The Ringer NFL Show - Division Winners and Super Bowl Picks

Episode Date: September 1, 2022

Danny Heifetz, Ben Solak, and Steven Ruiz make their picks for which teams will make the NFL playoffs. They go division by division, starting in the AFC (0:54) before moving to the NFC (25:20). They finish by making their Super Bowl picks (50:37). Hosts: Danny Heifetz, Ben Solak, and Steven Ruiz Associate Producer: Carlos Chiriboga Additional Production Supervision: Arjuna Ramgopal and Conor Nevins Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Call me sentimental, but to me, the most joyful moment in sports is the soccer goal. And when that goal happens at the World Cup, well, it's pretty good. I'm Brian Phillips. With the 22 men's World Cup approaching, I'm making a podcast called 22 goals on the Ringer Podcast Network. It's about 22 of the most fire emoji goals in the history of the tournament. We're going to have so much fun. For the Ringer NFL show, my name is Danny Hydefitz, and I am joined by Steve.

Rees and Ben Seleck. And today, we are going through the 2022 playoff field. Who's going to make the playoffs? Who's going to win the division? Who's going to win the Super Bowl? We're going to go division by division, starting at the AFC playoff teams, then we'll do the NFC playoffs because the NFC is worse. And then we'll do the Super Bowl. We're going to start the AFC West. Stephen, we got the Chiefs, the Chargers, the Broncos, the Raiders, and the AFC West. Chiefs have won this division six years in a row. Do you think the Chiefs are going to win the AFC West again? This was the toughest one for me. But I'm going to say no. I think the Chiefs have still have the best quarterback in the division.

They still have the best coach, but the Chargers have the best roster. And that's what I'm going with. I'm going with the best roster. Over the course of an 18 game season, I have more confidence in the Chargers playing their A game from September to December than I do for the Chiefs, because I think they are going to have to figure some things out without Tyree Kill. I understand

the thinking behind getting rid of him, but there's going to be an adjustment period. So, like, do you agree on Chargers winning the division and do you agree the charges have the best roster in the division? Yeah, I mean, like, I'm willing to take it a step further. If you just let me sit down, if you wipe my slate clean of knowing histories of teams and playoff curses and special teams foolishness, and I just look at rosters, it's tough

to pick anybody over the Chargers, man. The roster is just unbelievably good. Star talent at significant positions of value, quarterback, wide receiver, left tackle, pass rusher, corner. Like, if you were building it, this is how you'd build it, maybe. This is, they are a ludicrously good roster. It is for the fear of how many times we have all been burned by the Chargers as fans or as fantasy football drafters or analysts now, you know, over the course of many, many years,

it's just so hard to believe in them that it feels like picking the division is like, all right, a little bit out on the edge, but not as far out on the ledge as I'd like as I might take myself. I think the Chargers win the division. I think that the Chiefs won a lot of games last year that they had the ability to lose because at times the offense was bad and the defense was kind of saving their bacon and the defense was bad and the offense was saving their bacon

and they were winning some close games. They also lost some close games but I think that just like dominant pole-to-pole chiefs is not something I expect to see. Whereas with the Chargers, I can see the offense and the defense both peaking this season. I like the Chargers more than like the Chiefs this year.

if that means I'm like, you know, doubting Mahomes and Andy Reid and I'm an idiot, then I'm an idiot. But that's the job is prognostication. That's just what it looks like. I don't know. I guess at some point this just becomes a conversation as well about like Patrick Mahomes and Justin Herbert. Bill's been picking the Chiefs to win the Super Bowl and everything because he keeps saying Mahomes with an offensive line in five seconds is the most dangerous thing in football. But Stephen, you wrote an awesome story for the ringer today about the charges and how good of a process who Justin Herbert is.

Like, let's be real. Like, is there, if we're talking about this, at some point, it's going to be a question of Herbert versus Mahomes. I know that's reductive, but also it's fun. Do you think that by the end of this season we're going to be talking about Justin Herbert,

MVP, but also just Justin Herbert, maybe even being better than Mahomes? I think there's going to be a conversation. I was willing to have that conversation. I'm about to say, Steven's been on that conversation. I've been willing to have that conversation

since like week one last year, but I would personally take Mahomes right now just because I think he, he's more of like an artist at the position. I think he can like go off script better than Justin Herbert. Justin Herbert is just amazing at sticking to the script and finding the answers in the script.

But I do think sometimes as a quarterback you need to go and make a play. And for me, I think that's the one thing that's separating Justin Herbert from Mahomes and even Aaron Rogers at this point. So I think there will be a discussion because I wouldn't be surprised if Herbert

lives a little more this season. Like he doesn't throw that check down as quickly as he did last year. And maybe he tries to take off with his legs a little more often. but it's so hard for me to say that he's definitely going to be better than Mahomes at the end of the season just because I think Mahomes has so much more room to grow as a passer himself. Yeah, that was a big part of how they got better in the passing game in the back half of last year was convincing Herbert that like, hey, so you're looking at your first read and you feel like he's not open,

so you're on to your second read. And that's great, that's amazing. You're so good at processing. You're the best. However, if your first read is Keenan Allen, you can feel free to like take a beat and just be like, I wonder if Keenan Allen's going to get open here because he probably is. And he's better at catching it than like Donald. Jared Park.

Steve and I both go straight for the tight ends. But like that's what it is. It's like Herbert's got a little bit of like, I know how it's supposed to be like perfect according to the textbook. Like think like jazz musician. Eventually you got to just let go of it and just play it and make the mistakes

and just kind of like let it be. In this case, it's like, right. Keenan's the guy. You have to be willing to like, disrupt your process a little bit to let Keenan take that extra half a second to beat a corner on third and seven,

get him the ball and we get a new set of down instead of being like, it's time for the checkdown, you know? So there's a learning process there. Malmes is just more, is it more experience than Herbert too. He's endured more ups and downs. We've seen him respond to more things.

Like the whole like too high thing, sure, but like he was figuring out answers for that last year. Like, Moehm's is just like, we have a longer proof of concept. So it just feels safer to be like, yeah, Mahom's now. But don't say we didn't warn you when

this is a real conversation. The moral of the story, cheese versus Chargers, which we're supposed to actually be talking about, is, yeah, like, Mahomes and Herber are both going to deliver you seasons, even if they're not at their best, where you can easily win the division. They're both incredible.

To me, when I go to parse that conversation at the final moment, I look at a Chargers defense that was 26th and DVOA last year, and they added, Khalil Mack, Sebastian Joseph Day, Kyle Van Nuoy, J.C. Jackson,

Then you look at a Chiefs defense that was 24th last year in DVOA, and they added Trent McDuffie and George Carlis. And Justin Reed for Tyrant Matthew, which I think like with where Tyrant was at in his career, like the effort was a bit of a question last year. I still think that's like a bump. Like I think Justin Reed is beneficial. But it's not a bump compared to 2020,

2019 Tyrant Matthew. Yeah, but compared to 2021. Yeah. Right. But then it's just like they like they got their first round rookies. And like I think Carl Loftus is going to be good, a little bit shaking McDuffey. but it's just so clear to me which defense is ready to take a big step into a top ranking,

whereas the Chiefs defense, I think, is still going to be this feaster famine unit. And that rounds out the argument for me in terms of charges over Chiefs. I think it's clear that none of us are even considering the Broncos and the Raiders. And it comes back to the quarterback conversation. Like, that's the difference between those teams and these other teams that are loaded. I mean, they're obvious, like, weak spots on both rosters. But, like, there's a gap between the top two quarterbacks and the, bottom two quarterbacks. And the bottom two quarterbacks are really freaking good.

But man, it's just the other two guys are playing a different sport. So you guys don't think Russ is in the conversation with not even Mahomes, but not even the conversation with Herbert. Russ is closer to Derek Carr than he is to Justin Herbert. I don't think Russ is closer to Carr than he is to Herbert. But I don't think he's in that conversation. I'm very persnickety about this. Elite means, that's a 10 cent word. Yeah. Elite means elite. When people are like, oh, there's five elite quarterbacks. No, there's not. That's not what elite means. If elite means, top 10%, which even then is I think is a charitable reading of elite.

That means there's three elite quarterbacks of the 32 starting quarterbacks in the NFL, right? It's 10%. So like the elite quarterbacks are like, Mahomes, Herbert, Josh Allen, and like that even leaves Aaron Rogers out. I know it sucks, but that's the sort of conversation. So Tom Brady did come back from the training camp vacation. He's not in the Bahamas somewhere. It makes it tough. Like that's the sort of of, that's how the word elite has kind of gotten this large,

you know, this wider scope. Russ is not elite quarterback anymore. There was a time at which he was. Russ is now on the wrong side of 30. Look at the way he scrambles. Look at the getting out of sack percentages. Look at the scrambles to first down percentage. It's not as good.

Like, athletically, he's falling a little bit, and his play style relies on that a lot. So while Russ's deep ball is still one of the best deep balls in the league, Russ's ability to create is still one of the top ones in the league, it's not what it used to be, where it was Russ and then everybody else in terms of avoiding sacks and escaping pressures and creating down the field. It's not the same. So Russ is still a very good quarterback.

There's no doubt in my mind that Russell Wilson is playing well enough that he could sustain a Super Bowl season if everything around him were great. You look at Denver and you go, okay, like, maybe if the offensive line really takes that step, that step to be a solid five-across unit, maybe if Cortland Sun is all the way back from injury, maybe if first-year defensive coordinator,

Jiro Evereaux, has that entire unit firing on all cylinders, maybe if Nate Hackett actually has, like, offensive guru ability to him, but it's a lot of maybes, right? So to me, like, Russ is really good. the supporting cast is solid. I think the Broncos are a clear playoff team. And they're going to, you know,

play the Chiefs into the fourth quarter when they're playing. They're going to play them. They're going to be a bad team. But I think once we start splitting hairs in this AFC West, they're a tier below. Okay, so the Chargers, you guys both have winning the division. I agree with that. Wild cards,

giving the Chiefs a wild card, right? Pencil them in. Broncos, we can come back to them at the end. AFC North. Is it a two-man? Is this a two-team race between the Bengals or the Ravens? Is it a three-team between Bengals-Ravans-Browns? Four-team? Are you throwing the Steelers in?

I'm curious what you think of that so-like? Two-team race to me. I think Mike Tomlin's going to go eight and one somehow, because that's the laws of nature, but I don't really rate the Steelers as a play-off team. Important to note that I have not rated the Steelers as a play-off team in each the last two seasons. The Steelers have been a play-off team

each of the last two seasons. I will never learn, all right? Mike Tomlin's an extremely good coach, but there has to be a water's edge somewhere. So I don't think the steals are in it. And I think that the Browns, if they had eight games of Deshawn Watson, 10, 12, the Deshawn that we've seen recently is not good.

And also we haven't seen a lot of Deshawn recently. I have very little reason to trust the Browns right now. So to me, two-team race, Ravens and the Bengals. Last year, the Ravens were still hanging around with the Bengals late into the playoff picture, right? They were in the hunt for the division win. And they had nobody. And the injuries were unbelievable.

And they were like, you know, fighting the Packers, you know, down a two-point conversion to win the game against Aaron Rogers, the MVP. It's an unbelievably well-coached team that knows how to get to its spots, right? It has a culture. It has a system. They know how to draft and develop for that system. Those systems are changing a little bit, which makes them a really, really interesting team. On defense, they've been Blitz, Blitz, Blitz, Blitz, with Don and Mike Martindale.

He's gone, their old D.C. And they were playing with Mike McDonald, who's a little bit more of like, I will blitz, and I'll look like I'm blitz. a lot, but they're going to actually drop some more guys into coverage, which I think will be helpful because last year, Marlon Humphrey, not the best season, corner injury got attacked, and they couldn't really address that. They just had to keep playing man because all they knew how to do. Offensively, you've seen them give up on the deep ball a little bit, Marquis Brown, no longer there, and they look to be a little bit lighter and a little bit faster on the offensive line,

namely with Tyler Lindervalm at center. It looks like they might get under center a little bit more if we're to take training camp reps seriously and practice reps, might run some under center play action, throw over the middle of the field. They're a little bit changing the way they want to work on offense. I think, Both of these things are good news. I think they are addressing the issues that have popped up for them schematically over the last couple of years.

So I like the Ravens to win the division. I'd like to see what all of the injured people look like before I get to make that claim. I'd love to see Ronnie Stanley and J.K. Dobbins and Lamar Jackson and then Marlon Humphrey all in the field. But I don't get to. I got to do this preseason.

And that's the tricky thing about it. I'd like the Ravens to win the division. Still think the Bengals are going to be good. But Baltimore's arrow to me is pointing up in terms of getting out. healthy in terms of change the way they approach things. I like the Ravens a lot. Stephen, you nodded at the two-team race. So you're Bengals Ravens. We're noted Bengals haters.

Do you have the Ravens winning this division too? Yeah, I have the Ravens winning. I think Rashad Bateman is like the key to everything, actually. I would say Rashad Bateman on the offensive side and Marcus Peters on the defensive side. They do need a second quarter. They didn't have that last year. Rashad Bateman and I went to their training camp, he was getting open every play. He was literally open every play.

It didn't matter how they were covering them. Like they were playing outside leverage. He had an outbreaking route. He got open anyway. He found a way. And they haven't had a receiver like that ever. In the history of the Ravens organization, they've never had a receiver. You can isolate on one side of the field and force the defense to adjust.

And Greg Roman talked about that. I asked them at a press conference and he was like, yeah, like having that ISO guy like changes how I can call plays. Like I can call different types of plays when I have that guy. And that's kind of been like a consistent theme throughout the offseason. Roman has talked about Lamar being a better passer, more like his mechanics. are better. He's throwing the ball as well as he has jacked during his career. He's jacked. And he said, that is going to change the way I can call passing plates. And then when I talked to Rashad Babin, he was like, our passing game is going to be totally different. It's going to be a different

passing game. So if that happens, and this all works out, and Rashad Babin is this number one receiver, this true number one receiver, this Ravens' offense is going to look different than what we've seen in the past, maybe even different from what we saw in 2019 when Lamar won MVP, they scored the most points in the league. Something that deserves extremely heavy. Like, I will say this, every opportunity I have to say this for the rest of time. I've been charting NFL draft quarterback since 2018,

which was the year Lamar came out. Lamar is one of the best passers between the numbers that I've ever charted. No, like, when Lamar's on play action, running running, no, no, no, no qualifier. No, like, because of this. This is very accurate, extremely good between the numbers, passer.

A large part of that is because, like, linebackers are terrified of what he can do to them, but he throws the ball really well in that area. The Ravens have not emphasized that area. They wanted to be a deep passing team. They wanted to, because not to get too scheming here, but teams were playing too high against the Ravens before they were playing too high against anybody else

because they wanted both those safeties in the fit. They wanted both them to come down against the run. So you can't play single high because that guy's never coming down against the run. So two deep safeties, but those deep safeties are like nine yards back and they were max fitting. They're fitting downhill. So all right, we're just got thrown over the top of everybody.

Turns out that sucks. It's really hard to do, especially when your number one deep threat is Markey's Brown, who's my size and can't track a football. So they're going to change the way they do things a little bit and try to attack that intermediate middle of the field.

And that Lamar's such a good thrower there. And I think that a lot of this improvement that you'll see will be him getting better, him learning stuff at the NFL level, sure, but also that's his best area of the field. I think the Ravens are finally going to start hammering that. I'm writing about this, and I'm like wasting all my good stuff,

but just the back of Solaxe point, like their last in like every metric that measures volume on, passes outside the number. They don't attempt them. They don't run the routes. They don't have get any production from. And it's just been a part of the offense. It's just been in this little box in between the numbers. And getting a receiver like Babin will allow them to spread things out and give Lamar more space, which is going to be good because he's the greatest space player I've ever seen in the NFL. Now, I'm confused. So like, you're saying you charted Lamar inside the

numbers and he's really good. And Stephen, you're saying he's great outside the numbers. I thought the whole. No, no, no, no. I'm saying the Ravens don't do anything outside the numbers because they don't have the players. They don't have the receivers to do that. They didn't even try to throw outside the numbers. When Lamar threw outside the numbers last year, he was really good at it. And then he got hurt. And so we don't know what that's going to look like this year. Okay. So we got the Ravens to win the AFC North. Are we given the Bengals a wildcard spot? I gave him my second one. Bengals are going to be good this year. They have a good team with good players. The Bengals were good last year. They were a good team with good players. They did not

project as a team to make a Super Bowl run. And they did. They won three very close games over the course to the AFC playoffs and then sadly lost a very close game in the Super Bowl. It is not that the Bengals are bad. It is not that I think the Bengals are bad. It is that regression is a good bet in terms of prognostication. We expect things that are outliers to not remain outliers over long periods of time. We expect them to regress to the mean. So the Bengals would be about as good as they were last year.

They're going to get some unluckier coin flips on deep passes and on turnovers and on late games. And they're probably going to win roughly the same number of games, but not be able to make as long of a playoff run. And that's just the nature of football, man. That's the nature of single elimination win and you go forward playoff games. We don't play series of seven. That's why you get runs like these, why you get runs like hyphids as Eli Manning Giants and everything like that.

I was literally about to say exactly. Like the Giants' beating the 16-10 Patriots, like Giants fans shouldn't be insulted the next season when people are not picking them to make it back to the Super Bowl. Bangles is going to be good. But they're probably not going to be winning. the games that they were winning in January this year, that they went last year.

Okay, so we got charges to win the AFC West, Chiefs get a wild card, Ravens win the AFC North, Bengals get a wild card, AFC East, this is a much shorter conversation. It's the Bills, right? We all picked the Bills. The New York Football Jets, baby?

Yeah, Bill's going to win the division. It's not going to be close. Let's go, we'll do that. Let's go the AFC South, we'll talk wildcards. AFC South, do we all have the Colts over the Titans? I have the Colts.

I don't have the Titans coming in second, and I really wanted to do. pick the Jags. I know I'm just like drinking the Doug Kool-Aid, the Trevor Lawrence Kool-Aid. But yeah, Jack's second place. Why not? They have the best quarterback in the division.

I think he will be the best quarterback by the end of the year. I think Matt Ryan's the best quarterback right now. I also have the Colts winning the division. I think that like the Titans and the Jags will be like record-wise, roughly the same. Obviously, if the Jaguars and the Titans are roughly the same record-wise, that's a bad season for the Titans and an awesome season for the Jaguars in terms of like momentum.

Again, like in terms of don't be surprised, we try to warn you, Herbert Malm's conversation. Do not be surprised if it's week 15 and we're talking Jaguar's playoff picture, right? Like, not that they're like in it, but like we're in December and the Jaguars still have a shot to get into the playoffs.

That would not surprise me one bit. So here's what's incredible to me about the AFC is we have one wild card spot left if we're giving the Colts to the AFC South and the Bills the AFC East. We now have to give one wild card spot. You've got the Broncos who added Russell Wilson, the Raiders who made the playoffs last year,

year. You've got the dolphins who added Tyree Kill and all, I mean, like a hundred plus million dollars guaranteed a bunch of players. The Patriots, the Jets, Titans who made the playoffs the number one seen in the AFC last year, the fake one, but still the Jaguars. Who are you guys giving this last spot in the AFC Wildcar too? Stephen's smile. You got a shit eating grin, Steven. Who are you giving it to the dolphins, man? I was surprised. I gave it to the dolphins. I gave it to a, to a playoff quarterback. Yeah. I didn't expect it out of myself. But when I went through. I just think they have an easier path. I think the Broncos are going to be better, a better team. The dolphins have an easier path than easier schedule. So, like, do you agree?

I mean, is that basically what we're saying, do you agree with what Stephen just said, where dolphins are also, I say dolphins weird, so I apologize to everybody, but my New York comes out, but do you agree, Broncos are just a better team, but they're playing the FC West, so it sucks to suck? We need, like, one of those, like, FBI messages that played before DVDs in the 2000s, but it's for hyphen said dolphins on this episode, like a content warning, right? Like on this episode, we unfortunately had to talk about the AFSEs,

which means hyphins dolphin 85 times. I think it's more likely the dolphins win five games and the dolphins make the playoffs. I don't think the dolphins are going to be very good. I think we are expecting Mike McDaniel to be able to get this offense working really fast. And I think that that belief is optimistic relative to the way that we've seen, like, other Shanahanites spread off and go and be in charge

of an offense. I'm thinking, like, Rich Gangarello and Mike LaFloor. And, like, yes, you have good stories. You have, like, your Matt LaFleuars of the world. You have your, like, you know, Kevin Stefanski's out the Kubiak trees where guys, like, came up in it, brought it somewhere else and immediately figured out how to get it working. But it's not 100% propositions.

That's the number one thing. Number two. I think culture-wise, this gets really weird, really quick. The dolphins, I agree, like, largely have an easy. schedule. However, the beginning of their schedule totally sucks. I think the dolphins might start 0 and 3. And with the way that Tyreekill has generally behaved since he got to Miami, I think that we suddenly start to get comments and conversations. I don't think that's unreasonable. And that brings me to point like to B, which is I think Brian Flores did a lot,

a lot in terms of keeping the general culture of this building okay while he was there. If there's anything we've learned from like Legion of Boom. We've learned a lot of things from that era Seahawks. But another thing is like your team can hate your quarterback. But if you can like kind of keep it quiet for a little bit, you can kind of keep this thing together with duct tape, but that's really good coaching. And I'm not sure that Mike McDaniel has that.

He might, but I have no reason to believe that he does. I haven't seen it yet. It's his first time as a head coach. It's a really tough thing to do. I think that things in Miami could get really testy, really quick. And then you're all of a sudden dealing with

quarterback drama, a lot of visibility on like easy mistakes, tons of questions and like constant, you know, kind of autopsies and litigation of how the offense works. I also think this offensive line is still really bad. Like it's obviously super fun to sign Toronto Armset and that's very helpful. But when the rest of the line is Liam Eichenberg at guard, Connor Williams at center, Robert Hunt at Guard and still Austin Jackson at tackle, we're probably still doing this again. That to me is extremely worrisome. I think I don't believe in the Dolphins. My pick for the wild card team is the bank, is the Broncos, which might be like chalky,

but I think, like I seen said, they're a good team, they're better. I think they're going to be too good to not, like, win 11 games and hang around. I think that they're able to, like, split with the Chiefs or split with the Chargers. I think they clearly get one, if not two over the Raiders.

I think they're just too talented to not be able to hang in the wild card picture. How do you say all that about Mike McDaniel, but then you pick a Nathaniel Hackett team to make the playoffs and overcome all that? Okay, because the problem is... We're talking about offenses, getting off to a rocky star.

I mean, that's Russ every September and October. Russ has been doing this for a decade. Nobody likes or believes in Tua. Like, that's a huge, they're starting from extremely different places. You can have to say nobody likes them. They are, they are, the Broncos are much more veteran. The Broncos are much more, we know what we're about. We have a veteran leader.

Like, yeah, Russ could be bad for the first five weeks of the season. He's still going to be like doing the Rust thing and people are still going to be believing in Russ. to it does not have nearly as long of a leash as Russ does in that regard. No, but he doesn't have Nathaniel Hackett as coach. And he has, my thing with McDaniel is, I don't know if he's going to be a great head coach.

I think he is going to be a decent offensive coordinator. When you have Jalen Waddle and Tyree Kill, I don't know how you don't get a good offense out of that. That just puts so much stress on a defense and you could just do so much because of that, that I think he's going to be on easy mode compared to Nathaniel Hackett, who's going to be figuring out

how to run from the gun all year because he can't call under center plays. I hear you in the sense of like, you have an offense with Tyree Kill and Jayland Bottles is really difficult for it to be bad. Number one, there was a large stretch of the year last season where an offense had Tyreek Hill, Travis Kelsey, and Patrick Mahomes and was bad.

Like, that was a period of time that existed. Number one. That's a good point. Relatively speaking, relatively speaking. No, it was. No, it was not relative. They were just bad. Number two. For like three games.

They were still like, it was like in terms of getting first. down, they were like the greatest offense ever for the first month and a half. They just were getting bad luck in the turnout in the Redsdown. Advanced stats are for nerds. Number two, let's play this game. If I told you, like I came from the future, Stephen, three months into the future, and I told you the Dolphins offense was bad.

I told you an offense with Tyree Kill and Jay and Waddle was bad. And I asked you to figure out how it happened. You would not struggle because. No, the quarterback throws with his left hand and he's right-handed. No, yeah. It's easy. The quarterback is bad. It comes out.

And the offensive line, right? Like, I would agree with you if I had any proof of concept for any of the other nine players on the starting roster on offense. But I don't. So it's like, all right, it's hard to imagine. But it's also not because everybody else might be mad. Toronto Arm said eight players. Other eight players.

I don't have proof of concept. So we've got, we agree on every other playoff thing in the AFC, which is pretty good. Chargers win the west. Ravens win the north. Bill's win the east. Colts win the south. Chiefs grab the wild card first. Bengals grab it second.

Steven's got the Dolphins with the last one. He'll change his mind before the end of the end of the episode of better. So it's got the Broncos at the last one. That's good. NFC West.

Assume no one's picking the Cardinals or the Seahawks here to win this division. So is it, it's basically the Rams comeback squad versus the 49ers of Lance.

I mean, does anyone here have the confidence to take Trey Lance and the Niners and now Jimmy G. Over the Rams? First of all, you're sleeping on

Geno Smith and I won't stand for the disrespect. But no, I didn't pick the Seahawks. I'm picking the 49ers. I have the confidence. Me too. Because I have no confidence

And the vibes with the Rams are just way too off for me. I'm sorry. Dude. There's too much. What? Okay. Let me just stop here. Let me get this straight.

Just talk facts. The 49ers have had Jimmy Garapolo practicing on a side field for the entire training camp, not meetings, doesn't know his quarterback's coach, hasn't had a playbook, and is now just back. What does Jimmy need a playbook for? They're going to the same eight plays. They've always wanted to. What does he need a playbook?

He doesn't have a playbook. He's been there for the last four years. The playbook didn't change. that much. You're telling me that this is not the team with the bad vibes. It's the Super Bowl champions are the ones at the bad vibes. Matt Stafford's got... Matt's Tommy John surgery.

Because his elbow doesn't work. He doesn't even get to throw. So that's what this... Here's the thing. This is the shadow hanging over the... Okay, let's stay for a moment because if we don't know entirely about it, Stafford's Elbow. If Stafford's Elbow were 100% fine, would you be picking the Rams to win the division? Yes.

Probably, but I would think about it more than you seem to think that we should be about it because there are other areas of concern on the like I'm not convinced that Alan Robinson is going to play the Odell Beckham role or like he's going to be able to fill that void or the Robert Woods void. I'm worried about that. The offensive line is still question mark. Yes. Defense loses depth again for like the fourth straight year. Like eventually like Aaron Donald and in Jalen Ramsey aren't going to be able to hold this up for that long. Like I think the defense is going to fall back a little bit and I think the offense might fall back a little bit. So I don't know.

I think the 49ers are going to be fine. I think Trey Lance will be fine. The best thing that happened for the Rams in terms of like kind of prognosticating out their season after the Super Bowl is how very clear setup for regression the Bengals are because you don't notice how very clearly set up for regression the Los Angeles Rams are. It's like less, but it's absolutely there. Defensively, like metrics wise, they looked pretty good.

performance against playoff caliber teams when they were entering the playoffs was like abysmal. Are they going to be able to stop anybody, let alone do it for four weeks in a row? Lo and Bold did it for four weeks in a row. It's pretty sick. And I think Rahe Morris is a good coordinator, but I agree in the sense that

this Stars and Scrubs construction for defense continues to feel like it has holes in it that are just growing over time. And while Donald and Ramsey remain legitimately the two best players on defense in the entire league, there is only so much, it's Captain America with the helicopter in the Winter Soldier movie, right? It's like, yeah, he's holding it, but it's very clear this helicopter is going to get away from him at some point. This is going to get away from Aaron Donald and Jaylon and Ramsey at some point.

So there's a continued ban on regression there. And then Matthew Stafford was awesome last year. He was awesome. It was so cool. It was so, so, so much fun to see Matthew Stafford playing an offense that we all knew and believed that he could play in a style that he could do and it would work. However, we have a decade worth of data on Matthew. Stafford. And he's a pretty mercurial quarterback. And that was the best season that we've gotten from him. And as far as I know like, Hyphids, you were the king of like landing spot as what matters for quarterbacks.

As much as I would like to be all the way on that island with you, I know too much about Matthew Stafford and like the dumb interception. He tried to throw to Jakee Tart to lose the game against the Niners in the NFC championship game to say that like, all right, he's going to be able to avoid the crippling sack. He's going to be able to avoid the crippling interception. Then you throw in the fact that like, now we know that just him finishing 18 games last year was like a miracle and it becomes hard to trust the Rams. It's also hard to trust the Niners. It's just more fun.

Traylands has thrown a hundred, like a hundred passes in a football game in the last like 700 days. Yeah. It's hard to trust the Niners. But when I go to figure out what I can, you know, count on, right? What I can really rely on sun up, sundown.

I rely on Shanahan beating McVeigh. And that like that is what he is. historically been able to do is that when it comes to building out this offense, figuring out how to do the little adjustments. You always can trust Shanahan over McVeigh. We've seen that over five years. And then defensively, I trust D'emico Ryan's more than Raheem Morris. So it becomes really, really tempting to pay the 49ers win this division.

And it's not like Shanahan had to use Jimmy G to beat McVeigh. Like he used his run game. And now that run game is going to be just, I think Tray Lane's going to be a force multiply. They're going to be able to do so much that I don't think the Rams are going to be able to win those two matchups. And I think it's just a bad matchup for them anyway because like the 49ers defensive line just bullied their offensive line where they couldn't really do anything. And I think it's easy to forget that that team that we saw in the playoffs, that Rams team, did it look like that team that we saw over the second half of the season? And Odell Beckham

and Von Miller were so key to that run. Like they don't win the Super Bowl with without either. They needed both of those guys to win Super Bowl. To get to the game, they needed both of those. guys, let alone the win. And now they're both gone. And now they're both gone. And I think those guys are going to be very, very hard to replace. The way we talk about Trey right now is exactly how we talked about Jalen Hertz at this time last year, minus the whole like, you know, 100 passes in 700 days. Like obviously that, the lack of experience really, really matters. Hertz was a multiple two-year starter. I absolutely give you that. I'm stunned to hear you say that because I think of Jalen Hertz is like made the college football play out four years in a row. And I feel like Trey Lance played in

the FCS. No, the difference in experience is massive. And if Lance falters, it will be because he has bad games and he doesn't know how to handle that bounce back from that adversity, yada yada, which is like what Hertz is so good at. So I absolutely allow for that difference in terms of personality, disposition, experience, leadership, locker room, off field, yet yada, whatever. On field at this time last year, 365 days ago, it was like, Hart is very inconsistent as a passer. He can open up the thing for you in the running game. The Eagles just have to decide to be that on offense. And it took the Eagles eight weeks to figure it out. they were able to make some shifts midseason.

They were able to change himself at the buy. They had a good running game coordinator, offensive line coach, and Jeff Stoutland. They figured this out, and they were able to make the playoffs. And now everybody's like, yo, Eagle Super Bowl, Jaila Hertz MVP, whoa, what we wa.

We don't even have to worry about the first eight weeks. We don't have to worry about the can they figure out the running game. This is Kyle Shanahan. This is the dude you would go get to figure out a running quarterback. This is RG3 and 2012 nonsense. We already know they're going to have it from week one in terms of the running game.

it's just can you get through the wrinkles, get through the bumps, can you get through the ups and downs with a very inexperienced young quarterback? I felt really good about that when I picked the Niners to win the division a couple days ago. They then signed Jimmy G. back, extended, restructured.

I don't know what the verb is. That has me a little concerned. I don't love that in terms of just having the guy who played in last year's NFC championship game lurking on the bench behind the very inexperienced rookie. That feels toxic. Can we agree?

Rams are a wildcard team? That's not a conversation, right? No, I have them as my second wildcard team. So, like, you have the Rams as a wildcard team? I do have the Rams as a wildcard team. The Rams are very much a how many games is Matthew Stafford play team for me right now. But majority, wildcard. All right.

Well, hopefully his elbow is not falling off his body. Okay, NFC North. Packers, 13 wins each the last three seasons. Do you guys have the Packers winning? I mean, what are you over the Bears? That'll be a good bit. But like, Packers, Vikings, Lions, Solic, I'm curious. Packers are over everybody.

To me, this one's about as neat as like the AFC East and the NFC South and we'll get there. Like, is no Devonta going to make the team worse? Yes. Have the Vikings ever remotely held a candle to the Packers? The Bears, Lions, no. I will believe something is changing exactly at the moment at which I see it and not a second beforehand.

Like, Lions hype is cute. I think they'll be better. I don't think there'll be a playoff team. Vikings hype is as quaint as always. This is Kirk we're talking about. It's just not worth the time. And then Bears hype doesn't exist. It's the Packers.

Yeah. I'm not buying into the hype for the Lions or the Vikings. I do feel like every August I like start to talk myself into the Vikings and I'm like, Kurt's not that bad. And they got some pieces around it. They got some names. You and Shield can go to your own little Vikings podcast together from people who don't learn from their past mistakes.

Right. But I'm not going to do it this year. The Packers. The best team. They have the best quarterback. They have the best quarterback in the NFL. They have a very good coach. They have maybe the best events in the NFL.

Like, don't overthink this. The Vikings are the Vikings. The lions are the lions. The Bears are the Bears. The Packers are going to win. Speaking of not overthinking, so NFC South, the Buccaneers have Tom Brady. On the other hand, I just keep thinking. But he didn't want to play and he retired because he didn't want to play for them.

And then he came back and then he left. So it's like, I can't tell if I'm overthinking the Buccaneers to win the division or underthinking. I actually kind of think the Saints are going to win. So you have like hated the Saints all off season. And I'm curious, I feel like the Saints win this division. And I'm curious to you have the Saints of the Bucks here. You think the Saints win this division? I do.

I don't. Oh my God. The face of the looks that I just got from both of you. No one's ready for that. I think if Brady retired today, I think the, okay, let's play this game. Brady retires today. Who do the Bucks go trade for?

Jimmy, Tyrod? Who are they going to go get? Let's say, yeah, Jimmy. Brady left goes to the Bahamas, the Jazeel, and they get Jim. Jimmy, which I don't even think they'd go for Jimmy because Jimmy does not fit the style of offense at all. But let's say it's Jimmy.

I think the Jimmy led Bucks witness division over the Saints. Like Brady's incredible, but holy, like, okay, the interior offensive line injuries are a reason for concern. The Buccaneers were my NFC Super Bowl pick. I honestly am still really waffling on my NFC Super Bowl pick, but like the interior issues aside, we have Mike Edwins, Chris Godwin, Russell Gage, Leonard Fournett on offense.

Defensively, we have, let's just read the whole defensive depth chart. Akeem Hicks, Vita Vaya, Willie Golston, Joe Tryon, Cheyanka, Devin White, Levante, David, Shaq Barrett, Sean Murphy Bunting, Jamel Dean, Carlton Davis, Antoine Winfield, Jr. Mike Edwards. Tom Bulls is still there.

Like this is, Bucks were in the division. Bucks are winning the division. Tom Brady, Jimmy Garoppelow, Bumer Osias and out of retirement. Sam Donald wins the division with him. Bucks roster, like two years ago, after the Bucs won the Super Bowl, every offseason pod, I was going back and listening to them.

It's always fun to listen to old offseason pods, was like the only way the Bucs was the Super Bowl is if they have injury issues. And then they lost the division around to the Rams. on a game that they should have won, yeah, they ought or whatever. The roster, going through it two years ago, going through it now, it's exactly the same.

It's the same roster. It is an unbelievably talented, loaded depth chart, Bucks win the division. I do have the Saints as a wildcard team, though. So I'm with you there. I think they're a playoff team. But yeah, the Bucks, just too much talent. And there are too many question marks around the Saints.

Like, the Saints are the only team that I think can challenge them. And then now you're replacing Champagne. That has to matter. He's one of the greatest coaches ever. That has to. matter. Yes. This is my thing that I always go back to, which is like the Saints were every year a contender when they had Breeze and Peyton. And then they lost Breeze and we're like, oh, they're probably still a contender because they still have Peyton. And then they lost Peyton.

We're like, oh, they're probably still a contender because you guys are all getting Mickey Loomist. Just because Mickey is acting like this team is a contender doesn't mean we also have to still think this team is a contender. This is Michael Thomas off of injury. This is a banged up offensive line, which all their first round picks, Trevor Penning is not going to play. Eric McCoy, Andrews, Andrews, these are not as good of players as like Ryan Ramchuk was in Toronto Arms Day when they brought them into the building. Defensively,

losing Malcolm Jenkins, Chaunty Gardner Johnson, and Marcus Williams from Marcus May and Tyron Matthew is a absolute net loss. Like that is a thing that matters. They lost Trey Hendrickton and they're replacing him with Marcus, Davenport, Carl Granderson. That is a thing that matters.

They are losing on the margins. And this whole team construction was about winning on the margins. And we are, every year we get further away from that 2017 draft. the Saints continue to just drop down a peg, drop down a peg, drop down a peg. And Mickey Loomis won't accept that, but I will. I think the biggest red flag is how, like,

openly it seems that Sean Payton is, like, flirting with teams about coming back. Yeah. Like, it's very clear that he's not like, I'm retired. It's like, I'm tired of this shit. You know, who also thinks the Saints are done? Sean Payton. That's fair.

It's the same way that Brady, like, tried to quit on the buck. Sean Payton literally did quit on the Saints. It didn't change his mind. Is it, like, is it forgetting Sarah Marshall, where like Paul Rudd is like, when life gives you lemons, just say fuck the lemons and bail.

That's what Sean Payton did. It's a cunoo. When Mickey Loomis gives you this roster, you say F this roster and you bail. You go to the Cowboys in a year. Stephen, you have the Saints as a Wildcard. So like,

do you have the Saints as a Wildcard? Are you just out, out? No, I'm out. Okay. NFC East. I feel like with the NFC East, it's, you don't have to be faster

than the Bayer is faster than your slowest friends. I assume we agree that the Giants in Washington are the slowest friends. Cowboys won it last year. Capos are getting worse. Eagles are getting better. I mean, Solek, you're the Go Birds guy.

Do you have the Eagles winning the division? Go Birds, baby. I, up until recently have been Eagles realists, where I've been guys, like, Jalen Hertz is a limited passer. We don't really know anything about Jonathan Gannon just yet. Let's chill out. There's not this good of a team.

Like, we don't want to, hyped up Eagles teams tend to be really bad Eagles teams. I've been burned too many times. And then they traded for Chauncy Gardner Johnson. Legitimately one of my favorite players in the league. And I was like, I'm all the way in. Here we go, baby. Eagles to the Super Bowl.

When you look at NFC Super Bowl contenders, right? Like, let's call it what. Buccaneers Packers for sure. I would say, like, Rams deserve to be up there again just because they were there last season. I have the Niners right winning there as well. And then, like, okay, let's throw the Eagles in there. Like, let's do that.

Let's pretend. All of a sudden, and now, like, you do that. And then you look at just the quarterbacks and you realize you're talking about Aaron Rogers, Tom Brady, Matthew Stafford, Shailen Hertz, Trey Lance. And it just becomes, it's clear what category of quarterback Hertz is relative to those other guys.

Like if the Rams win the division as, as hyphins expects, then the division winning quarterbacks are Brady, Rogers, Stafford, and Hertz. It's just like he's so clearly a couple of tiers below those guys. It becomes hard to believe in the Eagles in January, but through December. Yeah, I'm there with them as the division winner. I think people do underrate Jalen Hertz a little bit. I think he's a useful player. He's not the quarterback that you want to have as your franchise quarterback.

Like, if I was an Eagles fan, I would want more. but just like looking at his performance this season, I think it's going to be good enough to beat the Cowboys because I think you can build the run game around him. You can install certain past concepts that you know he's going to be able to execute. And I think he gets better every year as a passer. I think they're going to be able to expand their offense

a little bit just enough to make it better than it was last year when they finished 10th in DVOA. Then you add AJ Brown, the defense is too loaded. The Cowboys have a lot of question marks along the offensive line, I don't believe in that coaching staff at all. This is an easy pick for me, actually. I don't think it's a homer pick by Solac at all. I think the Eagles win by like two games.

I agree. I'm a Giants fan too. So like I'm somewhat objective and my hatred of the Eagles and the Cowboys. And I look at the Eagles team that is doing everything they can to get better and improve and adding AJ Brown and Jordan Davis and like adding like Charancy Gardner Johnson.

I'm like, oh my God, I think the Eagles have now four cornerbacks better than the Giants have, which is hilarious. Well, but you look at the Cowboys, cutting R. Mark Mark Cooper and they need receivers.

They're cutting Lell Collins and they need offensive. offensive tackles. And then they kept Mike McCarthy who led the league in penalties last year. It's another word I can't say. Dolphins, I can't say and I can't say penalties. So get used to it. But the Cowboys led the league in penalties, go into a playoff game, get 14 penalties,

five of which extended drive. Then I would say complaint. They kind of just bitch about the refs after the game. And it's like, what do you think is going to happen in officiating when you lead the league penalties? They come to the preseason. And didn't that preseason 17 penalties in the preseason? What does Mike McCarthy do all day if you're not worried about details and clock management?

He tells ESPN how good of a coach he is. It's unbelievable. Anyway, I completely agree. Cowboys fans, I don't even think would disagree with anything, any of us are saying. The whole thing's befuddling. So, Eagles win the NFC East. Are we putting the Cowboys in as a wild cartoon?

I did. Yeah, I have the Cowboys in a Wild Cartoon. I didn't feel good about it, though. I didn't feel good about it. It's more like you're in by default, and I can't find another team to pick. A part of me, we submitted our picks for the written version of this on Monday. And now I want to go back and pick the Seahawks.

God, you sicko. every year you have to pull three teams out of each conference. We got the bucks who are repeat. We get the Packers who are repeat. The Eagles are a repeat. The Rams are a repeat. The Cowboys would be a repeat. And at that point, it just doesn't happen that cleanly. My NFC playoffs is Eagles, Packers, 49ers, Buccaneers, Rams, Cardinals, Cowboys,

which is the NFC playoffs from last year. But that's the problem with the NFC is. It kind of freaking sucks. That would be funny if actually that's the encapsulation of how bad the NFC is this year. It's like the first time in NFL history, which all seven teams are just back. Stephen, why do you think the Seahawks are competitive? I think out of the teams that we're talking about here, like the Cardinals, the thing about the Cardinals is they have the best quarterback. I personally don't trust the quarterback and the coach to stay, like to keep their momentum, early season momentum going into the second half.

So I kind of feel like they're going to fall off. The Seahawks, I think they have a high ceiling. I really do. I know people think Gino sucks. I don't think he sucks. But I think the offense is going to be better than it was last year. Just because of the scheme, like you actually get to. run the McVeigh scheme, whereas last year you didn't. And Rashad Penny is one of the best running

backs in the league to me, running the scheme that he's just perfectly suited for, a scheme that he likes to run. He talked about in the offseason, oh, we're going to run under center a lot more because now we don't have to worry about Russ. He didn't say that part, but now Russ isn't here forcing them into shotgun formations. And I think the run game is going to take off the play action passing game is going to be better as a result of that. I think Gino is decent enough in third down situation to keep the offense on the field. My one concern is Pete Carroll on the defense. But I do like the coaching staff.

I don't know if I like the pieces, but I think the coaches are in place to get like a decent defense on the field, like 18th ranked in DVOA. The offense is like 16th, 14th. I think that's like enough in the NFC. Steven said the offense is going to be better. The Seahawks offense was seventh in DVOA last year. That's fake. That was fake.

That's what they were. What do you want? Well, yeah, it was so. disjured. It was like, there was, like, the first month, there was like the Gino weeks. There was when Russ came back too early and it was really ugly. And then there was like fake results against the Lions in December. Like, I don't trust that DVOA number.

I agree. It was weird. However, the Seahawks offense last year was pretty good for like six games. And they won those games. And then every other game, it was like horrible. I just, I think that while like the harmony and aesthetic of the Seahawks, offense may improve mightily. I'm not sure the actual output

will be measurably better to the point of like win-loss column impact. No, no, I'm hyping up Gino right now. I just want this to happen just for all my Gino priors to come true, but it's not going to happen. That's why I went with the Cowboys. All right, well, you can touchdown dance on us

when Gino Smith makes the playoffs in, I don't know, 2027, or maybe just you can mad and Sim until it happens naturally. Okay, so that's our NFC playoff fields. You guys have the Niners winning the West, Eagles winning the East, Packers winning the North, Buck's winning the South, wild cards, Cowboys, Rams, and then Stephen as the Saints, Solek, you have the Cardinals. Yeah, I think the Cardinals, I agree with Stephen where it's like, do I want to trust this team?

Absolutely not. It is tough to argue with the talent of Kyler, tough to argue against, like, the talent of DeAndre Hopkins, the fact that like the Cliff offense generally gets to work with the fact that they have Kyler as the wild card. Defensively, again, like, if Vance Joseph has a top 10 defense by DFEA way again, I'm gonna,

Vance Joseph is my hero. Like, it's just, there's no guy in the league who just walks. Just like, it's like, kitchen sink, man. He's like,

kind of like, open up the cabinets. Like, we got like a bunch of weird ingredients. Then he just makes like a palatable meal every single season. So shout out Vance for just being the unsung hero of dealing with the roster scraps that are left over for him in Arizona. I think they just have,

they have enough talent that they should. should endure as a wildcard team. I do not expect, you know, to be any more impressed with them than I am now, which is zero. But they're there and the NFC's bad. So. But now if we try to figure out who's going to win the NFC among these playoff teams, who's going to make the Super Bowl from the NFC, it's what you said earlier So lack, where you just look at these quarterbacks.

You've got the 49ers with Trey Lance, the Eagles of Jalen Hertz, the Packers with Aaron with Aaron with Reds with Aaron, the Packers with Aaron's with. The Cardinals with, you know, either Kyler, but that whole thing or this, you know, the Seahawks, the G&O, whatever the hell is Stephen's talking about. And I just look at these and like, are you actually going to pick against Brady or Rogers in this field? But then it's like, well, the Packers got rid of Devante Adams. The Bucks are already like one of the more injured teams in the whole conference. So that's where I kept looking at this thing and it felt so weird.

I ended up picking the Packers. But it feels so strange. And I'm curious where you, like, Stephen, where did you come out on this NFC? I went with the bucks. It was tough between the bucks and the Packers, but it just like it came down to the depth of the talent. We saw Aaron Rogers last year. Like,

low key Aaron Rogers lost them that playoff game against the 49ers last year. And I think he, it was because the 49ers figured out a way to take away Devante Adams and we saw him kind of struggle to find answers within that. I don't, you don't think it was the special teams that cost them like 13 points in a game that the Niners only scored 10? Right.

But how many did the Packers? score. And Aaron Rogers left a lot of big plays on the field. Like, he was, he might have been like one of the worst players for the Packers offense. But anyway, that's besides the point. That's never going to be an issue with the, with the bucks. They have too many weapons. Tom Brady is too good at finding secondary and third options. Todd Bulls' defense, I think is tricky to play in the playoffs. It's like tough to prepare for on short notice. I, like, I don't even think it's like a tough pick. I think it's the Bucks, the Packers in that second tier and then everyone else. So, do you agree? Did you also take Tampa Bay?

took the Packers. Talk a lot about regression in terms of teams that overperformed coming back down to Earth. It's so hard to go to the playoffs as many times as the Packers have with Aaron Rogers and to not go to more than one Super Bowl. That's actually very difficult to do, especially consecutive MVP's. They made it to the divisional round. I want to say, that's like four seasons in a row or something like that. At some point, the Packers are going to come out of the NFC.

might as well just keep on betting every eye the Packers like winning the Super Bowl last year might as well just keep on betting that they're going to do it at some point and then eventually be right uh rogers is playing out of his mind i think defensively they're going to be very good the offensive line to me right now is is the more like pressing concern in the sense that it's something that can be fixed relative like the wide receiver room and kind of the the the reality they've spun for themselves there i if bachiari is really able to come off the pop list if elton jenkins is happy with his contract and they get those guys back on the field. I think this offense is going to be really good. And even if it's like an eight targets for

Sammy Watkins Day, I think they're still going to score 30 and they're going to beat the bad teams. They're going to be able to come into the cold weather games of the playoffs. They're going to have AJ Dillon. They're going to have their physical brand of football. They're going to generate turnovers. It's going to work for them. So to me, like, it's like a Bucks, Packers, NFC championship game. And then eventually again, Roder's got to get to the Super Bowl at some point. This is just that has to happen because of the laws of big numbers. Who would you guys want to come out of the NFC, though? Like, who would you guys want to come out? Forget like, you know, at the end of the day, this is hard to predict such a weird conference,

but I'm curious what you want to see. I would say Packers are 49ers. Like, if the 49ers are good enough to make the Super Bowl, that means Kyle Shane and did some, like, crazy 2016, 2012 type shit. And I think that will be fun to watch. But I would say Aaron Rod, I want to see Aaron Rogers in the Super Bowl again. We've only seen it, what, once? And we need to see it again.

I don't want to have to discuss Aaron Rogers' legacy from my entire career in sports media, because I generally don't enjoy discussing. discussing Aaron Rogers the person. Accordingly, it would be nice if he just won another Super Bowl. And then we could be like, yeah, he won two Super Bowls. That's really good. He won a lot of MVP's that's really good. Aaron Rogers is a very good quarterback.

And we don't have to, like, litigate his career a bunch, which would then just require continued discussions about Aaron Rogers. I'd like to see the Packers. There's a little, you know, plucky team that I think has done really good roster building stuff. That would also be interesting to see in the Super Bowl from the NFC. Well, it sounds like it's time to move to the NFC. Go Eagles, baby. No one wants to watch Jalen Hertz in the Super Bowl.

Come on now. It'd be funny. You don't even want to do that. You'd be, you guys would enjoy watching me watch Jalen Hurst in the Super Bowl. You guys would have a good time with that. You will enjoy him. You will enjoy watching him on Nickelodeon when he wins MVP.

And that's the NVP. It's a motion get. All right. AFC. So for a long history of the NFL, it was like seeing that the winner of the NFC just would win the Super Bowl and that the AFC was kind of like doormat to unveil. And I'm wondering if we feel the, way, but the AFC, maybe not because Brady and Rogers there.

But if we're talking with the NFC, where it's like Brady and Rogers, and we're like, oh, I don't know, toss up. AFC, just the quarterbacks who chose. We've got Herber and the Chargers, Mahomes and the Chiefs, Lamar and the Ravens, Josh Allen and the Bills, Matt Ryan in the Colts, LOL, Joe Burrow and the Bengals. And then, you know, Solek, you've got Broncos here with Russell Wilson, and then, Stephen, you've got dolphins and two. You can still change your mind if you want.

I'm curious, Stephen, who do you have coming out of this conference? Or at least who are the teams that you look at and you're like trying to sort through mentally? Like who are you filtering out? I'm filtering out the Colts, obviously. The bills, the bills are tricky for me. I don't quite think they're as good as people think they are. I think we remember the Super Bowl favorite. Right.

I think we remember the playoffs. But those growing pains for the offense during the regular season are like they didn't just go away. I very much agree. and now you have a different offensive coordinator. I don't know if Brian Dayball was really as good as we think because he had a quarterback like Josh Allen, but it's fair to question Ken Dorsey. He's never done this before.

And now he's doing a job at the highest level of the sport with so much scrutiny on him. It might be tough for them. But I'm picking the Chiefs to come out. I know everything we said about the Chargers and the Chiefs earlier, but that was based on over the regular season. I think the charges are going to be better. But by the time January rolls around,

I think the Chiefs are just going to be humming. And I don't think any team is going to be able to hang with them. I very much agree with Stephen that the bills probably aren't as good as we remember them. There were those weird growing pains. They had the bad games of the Patriots. They lost to the Jaguars. I am, however, selecting the bills to come out of the AFC. And that's because the growing pains were endured.

I think that we have seen them nicely come through. A lot of what we talked about with the bills last year was on offense. the fact they wanted to live in the spread world. We're going to live in 10 personnel, four receivers on the field. We're going to not have anybody attached to the formation, right? So even when we have Dawson Knox and there's going to be in the slot,

call it four open formation. There's no dudes next to the tackles. And then they were like, wow, everybody's getting pressure with four. How is this happening? You don't have any help, man. Like, you got to be able to change it. Living in the spread in the NFL is really, really, really hard.

Well, Cole Beasley snaps started to go down. Gabriel Davis, 6, 3, 2,15, big guy. His snaps started to go up, and they started to condense the formations a little bit. it helped out a lot. Defensively, we talked about the continued limits that they have because they are a one cornerback team. They were Tredavius White.

They were good nickel in Toronto Johnson. But then outside corner too, like Levi Wallace was fine, but it was hard for them just like line up and man on a guy because they had a weakness at their second outside corner spot. And then Trey White got hurt. And it's like, right,

we're just going to be a zone team forever. It's hard to stop playoff quarterbacks in zone. If you are a zone dominant defense, you better not play any playoff quarterbacks for your entire season. You got to be able to play man. Why? Why is it? Why? Why is it hard to be?

So, like, why is that a thing? Nick Saban very famously said, or not, no, no, Dan Marino very famously said, of the cover three defense. They're playing cover three, everything's open. It's not a route that's covered, baby. Like, if you're dropping to a spot, as a defensive player, you're dropping to an area.

And I as a quarterback, I've played enough reps. I generally understand where you can and can get and how quickly you can get there. I can throw anything, right? At the NFL level, I'm just, were too fast, we're too precise, the ball's out too quickly, too accurate, the receivers are too big, too fast,

zone everything's open. The bills play incredible, wonderful, delightful, impressive zone defense. It just really sucks when you can't just man up on a guy, press him to the line of scrimmage, throw off timing. Go watch Travis Kelsey last year for the Chiefs. When he was struggling,

it's because they could throw, like defenses were throwing a body on him and manning him up the line of scrimmage. Then watch what he was able to do against the bills in the playoff game. They just didn't have the guy. that could get up on the line and cause the issue. First round pick, Kyrieu'll him out of Florida.

Extremely important pick at cornerback for the Buffalo Bills. If the bills win the Super Bowl this year, Kyrie Eelan played well. And I think what you've heard from Mim and camp, what you've seen from him on film, both in the college and the pros of our preseason, I think there's a reason to be excited. So I like the bills to come out

because I think they learned from the mistakes last year. I expect a smoother operation this year. My one concern about that would be that we're basing this off of two games against the Patriots who basically had refrigerators at line backer last year and couldn't play man coverage, like you said. And a game against the Chiefs and the Chiefs defense wasn't very good. And that was basically Josh Allen just blacking out in like making ridiculous plays.

It wasn't like great offense necessarily. And now you lose dayball who figured those things out over the course of the season. What happens if there are more growing pains in September? Are we trusting Ken Dorsey, a rookie offensive coordinator to figure it out? Are we relying on a rookie cornerback to solve this issue that, Blake them in the playoffs? No, no, no, no, no. We're relying on Leslie Frazier and Josh Allen.

That's the known quantities here. Leslie Frazier, Sean McDermott and Josh Allen. Are you sending a tweet during this podcast? No. I'm sending a picture to somebody. The Eagles just signed Ian Book, half of waivers, and last year, Ian Book lost me $200,000 in a Draft King showdown,

and I'm personally irate that he is now on my football team. How are you able to just explain why Dan Marino can just pick apart zone defense as well also processing all that and texting it to somebody else. Because somebody sent me the Ian book tweet and laughing and now I'm sending back proof that he lost me $200,000.

Also, I don't want to call Solac out, but he got the, he butchered the Damarino Saving thing. Savon's the one that said the quote and what he said was when you're playing Spot Drop, or when you're playing Damarino, that spot drop that break on the ball stuff doesn't work. At first I said, at first I said, I said, I said, no, it doesn't make sense. The quarterback would have said it.

But he said it, he put the words in Damarino's mouth. That was the issue. Well, maybe because you're texting and potting. You messed up. Blame it on Ian Book. It's Ian Booksfall. Yeah, it's Ian Books Falls. It's always Ian. All things are. So my takeaway from this is Nick Saban and Dan Marino cost Ben Sloke $200,000. That's kind of what I figured out here. Okay. So back to where we were.

Stephen, I guess if we're going to go ahead and say, well, they've went through trial and tribulations that they lost for the bills. And that's kind of what Slok's saying is, well, they lost. They've added pieces. I mean, the Chiefs were up almost 20 points of the a FC championship game. And then they come back and they kind of retool their offense. Like, Stephen, you have the Chiefs win the Super Bowl. Like, why doesn't that just apply to Kansas City too? Like, are we basically saying here like the Chiefs and the Bills are the two juggernauts?

And everyone, is everyone playing for third? Why did the Chiefs lose that game, blow that 20 point lead? Is it because Patrick Mahomes? Mahomes can't be drop eight. Mahomes forgot how to play football for a quarter. Like, the last thing I'm worried about is that continuing with thatch Malm is going to be fine. This is what I don't know.

understand. So Bill Simmons keeps saying Mahomes with five seconds is the best thing in the world. Didn't the Chiefs lose the championship game? Because the Bengals said, let's give Mahomes five seconds and drop eight in coverage. His brain will break because like he held too much time and he won't check down. Isn't that what happened? That's not, that's kind of what happened, but not really. Like he threw a screen pass right to a defensive end. That's what happened. He like trying to make a brain breaking fumble. I know. I'm with Danny. I'm with Danny. That's not, you know, you're I'm not with you, Solek either because I'm saying, like, I thought the whole argument for the too high stuff was that the Mahomes, all these guys, the boroughs, the Josh Allen's

have been trained, aggression, downfield. And when you take that away, these guys who have been prepping and planning and training to, like, not really take these short checkdowns, I know I'm oversimplifying it. But it's like, now that the chiefs are building their offense again, it's like, I don't know. It's, I see an argument that the, like, basically both these teams are retooling a little bit, right? don't you want Andy Reed retooling your offense more than Ken Dorsey for the bills?

Yeah, you do. And the problem last year against the Bengals was they didn't major in that stuff. Now they've spent the offseason kind of building up the roster so they can major in it. In theory, we don't know. We have to see it actually happen. So I think having that in their bag and having that be something

that they worked on throughout the offseason throughout September, October, November, December, I think they'll be more comfortable going to it in January. One of the problems last year wasn't just Mahomes forgetting how to play football. I thought they got too cute. I thought the play calling was pretty bad. They never adjusted to our man Big Lou in Cincinnati.

Still don't know how to pronounce his last name. And I refuse to learn. But that's why they lost. They got out coached and Patrick Mahomes forgot how to play football. They have one of the best coaches ever. So I don't think they're going to get out coached every week. They have one of the best quarterbacks ever. I don't think he's going to forget how to play football.

So I think they'll be fine. Josh Allen forgetting how to play football is a thing that could happen. We shouldn't rule that out. Every now and that. The number one thing I was going to say here is like, yeah, like, we've, Chris into Baholmes is invulnerable from this condition, but ignore the fact that Josh Allen also has these peak games, and we're just fine with that.

The thing with like, like, oh, too high, drop eight, take away the deep pass, take away the explosive, is like those are more like precipitates. Those are more like symptoms. They're kind of what happens when you decide to do X. And what X really is is change the picture. Right? Like, it's not about, like, I think, too high takes away the explosives and forces you to check down. Like, that is it, but that's also not it.

It's the fact that you, when you're in this, like, the too high world, when you're dropping eight, whenever you're doing, like, sim pressures, like a ton of schematic stuff that we've talked about in these shows before. We'll talk about more in the future. Is that you are forcing quarterbacks to do work post-snap. You are showing offensive coordinators different things than they watched in the film in the week leading up to this game. You as a defense are sacrificing, this is what we do when we are, experts in it for the sake of saying, we are going to be amorphous. We are going to be like water.

I always think of like the Hunger Games movies when it's like they're all figuring that's they're like, you know, like all the politics battling and going and President Snow goes moves and counter moves. Like that's just what it is. It's just moves and counter moves. It's just actions and reactions. And so with Mahomes and the Chiefs offense, bills and Josh Allen offense, facing drop eight, getting rid of Tyree kill, being in 10 percent else, it's all just moves and counter moves.

It's this is what defenses are picking on us for. right now. This is what they're trying to expose. Do we have the facilities to make changes? And while I do think that writ large, the chiefs probably have a little bit more facilities to make changes. You trust Andy Reid more than Ken Dorsey on offense. I do think that Alan Mahomes are just at this point such alien status that really doesn't bother me either way. I expect those guys to win me football games. I expect them to score points. They have transcended this little chess board of schematic whatever's. They're just too good. First thing we set up. on this podcast was you two both said and agreed that the charges had a better roster than the

chiefs. So are the chargers this third, are we like, are you guys basically saying the chiefs and the bills are the top two Super Bowl contenders in the FC? Are the chargers there or not? Or is there another team? Like basically if you're both wrong, are you both like if, Stephen, you pick of the chiefs, you're picking this bill select. If you're both wrong, are you basically saying, yeah, I'm like, those are both the top two. Is that fair? It's the, the charges are next. And I wouldn't, I wouldn't roll out the Bengals necessarily because I do think there's a chance that they made improvements over the offseason.

I just don't think it's going to happen. But like if it's not the Bills are chees, it's the Chargers. And if it's not the Chargers, it's definitely the Bengals. And I don't think any of the other teams in the conference. AFC is good, baby.

That's a Greg Roman question for me. I had to see, like, they're talking about this, like having a new passing offense, but I need to see Greg Roman do it. And if they don't, it doesn't work in the playoffs. I'll say this to the Chargers.

as I opened this podcast with how far on the ledge do you want to be with the Chargers? This is not a team with a lot of playoff experience. Right? Like even the veteran. Oh, Khalil Mack. Not a lot of playoff experience for Khalil. Not a lot of playoff experience for Keenan.

Mike Williams. What does that matter? He's a defensive end. It does. It does. In terms of how to take care of your body across the course of a longer season, how the preparation levels are different. The coaching staffs, it matters as well.

Like, obviously Staley is like ran a defense for the playoffs. once, right? He's just one season of a defensive coordinator. It's not a lot of experience. Joe Lombardi has, like, coordinated an offense for some playoff runs when he was in New Orleans. But, like, I absolutely think it matters because you as a, as an individual, a guy in the building, you feel different when you show up for week 19 and you know that this is

a different caliber of football, different caliber of opponents. It is win and in. It is losing go home. It is do or die. And there is a culture of preparation. There is a consistency of belief. We have been here before. We have won these games.

We've lost these games and recovered. We know how to be in these waters that the Chargers don't have. So I would love to say the Chargers win the Super Bowl. But I think in order for them to do that, like, if they get the first round by, great. But if they don't, they're going to have to beat three teams. They didn't have to be loaded AFC have been here before. They have to go like Ravens Bengals chiefs,

Ravens Bill's Bengals. These teams have been around in these playoffs, man. It is really hard to win those three games in a row. And that's ultimately why we basically are on the Bills and the Chiefs, because the bills just went through that and saw how high of a level you have to be to beat Kansas City. And that really is why the Super Bowl favorites.

At this point, they've just earned a little bit, yeah, they just have earned a little bit more trust, in my opinion. But we'd love to be wrong. Charger's Super Bowl run and be sick. Okay.

So you guys, so you're picking the Chiefs to win, Stephen? Chiefs to win the whole thing? Yeah, I'm picking the Chiefs to win the Super Bowl. So like you're picking the bills? Bills. All right.

Last thing before we go, who do you want to win the Super Bowl? Other than your own teams. You can't say, you can't see the Eagles. The Eagles don't make the playoffs. Why didn't you say the Panthers? Why did you use the Eagles as the example? I just thought we were being adults here.

Okay. If it's not the Panthers, the Chargers. I do want to see the Chargers win. Ravens. I want Lamar to sign the biggest contract that ever existed. Yeah, I'm changing my pick. It's the Ravens are my pick. I want to see him.

The Joe Flacco thing happens all over again. I want to, I want to see. I love, I just love Lamar. I love room for him so much. I'd love to see him celebrate. I love that coaching staff a lot. There's a lot of guys in that coaching staff that I think deserve a ton of credit

and they deserve the visibility of doing a great job. I think that the Ravens would be the most fun team to watch win in the Super Bowl. I would pick the Ravens too. Okay, there we go. That's it. Go birds.

We just decided. Slightly Southwest. All right, that's all we got. This is the ringer NFL show. Thank you, Ben. Thank you, Stephen. Thank you, Carlos, for production help. Go Giants.