one night. It would be a month-long experience. But, yeah, I'm with you guys.

I totally forget the schedule right after it comes out. Like forget about waiting until Wednesday. By Friday, I already forgot like when, oh, the Ravens and Chiefs are playing in week eight. Like, what am I supposed to do with that information in May? Yeah. It's also funny because if you, you know, if you work in the media and you have, you know, your newsletter from the NFL comms, everybody knew who the opponents were in like January

February. You know, this is just a matter of sequencing. So, you know, I'm not as jazzed anymore for about stuff like this. You're not a fan of sequencing? And in calendars and voters? Yeah, it's fun for your local team. Like if you're listening to this and you're a fan of the Ravens who we're about to talk about, it's fun when you get the whole schedule,

all right, what does it look like? Do the wins and losses. And, hey, is there a road trip in here? And, hey, if we can buy tickets to one home game, what would it be? I'm all for that. Don't get me wrong. That's fun. But yes, as sort of a national league-wide thing where they're just leaking game by game.

And I can't keep track. The international games, now they're, playing on a Black Friday. Here's what's going on in week nine on a Thursday night game. No, that's not for me. So we will see what it looks like on Wednesday night when the entire schedule comes out as those games continue to leak in the days ahead. But again, today we're doing AFC North, which I found to be a pretty interesting exercise.

I'm curious to find out what you guys think in terms of, I think the big question with this division is like, what's changed since last year? Has anything changed since last year? Do we feel differently about any of these teams than we did throughout last season and at the end of last season? So I think that's sort of the big picture thought, at least I had as I was doing this exercise. But we will start with the Baltimore Ravens, the Super Bowl pick, I believe, of both. I think all of our Super Bowl picks came from this division. I had the Bengals last year from the AFC.

I believe you guys had the Ravens. Ravens are big favorites in this division at minus 145. They are favorites to actually come out of the AFC in terms of getting to the Super Bowl at plus 350. And if you look at the entire NFL, the only team with better odds to win the Super Bowl is the Philadelphia Eagles, who are at plus 650. The Ravens are right behind them at plus 700. They're over under for wins is 11 and a half. So they haven't been able to get over the hump. Lamar Jackson has, and by the way, revisiting some of these numbers on Lamar Jackson.

I'm just like, oh my gosh, did I appreciate this? What are the best quarterbacking seasons I think I've ever seen? It's wild because now we talk so much of term, you know, EPA and success rate, but I still like to do a little old school. Just go look at the pro football reference page. And I'm like, there's never been a season like this in NFL history. And we'll get to some of those numbers. But the bottom line is they are absolutely one of the favorites to win the Super Bowl,

to get to the Super Bowl in the AFC. So first category here, grade their. off season. Deante, what did you think about what the Ravens did? Just some of the key moves, they bring back Ronnie Stanley. Offensively, they add DeAndre Hopkins. They only lose, I think, one real starter on offense and then defensively using a couple of early picks on Malachi Starks, the safety out of Georgia, and Mike Green, the edge rusher. And then, of course, the kicking situation, which we talked about at length in one of our recent shows, releasing Justin Tucker and drafting Tyler Luke.

What did you make of the Ravens offseason here? So I'll be fair, you know, and kind of use the same rubric I used for the bills, right? I gave them a C plus. I'm going to give the Ravens a C plus in the same light, right? And it's just because the margins are slim. And I think that that's a deeper conversation when we talk about whether this team actually got materially better or worse, right?

I think that they did what they needed to do early in the draft, which was take a guy that can help fill in some safety depth because that was a major problem for them for the first half of last season. before they made the change to move Kyle Hamilton back to his strong safety spot, which is where he started his career at. And I think that having Malachi Starkson as their first round pick allows them a little bit more flexibility. I will say that DB's room is really interesting when you try to figure out who's going to be playing in what role. You go out, you get Chidovia Woosier, who's essentially an outside corner.

Marlon Humphrey kind of has that inside outside flex. Nate Wiggins has been more of an outside guy. Then you have Kyle Hamilton, who was the best slot defender in the NFL two seasons ago. We really didn't get an opportunity to see him in that role as often last year. I'm really fascinated to see what Zach Orr is able to do with this defense in year two as a play caller. But I would say at C-plus, nothing went wrong this offseason, but I don't know if anything has been materially changed as far as how I look at this team. I went with like a similar grade and a similar reason.

I went with B-minus. Not much change. And just reviewing the stats, not much had to change. This team was probably a lot better than we even give it credit for. You mentioned that about Lamar, I think the team as a whole. They lost five games or six games all year. But I combined 24 points if you include the playoffs. Six years are like 24 points.

That's an insane number. And you just look at the offense, led the NFL in both rushing and passing EPA. We saw the evolution of the defense as the season went on in Zachor's first year. They were botching coverages all over the place over the first eight weeks of the season. After that, they were maybe one of the best defenses in the NFL over the second half. after they make a couple of changes, a couple tweaks. But I do think Dande's point is a good one. I don't know what the D.B.

room's going to look like, but based on the moves, I think you're going to see a more solidified group where you know where guys are going to be compared to last year. I think to bring in a Uzié, you have Wiggins in a second year. Those guys are going to fit in on the outside, and they're going to stick to their sides. I think Kyle Hamilton's going to have a more defined role. He almost has to compared to last year,

given the changes they made. So I think this was about tightening things up on both sides of the ball. I'm going to give them B-minus, but it's the same thing as Deontes C-plus. Yeah, I had a B-minus too. Like you guys said, this was about kind of small moves around the margins. This was not a, hey, we need to do something dramatic this off-season. They were 12 and 5 last year, made it to the divisional round. I think bringing Ronnie Stanley back was probably the biggest question mark. It was sort of up in the air. I think when we ended last season, they were able to do that on the offensive line. And so offensively, they had the best offensive.

in the NFL last year, and they had 12 players who played at least 400 snaps, and 11 of them are back. The only exception is Patrick McCarrey, the versatile offensive lineman, who I think at times was actually a weak spot for them, you know, when he had to play last year. So his versatility is his strength, but, you know, it doesn't, like there's potential, basically, that you could upgrade if you find the right guy, just kind of fill in that role and he doesn't have to play. So they're in a good spot there. Defensively, I mean, they lost who. Brandon Stevens and Marcus Williams, who was already benched. You know, it's not like he was a contributor in the second half of the season.

So they didn't lose a whole lot defensively there either. So I think they're in a good spot. I had them as a B minus. They didn't have a ton of resources to work with, but I think, you know, the moves they made, made sense. So the question is, Ruiz just said, we maybe we underrated the season. They even had as a whole last year. Are they better or worse than last year, a 12 and 5 team last year?

a 12 and 5 team last year. One of the best teams in the NFL, Ruiz. Are you expecting better results, better performance, feeling better about them in the playoffs? I don't know the right way to actually measure this. Is it just record? Or is it, hey, I guess we could just say, is this the year that they get over the hump

and this team's playing in the Super Bowl in San Francisco? I think they're a better team just because you have another year of this group together, the defensive coordinator, you have him. It's a second year defensive coordinator instead of a first-year defensive coordinator who was 31 at the time when he took the job. I think that's a big deal. I don't think we're going to see those early season struggles with the defense this time around. The offense is the tricky part to answer because there's almost nowhere to go but down after the season they had last year.

But all the pieces returned, and on paper they could be a better team, especially if DeAndre Hopkins gives them anything. It just gives them what he was for Kansas City even. And I think that adds another layer to the offense that we haven't seen. I've talked about this a lot over the last year, like getting Lamar Jackson one of those contested catches, back shoulder, fade, you know, perimeter ball winners. I look this up on PFF. Over the last three years,

guess how many back shoulder vertical throws Lamar Jackson has completed in the last three years? In my head, I don't remember one. I have to be like in a single digits because I'm trying to scan in my brain for these. No, he's attempted three. He's completed zero. Okay.

So my first instinct was right. Yeah, I don't remember. never seeing one. Guys ahead of them on that list are like guys that have made one start. And like Trace Mitch Sorley, for instance, is ahead of them on that list. And I think part of it is that maybe it's Lamar's style of play, but I think more so it's the wide receivers that you're throwing to. You're throwing to these shorter wide receivers who win vertically because you, you know,

you lead them downfield rather than throw a back shoulder ball to them. So I do think D'Andre Hopkins has the ability to maybe change the offense in that way, but he is, you know, on the wrong side of 30, the end of his career. Who knows how that's going to go. We can't bank on him improving the offense. But that's the question I have is like, where does the offense go? Does it regress a little bit from last year? Because it almost has to.

Like there's, I love Lamar. I think he's the best quarterback in the NFL right now. There's no way you can do what he did last year again. What was it? 41 touchdowns, five interceptions or something along those lines. Yeah. Those are the pro football reference numbers. I was like 41.

So just throwing 41 touchdowns and four interceptions. And then he ran for 915. I had to look at that. I was like, wait, did he, he threw 41 touchdowns and four interceptions? I know T.D., you know, touchdown to interception ratio is not the be all and end all, but still, I remember back in the day, you know, Donovan McNatt when I was a teenager, that year he had with Terrell Owens. And there were all these stats about like the only quarterbacks who had thrown for 30 plus touchdowns and single digit interceptions. And it was like a short, short list. And now we're going to 40 plus touchdowns. And under five.

interceptions. I mean, that is nuts. And again, that's as a passer. We're not including the 915 yards rushing. And it's not like this is the greatest supporting cast in the history of football. I mean, I would probably term it as, you know, maybe slightly above average. It's certainly not among the five best situations for a quarterback in the NFL. So that's wild. If you strip out like the scheme stuff, too, like I know a lot of people are like, oh, Baltimore has this perfect scheme for Lamar, which I totally disagree with because this It's nothing like the Greg Roman scheme at all. So, I mean, there are some overlap, I guess. But when you strip out like the short throws underneath, the swing passes, the screen passes,

Lamar gets better and the rest of the league gets worse. Like, he's not leaning on these easy buttons. It's mostly him creating another stat. Like, when he goes beyond his first read, you look at the rest of the quarterbacks in the NFL. They're all like, you know, they all take a big hit to their statistics. Of course they do. If the first guy's not open, the play gets harder. The longer you have to hold on the ball.

Lamar, no. He's like one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL. NFL compared to the guys on their first read on his second read. He's just so in control of things. The past rush he's in control of him. You can't blitz them like you want to. You can't rush him like you want to because of that. So the offensive line is better than it looks on paper.

The run game obviously gets a boost from him. The receivers get a boost from him because he buys them time that other quarterbacks can't buy and he can still throw the ball and put the ball in the money when he does that. My one concern is when Lamar doesn't play at an MVP level, this team tends to struggle. like last year he had an EPA average under 0.2, which is around, like, if you finish with like a 0.2 per dropback EPA, you're probably in the top five of the NFL. Whenever he finished below that last year, it happened six times.

They went one in five. And the one win was the Browns game in Week 18, when the Browns were starting, I think, DTR and like had given up on the season. So this team is very dependent on him. And just by comparison, just like a narrative thing, I feel like Joe Burrow got the, I'm carrying my team to wins. Joe Burrow finished under 0.2 EPA 11 times last year, and the Bengals win 6 and 5 compared to 1 in 5 for the Ravens,

Lamar Jackson. I think there's a lot of pressure on him to be as good as he was last year. And if he isn't, I think we are going to see the offense maybe take a step back. Yeah, he's a guy who the conversation will, of course, be about, you know, the playoff stuff, and that's fair. You know, he did put the ball in. I remember we talked right after that game, and it was he threw the, he had the two turnovers in the first half, but then leads him back on that

incredible drive at the end. And then, you know, the Mark Cantor's catches out of your hands if you're the quarterback. So, but those conversations will continue. It's, it's one of those, you have these in the NBA. You have them in the NFL when everyone agrees that somebody is a great player, but they haven't yet had that moment in the playoffs where they're in the Super Bowl or winning the Super Bowl. So he's still young. They've been in the mix every year. But him and Josh Allen, I mean, it's going to be similar conversations here until they get their Deont. better or worse than last year this Ravens team? I'm saying worse, but it's so marginal.

It just like doesn't matter. There's really kind of where I land. Like you look at some of their past rest metrics. I think that they overperformed based on like sacks and QB hits, you know, opposed to their pressure rate, which is just like 33%. So very kind of middling and I ended up with, you know, high sack EPA, you know, high sack per drop pack percentage. So I do think that some of that will come back to Earth.

You look at the way they play in coverage. it's a lot of man, which means you're going to give up more explosive plays. So they finish around 17th, I think, in like total pass EPA on the defensive side of the ball. I expect that to hold. I don't think it's going to get much worse, especially if they stay healthy on the back end. But if you're about middling in terms of past defense and you have the top run defense because you're always loading up the box that I expect Baltimore, again, to be in the top five in terms of run defense, I think that they'll be fine on that side of the ball.

To me, the biggest question, as far as Super Bowl contention comes down to whether or not Roger Rosengarde and Andrew Warhees can be major upgrades for them on the offensive line. That to me is really the biggest question. Everything else is so stable. There's really no point in even debating it, right? Like, as long as Zay Flowers and Rashat Bateman are healthy, we're going to see a pretty effective passing game, especially with Lamar Jackson in the backfield. Derek Henry has defied wear and tear, you know, conventional wisdom for his entire career. So until he shows that he slows down, I am not assuming that that's what's going to happen. And they still have both of their tight end. So there's just so many different ways they can beat you as a team. And I thought that last year, it took them

a while to land upon what kind of offensive identity they wanted. And when they had it, especially in November and December, they were just a buzzsaw. I get basically Philadelphia in that late afternoon game was the only team I saw defensively that really gave them trouble. Outside of that, they were able to move the ball at will. I expect that to maintain. And like I said, all of this comes down to like, you know, Baltimore having like Stephen said, like a Steph Curry, a LeBron James problem, which is, at the end of the day, we are only going to win in these high leverage situations offensively

if Lamar Jackson is at his best. He has shown that he can play really well in these situations. I thought that last year against Buffalo, outside of the turnovers, he played really well. It's just a matter of eliminating those plays. If they can eliminate those plays, they will be in the AFC championship game and potentially in the Super Bowl.

Even with the turnovers, he still finished with like a 71st percentile EP. You still had a very good, game and outplayed Josh Allen by the statistics. And it still came down to one, Mark Andrews dropping the two-point conversion. And then Mark Andrews also catching a 16-yard pass and fumbling the ball. Oh, my God. That's the play. That's the play that really, yeah, that really turned the tide for Baltimore.

I think they win that game if they just don't fumble the ball there. I don't think the two-point conversion matters. But like, that's the thing with Lamar's lack of playoff success, especially last year. I think in prior years, he did have bad games and you could point to him and be like, all right, if you played better, maybe they win that game. But against the bills, I don't think that was the case. I don't think that was the problem. It was just bad luck, honestly.

The defense played well. It kind of held Josh Allen in check compared to all the other teams that played Josh Allen, compared to the Chiefs the next week. They just had turnovers, and they dropped the two-point conversion to put the game into overtime. I don't think the game means any, or that game in particular, needs any more analysis than that. Two equal teams. One team got the brakes, the other team did it,

and the team that got the breaks won the game. They almost never lose in the regular season when he's the starter. I mean, 70 and 24 in the regular, that's crazy. 75% of the games that he starts in the regular season, they win. They're 25 and 8 with him as the starter over the last two seasons. So I'm with you guys. I think part of this is how much do the rookies contribute? Malachi Stark's Mike Green are those guys.

Can one of them play really well right away? and look like a plus starter. I think that would help them. And then you have second year players. Deonté mentioned Rosengarten, Nate Wiggins, the corner. Like, are these guys going to make the leap? Zachor, first time DC last year,

like Ruiz mentioned, you would figure he would be, you know, more comfortable his second season. So there are things there that point to all right. They should be better on paper. Now, the other side of it is, you know, per FTN, the adjusted games lost metric, which looks at how healthy teams were. they were the healthiest team in the NFL last year.

And not only last year, they were the healthiest team in their database since 2017. The only real injury they had on offense was Nelson Aguilar, among guys who missed more than two games. They had just three offensive line combinations, play more than 50 snaps. You look at some of these other teams, it's up around six, seven, eight different offensive line combinations. So those are some things that you just say, hey, their depth is probably going to get tested more this year than it did last year. But again, we have a pretty long track record that as long as Lamar Jackson is still on the field, they're going to be able to win a lot of football games. So I've got them at slightly worse just because of what I mentioned with the injuries.

And also, there was Lamar Jackson numbers I mentioned. I mean, we haven't seen a quarterback put up numbers like that in NFL history. Can he do it again? Sure. He's won two MVP's. But, you know, maybe you get a little bit more unlucky with some of that stuff. Or maybe they just come down a tick and you don't win. as many games, so you're not quite as good.

But I think they're going to be right around the same number as they were last year. All right. Way too early prediction. This one was hard. I want to hear what you guys have to say on this because I was struggling. Of all the teams we have today, I was struggling to come up with a way too early prediction for the Ravens. Deonti, what do you got?

So mine is something that came up right before we were talking about the draft. I think that my prediction is that ultimately Odafe Owey ends up getting shopped for whatever the last playmaker it is that they need to get over the hump and be a That's interesting. Okay. So you still have them all in the trade block. All right. I think so. I think that having Mike Green, drafting Mike Green in the top, in the top two rounds is I think

maybe not a bet against Oway being the player that they need him to be this season, but just a preparation, right? Like, A, they needed edge depth for starters. And two, Mike Green athletically can land as a pro the way that I think he was based off what his college tape had been. There's a chance that he can win that starting job or show that he can handle a high volume of snaps. And if that's the case, I just feel like you can go get an upgrade over what DeAndre Hopkins can give you as an outside receiver. I think that's maybe my biggest hang-up.

And I think that if you shop a young guy like Oway to a team to try to get another big body receiver, that's a way that they can probably get that offense to get that last little jolt. So that way Lamar doesn't have to be a wizard in a dropback game the way that he was over the last couple seasons. Is there a Packers trade there? O'A for a receiver and See, if Christian Watson could stay healthy, to me, that would be like the ideal kind of receiver to add to this mix. It's another big body vertical guy because you can use Zayflowers underneath. You can use the shot baby in the intermediate area. I think if you could get one more just kind of physical, you know, run over the top, tear the roof off the defense type,

that would probably be the one thing that this offense could use. All right. Mine kind of jumps off of yours, Deontes, so I can go next. I had Jadevian Clowny ends up back on this roster by week one. one. And I was on the fence about it because they've got young guys. You know, they've got O.A. is still young. They drafted Mike Green. We don't know what they think of guys like David Ajabo and Adisa Isaac. Are they confident in those guys? But Clownie got released by the Panthers, had a really good season for the Ravens in 2023, had nine and a half sacks, can never have enough pass rush.

It just feels like the Ravens are always in the mix to add a veteran pass rusher at this point in the offseason. So that was my early prediction that he ends up on that run. roster by week one. All right, Ruiz, what do you have for your way too early prediction for the Ravens? Mine's kind of related to Deiates. I think that playmaker is already on the roster, the playmaker that emerges. I'm going to predict that Rashad Bateman goes over a thousand yards and finally has this breakout year that we've been waiting on. I think early on in this career, it was injuries that were holding them back. I think there was chemistry questions between him and Lamar. Even in like practice, if you go to their practices, I feel like they had a hard time

getting on the same page, especially with the deep ball. But I thought we saw signs of it last year, especially down the stretch. And I think like a full off season with both of them healthy because both of them have been, it's not just Rashad Bateman that was hurt. It was Lamar Jackson who was hurt too early on. I think we're going to see that relationship really blossom and become, it's not going to be like Jamar Chase and Joe Burrow, but I think it's going to be, we're going to have less questions about the Ravens receiving core

because I do think Richard Bateman, at his best, could fill the role of a number one receiver, which they have been lacking over the last couple of. He was really over Lamar's career. There you go. Playmaker on the roster emerges. Rashad Bateman says Ruiz. All right, let's take a break. We come back.

We get to the next team in the AFC North, the Cincinnati Bengals. All right, we are back on the Ringer NFL show. Bengals are up next. They are plus 220 to win the division behind the Ravens. They are minus 164 to make the playoffs. So betting markets say they are a good bet to get back into the postseason. This is kind of interesting. They are fourth in our last.

odds to come out of the AFC and get to the Super Bowl. So Chiefs, Bills, and Ravens are kind of in one tier, bunched together, and then there's a big gap in everyone else. But the Bengals, at least according to Fanduil, are at the top of that sort of next tier there. They're offseason. They get T. Higgins back. So they keep it intact, Joe Burrow, T. Higgins, and Jemar Chase. They fire Lou Anirumo. They hire Al Golden at defensive coordinator.

They make a change with their offensive line coach. They lose guard Alex Kappa. They draft Dylan Fairchild, the offensive lineman in the third round. Defensively, they lose Mike Hilton, Von Bell, and Sam Hubbard. They don't make many moves at all in free agency, but they draft Shamar Stewart, the edge rusher in the first round. They draft linebacker Demetrius Knight in the second round. Only had six draft picks, and they used three of them on defense.

Ruiz, what do you think? How do you grade this Bengals off season when you look at all those moves together? I'm going to give it the same grade as the Ravens. I think it's a B-minus. I think they checked all the boxes they needed to check. I don't think they beat the cheap franchise allegations, which what's going on with T. Hendrickson right now with like the negotiations, even with the rookies like Shamar Stewart.

I know they had some back and forth about his contract and injury protections. So I do think there are, there were some boxes left unchecked. But the big ones, Jabar Chase, T. Higgins, they kept that trio together, hit them Joe Burrow. I think as long as you have them, you have a high floor just because the offense, the passing game.

I think that type of passing game kind of replaces the need for a productive run game. I think it replaces the need for a dominant offensive line in terms of pass protection because you're getting rid of the ball quickly with Joe Burrow

on first down anyway with the quick game. So I think this team is a lot better on paper to answer the next question. I do wonder, like, was this an offseason that's going to change the future of the defense. I don't know about that. The out golden

Luana Rumo swap is the one that's most interesting to me. I think that was a reaction to spending all this draft capital on defensive players over the last couple of years and those players not developing. When we saw Lou Anirumo at his best, it was veteran players. You could throw a game plan together and you can trust

his veteran players to follow it. I think you're going with a college defensive coordinator for a reason. I think you just expect him to be better at coaching younger players and developing younger players. So that could be a big payoff in the end, but you have to see it. I don't know what to expect about Golden, especially like given his track record as a coach, not like his track record, but his arc as a coach where he was on the offensive side of the ball, came to the defensive side

of the ball. So I do have question marks about that, but I see the idea. I see the vision. Deonté, what do you have for grading the Bengals offseason? I ended up giving them a B minus as well, right? I think that number one, they brought back the guys that they needed to bring back. I would say this could be a B to B plus if the Hendrickson thing had a little bit more clarity. I don't know if you guys saw. I think it was this more Hendrickton basically putting out a statement that like there's been no contact, no additional contact, post draft about the status of his contract and whether or not he's going to be a long-term guy,

whether they're actually still looking to move on, whatever the case may be, which just brings me back to the conversations we have been having since February about not getting this done early now means that whatever decision you're making, you're doing from a position of disadvantage, both for the player and for the franchise. But I do think that ultimately they did what they needed to do. I'm not, I had nothing wrong with Luan Arumo,

as the defensive coordinator here for the past few years, at least not schematically, but it's just clear that the way that he wants to run defense just did not mesh with the back seven that he had. I think that bringing in Al Golden, if you're looking to take what he was at Notre Dame, right, which is like very in your face, man coverage, simplistic defensively, this defensive backfield fits that much, much better.

The safeties that they have can't do all the intricate quarter stuff that they were doing when they had Jesse Bates playing safety, you know, and veteran corners on the outside who have been in the league for a while. I think that you might get a little bit of bumping performance off of that. And I think that ultimately the ceiling of this team is going to be kind of determined by whether or not Shamar Stewart can show up and be an instant impact guy

and whether or not T. Hendrickson stays on this team and can produce again like one of the five best pass rushes in the NFL. Yeah, I win C-plus. It's obviously a win to get T. Higgins back. But the big issue on the team last year was that the defense dunk, and I look at the defensive depth chart,

and I'm not like, oh, it's not better on defense. Yeah, they're putting a lot of faith in this defensive coordinator change. And if it was a different defensive coordinator with a longer track record of being able to do more with less, then I would say, okay, I get it. But Al Golden's a complete unknown. I mean, what is it? 50-50, that he would be better than Luana Rumo, lower than that? Probably, honestly, if we're doing, yeah, if we're doing the odds.

So, you know, maybe it'll work out. maybe the new O-line coach will be good. They didn't really upgrade the offensive line either. I mean, maybe they did if some of the players get better. But on paper, it's not like there's a big splash there that makes you feel a lot better about it. So I just felt like, you know, things might bounce their way a little bit more this year. But in terms of do I actually think this is a much better team than last year when I just look at kind of what they did in the off-season. Off-season I couldn't quite get there, which again, that leads to the next question, better or worse,

And then last year. So they were 9 and 8 last year. And again, I look at it and I think they're probably likely to get a little luckier. And maybe they'll be slightly better. But I'm not at the point where I'm like, they figured it out. And I'm going to pick the Bengals to go to the Super Bowl like I did last year. So Ruiz says better. I say slightly better.

Deonti, where were you with this one? Did the Bengals get, are they better or worse than they were last year? I'm going to say better assuming health. Right. I say better assuming health. I would assume that Joe Burrow opens up the season going into training camp in a better spot physically than he was coming into last season's training camp. Remember the thumb and the hand being a big point of conversation. You're missing out on T. Higgins for a little while last season as well. I think that if he's able to stay healthy, they're better from that respect as well. And I think that, well, I guess I'm hoping, the thing that I'm really hinging them being better on is that they can continue to grow this offense around their superpowers, which is what they can do from the drop back game, which is what Joe Burrow can do from the dropback game. They have a lot of promising names on their offensive line, and it's similar to what we were talking about with the Ravens. And I think that they've been,

they've taken a lot of chances on trying to improve. And I think if Amarius Mims can show that he's as good as what he flashed in the preseason and throughout training camp last year where people were talking about him, maybe being, you know, the best tackle out of that class based off of how he was trending, right? I think that that can go a long way for them. And if they can just land something that sticks in the run game or something, in the RPO game that sticks and that can land for them, that can get them something more

efficient on early downs and just asking Joe Burrow to be a computer and get the ball out of his hands quickly. This offense can get right back to being one of the top ones in terms of DVOA and EPA on a week-by-week basis. And they're just too powerful on that side of the ball for me to bet against that. Yeah, I agree with that. All right. So, Ruiz, you said better.

Are you like way better, a little bit better? Do you feel confident that they're better? What are your other reasons for why you feel like they are better now than they were last year? I just think they were a little overrated last year. And I think it was just based on those three island games that we all watched against the Chargers and the two games against the Ravens where they, you know, Joe Burrow went insane in the second half against the Chargers. But the full game against the Ravens, I guess only one was a progen game against the Ravens. But I feel like that really warped our perception of what this team was, how it was like,

oh, they were giving up 40 points and they're scoring 40 points. and they're scoring 40 points every game. But that didn't really happen. Like, their offense was seventh in EPA. Like, there's a lot of room for growth there. I think they could be a lot better on that side of the ball. And then on defense, I think just, you know, average regression would make them a better team than last year.

So for me, it's more that they're starting from a lower point than I think a lot of people remember their season just because of how it ended, them going. I think they went, what, five game winning streak to end the game. Yeah. But it was against, like, terrible competition. Yeah, they played some scrubs. The quarterbacks they beat last year were, I don't know if they beat a good quarterback all year long last year.

And the defenses they played, they didn't really beat a good defense until week 17 against Denver. Before that, it was like all below average defenses. So for me, it's just that I think the team is going to be healthier. I think the defense is going to make more sense. And I think that offense does have more room to grow. Even if they don't find a run game, I think you saw improvement from Joe Burrow on first down to the point where they might not need a run game at this point. Like he wasn't taking as many sacks on first down last year. He was getting the ball out quicker.

He was getting the ball out further downfield, I think was a big point. He wasn't taking those bad checkdowns last year. So maybe you see another step from Burrow, but I think there's a lot of reasons to expect them to be better. And the chief among them is the offense. If it's top five, then it's better than last year. Yeah, they finished nine and eight last year. They were four and seven in one score games.

The injury luck was pretty much league average, although they had seven different offensive line combinations, play at least 50 snaps. I just mentioned that with the Ravens only had three. They had seven. In terms of DVOA, they were a little more favorable than EPA. In terms of the offense, they finished fifth, 11th, and fourth over the last three seasons. And the number 11 ranking was when Joe Burrow missed seven games.

So they're on a pretty good stretch here where it doesn't always look great. And I'm kind of with you, the highs can be very high. And then there can be weeks where you say, all right, they could use some more layers to this thing. But overall, when you balance it out, it's pretty good. And their offense, like Deonté mentioned, Amarius Mims, if he continues to improve, that can help them. Yeah, defensively, you guys mentioned the Trey Hendrickson thing. And he just met with the media before we recorded this for like 25 minutes, it sounds like.

Per Kelsey Conway of the Cincinnati Inquirer, Hendrickson said he won't play the upcoming season on his current deal. Per Paul Deiner Jr. of the Athletic. He said, Hendrickson said, his statements have been provoked and that he's disappointed. How does this play out? I mean, it's obviously going to get headlines as people are listening to this. It'll probably be one of the main headlines in the NFL. I will give my opinion. I feel like there's just going to be some type of compromise found between now and week one.

I mean, I would be pretty surprised, given the way this offseason has gone if they're like, no, we're going to trade Trey Hendrickson now for 2026 draft capital when we're trying to improve our defense when we're trying to really compete in 2025. But it just kind of goes on and on and on where it's like, you know, let's get to a result. I'm tired of reading the headlines about this. Let's just reach a resolution and move on. Ruiz, what do you think?

Is Hendrickson just on the team in week one? Is he actually willing to miss game checks? Is there a possibility he gets moved? How do you see this playing out? It's so tough with his team. I think with any other team, I would just assume he's going to be there week one in play. But this is like, I remember the Carson Palmer thing. where Carson Palmer and them kind of played chicken.

And Carson Palmer is like, I'm not playing football. I'll go home. Yeah, I'll go home. I made enough money. And he did. And the Bengals allowed him to do it. So I could see that totally happy. I honestly have no idea.

Ask me about the other 31 teams, except for maybe, I guess the Jets with the Sond Redick thing last year. It's kind of a similar situation. But, yeah, I don't understand how they haven't come to that compromise already. Maybe it takes a Chris Jones situation where, you know, he's watching from the booth in week one and they lose. What a moment. I do think that's the best model.

I believe the compromise is like, you know, it's like a franchise type deal where we're going to pay you a shitload of money to pay one year. Then after that, you can hit the market, which would make sense for Trey Hendrickson, honestly, because him, like, let's say he shows up and is kind of like a malcontent. I don't think he's honestly going to do this. But let's say it happens and doesn't play well and he's not given that effort. That affects his market to get paid in the future, which is ultimately his goal to get paid long term. So it's a tricky situation for both sides. I don't know how it gets resolved with the Bengals involved. Yeah, it kind of feels like he wants to play hardball and go like the Chris Jones route.

But I don't know that he doesn't feel like he's wired. Like he's showing up at a voluntary thing, right? And giving this. I'm like, wait, why are you showing up? Don't show up if we really want to. He's giving a 25. I'm sure he wants to get his story out there. So maybe that's part of the reason.

Show up in street clothes. Don't participate. but I'm like, you also could just not show up and do an interview. So I don't know. It just feels like something should get done, Deonte. But Ruiz is right. I mean, if it lasted this long, who knows? I mean, the Chris Jones situation was the first thing I thought of, right?

And I think if you're Trey Hendrickson, you can't possibly show up to play on this deal. They've jerked you around with this long-term contract for the last two seasons, basically, of just pushing the ball down the road. I was listening to listening to a couple of my buddies that cover the Eagles talk yesterday about Dallas Goddard. And one of the things they brought up talking about veterans is that if you get to the last year of your deal and the team is not extending you, you almost have to treat it like the last year of your deal is a non-entity. Right. You don't want to play on a contract year unless you have bonus money, guaranteed money being handed to you to play for that season. And then it's almost like, you know, kind of a player option where I'm opting in to play. for one year and then hit a free agency after.

If you're Trey Henderson, that's not good enough, right? Because they said you have teammates that have been pining for you, this organization based on what we've heard, not only from him, but from the executive vice president whose name is escaping me earlier around the Combine, who was talking about, you know, this is about happiness.

Right, this is all about happiness and all that. And I just don't, I don't understand the process from Cincinnati's perspective in that respect. And if you're the Bengals, because you walk this thing out to mid-May, you can't afford to not have it. all of the machinations that you could have put together to keep this defense at a certain level or supercharge our offense even more by trading him for another piece.

Those are all out the window because all the asset you're going to get is going to be for 2026 and beyond. And that's not going to help this version of this team. And that's what they need to be thinking about most. I would not be surprised. I know that like you said, it seems like it goes against his wiring. But I wouldn't be surprised if he's not participating in the preseason. We get to week one, week two. He doesn't play.

The defense just gets run off the field a couple of times. And now they've got to come back to the table and at least pay, give them another year where it's going to be, you know, mostly guaranteed money just to keep him around. And then he'll be able to move into free agency after the 2026 season. That would be my expectation. Yeah, I mean, the path for them to be a better team is like Ruiz said, just kind of getting some. The defense doesn't have to be good. The defense just needs to be better than it was last year when it was, what, 27th in DVOA. Can it finish like 23rd?

You know, that might be worth two wins. And now instead of 9 and 8, you're 11 and 6 and you're in the playoffs. But they really have a lot on these young defensive players. Dax Hill, DJ Turner, Shamar Stewart, Miles Murphy. Like, they spent the draft capital. And I think, you know, your guy's point about Al Golden, can he be a better developer of young players? So it's not so much about the scheme and the one-off game plan. It's just like, can you get more out of these young players than maybe Loua and Arumo?

was able to do. I don't know what the details there. Did Lou Anirumo get frustrated with young players making mistakes? I mean, that wouldn't shock me. And is Al Golden going to work through those mistakes and say, hey, make those mistakes in September. But by the time we get to Thanksgiving, you guys are going to be playing a lot better and we're going to have more confidence in this group when we get to the postseason. I mean, again, they weren't too far off. I know Ruiz felt like they were a little overrated, but nine and eight, you'll win one more game. You're in the playoffs. You win two more games. You're in the playoffs there. So I I think that's what they've got to be looking at from this defense this season.

All right. Way too early prediction. I can start on this one. I've made this prediction before, so why not do it again? Joe Burrow sets the NFL record for completion percentage. So I was looking at some of the first podcasts we did together. Was it? Oh, my gosh.

There you go. Reusing material. So, well, listen, he set a career high last year, 70.6% completion percentage. There are 24 seasons in the NFL. where a quarterback completed at least 70% of their passes. He's done it twice. His numbers are pretty crazy too from last year. I mean,

Lamar Jackson's in his own territory with the rushing. But again, this is one where I just think of myself like as a kid when you first start going through, you know, like the, oh, season leaders and all that. And it's like 70.6% completions, 43 touchdowns,

nine interceptions and through for 4,918 yards. Again, that is a crazy season when you just, look at it statistically. So maybe he bumps up a little bit. I don't know. Maybe that Drew Brees won from 2018 74.4%. That might be tough to beat for our lifetime, but that's why it's a way too early prediction.

So there you go. All right, Deontay, what do you got? I have the Bengals being this year's version of Vikings, where they're the best, the highest win total for a non-division winner going into the AAC playoffs. I think that this offense, the continuity of this offense is only going to get stronger

year over year. I do think that a Mary Smith is going to show, continue to build upon the potential that we saw at the start of last season and preseason and all of that. And I do think that this defense playing simpler will be better. And I am still predicting that the T. Hendrickson situation gets resolved early enough in the league calendar where they don't have to worry about this defense taking a major hit in his absence. And as long as Joe Burroughs healthy, Jamar Chase is healthy, and T. Higgins is available.

I just don't know how many NFL defenses are equipped to handle what they can do in the passing game. Yeah. Ruiz, what do you got? All right, mine's kind of, I'm kind of cheating. I'm doing two things. It's an oar. I'm doing either the Bengals missed the playoffs or Joe Burrow wins MVP. Just looking at their schedule.

I know the schedule isn't out, but like the opponents are out and the road opponents are, it's tough. It's going to be a tough road slate for them. They have the bills. Honestly, the easiest game might be the Broncos. And if you play in Denver and September, that is not an easy trip whatsoever, but they play the bills, the Packers, the dolphins, the Vikings on the road. In addition to, obviously, they have.

see North opponents. So it's going to be a tough schedule. I think the same thing applies to the Ravens, by the way. If you look at third road schedule, it's a murderer's row. I think if they make the playoffs and they get through this gauntlet and they win 11, 12 games, I think the narrative is going to be, you know, Joe Burrow took on the toughest schedule in the NFL,

and I expect him to put up MVP numbers as it is. If they get back to winning, I think it's going to be one of those narrative things where he is going to be like the consensus MVP pick. That's an interesting one to think about so boom or bust, if they miss. the playoffs, you would think, I mean, I don't know, two straight years missing the playoffs

with Burrow and his prime here, you would think maybe some change would be coming. But again, it is Cincinnati. So who knows if that would be the case or if they would just run it back. I feel like the scenario where they do make that leap, if Shamar Stewart can have like a Jaredverse type rookie season and you're bringing back Trey Hendrickson, maybe that makes up for a lot of the flaws you potentially have on defense and you can win a lot of lot of games. So they need something like that from one or two of these young defensive players. The offense, we think we know what we're getting defensively can one or two of these young players

who you spend a lot of draft capital on really make a difference. I think that's their path to potentially winning the division, being Super Bowl contenders, all those big things that are in play when you have an offense as good as this offense can potentially be. All right. We take a break. We come back. We talk about the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Cleveland Browns. All right. We're back on the Ringer NFL show. We know we were throwing around. Do we do the AFC North this week? This team still does not have a quarterback, but we said, listen, we're not going to be on, you know who's schedule. We're on our own schedule here. And so we can discuss the different scenarios with the Pittsburgh Steelers, who right now, their quarterback depth chart as of this

recording is Mason Rudolph, Will Howard, and Skyler Thompson as of May 13th. So they are plus 600 to win the division. They are plus 160 to make the playoffs. They're over under for wins is eight and a half, but it's minus 140 to the under plus 120 to the over. Ruiz, we can start with you. Grade the Pittsburgh Steelers off season. What do you got? Can I ask one question? Are we allowed to factor in? And also I have two questions. Are we referring to him as the player or since this is in a football context and we're assuming that he has signed with someone, we can use his name? I mean, my preference would be to stick with the player, Ben. I like the player.

Yeah, let's stick with it until he makes a decision and we don't have to worry about it anymore. I mean, if you want to grade off the presumption that'll ultimately land there, I think that would make sense as well. Okay, okay, okay. It still, it's, it doesn't really move the needle much for me. I think it takes them from a C to a B minus for me. This is, like, I found this very difficult to hand out offseason grades for all of these teams because, like you kind of hinted at the beginning, It seems like they're all the same team. And Pittsburgh, honestly,

might be the team that changes the most based on the player coming into the fold. But if the player does come, I'm a little more bullish on this team than I think you two are going to be. I think the fit, even in Arthur Smith's offense, I don't think it's going to be as bad as some people might believe just because the player has some experience in the floor's offense. And the floor brought Arthur Smith to Tennessee, and there was some overlap in that scheme there.

So I, it's kind of hard because you look at the names that they lost. They lose pickings, obviously, and replace them with D.K. Metcalf, which to me is a downgrade, Robert Woods, maybe four years ago, would have been a good signing.

So you look on paper, and this offense has the potential to be worse, even with an improved quarterback situation. But I think the defense is going to be better, especially down the stretch, after we saw that kind of bickering and infighting and passive aggressive shots about people sticking to their assignment.

I think we're going to see some tightening of the screws there. I don't think Mike Tomlin's going to let that go on. I think we're going to see a return to the top 10 defense and it playing like a top 10 defense every year. And then the offense is going to be dictated by the player. And it's tough to evaluate him because I think he's better than people give him credit for. But I do think the place where he's kind of fallen off the most is the place that used to make him so special,

which is his ability to extend plays and to create efficient football in those chaotic. situations. And last year, that's where he was worse. Like, the deeper you got into a dropback, the deeper the player played. But on Quick game and doing all that stuff, getting the ball out quickly, he was still one of the better quarterbacks and one of the more productive quarterbacks in the NFL, like comparable to what Joe Burrow was doing in a quick game. But he didn't have that big playability that Burrow brought. So that's my question mark. And that, it's the ceiling of the offense, even if it gets better, how much better will it get? But I do

think this team, if they bring in the player, it's going to be better than it was last year. When they won 10 games. All right. So like you said, they add Metcalf, they lose pickings, they lose left tackle Dan Moore in free agency. They draft running back Caleb Johnson in the third round. They lose Russell Wilson and Justin Fields who are expecting them to add the player or maybe Kirk Cousin.

So that's the offensive side of the ball defensively. They draft Derek Harmon in the first round. They replaced corner Dante Jackson with Darius Slay. They lose Larry Ogonjobie. Deontay, you had all those moves. moves up. Ruiz has them anywhere from a C to a B minus, depending on how the quarterback situation is resolved. Where do you have their offseason? I've got them right at C. You know, you rattling off kind of like the, the transactions,

the guys coming out versus the guys coming in. And nothing really changed. Shoulder shrug emoji. Exactly. Like, it's very much like we exchange one body type for the exact same body type from a different player, you know? It's like bringing in Aaron Rogers, I think ultimately is what this thing is going to hinge upon, assuming that he's there. And like Stephen said, who'd you say? I'm not sure. I'm not sure. Maybe that's an assistant quarterbacks coach I'm thinking of someplace else.

But no, the player, I think, coming in the door, and I think the Stevens, right about this, I'm just not as bullish on what it's going to look like over the course of a 17-game season than what Stephen is thinking. I do think in single-game sample sizes, right? Like, especially when I think about how this team cratered in December. And I think that maybe I'm very biased by how bad. this team looked on both sides of the ball in December. In those scenarios, you 1,000% want the player under center, right?

He's the best opportunity that they have to maximize this roster. But you look at the Y receiver depth chart and his D.K. Metcalf and then a bunch of replacement level players at their positions, right, Calvin Austin, I would say is above average. But outside of that, it's just a bunch of depth pieces. Pat Fryer moves three years ago, I thought might have really turned into something as a tight end. what it turned into is just like a very kind of above average receiving underneath option.

And maybe to me if they had a more explosive running game, I would feel a little bit differently. And I think that if this offensive line stays healthy, you see some of the names that are on there. Troy Faltono, a guy I really like coming out of college. Roger Jones, a guy I really like coming out of college, the interior of the offensive line with Isaac Siamalo, Zach Frazier. Those are guys that can build a very high floor running game.

They just need someone in the backfield. that could actually break big runs, right? If Sequin Barkley was wearing black and yellow, I might feel differently about this offense. If Derek Henry was wearing black and yellow, I might feel differently about the floor and ceiling of this offense. I just need to see it with the Caleb Johnson and Jaylor Warren combination. And then defensively,

taking all the little pot shots they were doing in the media to the side, to me, this defense, the emblem of this defense is that they will beat the hell out of bad teams in any good offense that has a real identity that it can stick to, that has answers for man coverage and cover three. It's just going to walk up and down the field. That's exactly what was borne out in the second half of the season last year. They did not really do anything to change that.

And the biggest move, I would say, outside of Derek Harmon as their first round pick, is bringing in a corner that is on the wrong side of the age cliff that we didn't expect to play as well as he did and Darius Slade being that player. We didn't expect him to be that good last season. Why would I trust it is going to be in a tighter coverage system with more man, more single high, less help,

that he's going to be able to replicate that. I just don't believe that this team is going to be a double-digit one team the way that they were in 2024. Dariusleigh is totally going to have one of those Monday night games where he just gets torched. It's probably going to be like Jemar Chase goes for like 200 yards. Like D.K. Metcalf had against him on a Monday night football game. Yeah, now they're on the same team.

They're on the same team. So it won't be him at least. But that is the quintessential Steelers move. That's like the Patrick Peterson, like we're going to sign the washed up cornerback and he's going to play better than you thought he was going to play for us. I just think there's more room for growth than maybe you guys think, just on the defensive side, and I think that's largely going to be why I think they're a little bit better.

But offensively, I just think the run game, like you said, DeAndi, the pieces are there. It's about having the right quarterback there to kind of check into the right runs and check out of the wrong runs, more importantly, which I don't think they had last year. And I do think they have a little more juice with Caleb Johnson there compared to Najee Harris. So I don't know. I think the run game is going to be better. and even if the past game doesn't improve. And it was decent last year with considering the pieces.

I think that's enough to get them back to 10 wins. I had incomplete, but that's cheating. So I'll give them a C for their. I'm with what De Ante said. I went through the moves and I'm like, all right. It feels like they've been the same places last year. Now, they did win 10 games last year. So if I was making the case for the Steelers against myself right now,

I would say you're overreacting. to the end of the season when they lost to the Eagles won the Super Bowl Ravens twice one of the best teams in the NFL Chiefs one of the best teams in the NFL

and then they lose a 2 point 1917 to the Bengals in week 18 but it's not like they were losing to you know those were among the best teams in the NFL that that five game losing streak

four of the losses came against the Eagles, Ravens and the Chiefs so don't overreact to to that ending but it's hard to get it out of my head what that looked like, how outmaned they look. I think the off-field stuff when you just heard the interviews you guys alluded to

defensively specifically where it's like these guys don't seem like they're on the same page. This doesn't feel like a Steelers team. You know, this doesn't feel like the most physical team against these quality opponents. So I can't get there where I feel like they're going to be better this year. So I've got them worse this year. One thing working against them is they, really benefited from turnovers last year, second in the entire NFL in turnover EPA behind only the Buffalo Bills. Remember, Justin Fields comes in and he's not turning the football

over at all. And so offensively, now maybe that's just a trademark of a Mike Tomlin team. You know, I can buy that. I would have to look at it over his 18-year stretch. I'm sure there are a lot of seasons in there where they're above league average in terms of turnover EPA. But that was one thing that stood out to me. They had the 10th hardest schedule here. And you mentioned, Ruiz, this actually surprised me that the passing game, statistically at least, was more mediocre than horrible last year, which kind of surprised me. You know, they were 19th in passing DVOA last year. So maybe if you feel like, all right, there are the bones of something there where if the quarterback's a little bit more consistent, functional, that maybe you bump up to 15 or 16 or whatever you think their ceiling is, that that could be possible. But yeah, a lot does come down to those offensive tackles.

You guys mention young guys, first round picks. Can they play well? Then they have a chance. And I do like their, when I was looking at the roster, the part that I really liked was their defensive front. I mean, they've got a nice blend there of veterans in T.J. Watt and Cam Hayward and then young guys in Keanu Benton and we'll see what they get from Derek Harmon as a rookie. But I do think that's a group that could be pretty good in the way we expect some of those Steelers' defenses to be pretty good.

So I say worse, record-wise, but I think they're probably going to be a pretty similar team. I don't think they're a bad team. I just think they're a mediocre team. My vision for them, like the optimistic vision is like poor man's version of what the Bucks offense was last year and a top 10 defense. Like a league average offense, maybe the Bucks were obviously much better than that, but they're, I'm saying, a poor man's version of that. And then slightly better on defense over the course of the whole season, I think, like,

that's attainable. That's realistic. And I think if they get there, that's a 10 win. That's a playoffender. An average offense. That's probably between 8 and 10 wins, yeah, right? Something like that if the offense ends up getting there. All right.

Way too early prediction for the Steelers, Ruiz. What do you got? They finish in second place in the NFC North. Okay. He's going in. He likes them. No, it's not that I like them. It's like the Bengals.

Don't put in the newspaper that I like the Steelers. Yeah, do not. But it's just like the Bengals and Rayls. Havens looking at their schedule, looking at some of the stuff from last year coming over to this year. I think one of those teams is going to have a down year that we're not expecting. And the Steelers are always there to capitalize on that, aren't they? Yeah, it feels that way. Deonti, what do you got?

What's your way too early prediction? Oh, we're going to swing the entire opposite way. This team picks top 10 in the 2026 NFL draft. Wow. Okay. I'm more with you. And this is another prediction I've made before than I was proven wrong. What the Tomlin streak ends at 18 years.

One of the great streaks in NFL history, 18 straight years without a losing record. This year, maybe the player, you know, is the curse that forces them. It just everyone's miserable. And they end up with a losing record. Again, I don't think it's going to be six wins. So Deontes is a little lower on them than I am. But seven wins, eight wins, something like that. It's a losing record.

And then they got a re-it. Now, if they do get a top 10 pick, Deonti, that really would not be a world. case scenario because maybe in next year's draft, that's exactly what they need is a top 10 pick. Maybe you get a chance at a quarterback. And then some of these other pieces we're talking about the offensive line, the pass rush. Now it's like, oh, this is, you know, Mike Tomlin, this isn't a bad situation for a rookie quarterback to come into. So that actually might not be the worst thing, but it's something that just hasn't happened. They haven't been able to pick that high to get a shot at one of those quarterback.

So we'll see if it happens. Right now they're projected, I think, to have four picks in the top 100. So, you know, if you're able to get closer to top 10, top five-ish, and you need a quarterback, that might give you the ammunition you need to be able to make a move. Not that this is a team that has a story of history of making aggressive trades up. But if they wanted access to a player like that in this season went sideways, it probably would not be the worst landing spot they could have. So do you guys think it's a better idea for them to just ignore the player, ignore even Kirk Cousins and just go, hey, let's just roll with this team instinct? I would say no. I still think you need to have a veteran quarterback to try to be competitive.

If things go awry, then they do. But I don't think that this is a team that needs to mail it in for the entire course of a season. It just, we don't see that happen in the NFL. Like, you know, we were talking about the NBA draft lottery before we came on air. And like, yeah, if this were an NBA team, I think that's exactly what they would think to do. Maybe they trade teaching a lot. Yeah, trade Yard. Yeah, because you don't want those veterans there.

You know, if you're if you're doing that and those veterans aren't going to be there when you think you're going to get good, then you probably, you know, that that's, you can't do that to like a Cam Hayward. You just said there is sort of a moral code. There's not a lot of moral codes in the NFL, but that's kind of one of them is that when you have those veteran players, like you don't, you kind of don't operate that way. But yeah, in terms of what would be best for the franchise over the next five, 10 years, if we're talking about getting them closest to winning a Super Bowl, then that probably would be it. You stick with the crappy quarterbacks, trade off some bets, get a pick next year, and you have one down year in 19 years. But guess what? Now you have a brighter future for the next five to 10 years potentially. But don't think that's going to happen, but that would be interesting. I read the quarterback depth chart earlier.

We still, you know, until they make a move, that's what it looks like. All right. This next team actually is a good one to follow up that conversation with, you know, when we discuss what their plans are. Because that's the Cleveland Browns, the last team in the AFC North. They are plus 20, this surprised me a little bit. Plus 2,800 to win the division. That's the worst odds of any team in the NFL to win their division, the Cleveland Brown.

So this would be the biggest upset in the entire NFL of any team. You picture a team you think stinks winning their division. That team has better odds than the Cleveland Browns. Plus 760 to make the playoffs. That's the worst odds of any AFC team. And only the giants in the entire NFL have worse. playoff odds, the Cleveland Brown's over under for wins is five

and a half. Having said that, I can lead us off. I'm giving their offseason an A minus because I think I just like the tradeback from two to five where it goes to the conversation we just had. It puts them in position to take a swing on a quarterback in next

year's draft where they're going to go into that draft with two first round picks. If they stink this year, one of those picks is going to be really high. If the Jaguars aren't very good, maybe two of those picks or in the top 15. That wouldn't necessarily be shocking. So I think that tradeback made sense. I think it's fine to take a flyer on a couple of quarterbacks there in the draft. It doesn't mean either one's going to pan out. They had a lot of draft capital. I think it was okay what they

did with it. Maybe you get some players there who can be contributors. So I think they're off season for a team trying to get out from under one of the biggest disasters in NFL history with the Deshawn Watson trade and contract. I think in that context, their offseason made a lot of sense. So I gave them an A minus. Ruiz, what do you have for the Brown's grade this offseason? I'm going to go with C minus. Okay. I think you're giving them a little extra credit for their own ineptitude. It's almost like you're grading them on a curve. Like, yeah, oh, we were crappy and we're even more crappy going into next year, which is going to help us off in the next off. Like, I don't know. Like, I could have done that. I could come in and sabotage the

situation so we have a better draft. I can trade the number two pick and get those draft pick. I don't No, I don't think it was a good offseason because you came out of last season, hopeless. You're going into this season, hopeless, and nothing's really changed. I think the team might be worse than it was on paper last year, which is very depressing. I think the quarterback room is definitely more depressing. Maybe there was some hope that Deshaun Watson would bounce back to his previous form and play a little bit better. This year, you're hoping for Joe Flacco to lead you to the playoffs. And here's the thing, like, I know he did it two years ago.

He was terrible during that run. He had like one good game against Houston. otherwise he was terrible. And it's been two years. He's only gotten worse since then. And you're talking about a division with Joe Burrow and Lamar Jackson, and you're trying out Joe Flacco in week one. The Ravens gave up on Joe Flacco almost 10 years ago.

And he's the best quarterback you've had in a couple of years. I don't know. I can't give them higher than a C with the situation this depressing and this uninteresting if you're a Browns fan. So is there something you would have done differently, or is it just like the state of the franchise is the C. Like are there moves that you say no, they should have done X, Y, and Z and I would have given them more than a C minus or are you just like,

I don't care what they did. It was going to be a C minus. A situation where the top three spots on your quarterback depth chart aren't Joe Flacco, Kenny Pickett, and Dylan Gabriel. Like they spent a round three pick on Dylan Gabriel. And I know we don't know anything about quarterbacks, but I'm sorry. Like, that's a bad move. I don't think any Oregon fans would have made that move.

No, I don't think so. All right, Deontay, where are you? I'm giving them credit for a potential path to finding a quarterback. Ruiz is saying, not so fast. You're grading on a curve. Lock Andrew Barry out of the draft room. This team is, this team stinks. Well, I would say I'm going to reference something that Steven said last week when we did the AFC East, right, when we were talking about grading off seasons. It's about stated intentions. And I don't think the Brown stated intention was ever to try to be as competitive as possible in 2025. This is all about. about roster positioning for the years to come after the Deshawn Watson contract does not as cost prohibitive for this team. And by that metric, right, if I'm using that metric is what I'm judging it off of, I'll give them a B. It could be higher. I still think that there should be, I think, rightful questions about what Mason Graham

can be as a centerpiece along the defensive line. I think if this was Gerald McCoy coming out of Oklahoma who looked like one of the best past rushing detackers that we had seen in a while, it's different. If it's endomic and Sue, who looked like one of the most physically downed, dominating presences coming out of college football, I might feel a little bit different. If it was Warren Sapp, I'd feel different. Mason Graham, to me, is like the definition of a red chip player, right? Like, lacks enough athleticism to get into that blue chip territory, but he does everything

technically sound, high motor player, all those things. And I do think he'll be a plus guy. But this is not a guy I think that's going to step in and be like Dexter Lawrence, pass rush plus run stuffing ability type of guy. It's not going to be Pete Quinn and Williams or Pete Christian Wilkins, for that matter. where you got a total dominator from the interior. At least I need to see it before I give them credit for it. And that's kind of what the hangup is with me

and why I can't give me any amount of credit that she'll gave them. But I do think, again, if the intention is taking as many swings as possible right now to see if we can find a young quarterback that can give us something, then that's great. And I think that the best outcome is maybe a guy like Shador does give you something, but you're still bad enough to get a high draft pick. And maybe you can go shop, you know, your young quarterback, to another team and you can go add some more like mid to late round draft capital.

I know there are a lot of contingencies here that we're laying out between Sheila and I on what this offseason plan might be or what this future plan might be. But I do think that they at least landed the plane in terms of trading back, adding additional value and ultimately positioning themselves to get the number one pick in the 2026 draft. All right. So better or worse than last year. And last year they were three and 14. They were very bad.

Watson started seven games, James DTR started two games. Bailey Zappy started one game. I can't tell you if you quizzed me on what happened in that game that Bailey Zappy started, that I would be able to tell you a single thing there. Maybe on the exception there, and you guys remember it.

But it was not a good season. It was not a memorable season for the Cleveland Browns. Now, in terms of some luck stuff, they were 32nd in turnover EPA, so they had the worst turnover luck, not only of any team last year, but of any team in the last five years. So that is kind of an outlier performance there.

They got dinged by injuries to a pretty high degree. They were 27th in adjusted games lost last year. Ruiz, I know you said there's a chance that they're worse last year. Do you actually think they're going to be worse than 3 and 14 this year? Worse in 3 and 14? No, but I think they're worse on paper. I think they're – I don't think they've changed at all, basically. And I think they're worse at quarterback, which is the most important spot.

which is kind of sad considering what their quarterback situation was last year. I think it has the potential to be even worse this year. I'm going to say they're worse off than they were last year. Okay. But apparently that's my design, and they get credit for that. They're worse. It is by design, and I just, and maybe we'll get to this in the predictions piece of this, but so much of this just feels like a slow death march for everybody involved.

Like Kevin Stefansky, Tommy Reese, Jim Schwartz, the entire. staff. How do you have, there's no way that there's going to be a positive spin. We're not going to get the stories like we did out of Detroit where it's like, oh, this team is getting its ass kicked on a week-by-week basis. But every practice looks like they're winning. Culture is great. Yeah. Exactly. You know, it looks like they're prepping for a Super Bowl based on the amount of smiles we're seeing in the locker room. That does not seem to be the environment that we're going to be walking into. I don't know how long Joe Blacko or Kenny Pickett can hold down the starting job. And I have very little belief right now in the young guys that they drafted

that quarterback either. I don't know how it's not a disaster, even if they end up being a five-win team instead of a three-win team. This team won one game over a two-year span not too long ago, and this is easily a more depressing time in that franchise's history, a more hopeless time. I got them as slightly better. I don't think there's much of a difference in the quarterback play

that Joe Flacco is going to give you versus what Deshawn Watson and James Winston gave you last year. And my more faith, the reason I think maybe they can win a couple more games. I mean, I'm not picking them to make the playoffs. I'm talking like maybe they can win five games. I do think defensively they can rebound. They were very good two years ago. They were not good last year.

I still think Jim Schwartz is a very good defensive coordinator. And usually his calling card is like, give me any 11 guys and I can get you like the 16th ranked defense. And last year, that was tested and he was not able to do that. And their defense was very bad. But that was one year. I mean, he's had a long career where if you look at it, he's usually able to, to get almost any group with any circumstances to be like mediocre defensively. And so I think defensively they can bounce back here.

Stifansky, I still kind of like Stifansky a little bit. Last year was an outlier season that he had never finished with fewer than seven wins before last year. So I think there are some things there. Maybe some of these rookies give them a little bit of a jolt there. So I don't think they're a good team. But I don't think, I don't look at this roster and say like, this is by far one of the two or three worst teams in the NFL.

I think they can be on one tier up with the below average, irrelevant teams versus this team's definitely picking in the top five category. So I don't know if that's optimistic or if that makes Browns fans upset or happy or what I'm to say, look ahead. It wasn't the most ringing endorsement. But that's the bright side version of this Browns team. All right. Way too early prediction.

We will close with this, Deontay. What do you have for your way too early Cleveland Browns? prediction. We talked about this roster is set up this way by design, and I think they have two picks on the top eight going into the 2026 draft. I think that making a bet against Jacksonville being a riser is a wise one, because it is first year head coach. We still have not seen Trevor Lawrence totally become the quarterback that we were hoping he would, and they have not cultivated enough around him either in fairness to Lawrence. And I don't know if that defense is going to be good enough to get them into the AFC playoff picture. So I think that we're entering next

April looking at a team that's got all the machinations possible to go get the quarterback they want and be able to maneuver around the rest of day one of the draft. Two of the top eight. That'll be exciting in terms of drafts content. All right, Ruiz, what do you have? What's your way too early prediction? I'll take it a step further. I'm going to say they're going to be drafted first overall.

They're on the clock right now. I think it start doing the research on the quarterbacks right now because I just think this team is going to be bad. I think it's going to be a sad situation. I think the locker room is not going to. They're not going to be good vibes in the locker rooms. I think there's a chance to Fansky's the first coach to lose his job. I think there's a chance that Jim Schwartz isn't the defensive coordinator by the end of the year.

Maybe voluntarily. If I would say, what is he doing here? Why are you doing this, Jim Schwartz? Yeah, good question. I don't understand why he's here. But, yeah, I just think it's going to be a disaster. Maybe he can go just, you know, take the drive down to Cincinnati. Because that's what that defense needs.

Just get them to the 21st ranked defense, Jim Schwartz. go help out Al Gold in there. All right, my way to early prediction. I was reading Deontay Lee's 26 prospects to watch. Was it 20? It was 26, right? 26. Yep.

26 and 26 prospects to watch it next year's draft. And I said, all right, let me just pick a quarterback here. Who do I want to give the Cleveland Browns? Garrett Nussmeyer of LSU is the starting quarterback for the Cleveland Browns in week one of the 2026 season. So there you go. that I don't know where they would have to take him. How high, Deonté?

What do you think? What's the over under on May 13th? I'm putting you on the spot of where Garrett Nessmeyer gets drafted in the 2026 draft. I mean, if Kim, work can go one overall, Nessmeier can go one overall is the way that I look at it. I think I agree with that. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, that's the way I see.

He doesn't mean he's going to. Exactly. I don't know if I expect that right now. Like Lenore Sellers is a more physically impressive athlete at the position. Obviously, there's still the Manning family. kind of shadow being cast over this whole thing. Even though there are reports

that he's going to stay and complete his degree before he declares for the draft, we don't know. There's no certainty there. But I do think if Nussmeyer declares, he'll probably be in contention

for the top pick in the draft. When's the last time we had this highly anticipated a college season as Archmanning? I know you were, you know, you had him on your list there. Everyone's trying to watch these,

whatever it was. What was it, 110 dropout? I forget how many dropbacks Seattle. I was trying to look at that and you're already looking at next year. Who's going to tank for Arch Manning? I mean, I don't really remember a season quite.

I'm probably missing somebody obvious, but I don't remember a guy who hadn't played yet in college, who on May of the season before, it's like, man, this guy is going to be under a very wide microscope when he actually plays in college, both in terms of college, but also in terms of everybody already projecting kind of his NFL life. That's a good question. I don't know if there's a, I don't know if we have a good comparison point. Most of other people were known quantities already. Like Johnny Mansell's draft Eliswell year was very hype, but that was because he had beaten Alabama the year prior. Right. Like, Kyler Murray was big in the recruiting world because he was a big recruit coming out, going to Texas A&M and then transferring to Oklahoma after they had already had Baker Mayfield when a Heisman. But people knew that he was 5'8 at the time. So it's not like people were looking at him in that same respect. I guess maybe the closest thing is it like, Is it the Andrew Luck, Trevor Lawrence?

Trevor Lawrence is a good one. Maybe Trevor Lawrence is coming. Though, when he really got high. I know he was big out of high school. And a lot of it was because of his hair. But I would say Terrell Pryor, maybe. Oh, that's a good one. Yeah.

Because, yeah, he was behind. He wasn't the starter at Ohio State at the time that his name started coming up. That's a good. That's a really good one. He was a huge recruit. I remember him as recruiting. I wasn't tracking recruiting back then. Or still not doing it.

And no one's taking the other side of the arch banning hype either. Right now, absolutely not. Yeah, I was like, I don't know. It's not a lot of snaps, but holy cow, this looks pretty legit to me. So yeah, someone will zag eventually. Maybe he'll have a loss, you know, the third week of the college football season or something. And then people will give me a break. This guy's overrated.

You were all ready to crown him. You know how it goes. We can predict this pretty easily. But yeah, as of now, it feels like everybody, whether you're paying, whether you're casual or whether you've studied every snap on film is like, no, no, no, yeah, the hype is warranted right now for Arch Manning. So yeah, monster story going into the 2025 season. All right, that's the AFC North.

Do you guys remember what we're doing next? I don't remember. What are we doing next week? We're going to the, is it AFC South? The South, unfortunately. All right. Are we all doing James Gladstone impressions for the entire Jaguars portion? We'll figure that out.

But that could be something you get to look forward to. We should each bring a monologue. the Gladstone monologue about how the Jaguars are going to test the boundaries of football as you do. There you go. All right. We're going to kick around some ideas for the Jaguar section next week. But we'll do the AFC South, and we'll do the AFC West. And then we will move on to the NFC after that.

All right. Thank you to Stephen Ruiz and Deonté Lee. Thank you to Christopher Sutton for producing. And thank you to Kierre Gibbons on social. I'm Sheila Capade. We will talk to you next time on the Ringer NFL show. Must be 21 plus and present in select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 plus and present in D.C., gambling problem. Call 1-800 gambler or visit RG-Helpsheel.com.

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