The Ringer NFL Show - AFC West Offseason Grades

Episode Date: May 28, 2025

Sheil, Steven, and Diante use their expertise to analyze the AFC West division and discuss each team's offseason moves to determine what their level of success could be in the upcoming NFL season. Kansas City ChiefsLos Angeles ChargersDenver BroncosLas Vegas Raiders 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

What's up everybody? Syriot Sohey from the Ringer here, and I wanted to let you know about a new show that I'm hosting, the Ringer WNBA show. We're breaking down and analyzing the latest happenings in the W, the personalities, the people who make the league as fascinating as it is. And we're going to be featuring some of the best guests and experts from around the league. Tap in with us every Friday through the end of the season over on the Ringer NBA show feed on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to the Ringer NFL show. We're Shiel Capadilla here with Stephen Ruiz and Deonté Lee, the division previews, offseason grades, whatever you want to call them. The division series continues this week with the AFC West.

We've done a bunch of these. So if you're wondering, hey, how come you haven't done my division? How come you haven't done my team? Go check the feed. You might have missed it. Deontay, the Seahawks fans have not missed it. We're getting some heat because we were maybe a little harsh with our Seahawks assessments. but I feel like that's a nice job by team content in May to generate some buzz like that.

We were talking about it before the show. It's the best thing ever because it's like takes that I don't even remember being that hot, right? Like I know it wasn't an impassioned take, but now it's kind of growing its own legs and has a life of its own in the local market. So I can't wait to hear what my guy in Seattle like Jackson Bevins and Ryan Newhouser and all those guys have to say about what we said on the podcast that I definitely don't remember anymore. I mean, that's that's what June is for, right? It's for takes that rile up fan bases. If you give them any other takes, they're not going to be happy about it anyway. So I think they're happy to complain about something, especially that fan base.

They always are looking for something to complain about, right? All right. Ruiz is China, you know, up to the, you know, up to the, China stoke the fire a little bit here. I'm not going to answer that question. I have nothing but fond memories. I got my time in Seattle. They ended up much to complain about for a long time. We were mostly pro-Seattle last year,

so I feel like this is a little balance. That's true. Yeah, I was thinking that. Yeah, this time last year, I feel like we were pretty aligned that, hey, Mike McDonald, this can be a playoff team. They won 10 games. And now we're just saying we are not as confident this year

that their offense is going to be as good. All right, which family- You try to weigh your two best players and replace them with two worst players. What do you want me to do? What do you want me to do with that? There you go. All right.

Who will we rile up today? We're doing the AFC West. So I'm looking at this. Denver fans. I do feel like Denver is probably the favorite. Let's see. We'll revisit this at the end of the episode. We go team by team. I do feel like that's probably the favorite if we had to say, all right, which which fan base is going to be ripping us in the days ahead before next week's episode. I do think it'll be the Broncos, but maybe not. I might have some surprise Broncos stakes that you guys aren't ready for. But of course, we start with like the 43 time defending champs. I don't even know what the number is. It's a lot. It's the Kansas City Chief. they are minus 105 to win the AFC West plus 430 to get to the Super Bowl, which is kind of interesting because they are behind the Bills and the Ravens. So they are third. Now, they're all kind of bunched together,

so I don't want to make it seem like they're way back, but they are behind the Bills and Ravens in terms of Super Bowl odds in the AFC. And if you look at it overall, they are fourth in Super Bowl odds behind the Eagles, Ravens, and the Bills. They're over under win total is 11. and a half. So anytime we talk about the chiefs this off season, I feel like my mind goes to that radio booth at the Superdome when the three of us were discussing the Kansas City Chiefs, maybe an hour, an hour and a half after their Super Bowl lost to the Eagles. And I try to remember,

what was I feeling at that time when I thought about, hey, this is what the Chiefs need to do in the offseason. I think when we discussed it at that time, we thought, all right, they got to add more pass-catching weapons to this offense for Patrick Mahomes, and they've got to shore up the offensive line. So I want to hear your guy's thoughts on whether you think they did enough in that respect, because they signed Jalen Moore, the offensive linemen from the Niners in the free agency, then they draft Josh Simmons at 32. They trade Joe Tunney, their best offensive lineman, or probably their best offensive lineman from a year ago. And then in terms of pass catchers, they're mostly running it back. They bring back Hollywood Brown. They're hoping Rashie Rice gets healthy there.

So that's what they did on offense defensively. Not a ton of turnover. They did lose Justin Reid, who had kind of been a mainstay for that defense for a while, some changes on the defensive line, and they add cornerback Christian Fulton. So when you look at their offseason, Deontay, free agency, trades, the draft, all of it together, how do you grade what Kansas City did coming off of that Super Bowl loss? You know, I was really thinking of about that conversation, same as you, Sheel, right? Like, how do we memorialize the chief season and try to look at their offseason through that lens?

And I ended up giving them a B because it really wasn't a whole lot left for them to do, right? Like, they were in a bad financial position. You ultimately have to let Joe Tune walk so that way you can franchise Trace Smith. I think that they had to let Justin Reed walk as well, you know? And it was probably time for him to go so they can play some of the young safeties that they have behind them. That's just going to be part of the reality of a team that's contending year over year. but I like the Josh Simmons pick.

I thought that being able to get a tackle with that high of a ceiling at the end of the first round probably will bode well for them, even if you should not have high expectations of a tackle coming into the league, especially when it's going to be playing in a system. It's going to be a lot of shotgun, drop back, little play action rate.

It's going to be a tough situation for him, but I do think he can win that job and the athletic profile looks like a guy who can potentially be a star at that position. And I think ultimately what this hinges on outside of Josh Simmons is that Rishie Rice shows up and he's the number one type of receiver again, right? And that he and Hollywood Brown can play off of each other and really allow them to access things that they couldn't

without going to, you know, maybe too deep into the well of trying to design explosive plays for Xavier Worthy and those guys. And I feel, I still feel pretty optimistic that this offense, even if it's not as explosive as it was at the beginning of this decade, can get back to a level that looks more clearly like a Super Bowl winning type of team. Yeah, I mean, it's tough to judge this team in the offseason just because like what starting point are you looking at? Are you looking at the Super Bowl where it felt like, oh, my God, this team is never going to compete with one of the NFL's best teams again? Are you judging it from two weeks prior to that when they beat the bills and you're like, oh, they're back in the Super Bowl. They're probably going to win it again.

Everything we were worrying about didn't matter. Are you judging off the regular season, which you have the 15 and 2 record, which is one thing, but then you have the plus 59 point differential, which those two stats combined are just insane to me. This team had the third. third best point differential among the division. Like the Broncos had a better point differential. The Chargers had a better point differential. So I feel like they do have somewhere to go, like somewhere to improve during the off season.

But then you think about what Deontes talking about, you think about Rishi Rice rejoining this offense. And he kind of like figures everything out for them. I feel like the explosive play thing, which I think we harped on all season long, it really just came down to, did this team have any explosive weapons on the outside to throw them to? Right.

And the answer was no. Like, on first down, they had a decent run game. Usually when we talk about the lack of explosives and offense, it's due to the run game. Like, you can't run the ball, and then you're not getting into the play action stuff. The Chiefs ran the ball just fine on first down. It wasn't like a great run game,

but it was a productive one. On second and short, where passing is supposed to be its easiest, that's where they were at their worst. They weren't getting into play action looks. They weren't pushing the ball down field. That's where they had their lowest explosive play rate. And it's because they were just run to RPO.

So you're just running like little glance routes, little slant routes, outs out to these receivers that we spent the whole season complaining about. And those turn into five, six-yard gains if they worked. But if you put in like a true star into those, you give a target or give targets a true star, those turn into like 15 and 20-yard plays. So I think that's where Rice helps them getting back to that explosive offense that they missed last year.

Yeah, they're banking on Rishi Rice coming back healthy and fixing a lot of problems. I actually think it could, you know? Yeah. I actually think if he's healthy now, healthy. You never know. He played four games last year, but he was so good as a rookie. And you could easily sell me on Rishie Rice is healthy, Xavier Worthy in year two. And again, the floor of the offense were as frustrated as we were talking about it all of last season.

Like it wasn't a bad offense overall. You know, it was an above average offense that was kind of a bore to watch because we're like, hey, we've seen Patrick Bollings, chuck the football, 40 yards downfield. and it was electric and one of the most fun offenses we've ever seen. And it's not that. He threw the ball shorter than ever before. They took shots downfield at a lower rate than ever before. So I'm a little underwhelmed when I was thinking about. If you would have told me that Super Bowl night, you would have said, hey, this is what they're

going to do on offense. And you're going to be talking about it at the end of May. I would have said, ooh, you know, I kind of wish there was just like one more move, really at wide receiver, whether it was a George Pickens, a flyer on him, or D.K. Metcalf or something in the draft, whatever. I would have liked to see that. Having said that, I do think that there's a chance that they are okay.

And we're talking about in October, November, we're saying, all right, this offense actually does look a lot different than the one we saw last year. So I gave them a B-minus. You know, I'm okay with the moves they made at left tackle. I don't think there's a sure thing there, but I think the way they attacked it

was probably okay. I mean, Jalen Moore, $15 million per year. That was very aggressive. 12 career starts with the 49ers, but then you also draft Josh Simmons. So now you're throwing a couple darts and hoping that one of them hits there. I think that's okay.

You bring Hollywood Brown back. Maybe he's better another season in that offense. So yeah, I gave him a B minus. A little bit underwhelmed, but I don't have any like, oh, they absolutely should have done X instead of what they did. So that leads us to better or worse than last year.

And yeah, the point differential stuff is wild. Now, they did get blown out. the Carson Wentz team in, that really screwed us with point differential. I'm looking at the same stuff. And then I'm like, oh, Wence, you know, you couldn't have kept that to like a touchdown game. So at least we're looking at this and it's not quite as bad.

So they lost 38 to nothing in week 18. But still, even with that, even if you just look at the Mahomes starts, it was one of their worst point differentials of any season that he started. So they had all kinds of sort of outlier stats. They were 10 and 0 in one score games, was really the biggest one. That's the best record in one-score games of any team in the last 25 years.

So I had forgotten that they went 15 and 2. And they were 15 and 1 going into that Wentz game. I'm like, oh, my gosh, is that true? I don't remember it being quite that dramatic, drastic. But yeah, they were 15 and 2 last year, Ruiz. So do you think with the moves they made, they are better or worse? Record aside, obviously the record is going to be hard to match. But do you think they will be a better team or a.

a worst team this year based on what they did this offseason? Record-wise, they're going to be worse, but I think they will be a better team overall. And I think it's because the offense will be better. The one area where the offense was fine last year, and when I say fine, I mean, like, compared to what their typical results are, like, top five in the league. They were first in success rate in obvious passing situations. They were third in EPA per play, or EPA per dropback, an obvious passing situation. So when it's still down to Mahomes, it still works, and it still works as good as anybody in the

league. If you could just fix that problem, I highlighted earlier, like generating explosives when it's 50, 50, whether they're going to run or pass, I think then you get back to the cheese offense where we're feeling good about them. They're top five in EPA per play and success rate, and they're headed to the Super Bowl. My concern is about the defense, and I think that's why they don't win like 15 games, 14 games, even with a better offense. So defensively, mostly the Justin Reed thing, or you thought that, hey,

with there some smoking mirrors last year or you don't expect young players because they were a pretty good defense last year. They didn't lose a ton, but yeah, Reed was a key player. Yeah, I mean, they definitely regressed from the year prior when they had one of the best defenses in the league. I don't think they were winning games, especially in the second half because of the defense.

That's what I want to see. I want to see what Spags does with this younger offensive secondary. I think they need more pass rush. I think that was kind of the connected tissue between their problems compared to their early season success. When that pass rush went away, they kind of lost it. So I'm interested to see how that looks, but there are just too many question marks on that side of the ball,

especially against these offenses in the FC. Deonté, what do you got? Better or worse, the Chiefs this offseason going into 2025? That binary really hung me up for a while, right? Setting the record to the side, you expect the point differential to be better as well. And the word I kept coming back to was like healthier, right? Not in terms of games lost, but healthier in terms of like when you look at the data on Tuesday after the week, after a week of games, it's going to look more stable.

It's going to look more like a true playoff. contender, and I think that they will be better from that respect. If there is something to be concerned about, it's what Stephen closed his point with. It's affected over those last six, seven weeks of the year. This team was kind of on the bottom 12 and a lot of efficiency metrics in terms of stopping the run in terms of how they were playing the past, and they were really overperforming on pass rush. Again, I mean, Steve Magnolo, with the blitzing, with the way that he's able to deploy Chris Jones when he's locked in, they're almost always going to perform ahead of when you look at the names and the pressure rate versus their hit and sack production. So I

think that that'll hold. I just still have a lot of questions about whether or not the defense is going to be contending ready. But I do think as long as Rishie Rice is on the field and Hollywood Brown are on the field together and now a guy like Xavier worthy with his four two speed is your number three, number four option within the progression. There's going to be a lot of opportunity, I think, for them to get back to that explosiveness. And if that's there, the defense now has a much wider berth to kind of figure things out throughout the rest of the season, maybe put Chris Jones back on a pitch count as he's approaching, you know, those 30 plus years in his is age playing in the league for a long time being their lead pass rusher.

I'm really fascinated to see how they kind of pace out this season, but I do think that they'll be better almost no matter what. This run with Mahomes. I mean, again, sometimes this time of year you reset and we'll start looking at the pro football reference pages and stuff and are like, oh, I kind of forgot about that. Seven seasons with Mahomes, never finished with fewer than 11 wins. They've won 12 or more six times. they've gotten to championship weekend

every single season. Every year. I mean, that in and of itself is just wild. It's almost like those the bronze stats where, you know, another wild thing is they've never lost in regulation in the playoffs with him,

like before the Super Bowl, like just in the AFC playoffs. They've never lost in regulation. They're two losses. Is that true? The Bengals in overtime and the Patriots in overtime. Oh my gosh. Great one.

Great, yeah. We could come up with probably a long way. Because I didn't know that one. I forgot. that one. So got into the conference championship every season, gotten to the Super Bowl five times in seven seasons, and they've won three. So again, for as much as we talk about, I wish it would look a little bit different and it does feel. I'm not saying we're wrong. It feels like there is another level, because we've seen it that this offense can get to a higher ceiling, both in terms

of explosiveness, efficiency, and entertainment value and getting the best version of the quarterback. I think that's the big part of it is like the most. talented quarterback I've ever seen, and I don't want to watch him throwing six-yard passes for an entire game, even though he can do it and we can say it's impressive, wow, that he's able to play this way, I still prefer a better balance where we can watch him chucking it downfield as well. No more RPAs. I wish you could ban Andy Reid from calling RPAs. No team lost more EPA on RPA than the Chiefs. They lost 13 EPA. The next team was the Giants at 7, minus 7. And the Giants were in half the RPAs. The Chiefs led.

the league with 55 according to PFF. Enough. No more. No more. Get under center and run play action. Please let him throw down field. Yeah. So we shall see. Again, I said 10 and 0 and one score games last year. That's going to be hard to be. I will say this.

With Mahomes, I looked this up today because I'm tired of just always pointing to the one score games and being like, that can't happen again. And 10 and no is unlikely at the same time. They've won 71% of their one score games with Mahomes as the starter. that's a 62 game sample in his career. So like the Chiefs should not regress to 50-50 in one score games. They are going to win those at a very high clip. And probably if you looked at it league wide and just looked at which quarterbacks you think are the best,

I would imagine a bunch of them have similar numbers there. So you can pencil in 12 wins for the Chiefs. Basically, we've learned barring a Mahomes injury every single year unless you get the outlier season. And that's what it looks like to me, 12 or 13 wins. So record-wise, a little work. but I do think there is a pretty strong chance that we're going to be talking about this team differently in November and December than maybe we were last year. Also, let me get ahead of this. I don't want to hear anyone in like, because now that the chiefs didn't win it, you'll hear like people act like they have a contrarian take by picking the chiefs to win the Super Bowl.

No, it is not. I don't care they didn't win last year. I don't care that they're not the favorites in the AFC. Don't come at me in August being like, no one's picking the chief. I believe in the Chiefs this year. Get that nonsense out of here. Am I right? Are you with me? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. You know, I agree. I was, I've been the anti-chiefs guy basically the last two years straight somehow by saying that they're not a certainty to win the Super Bowl. There you go. All right. Way too early prediction. Ruiz, this was hard. I had like three things

written down, but they all were in different directions. So I didn't know which one. I was going to go with. Where are you with your way too early prediction for the Chiefs? I don't know how bold this is, but I guess it's bold based on the last two years of results, but I'm going to go, the Chiefs finished with the top five offense. And we don't have questions about them in November, about their offense in particular. And we don't have questions about December. We're not questioning where the deep ball is.

I think they figure out this year. I think this is finally the year they do it. There you go. Deonté, what do you got? I think we're going to run down the full narrative gamut with the Chiefs. They've got a pretty heavy early season slate. You've got to see the Chargers. You see the Eagles.

You see the Ravens. You see the Lions. I have them starting the season two and four. Everybody's concerned. Wow. And then they finish the season on an eight and no run. And they look like the Super Bowl team that we expect them to be. I think that that early season stretch is going to take them a little bit of time defensively.

Try to figure out what that DB room is going to be like outside of Trip McDuffie, who we know is like a certainty high level corner no matter what. I think that if they have any kind of hang us with their pass. rush up front. It is going to expose the secondary that was giving up more explosive plays down the stretch last year. And I can see them being on the wrong end of someone's score games as a result. But I think that by the time you get to November and December, this team's going to look exactly like the Chiefs team. We expect them to going into the postseason. That's interesting. I hadn't looked at the early season schedule. All right. So the narratives are going to form. They always form early,

but yeah, a chance for them to form even stronger and earlier this year than years before. So I was debating between Chiefs win the Super Bowl and Chiefs fail to make the championship round. And then I remembered that we did the AFC East and I picked the bills to make the Super Bowl. And I don't want to be a fraud. So guess what my pick is? They failed to make the championship round for the first time under Patrick Mahomes. I say that probably feeling just as strongly that they could win the Super Bowl. So this is why it's way too early.

Check back with me in August and see where I actually land. Those are the on the record predictions. Don't old takes exposed me for something I said in May. That is unethical behavior. You're not allowed to do that. You got to wait till at least August. All right, that was the Chiefs. Let's take a break.

We come back and we go to the Los Angeles Chargers, Denver Broncos, and the Las Vegas Raiders. All right. We're back on the Ringer NFL show. Second in odds in the AFC West, the Los Angeles Chargers at plus 280. They are minus 130 to make the playoffs. And they have the fifth best odds in the AFC to get to the. the Super Bowl behind the Bills, Ravens, Chiefs, and Bengals,

and they're pretty close to the Bengals. So that's kind of the second tier of Super Bowl candidates there. They're over-under win total is nine and a half in the offseason. They signed Mackay Beckton from the Eagles. They drafted Omari in Hampton, the running back in the first round. They brought Mike Williams back at wide receiver. They lose Josh Palmer.

And then defensively, they add corner Dante Jackson. they lose Christian Fulton. They lose Puna Ford, the defensive tackle. Joey Bosa goes to Buffalo. Ruiz, the Los Angeles Chargers offseason. I actually thought this was, well, I'm not going to say anything. Your grade for the Chargers offseason.

Let's see if we landed in the same spot after reviewing this or not. I'm just going to give them B-minus. I think they're still trying to get out from the mess that was left behind by Tom Telesco two years ago. So you have to judge them on a curb. So in that respect,

I'll give them a thumbs up. But in terms of improving the roster and making me feel better about my boy, Justin Herbert, going into the season, it's incomplete for me. I don't think they did a great job. I think they need to get to a point where they can run the football when teams know they're going to run the football on first down.

That's their identity. That's what Greg Roman wants to do on offense. You look at their personnel moves. They're trying to build an offensive line that can do that. I'm assuming that's the theory behind the Mackay-Bectin edition. I just don't think it's going to work. They were one of the worst running teams on first down last. year, they seem to enjoy running into a brick wall over and over again. And I think that's

going to be the approach this year. And I don't think they're significantly more set up to do that than they were compared to last year. Yeah, Deonté, I gave them a C. And I kind of surprised myself. I think Ruiz's point is correct in the context is important, that there were, there are things to clean up with the way the roster was constructed under Telesco and the previous regime. But then I pull up their depth chart and I look at it and I'm like, sheesh. Yeah, like I, yeah, I'm just like this. I feel like this should be better. I wish this were better. And I like Omari and Hampton. But when I look at all those holes on the roster, I'm like, I don't know that that was a great use of resources with the first round pick, especially we found

out days after that the Eagles were on the phone with the chargers. And it sounded like they were willing to give up 32 and 64 in a package to move up from, uh, from 32. to 21. And I don't know if the Chargers just turn that down or what happened, but that deal didn't take place. Then I look at the wide receiver group. And I'm like, Mike Williams has been a non-factor for two years.

And he's 31 years old. And he's a starting outside wide receiver if they had to line up and play a game today. You know, they take Trey Harris in the second round. Who knows? Interior offensive line, you can pretty much pencil it.

And it feels like every year that that's going to be a question for them. It feels like a question again. and then defensively love the coaching, feel like they did more with less last year. But when I look at the talent, I'm kind of like yikes. Are they going to be able to win multiple playoff games with this group in the AFC against these quarterbacks?

So yeah, I was surprised when I did this exercise that I ended up with a C for the Chargers. And maybe, again, maybe that's a little unfair because it's going to take a longer time. But I feel like the, I wish the roster, I should say, was a little further along right now than it actually is. I'm with you. I was actually a little bit more critical.

I gave him a C minus and I accept everything. I get except that everything Steven says and it's true and it was part of my analysis with this. I guess for me, my thing is like you don't get credit for the same thing twice. Last year, I was very bullish on the Chargers because they didn't make any rash moves. They were smart about how they handled the Joey Bosa and Kalil Matt contract situations to bring them back for another year without pushing void years way out into the future in a way that was going to hold up their cap space. they got their credit for that in 2024. I'm not giving that to them in 2025.

And I look at the dev chart, and I think that it's fine. It's about the same. When we get to better or worse, we can expand the conversation about just how similar this is going to be to what they were entering last season. And when you're in that position where you know your money is tied up and you're trying to clean up your books for 2026 and beyond, then I'm going to be hyper-focused on how you draft.

And to me, if there's a trade on the table at 22, that would have gave you multiple bites in the Apple in the top 100, to be able to address running back, to address your defensive backfield, to address your defensive interior. And you go with the Marion Hampton, who, to be fair, is the best home run threat available when they made that pick. I think he is a better running back than Quinchot Juckins and can probably be more durable and available longer than Trayvon Henderson, who's never a leadback at Ohio State. You look at a guy like Caleb Johnson basically go in the middle of the third round, and you think, if you were dropped back to 64, maybe that could have been your pick there.

and if that's the combo with he and Najee Harris, I probably feel about the same about this offense that's just going to put two tight ends and a fullback on the field and run the ball on first down anyways with Amarion Hinton as I would, with the Caleb Johnson, assuming that they'd be able to do other things with that draft capital if they had made that move. I just don't see it yet, right?

I don't see enough from Trey Harris to believe that he's anything more than just like a jump ball winner. That doesn't move me very much within the context of this offense and what I want to see for Justin Herbert. You think about the interior of this offensive line, Bradley Bowman has had some awful mishaps and past protection. Mackay Beckton, I know you know this shield, watching the Eagles. Almost any time the protection was blown, it was usually because Mackay Beckton was doing something wrong. And guard, I don't know if that's going to improve now that you have left maybe the best offensive line infrastructure that exists in the league.

And Zion Johnson is kind of like a replacement level guard, right? Like not the greatest run blocker, but a big enough body to double team with really not that good of a pass protector. and has had injury issues early in his career as well. I'm really hung up with what I'm supposed to think about this team in comparison to what they were in 2024, which was genuinely the most maximized, probably the most maximized roster that we saw all last year, getting the most with less.

I don't know if you can ring that bell two years back to back without adding some more high-end talent, and I don't see high-end talent on the step chart. Yeah, I love the Hampton point. You're right. And again, I like Hampton. I hope he wins offensive rookie of the year is incredible and looks like a difference maker.

But if I'm looking at it from what we know now from a team building perspective, and you have an offer to trade back, and now you can take a flyer on offensive line, defensive line, corner, wide receiver. Again, there's no shortage of areas where they could have been, take a flyer on somebody,

and then you still can get a running back there at some point. And is the drop-off going to be that big? I just, this looks like a team that should be building the roster that way. Maybe it'll work out for them, but just from what we know now, that seems like it could be a misstep for them. So Ruiz, when you look at better or worse from last year, they're 11 and 6 last year. How do you feel about them?

I'm going to go with worse. I think we could see some defensive regression. I know overall their numbers were very good. But if you like split it, they were very good on early downs. On past downs, they were one of the worst defenses in the NFL, like getting teams off the field. And I think that's where the talent disparity really showed up. They weren't getting pass rush consistently. They obviously had makeship pieces in the secondary, and they were putting that together. That doesn't really work on third down, especially when you're forced to play a lot of zone coverage because you don't want to match up one-on-one with these lesser cornerbacks. So I don't think they're a team to build, or they're a team that's built to kind of dominate

on third down, and I think that's what you have to do to be a great defense, a truly great defense year-to-year in this league. So I'm kind of worried about regression on that side, and I've already said everything. I'm worried about with the offense. I feel like they're just going to run into a brick wall over and over again, And this interior offensive line isn't any better. And that's going to show up on early downs. It's going to show up on late downs when they have to pass the ball.

I don't think the receivers are any more equipped to separate outside of Vladimir McCarthy in the second year. So I think this is perfectly set up to have a disappointing year for Justin Herbert. And I see defensive regression on the other side. So I'm not bullish on this team at all. Wow. Deonti, what do you think? Agree or don't go quite as far?

I mean, if I had to pick better or worse, I'd agree. I'd say that they're worse. I would say that my honest evaluation is they're like exactly the same as what they were going into the 2024 regular season. And I think for me, the biggest concerning piece is that the weakling systems in football, to me, is offensive line and your defensive secondary. And they have multiple weak links along their offensive line and multiple winklings at the corner position. And I think that Stephen speaks to that when you talk about their pass down efficiency, their pass down effectiveness, the fact that an offense can go in and say, hey, even if we fail on first down, we know we can go attack them on the perimeter. We can go attack them in the middle of the field because their linebackers don't close space the greatest.

We know we're going to get soft zone coverage because they have to try to protect their corners who can run but are not necessarily tight coverage playmaker types, right? I think that there are a lot of ways in which they're able to paper over some of their weaknesses, but that means conceding in a lot of ways. And I think that for a team that plays that way, as teams adjust to how you design your defense, as teams adjust to how you try to run the ball on, early downs, how you try to protect your quarterback. They're able to more effectively attack those weaklings. I thought we saw that down the stretch of the season. We certainly saw that in a wildcard around where Houston, which is like the super strength of all super strength teams.

Everything about that team is built to make their power, superpowers. And you saw the difference in that, you know, and those two types of franchise building strategies of a team that has, we're going to go all in on wide receiver, try to get as much more receiver talent on the field. We're going to have this super strong secondary and not allow you to get a bunch of explosive plays and try to play tight to your body. And a team like the Chargers who was really more so built to play a very evenly fought game and then have your quarterback break it at the end, they could not stand up to

all the pressure that Houston was given them, especially on the defensive side of the ball. I think we're just going to see that more often in the 2025 season. Now the teams know what to expect from this team on both sides of the ball. Yeah, what happens if you get a little turnover regression? I think that really, you know, could disrupt this team on both sides of the ball. Like, yeah, Justin Herbert protect the ball better than it. anybody we've really seen in recent years, the playoff game notwithstanding.

On the other side of the bar, you have a rookie like Tarheep still come up with four interceptions and is like, is that going to happen again? I don't know. So that's another concern. But I will say this, because I've kind of down on the charges in this segment, I do believe in Jesse Minter. And if he does it again for a second straight year, then he's one of those guys that get the benefit of the doubt. And like, no matter what the pieces look like, you're like, yep, they're going to be

fine on defense. Yeah, no doubt. I mean, what he did last year was probably one of the most best coaching jobs by a coordinator in the NFL. Again, when you just look at the roster and look at what that defense produced, I'm with you. So maybe he deserves the benefit of the doubt there. I don't think their defense is necessarily going to be bad, but I am with you on the turnover stuff. They were third overall as a team and turnover EPA. If that regresses a little bit, the schedule gets a little bit harder than it was last year than what does this look like.

Now, I will say, if you're a charges fan saying, come on, you told us you were going to be ripping the Broncos. Not us during this episode. Give us some hope. I mean, Jim Harbaugh does have the track record. Now, I mean, he went in there right away. They won 11 games. He's 55, 25 and 1 as an NFL head coach. Now, those Niners teams were, I think, more talented than this Chargers team. But he hasn't had a losing record in five NFL seasons. He's won 11 plus games in four or five seasons. So it's one of those weird teams because I'm, Like the coach, like the quarterback, like the offensive tackles, like the wide receiver one, like the defensive coordinator. Like those are a lot of important things to like on a team. But the roster stinks.

That's the thing. Yeah. The roster stinks. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I'm with you. Then everything I didn't just mention, I have big, big questions about, which we went over a bunch of those.

So it just doesn't feel like a, hey, this team's going to make the leap from a. 11 win wildcard team to an actual contender in the AFC, maybe I'll be wrong. Again, always give that caveat in May. It doesn't look, I don't know how you get there on paper. Honestly, it would have to be just, does Justin Herbert just put the team on his back? Do some of these young players on defense just emerge?

And they're like, wow, these guys are incredible. And it's one of the best defenses in the NFL, not just a solid overachieving defense. And even like if those things happen, and I'm picturing them against Ravens, Bill's, chiefs in the playoffs and maybe having to beat two of those teams, it's just hard for me to get to a point where I feel like, yeah, I'm going to be able to think that they could get there. So I think we're all in a similar spot here with this Chargers team. All right, way too early prediction.

I'll go first. I gave you a positive one, Chargers fans. How about Ladd-McCocky leads the NFL in receptions this year? Now, my worry is that they're not going to throw enough for him to do that. But Ladd-McCocki was awesome last year. And so you probably could spend a minute talking about that. 82 catches for 1,149 yards came in right away, had the chemistry with Justin Herbert in year one.

I was looking at the last 10 seasons, wide receivers who had more yards than McConkey as rookies. And we had a great rookie class of wide receivers last year. So a couple of them are in there. But it's Puka Nakua, Jemar Chase, Justin Jefferson, Brian Thomas Jr., and Malik Nave. So just five wide receivers in the last 10 years had more receiving yards as rookies than Ladd McConkey. So 82 catches, I don't know what he would need to get to lead the league in receptions.

But I think he's going to get targeted a bunch. And I think he's got a shot to do it. And really, I just wanted to give McCocky some love, given the nature of the rest of the Chargers conversation. All right, Deontay, what's your way too early prediction? All right. As the native Southern Californian here, everybody can come. All the Chargers fans can slam me. I have them missing the playoffs in 2025.

You go back and look, you include the wild card game. They were two and six last year against playoff teams. You look at the way they were winning. A lot of it was like to make an NBA corollary with the conference finals going on. It's like the old Grit and grind Grizzlies. It was just like the least enjoyable product you could possibly put on the floor. But they're just going to beat you down. And then they force more turnovers than their opponents.

They're able to sit on the ball and you escape with wins. and you look at their schedule, you do get to see the Raiders twice, which may be just kind of give me wins because the Raiders roster is also in a pretty tricky spot. We'll get to them later in the conversation. You get to see the Giants and the Titans. But you look at the rest of the schedule, and a lot of them, I think, in terms of the betting lines, are going to be about toss-ups or they're going to be underdogs. And I think that's an accurate reflection when you look at a team that has a high-level quarterback, but an awful too deep around him. And the only way I can have my opinion change is that Justin Herbert is healthy

to start the year and looks like an MVP candidate again very early in the season. And they were able to kind of ride a hot early stretch of the season all the way through. I just don't see a true contender when I look at this team. Ruiz, what do you got? This is going to be a pessimistic prediction, but it's going to be a positive one for Chargers fans going forward. I think this is the last year, Greg Roman is the offensive coordinator for the Chargers. Just because of the problems I laid out, I think this is set up to kind of bait Greg Roman into one of those years where we're complaining about them all year long.

Like, if your offense demands Scott Matlock to get snaps, I think it's a bad offense. So, like, hopefully, God willing, this is the last year for him. Yeah, it feels like one or the other. It will be, come on, look at the pieces around Herbert or it'll be Roman. I think you're probably right that it would steer more in that direction. But, I mean, I don't know. Like Jim Harbaugh knows Greg Roman probably as well as anyone in the NFL. And that's who he chose as his offensive coordinator.

So if that happens, I do think he's, you know, he's got to take some heat to. He could have searched around and found somebody who he thought would fit this team better. He obviously agreed that, hey, we want to play a certain type of way. We want this to be our identity. And again, they won 11 games last year, but I'm kind of with you. Maybe a little more creativity specifically in the passing game would be a good thing. I'll say this about his time at Michigan. I feel like he had a lot more problems higher than an offensive coordinator than he did finding defensive coordinators that were doing in Michigan.

Yeah, nailed it with the defensive coordinators. Yeah. Yeah, that's a good point. All right, we take a break. We come back. I think we're going to have to answer the question, more likely to make the playoffs. Broncos are chargers at the end of that Broncos section.

So we'll talk about the Broncos. We'll talk about the Raiders when we come back. All right. We are back on the Ringer NFL show. Denver Broncos plus 320 to win the division. So just behind the Los Angeles Chargers, a lot of the gambling projections are pretty similar. They're minus 114 to make the playoffs.

They actually have the sixth best odds in the AFC to make the Super Bowl behind Bill's Ravens, Chiefs, Chargers. I'm sorry, Bill's, Ravens, Chiefs, Bengals and Chargers. And they're in the same boat with Super Bowl odds with the Bengals and the Chargers and they're over under for wins is nine and a half. I got to be honest, when I did this exercise, I was looking at the offensive depth chart. And I was like, oh, they really didn't do a whole lot offensively. They added Evan Ingram, and that's kind of it. They returned all five starters. Yeah, on the offensive line.

They returned Bo Nix. They returned Cortland Sutton. So they didn't do a whole lot offensively. Defensively is probably the more interesting conversation in terms of grading the offseason. They draft Jade Barron defensive back in the first round. And then they take some gambols on guys with injury histories, but upside in Dre Greenlaw and Talaoa, Hufanga both come over from the San Francisco 49ers. Ruiz, when you look at the moves that the Denver Broncos made this offseason,

what was your grade? I'm going to give them another B-minus. I think it makes sense on paper, especially with the identity of that defense, adding those guys from the 49ers Greenlawn to Hufunga. They fit in perfectly for what Vance Joseph wants to do, which is just caused chaos and just have guys run around and confuse the offense, make the quarterback hold the ball a beat longer.

You want to get into obvious peasant. passing situations so you can really unleash that's where they were at their best last year. So I like their moves on the defensive side. But I do think ultimately it's an incomplete offseason because there are a lot of question marks with the roster going into this year. You have guys going into contract years. Cortland Sutton is one of them, especially on the defense. So Zach Allen, John Franklin Myers, Nick Benito, Alex Singleton, these are starters who

are going into the offseason, are going into the season without a contract for 2026. So I think there are still moves to be made. And I think this is an incomplete grade for me. But I get it. I get the vision. And on the offensive side, I know they didn't make a lot of moves, but I think Sean Payton is being smart about this, kind of trying to build through the draft. They add Pat Bryant, who he compared to Michael Thomas. I don't know how apt those comparisons are, but they also add R.J. Harvey from UCF to kind of add an explosive element to the run game. And I mean, I have to take the hell on Sean Payton. I was kind of questioning him last year, especially after his time with Russell Wilson, but he showed he had his fastball in 2024.

And as long as that's the case, I think the floor for Bo Nix, even if I don't really like him as a quarterback, and even if he isn't what Denver ultimately thought they were getting with the first Sean Pick, I think he provides a high floor for Bo Nix. Yeah, the Sean Payton conversation is always tough because Sean Payton loves Sean Payton so much.

So the natural inclination is to be like, I don't want to love somebody who loves themselves this, maybe that's just me. I'll speak for myself. Not for you guys, but when the guy when somebody thinks they're God's gift of football, I'm more likely to fade them. But man, he has the track record. Yeah, I'm with you. He had a very good season.

Last year, turned that thing around, got them playing well towards the end of the season, even if they were, you know, in that sort of mediocre slash above average. I mean, there's some stuff that would suggest. They're even, we're a little bit better than that. But yeah, he did a good job last year. There's no doubt.

Deonti, how did you grade their offseason? I gave them a C plus. I probably was, I was leaning a little more B minus B, but I'm going to apply the exact same thing I said to the Chargers to the Broncos here. Last year when they kind of stood pat, you know, I was, I tried to acknowledge going in that, hey, the Russell Wilson dead cap number is still there. They've got to slow play this. New head coach, new regime, period.

I know that they're going to take their time to try to build this thing up. And I think that what Stephen laid out is accurate, right? I think that this is, I think that they were going to look at 2025, as the last iteration of this phase of Broncos football. And then based on how guys perform on their contract years is going to give us a lot of information about how Sean Payton is going to build this team going forward. But you look at the defensive additions,

which is really where most of their attention was spent in the offseason. I like Jada Barron. I think he's going to be a really good guy to use on blitzes. In zone coverage as an underneath defender, you look at Talano, Hufunga, and Dre Greenlaw. Like Stephen said, you're going to get a lot of chaos with them mixed with Van Joseph, Vance Joseph in this defense, and you still have a potential defensive player of the year guy

in Patrick Certan playing on the outside, right? So when you paint the full picture of a hot year from pass rush out of Nick Benito, especially on the back half of the year, you look at Pat Certan still being one of the best players in the league, and you add some guys who have high ceilings, it's entirely possible that this team can be a top eight defense again this season. And for the weaknesses at Hufunga, Greenlaw, and Barron have, none of those are really, they're not really going to be put in position where those are going to be exposed

because the things that they're worse at are not things that Vince Joseph relies upon to call a good defense, right? You're not going to see them out in space or in bad matchups very often. These are guys are going to be very aggressive playing close to the line of scrimmage. And I think that that's a really optimistic way to look at their defense. And to your point, Sheal, I know that, I know that Sean Payton can put together a good offense around Bo Nix because we saw it. I think this offensive line was one of the better ones in the league. I think if there's going to be questions about what they can do with their run game to add an element that they didn't have last year, obviously that's ultimately what got them eliminated in the playoffs was their imbalances on offense and having to rely on Boonex a little bit too much.

But if they can strike something up in the underground game at all, I think it's entirely possible that this can be another 10 win type of season for this team. Yeah, I remember after that Bill's game, Sean Payton had some interesting comments after the game. He was just talking about the game plan, about how they couldn't run the football, and how that kind of everything deteriorated from there. And I think you hit it on the head. Like, they have to run the ball better. And I think the other thing that we need to see, like, some type of evolution from Bo Nix is his threat as a passer when he breaks the pocket.

Like, he was very much, if I'm breaking the pocket, I'm running, he would, like, check it down when those almost, like, lateral checkdowns. They were very weird looking where he'd, like, throw it out while he's on the run, climbing the pocket. I think he needs to evolve there. didn't have a single big time throw, according to PFF, when he was in the scramble drill. Not a single one. And the other guys that, the other teams that didn't have a single one were the Jaguars who were starting Mac Jones for much of the year. The Lions, you have Jared Gough,

who doesn't move and doesn't want to move. And then the Packers with Jordan Love, who Deonté, as astutely pointed out throughout the offseason, isn't really a threat when he scrambles. He doesn't really scramble that often. So I think that's where you really need to see him take the next step in order to get the most out of them. Because I do think scrambling is his best attribute. That's what we saw last year. That was kind of the break glass in case of emergency situation for Denver, especially in the drop-back passing game where it was Bo Nix.

He read his first read. If it wasn't there, he was either checking it down or taking off on a scramble. And it worked for them. It worked because Sean Payton is a great play caller. I just need to see Knicks take the next step to see this offense, I think get into the top half of the NFL next year. I like you making this specific about the scrambling, because I was just thinking about Bo Nix needing to be better after the first two and a half seconds, period.

Whether it's from the pocket or extending, that was just a big hole in this game is that when things were not on pace, you know, after two and a half seconds, there was a 19th in total passing EPA. And I think that even that is a friendlier view of what it actually was on a down-to-down basis. I think a lot of the most positive plays of scrambling around and chucking one deep to Vela or to Cortland Sutton or to Marvin Mims downfield if there was a coverage breakdown while he was extending or guys creating after the catch on check downs. I want to see him just grow as a more fully-fledged, flushed-out drop-back passer. And I think if you're able to do that, then you can see this offense take another leap on those obvious passing situations.

Yeah, I gave him a B-minus too, but I want to continue on Knicks and sort of talk about, you know, how did he actually perform? What are fair expectations and some more about his strengths and his weaknesses? You know, I think his superpower last year, which is unusual for rookies, was just avoiding the negative plays. I don't know if that's something that was really coached into him if that's going to be a part of his playing style or what, but I think he had the fifth lowest turnover worthy play percentage. He was eighth and pressured a sack percentage. He wasn't taking a lot of sacks. So your guy's point, they did have a good offensive line. And then when you look at some of the other stuff about like, all right, when a quarterback,

the heats on a little bit, 27th in EPA per play when pressured, 26th an EPA per play on third and fourth down. Now, all those numbers need to be contextualized with a rookie quarterback. And so I always like to just look at the whole sample of rookie quarterbacks over the last 10 seasons. And if you look at the 31 who actually played, he ranked 10th in EPA per pass play and 13th based on success rate. So I think regardless of what you thought about Bo Nix coming out of the draft and the Broncos draft him too high, I think for me at least, he exceeded expectations as a rookie. And now the next question comes, all right, he exceeded expectations as a rookie.

What is his ceiling? Is there a next leap where we're talking about? about him as no, he's definitely an above average starter. Can he be a top 12 guy? Can he be a top 10 guy this year? I think that's probably just the most fascinating question around the Broncos. We know Sean Payton's offense historically. It's not like the easiest to master or pick up. So I think it's reasonable to think, all right, they work together for another year. Maybe he puts more on his plate. Maybe he doesn't, but they come up with more solutions. And can Knicks make that kind of leap, Deontay, in his second year here?

I think that that's really just what the story of the Broncos is going to be period, right? Like I think that they're probably a little bit marginally better, you know, from the context of looking at them as a better or worse product. And I think that if it's going to be more than marginal, it's going to be Nix as a passer, not losing that, not losing that. I don't want to necessarily say he was risk averse. I just think that he worked very rigidly within the structure of the offense. And that was smart. You know, I think the way that John Morton and John Payton kind of design. You're trying to avoid the scoring of Broncos fans there.

He was conservative. He threw the most checkdowns in the league last year. But I do want to give him some credit and say that what he was, the first six weeks of the season, was not totally what he was in the back end of the season. You can definitely look at, like, you look at the Steelers game. You look at some of those early games in the season. He was not looking past the one look that was scouted for him throughout practice. You could very much see that in the way he was approaching things from the pocket. I think he started to grow a bit.

I don't think he's going to be, you know, Lamar Jackson working to the backside. out of a progression time after time as pressure is bearing down. But I do think if we can just see him continue to be aggressive, right? Instead of, oh, I've got to scramble now because my first look isn't there. Let me take another step in the pocket. Let me see if I can find whoever my section option is to create after the catch. I think that's why they were seeking out in Evan Ingram. I think that's why you draft an RJ Harvey.

It's to try to find guys who can give you a little bit of something in those intermediate areas or a guy who can pop something from underneath. and if they can do that, then I think they'll be fine. I do want to manage expectations on Nix. Like you said, Sheel, I mean, he was a rookie quarterback last year, second year. I don't think he's going to be a world beater at any point in time, right? I think he's probably closer to a ceiling now than he would be three, four years down the line. I think this is just a quarterback that he is.

But I do think you can maximize what we've seen in a way that keeps this offense on the top half of the league. Let me correct myself. He was actually second checkdowns. The Steelers combination of quarterbacks had more checkdowns than him combined. But he did lose the most. EPA on checkdowns, which I think is the context, the shield stat earlier. Yes, he had low sack rates. Yes, he didn't turn over the ball. But he was chucking the ball to cover running backs in the flat and getting tackled. And those are failed plays, even though if they don't show up his sacks

are turnover worthy plays. So I think that's where the evolution comes from. Deontes already hinted at it. After that first read is open, what is your reaction? His reaction was usually to panic in some way to start moving drastically. I think if he can, you know, hold on to his base, hold on to his mechanics for a beat longer and maybe get to that second read and then scramble because like at this point that's the best feature of his game and you don't want to curtail that. You don't want to limit that. You want him to scramble because that's when he was picking up first downs in obvious passing situations. But if he could combine those two things that he does become that distributor you want that you're looking for,

that Drew Breeze, quote unquote, in this offense, even if he's not the best thrower in the football. And that's not an arm strength thing because we saw last year when he, you know, revs it up, he can really throw the ball. He can put some heat on the ball. It's more about shaping the ball and being able to make throws outside the numbers where you're not throwing your fastball. You're not throwing your hardest pitch where you can layer it over the defense and stuff like that and make it easy for the wide receiver to catch it. We're not throwing a 99 mile per hour fastball to the flat to a running back who can't catch the football as it is. I think that's where you see the evolution is changing speeds and also just being more calm in the pocket, which was that was the scouting report before the draft.

So it's not much of a surprise. All right. So Deante said a little bit better. They were 10 and 7 last year. They made the playoffs. I kind of agree a little bit better. I don't know if the record, but it's hard to look at the roster and really make a case that they got worse.

I mean, they take flyers on Greenlaw and Hufanga, and I don't know if those are going to work out or not, but there is upside there that just the talent is better than it was last year. So I've got them, I think, a little bit better as well, Ruiz. What do you think with the Broncos better or worse? It's tough. I think the record's going to be worse. I don't think they're going to make the playoffs,

but I do think they might be a better football team. I just think the AFC is going to be a different. The standings are going to look different this year. I think the AFC West might be a little more competitive at the bottom. Like I think the Raiders might give them something. But if you look back at their year last year, they just weren't good against good teams. They beat up on bad teams.

The teams they're supposed to beat. And they kind of got embarrassed by the good teams outside of that first Chiefs game. So I'm going to say worse than the last. last year based on the record, but I do think they're about the same. Yeah, the luck factors are kind of all over the place with them. They were only one in six in games decided by seven points or less, which is not good. So you just think, all right, you know, they were, hey, three and four, they could have been even better. On the other hand, they were fourth in turnover EPA, and they were the sixth healthiest team in the NFL. The offensive line, two years in a row has basically played

the whole season. I think that's like the big area of progression if you're looking for it, because that was such like a central part of their offense last year, one of the best pass protection units in the league. Yeah, no doubt about it. And again, the overall numbers, they beat the Chiefs 38-0 in week 18. So keep that in mind when you look at the other stuff with the Denver Broncos there.

All right, way too early predictionaries. What do you got for the Broncos? I think they regress on defense. I'm going to flip, I'm going to say they're a top half of the league offense and the bottom half of the league defense, kind of the inverse of that. year.

I was on the fence with that one, Deante. I thought, all right, there are, because they were 30th in defensive DVOA two years ago, and they were fourth last year. Like the Eagles made a big leap, but the Broncos also made a big leap. But I kind of look at the depth chart, and I'm like, I kind of like this defense, you know, I think they're going to be able to cover. I like the, I like the secondary. I like that Bance Joseph embraces chaos.

I feel like the guys up front kind of know their roles. and I don't need all the gambols of, you know, Hufanga, Greenlaw, and Jadae, Bear. Like, they don't all need to be great, but, like, if one of them hits, that's interesting. If two of them hits, that's interesting, too. So I'm going to go in the opposite way. I'm going to say they're going to avoid the regression, and they're going to be a top five defense this year in 2025. So that's my way too early prediction. Deonté, what do you got?

Oh, man, this has scaled up perfectly. I feel like everybody's take has gotten a little bit stronger and mine have probably. the strongest. I think Sean Piton's going to win coach of the year. I think the Broncos, I think the Broncos are able to put together another great season. Again, I'm almost always doing like schedule math, right? I want to look at who they're scheduled to play and whether or not I think they are clear underdogs in games. And I would say outside of their pair of games against the chiefs, you've got to see the Packers, you see the commanders. You look at the rest of their schedule. I mean, I do have to see the Eagles as well. So you look at that cluster of games,

I think that they'll be clear underdogs in each of those. And after that, I think that they're probably positioned pretty well to be competitive in each of the rest of the games. And we know that a Sean Payton team can beat up on less competent teams, especially if they have any any clear struggles on offense or defense. I would not be surprised at all, even if they don't win the AFC West to see this team be another double-digit winning team. And I think if you're able to replicate success with Bo Nix again and he takes any kind of step forward, that's going to catapult Sean Payton into that coach of the year conversation.

And I think that he has a good chance of winning it this season. All right, so you have Broncos in and you had Chargers out, right? Chargers out, that's right. Ruiz, if you had to pick one, Chargers or Broncos to make the playoffs, who do you got? I'm just going to go with the Chargers because they have the better quarterback, and I trust their defensive coordinator more. I think Van Gogh is more proven in the NFL, but I do think we've seen his defenses kind of oscillate between being really good and really bad, and I think there's a chance.

Volatile, yeah. Yeah. Okay. I'm going to go with the Broncos, I think. Let's see where I land in August. But yeah, going through this, I was like, pretty good last year. There are paths to them being a better team this year. I think both these teams are going to be coached well.

But I'm going to lean towards Denver not having that year where they take a big step back. So there you go. Broncos fans aren't going to, maybe Chargers fans are going to be more mad at us than Broncos fans. Maybe we had a bad prediction, but we sell the Raiders to go. I was more concerned with like the Bo Knits discourse. I think they're a little sensitive about that. Like I think the team overall, yeah, they're on the right track, but just not high on the last team in the AFC West, the Las Vegas Raiders who are all the way down to plus

$1,200 to win their division. The only teams in the NFL with worse odds to win their own division are the Jets, the Browns, and the Giants. You hear that Pete? Tom, Gino, they're giving you no respect the Las Vegas Raiders. They are plus 310 to make the playoffs. They're over under for wins is 7.5, which isn't that low,

but it's minus 160 to the under. Of all the teams we talked about today, maybe in this whole series of all the teams we talked about, I don't know that a team had a bigger makeover than the Las Vegas Raiders. They hire Pete Carroll as head coach. He hires Chip Kelly as his, offensive coordinator.

They keep Patrick Graham as their defensive coordinator. They replace the aforementioned Tom Telesco with John Spitech as their GM. They trade for Gino Smith. They sign him to a deal that's basically a two-year commitment. They draft running back Ashton Genty with the sixth overall pick. They make some changes on defense as well. I feel like, Ruiz, we got to start with you here. The Gino Whisper, grade the loss.

Vegas Raiders offseason. What do you got? I'm going to give them a B plus, just short of an A-minus. I think they improved the most important position in football more so than any other team in the NFL. Like, the one team that upgraded to a top 10 quarterback in the league, in my opinion, bottom half of the top 10, I will say. It's not anywhere close to the top five. But this is the team that's most fascinating to me. This is the team I want to see the most. We talk so much about where these offenses and the division have to go. This is the one that's starting over from scratch. So we don't really know where they have to. ago. We haven't seen Kelly coach in this league in almost 10 years, and I'm really fascinated

to see how he's evolved his offense. I have an idea of what the offense is going to look like, and I think it's the one that's going to take a lot off of Gino's plate. I think it's going to be an offense that kind of works around those offensive line deficiencies they've had over the past couple of years and really establishes a good run game that you have to worry about, you have to game plan about, and that's going to make things easier in the passing game. But I do have concerns about the talent level, especially on the outside at receiver, and on the outside on defense, at cornerback and the secondary,

I don't know how it's going to look. And I think that's the one area, the two areas where they really didn't take a step forward this offseason. I think everywhere else you could argue that they're better, especially in the coaching staff. So B plus feels appropriate for them. I totally agree with the interesting part. You know, I'm going through the exercise and chargers, Broncos.

And then I got to the Raiders, and like the juices started flowing a little bit. I'm like, this is a, I don't know what the end. result is going to be. But I like having Pete Carroll back in my life as an NFL writer and podcaster. What's this going to look like? He knows. This is it for him. A life of football. And one last chance that I didn't think was going to come when the Seahawks fired him. It came and now he gets to coach the Las Vegas Raiders. He got to handpick pretty much his quarterback who he knows, who they've got a special relationship for a head coach and a quarterback. You mentioned it. Chip Kelly out of the league.

UCLA takes the OC job at Ohio State and now back in the league as an offensive coordinator, the deficiencies from his first time around, the predictability, the low volume playbook, the lack of intricacies with the passing game. How have those changed since he was last in the NFL? What does it look like? I mean, Pete Carroll's defenses gave Chip Kelly's offenses the business when they were in the NFL together. But Pete Carroll always said, I'll give him. credit bat when i when i was covering pete carroll for two years he would talk about no chip kelly has

has had a big influence on the way the the the offenses play in the nflb regardless of what his final record is in that year uh in san francisco so that's interesting gno's interesting ashton gentie's interesting uh dante this is an inch i gave him a b i'm with i'm with ruse if you just boil football down to coach and quarterback they they upgraded at both those spots and we can talk about all the other stuff with the roster and how much just the upgrades that coach and quarterback are going to matter. But when you are able to have an offseason, when you upgrade at both those spots, I have to give you a pretty good good. Before DeAndi starts, Gardner Minshu and Antonio Pierce to Pete Carroll and Gino Smith. Yeah. And Aidan O'Connell and who else, Desmond Ritter, don't forget, started a game there.

I wish I could forget. And don't forget Josh McDaniels before Antonio Pierce. I mean, this has been a couple, this isn't just one year. This has been two years of just like kind of as bad as you can get. All right, Deontay, what do you got? It's an A-minus for me. You upgraded at head coach, offensive coordinator, quarterback, and general manager in one off-season. If I could, I would have, the only reason why this is not an A or A-plus is just because there wasn't another

big splashing move, you know, probably namely at wide receiver or something like that, where you look and say like, okay, there's multiple tier one, tier two players on this roster. But I do think that, to Stevens point, and you agree with this shield, from an interest perspective, there's no team that I'm more excited to watch on Sunday ticket now than the Raiders. I just need to see what this looks like. I need to see what this looks like. I need to see what Pete Carroll back on the sidelines looks like. I would love,

I'm just so interested in the spectacle of a guy like Pete Carroll being in a place like Las Vegas, right? I know that Mark Davis is probably dancing every day when he gets out of the bed. And I'm fascinated to see what this offense looks like schematically, right? You have Chip Kelly and you have Joe Philbin kind of in a consulting role. And then if there's something to kind of have some questions about there aren't a lot of other. big names are guys that have been attached to like big time offenses that you can point directly to their influence on. There's multiple. And there are a couple sons. There are multiple child carols. There are multiple young kids, multiple sons of Pete Carroll. Multiple carol sons. Yes.

Yeah, you know, working with the quarterbacks and the run game quarter and I'm run game coordinator. So, you know, I got a few things in the air. I'm not exactly sure how to feel about it yet. But just looking at the names at the top line, everything looks good, right? It's what you would want to see from a serious organization. And I'm willing to give them benefit of the doubt going into the season at the very least. I didn't think it was a positive sign that Patrick Graham got retained. I agree. I think Patrick Graham is kind of an underrated GM.

He hasn't had the best pieces to work with. But I do think it's a good sign that Pete Carroll. And like Pete has shown this. He definitely showed it at the end of his Seattle tenure. Like he's opened a new ideas. He brought in a bunch of guys from outside of his tree at the end there in Seattle. So that's another good sign, another positive sign. And the Chip Kelly edition is another departure from what he's looked for

and offense coordinators in the past. So I think Pete, even at his advanced age, is still very open-minded, which isn't surprising. Yeah, because he, you know, for years, we were saying, all right, the Seahawks are the last team still running this cover of three and single high, and they're not evolving. And then he had the year where he, like, said,

we've been arrogant, you know? We thought we could keep doing this. We don't have the players. And they actually tried to switch to a more modern defense. And he was never able to figure it out. I mean, that was the story of his last years, really in Seattle. They just, they didn't have a,

and above average defense for like five, six straight years to close out his tenure. So I'm with you. I like that. They retained Patrick Graham, who has been a guy who I feel like has been able to do more with less. He hasn't had a lot of talent to work with. They've got some pieces up front, but I thought that was interesting. And then the other thing with the Gino Smith deal is just like, we have to keep in mind

that they didn't have to mortgage the future for Gino Smith or pay it crazy. I mean, they give up a third round pick. And then he's making $37.5 million. dollars per year. I mean, that is a relatively team friendly deal. If we're talking about NFL 2025 and you think Gino Smith, even if you don't go as far as Ruiz and you say, all right, well, he's a competent solid starter. That's still kind of undermarket value for that type of player. And I do think there's some upside there, maybe in the right situation or he can have one of those late year seasons that we see some veteran quarterbacks have where you're like,

okay, you know, they might not be able to do that for three more years, but, Man, this is really fun for this year. So, yeah, I think that's another thing that we got to point out is just what they kind of gave up. It wasn't a ton to get to this point. All right, better or worse? I mean, this is the easiest better maybe on the board. They were four and 13 last year to Ruiz's point.

Josh McDaniels and Antonio Pierce to Chip Kelly, upgrade. Aidan O'Connell, Gardner, Minchew, and Desmond Ritter to Gino Smith upgrade. Better at coach, better at quarterback, better at running, We haven't even mentioned Ashton Genti, whether I would have made that pick or not. I probably wouldn't have the nerd in me would have said, forget how fun it's going to be. Let's go take Membo and build up the offensive line. But guess what? If you're a Raiders fan, you get to watch Ashton Genty every week next season.

That's going to be a pretty fun experience as well. So, yeah, Deonti, this to me, and we'll talk about what their ceiling is. I don't know if anyone or one of us are going to be bold enough to predict something big. But in terms of better or worse, this was a good. easy better for me. Easily better, right? I think that median outcome, and like you said, we'll talk about sealing as a conversation goes on. I think median outcome is they can just be a normal mediocre football team now. It does not have to be an abject disaster on a week-to-week basis, right? You have a good enough quarterback. You have a flawed offense around him, right? But you have a good

enough quarterback and the potential of having one of those Bejan Robinson-type, young running backs in the backfield, a guy that can instantly create offense for you where there shouldn't be any because of who he is as a running back in Ashton Gentie. I think that for me, the only thing that I really want to see for a team that has retained as draft capital in 2026 and 27, can you poke around and see what's available at wide receiver? Like if I'm if I'm John Spitech, I'm going to call New Orleans and say, hey, one of Rashid Shihit or Chris Olivae and let's talk.

I'm going to call the Packers and say, Wicks, Dobbs, who do you want to let go of? Let's talk, you know? I would say that I wouldn't want this guy in my locker room, and this is maybe the most desperate name I could throw out there. But why not call Miami and say, hey, man, we'll take Tyreek off your hands if you'll take a little bit of a discount on draft capital and we'll pay them. You know, we're not going to ask you to do anything ridiculous with the structure of his contract or who's paying what end of it. We'll take more of that financial load because they can afford it up front in exchange for a lower draft capital pick.

And if they had one of those guys in, I think that in each of those situations, we probably look at the level of wide receiver differently. But just having players like that available, I think would change how I feel about their ceiling. But I think right now they can be functional. And that's a huge improvement for what I saw on the field on a week wide-wide basis in 2024 and 2023. Ruiz has to be a better as well based on what he just said.

Yeah, definitely. I think the one concern is wide receiver room, which Jiao, they just alluded to. they do need someone that can take the top off the defense. But I, this is an offense in theory that I think Chip Kelly is going to run where it's based around the run game. I think it's based around creating explosive. So maybe you don't need the talent level to create those explosive plays because you're doing it with scheme. But if this offense does disappoint this year, I think it's because of the personnel at wide receiver. I mean, if Jack Bash is your number one receiver, which he could be like in terms of outside receiver, I think Jacoby Myers is obviously

going to be the guy that gets a lot of the targets and obviously Brock Bowers. But if he's your first outside threat, I think it's tough to run an offense like that. Yeah, no doubt. Wide receivers tough. Defensive personnel is tough. Linebacker, corner, they are not great. It's not a great roster by any means, but it is an interesting team. And if you look at, you know, Gino Smith's time in Seattle, last three seasons, they went 27 and 22 in Seattle with Gino Smith as

their starting quarterback. If you look at the Raiders last year, not only were they poorly coached and didn't have a quarterback. They were 30th in turnover EPA. They were the second most injured team in the entire NFL last year. And that's another feather in Patrick Graham's cap

is that they were a mediocre defense, but they were one of the most injured defenses in the entire NFL. So that's a reason to maybe be a little bit bullish there on him. So yeah, this is a resounding better for me, which brings us to the way too early prediction. Before we do this, is there, like I read you guys those odds, and the Chargers and Broncos' odds are way higher than the Raiders.

As I was doing this, I was like, is there a huge difference? Is there a big gap between those two teams and this Raiders team? I ended this thinking, maybe they're all sort of in that 7 to 10 area. I don't think we're going to see any of these teams picking in the top five. I don't think you're going to see any of those teams making it to the Super Bowl. But I sort of felt like they were all grouped together a little bit more than the odds would suggest, Deonté. Do you agree with that? Or do you think I'm getting a little ahead of myself here?

I know there is still a gap there. I mean, I think if you're bullish on either the Broncos or the charges, you would have a hard time not being, not being able to transfer that same logic over to Las Vegas. if you're just comparing roster for roster, quality of coaching staff, for quality of coaching staff. I think that whatever argument I just made for the Broncos potentially being a playoff team, all that exists with the Raiders, right? The same with Stephen talking about the Chargers. All that can exist with the Raiders, especially if Gino Smith can be what we saw in

2023, right, when he was healthy, really ripping the ball in the tight windows, being willing to take hits to try to push the ball downfield. If we get that version of him in a stable offense, and this offensive line is better than the ones that he had in Seattle. And I know that's kind of a low bar to clear because Seattle's was very young and inexperienced and was very flawed. I think that having a Colton Miller, DJ Glaze,

as tackles, is a better combination of what he had in Seattle. We know that when he trusts his protection, he's willing to take chances. To me, this really just comes down to whether or not one of these young guys breaks out at wide receiver or if they're able to acquire a guy that Gino can lean upon in those early down passing situations. Ruiz, what do you think?

Do you see them grouped together? you like one of those other teams or both those other teams significantly better than the Raiders shares just probably in terms of like chances to make the playoffs I would say yeah I think they are all the same group them all together and I think it depends on what kind of roster you like if you like a roster that is probably going to have a strong defense I think you go towards the Broncos if you're leaning towards the team of the elite quarterback you go towards the charters and if you want a team right with I think it there's a chance that it has the best coaching in the division outside of Kansas City.

Like we're looking back on the year and like, oh, that's a great coaching staff. And I think maybe you go with Las Vegas or maybe you just want to pick something new. But the offensive line is what scares me and the lack of talent in the secondary. Like their cornerback group looks horrendous on paper. Their secondary doesn't, like their secondary as a whole, the safety group doesn't look much better. But you would hope that that's where Pete Carroll comes in. Like he has the defensive background. Maybe he can coach them up.

Maybe he gets more out of them than what they have. on paper. I think they all are in the same group where it's like they could win only seven games, but maybe they overachieve and win 11 games. I don't know if the Raiders can get to 11, but I think they can get to like 10. There you go. All right. So my way too early prediction, I couldn't go so far as to say the Raiders are going to make

the playoffs. I will say they are playoff eligible going into week 18. So the week 18 starts and they have not been mathematically eliminated. Now maybe it's one of those where 400 things have to happen. Maybe they just need to win and they're in. But I think there's like, and this is good, this sounds like a backhanded compliment. It's not, I promise.

There's a path towards a mediocre defense and like a mediocre to maybe slightly above average offense. And guess what? You get a little lucky with those two things and you could win nine games. You could win 10 games. So Pete Carroll, 14 seasons with the Seahawks had a losing record three times. And even those three times, they won seven games. So he's coached 18 seasons.

in the NFL, and he's had fewer than seven wins once, and that was in his first season as a head coach with the Jets in 1994. So I'm not saying you throw a parade for seven wins. I get it. I'm just saying I think maybe the floor is a little bit higher than the gambling markets. Fanduel might suggest, and I do think there's a little bit of it. Like, I think the Raiders made the playoffs. I'm not going to be like, I am totally shocked.

This is the most, this is the craziest thing that's happened in the NFL. So that's where I left it with this. Ruiz, what's your way too early prediction for the Raiders? I'm going to say the Raiders end with the top five run game this year. I think Chip Kelly has like a cliff-like renaissance now that he's not a head toach in this league as an offensive coordinator. He gets to focus on all that stuff you mentioned earlier, all those shortcomings from his time with Philly in San Francisco. And I think he gets a lot out of this run game in Ashton Gentie. And like even Rahe Moster, I could see having like one of those seasons where if Genti like starts out slow where you're like, oh, damn, Moster has 10 touchdowns and 800 yards.

That's amazing. It makes a pro ball. Like, I could see that totally happen. I think they're, say what you want about Chip, but I think the run game was always decent. Yeah. Deontay, what do you got? Way too early prediction for the Raiders.

I think the Raiders steal the Steelers title is the most fraudulent nine-win team in the NFL. I think that they'll take that. Put some respect to the Steelers. They won 10 games. But again, you look at the schedule. They see the Patriots, the Bears, the Titans, the Colts, the Brown.

and the Giants this year, right? Like, they don't get the benefit of playing the Raiders the way that the Brock goes and the charges and chiefs do, so you can't necessarily stack up, you know, against weaker rosters. But you look at, you know, that cluster of six. They also see Jacksonville, who, you know, we don't know to not be incompetent yet under Liam Cohen. You've got Washington, who's a potential regression candidate as well.

You look at that and you look at the fact that they have Gino Smith and you expect some of their injury luck to regress back to the mean. Like you said, Sheel, they basically played all of last year, not having Christian Wilkins. They didn't have Malcolm Coons, who was supposed to be their number two, ad rusher, right? So I think that if that front four is back stable

and healthy and available again, it's entirely possible that for all the issues they have on the back end, they're mitigated in the regular season by that pass rush. And maybe Chip Kelly can find something in the run game to keep Gino Smith out of what Seattle ultimately landed upon,

which was down the last four or five weeks of the year, him having to be the first second and third answer on early downs to try to keep them efficient. if that's the case, I do think that they'll be able to beat up on the bad teams and they should be able to hang with enough playoff, you know, kind of fringe playoff contender teams that maybe they can't get over 500. I wouldn't be shocked if that happened. Yeah, I like the point about the pass rush.

I mean, Wilkins, Crosby, and then Coons two years ago had eight plus sacks injured last year. Like, there's something there, you know. Wilkins and Crosby. I was excited last year because those are two guys who just don't come off the field. So it's kind of like it negates if you have depth issues. it's like, all right, it don't have to be that great because these guys are playing whatever it is, 80% of the snap. So there's something there with this Raiders team. And yeah, it probably came through during the segment.

But this is as interested as I've been in the Raiders in a long, long time. I remember my first podcast at The Ringer, we're talking about Josh McDaniels. And I'm just like, no, I'm not in on any Josh McDaniels era with the Raiders. And now here we are a few years later. And if nothing else, at least they're interesting. And we do get to see like the melting of the Belichick scheme because Patrick Graham. is from that coaching tree. He's one of the few defensive coordinators from that tree

to actually have some success outside of New England and the Pete Carroll scheme, like the two fundamental schemes in NFL from last decade kind of coming together in 2025. It's going to be interesting to watch on both sides. It would be fun, yeah, just kind of, I don't know, hard knocks or something. Yeah, like, if I could sit inside some coaching meetings, I feel like they're probably high on that list too

with just the bearing backgrounds and how did this group come together and what's it going to look like this year for the Las Vegas Raiders. So there you go. Raiders fans, I feel like if you're a loyal listener to this show, that had to be the most positive segment, at least since I've been working at the Ringer, that we've done on the Las Vegas Raiders. So there you go.

We're all about to get blown up by Austin Gale. That's right. That's a little bit more than it by our guy Austin. That's right. Listen, well, we don't have to root for them to be good or win a Super Bowl. We root for team content. Interesting. And I think they passed that bar.

So there you go. The Las Vegas. Raiders. All right. That'll wrap it up for this edition of the Ringer NFL show. Thank you to Stephen Ruiz and Deonté Lee. Thank you to Christopher Sutton for producing and Kiera Givens on social. We will be back with another division next week. Again, if you've missed some of them, they are in the feed. If you want to check it, some of the divisions you miss, they're in there and we will continue to go through all the teams between now and training camp. Thanks for listening. I'm Shield Capadio. We'll talk to you next time on the Ringer NFL show.

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