The Ringer NFL Show - Final Training Camp Takeaways, Browns Week, and Teams We’re Most Excited for This Season | The Ringer NFL Show

Episode Date: August 20, 2019

After completing our yearly training camp circuit, we share our overarching takeaways on the state of the league, the things we underestimate about team building, and what’s to come in the 2019 season (2:30). Then we wonder whether the Browns are really going to be this season’s most exciting team and share the rest of the franchises that we think have a chance at that title (26:34). Hosts: Robert Mays and Kevin Clark Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Start a lead today on Yahoo Fantasy Football. It's the ringer NFL show. I'm Robert Mays, joined as always by Kevin Clark. Kevin, how you doing, buddy? I'm doing great. A couple days closer to the season than we were last podcast. And we need it. Yeah, I'm with you.

We're done. You don't realize when it's like May and you're like, oh, there's four preseason games, that's fine. You've got to get the team ready. But then you get to the third preseason game when you say, man, we got to, we got to figure this out. I'm okay because I have like 14 more stories that I have planned that have to run before the season starts.

And there's only like two weeks until the season starts, which I don't think I plan this very well. But what are you going to do? Yeah, I have a lot of stories too. But I would actually trade the timeliness of those stories for regular season football to start this weekend. I'm done with the training camp tour. I am back at home in Chicago.

It's been very nice to see my dog and to have a razor again because I lost mine. and sleep in my own bed. But... Did you have... What did your beard look like on this tour? Oh, it was getting a little ratty. I lost it like five days with like five days left on the tour. And I had my beard trimmer, but not my razor.

And I was like, do I really need to go buy another razor? So it was fine until like the last day. Do you know that it was a little... I had a last year's camp tour of the 2018. I had what amounts to a full beard. And then I... Is that true? How did I not see you?

It is. Well, I don't know. And then... So I had a full beard. And then... When I was in Jacksonville, my parents were driving up and I had a couple hours to kill. And I was like, I'm just going to shave my beard. That was it.

I really wish I would have gotten to see that. That's very disappointing. It was a great look, to be honest with you. But it was a moment in time. I also lost my beard like stuff that makes it look not unruly and the hairs were just going everywhere. It was a really rough stretch at the end. I'm glad to be home and have all of my products at my disposal. And it's been really nice to see my dog.

So, all right. We are going to start off this show with. kind of closing off, capping off the camp tour because we talked about our takeaways from individual stops. But I feel like there were a couple overarching themes with the conversations I had. I'm sure you felt like the same. So for this show, we're going to kind of cap off the camp tour. I know that we talked about our individual takeaways over the last couple of shows, but I feel like there were some overarching ideas and just broad things that we noticed that kind of encapsulated everything. So we're going to talk about those big picture takeaways before we get into

some teams that we're irrationally excited about. So, Kevin, with those big picture takeaways, why don't you just throw out your first one? What did you feel like was a consistent theme at the places that you were stopped? So this is sort of a big one. And I don't want to just swallow the entire episode off the bat here. So I'll kind of leave it confined to a couple of different topics here. I don't think that the NFL, and this is just, this is a broad generalization. There are exceptions. I think it's a lot less modern than we think. And I think that we tend to have a little bit of a bias because we talk to a lot of smart people, a lot of people.

I think there's a, I will say this. I think there's a bias where the people who want to talk to us and give us a lot of insight information because we're on the internet, we're younger, those people tend to be more on the cutting edge. I'm talking about people from NFL teams. When I go around the league and I talk to coaches, people we think are aggressive or younger or whatever, and I talk to them about fourth down, right? That's just an example. They're a lot less into the analytics than maybe we would think. And maybe when we discuss it with a really, really smart coach, it's a little bit different.

Or someone who's just really well-versed in analytics. I think that there's not been a lot of learning relative to how much there should have been over the success of whether it's the Patriots, whether it's the Eagles, whether it's in a weird way, kind of what the Browns do with their process, which obviously is a bit of a mixed bag. We'll get into that. But I think that it is, there is no coherent modern NFL in the way that maybe we sometimes project there is, because I went around, and I do this every year. And, you know, I think I saw 21 teams, something like that. And there were a lot of times where I either talk about fourth down or in some cases load management or in some cases going for two, whatever it is, or even just analytics broadly.

And I would get the same answers I got in 2012 from a lot more coaches than you would think. And so this isn't necessarily new. It's just that it's the march towards progress that maybe we've envisioned or we've talked about before is not where it needs to be as of yet. I want to take it one step further because I agree with you. Get them. But even juxtaposed with the series we did over the month and a half before training camp and just trying to have all these kind of forward-thinking NFL conversations with really smart people.

And then you start talking to some people in these buildings and realize, man, we are far away from where we should be. And it kind of relates to the story that I wrote today about the Vikings because you have Kurt Cousins kind of spouting back this play action analytics stuff to me that you and I and most of the smart football community has understood for years. And then I'm sitting there with the GM and the coach of the NFL team saying how we need to run the ball as much as possible because the best teams in the NFL always have the most rushing attempts.

And it's just even in these individual buildings, you have this dichotomy that is just so striking. And I'm with you. I thought that several times as I was doing this, just how some people can be all the way over here, and then some people who have all the power in these places cannot quite be at that level. And I just think that how those things coincide and whether they can work together is going to spell success or failure for a lot of these teams. When I was at the Lawshoot Journal, one of the most glaring contrasts I'd ever seen in my entire life. And this is all on the record.

They're totally comfortable talking about this. But he's 2012, and I went to the Patriots, and I met with a lot of their folks there. And they basically explained everything we already know, right? like how they manage the cap and how how it's more about, you know, having the best 47-53 than just being top-heavy. Everything we've written about and talked about and Belichick's talked about and the craft family's talked about and everybody talked about it, right? All that stuff. But hearing it and being close to it at the first time was really interesting.

I'd only been an NFL writer for a couple of months at that point. So I get in my car, drive from Foxborough. I just did the driving motion just in case. And there's no one can see me. I did the driving motion. Just 10 and 2 driving motion? No, no, one hand. I drive with one hand.

I'm not a weirdo. I was trying to picture what's happening over there. And so I drive over to Buffalo, New York, or Rochester, Rochester, where the old Buffalo bills were having practice. And Buddy Nix. Buddy Nix was there. Old Buddy Nix. And so I had just come off, I think this probably was probably my second camp tour.

And I had just come off, like, the most interesting conference. never had about football and most of it was about salary cap. And I went over to buddy next and I was like, so, uh, what's, you know, how do you guys manage a salary cap? And it,

it appeared to me that he has never, uh, thought about salary cap in his entire life. That, that was the, that was the appearance I got, okay? And I,

I would say that that happens now more than you'd probably think. It doesn't happen as glaringly like that where everybody next. Like, we just picked the best players and then we got we got a cap guy and he sorts it out. But I would say sometimes when you have these big picture conversations with GMs, it's not it's not exactly like talking to, you know, the guys from over the cap who are, you know, you could talk about this for three hours. A lot of GMs are not like that.

I'm going to transition from this to kind of a similar conversation just about the people who think about football one way and people who think about it a different way. And one of my takeaways, and this is going to seem silly, but hear me out here. One of my takeaways from the last month and a half is that football is on the field. Is it 10 times more complicated than we appreciate? I was talking to heat out.

Well, it's kind of funny because the one thing we need to reiterate when we talk about the last discussion is that these GMs who maybe don't have the modern view of the cap and all that and don't operate like the egos of the Patriots, those guys still know 150 times more about football than you and I do. So that, I just want to reiterate. I don't want anyone to listen to that and be like, oh, Clark and Mason, they're smarter than the GPs. That's not true at all.

I'm just saying that I think that there's a idea about how every team operates right now that is not accurate. And I think that in some ways, we push out that belief and it's not that accurate. Anyway, continue on with your point that football is hard. Football is hard. I was talking, I was in L.A., and I was talking to Keenan Allen about something that's very nuts and bolts in terms of how the receiver position is played. And when I started reporting this story, which will come out a little bit later this month, I think, I had an idea of what I was looking for. And I was like, all right, it seems like this is how it works. And this is why you do X instead of Y and why you go inside instead of out.

You know, I feel like I know about football a little bit. I mean, I've been around the game for a long time. And then he starts explaining this to me. I laid out a hypothetical for him. I essentially said, if the corner was here and you wanted to go here, how would you go about it? And then he listed off. And I was like, what's your checklist as your. as you're about to kind of make that decision.

And I'm assuming he had two, three things that he has to think about in that moment. He lists off like 14 different things he has to worry about. And it's everything from where the safety is. Like, is it one safety? Is it two safeties? Is it this? Is it that? What kind of corner is it?

How many times have I played against him? Is it man? Is it's its own? Are they a nickel? Are they in this? It's just, and he's listening off all these things. And I was like,

I was like, dude, I just wanted you to tell me how you run this slant. And I just, it's incredible. And I just really think that it's such a game of physicality. And as we look at draft prospects and everything else, we really want it to be this height weight speed thing. And it is. Trust me, physical talent is huge. You've written about it a ton in regards to teams that have built around athleticism

and how it works more often than not. But I just have gained such an appreciation over the last few years and especially over the last month or so for the people who get by without that. You know, for the people that aren't necessarily these unbelievable athletes, but are still at the top of their sport because they think about it in this critical way. And they just have an understanding and a feel for certain situations that we really don't comprehend to the degree that we should. And again, I know it's a stupid point saying football is hard, but it definitely jumped out to me in ways I hadn't even thought about before I started this trip. Yeah, I know this might be controversial in some ways, but the best analysts of the game will always be. someone who's really smart

who played the game for a long time. And obviously there's the whole thing going back 40 years, the jococracy thing that Howard Grisell used to talk about, whatever. But it is, you know, Tony,

we could not do in a million years what Tony Romo does. It's really freaking hard. You know, we can get information and we can put coherent narratives together. We can do that better

than Tony Romo. But that's sort of the sort of the lesson that we're talking about. It reminds me a little bit, I was talking to Fred Taylor last week for a story about Frank Gore. And he said, Frank Gore is not done yet. And I said, okay, how could you say that?

I don't think he's done, but I'm just looking for specifics. And he says, when a running back gets old, his pad level starts to rise because he's afraid to bend his knee because his legs are shot. And it's like one of those things. And he's like, and he said Frank Gore's pad level is still as low as it's ever been. and you can just gauge how a player feels by just looking at his pad level. And it's one of those things where, again, we could watch, you and I could watch all this film, we could, you know, do what, look at the numbers, etc.

But you're never going to get insight like that unless you're the guy who was too afraid to bend his knee and Fred Taylor at one point was. And I think that's what was one of the most interesting conversations I actually had all of Camp Tour was Fred Taylor talking about Frank Gore. When Kirk Cousins told me, when we were talking about play action, the mechanics of it, he was like, yeah, one of the reasons that I really like it is that I think that it slows down your mind because you take your eyes off the defense. And every other quarterback I've ever talked to like Matt Ryan hates doing that. He just feels like he can't gather enough information.

But Kirk Cousins told me that he loves it because if you're just doing a straight dropback, you're reading the defender you're supposed to on your third step, even if the information isn't useful to you until your fifth. step. So by turning your head, you can't look until your fifth step. So it doesn't speed up your mind like a straight dropback pass would. And I'm just sitting there like, holy shit, that's incredible. It is all about player preference, but you can understand why he has that preference. You know, I've talked about and thought about play action passing as much as anybody who doesn't work for an NFL team over the last five years. And it's just something I had never even considered. And those moments that inspired the thing I tweeted like a week ago. And I was, about how those are my favorite moments.

Those moments are incredible. It's the best part of being a reporter. They're good moments, folks. What's your next one, buddy? Yeah, so I think what's interesting, and I think this is probably the storyline of 2019, is the push and the tension between the forever quarterbacks, Breeze, Brady, Rothersberger,

and put Rogers in there, Rivers, obviously, and the younger generation. And whether or not the younger generation can make that leap. And I was really fascinated in the final four last year. And I've told the story before, but, you know, Harry Rosen told me years ago that he looks at the final four and they do, they do the studies based off of that. And he thinks that's the way you extrapolate how good teams are. Well, the final four last year, Brady v. Mahomes, was the biggest age disparity in the history of a playoff game. And golf and Breeze were the third most, I believe. And what I'm intrigued by,

And obviously golf won that game. But what I'm intrigued by is Mahomes, Mayfield, even golf, whether or not those guys can wrestle away a Super Bowl from the older generation. And at what point the older generation fades? Because I think that is when I go around and talk to people, when this older generation fades is a real talking point amongst everybody, whether or not you have those players or you don't. Because I think that it changes the way teams are built. you know, if you're in the AFC East right now, are you just writing off 2019 and hoping that Brady, you know,

flops in 2020, you're kind of going for it in 2019 a little bit. I think that because this is an unprecedented generation, there is nothing like this generation of quarterbacks. No one knows to what to expect. Can Brady actually go to 45 and be productive? Maybe, I don't know. There's nothing. There's no evidence that he can't.

There's no evidence that he can't. There's no one rye in this stuff, man. And, you know, people talk about warm moon, or War Moon a very different career than Tom Brady. And so what happens with those guys is something that a lot of people talk about because it impacts so many things. Just those six guys. How long can they keep going?

Is Roger's going to be good for the next seven years? I don't know. I want to run something by you. I had a conversation with some the other day about quarterbacks. He brought up a really interesting point. And I'm curious your thoughts. He was talking about that group. that brought the Spurger, everything else group.

When that group leaves, in the last couple of years, we've just kind of, I don't know, I feel like we've stopped appreciating how difficult it is to find a good quarterback because so many guys have come in and been successful right away. And you and I have talked about this a lot. There's a reason for that. I mean, just the training period

that these guys received from such a young age, the amount of seven on seven, guys are just better at throwing footballs than they were at age 18 10 years ago. do you think that when that group leaves we're going to find another kind of quarterback shortage just because they've been playing for so long

and we haven't had to replace that many guys? So I thought that there was a huge and it was a talking point for many years there was a quarterback shortage for a couple of years mostly brought on by the fact that the NFL didn't understand the spread and they tried to fit

square pegs and round holes all that stuff and now that they've sorted that out that's how you get Mayfield, Mahomes, you know, to a lesser degree, you know, I think Wents would have would have been good if you were drafted in 2013. But, you know, you have, you have Wensk, you have Wences him through is great. I mean, they run North Dakota State plays. I mean, that's, that's important.

And so I think that there was a quarterback shortage for a couple of years. And if the NFL hadn't figured it out, there would have been a quarterback shortage. But, you know, football miracles happen. Andy Reid gets Patrick Mahomes, Baker Mayfield at some point, you know, Hugh Jackson gets fired and Baker Mayfield gets to live his best life from a scheme standpoint. I don't think there's going to be a quarterback shortage at all. I think that that younger generation, that younger generation will get propped up. And then I also think you have some, you know, B plus quarterbacks right now who've been totally overshadowed by the generation above. I think that someone like Matthew Stafford, it would be.

be considered much better if you didn't have a bunch of guys seven years older than him rewriting the record books when you just look at the numbers. There's a handful of guys like that. You know, unfortunately, I mean, there's going to be a quarterback shortage in Chicago, but there's nothing really you can do about that. That's about the hope is that there isn't a quarterback shortage. You can just go back in the pool and get another guy. But, okay, my next one, something said to me, it's so many stops. And I think this is partially a product of the type of reporting I was doing. I've had a lot of specific conversation about scheme over the last month. And I can't even tell you how many different coaches said to me, the plays are all the same.

Oh. The plays are all the same. Yeah. Everyone has the same place. And, you know, we know that. But I think that that was something that was harped over and over and over again. And it's really, when it comes to how the NFL works and the way that smart teams do things, it's about doing things that teams don't think you'll do out of certain formations, and it's about how you package and how you filter everything through your personnel. And that's just something that I think the smart teams do, but again, I feel like is something that I heard over and over and over again. It's like, okay, we have this base on understanding what our offense is. Now how do we fit it to our players? And everyone says they want to do that, but just kind of the specific ways that were laid out

to me of how that happens. It gave me a much better appreciation for what that process actually takes. And I think that we underrate that sometimes. It's like, oh, they run this system and that's why it's great. It's like, no, everyone has the same system. For the most part, every team runs a West Coast offense outside of like two of them. It's just a matter of how you build it and how the actual infrastructure works in regards to the players that you have. To connect this with the previous conversation, I had, you know, Dan Rolovsky put it as good as you can possibly put it when I talked to him during the Super Bowl. And he said, you know, everyone talks about the McVease. system, whatever, and he says, listen, everyone has the same blue suit. Everyone has the same

blue suit. Sean McVeigh added a pocket square. That's it. Yeah. That's the same offense. It's the Kubek-Shanna-Han offense. That's all it is. The point is that made all the difference. Pocket Square looks great. I have many pocket squares and I always get too nervous to put them in before I go out and I never use them, ever. And it's a real shame. It is a real, real shame. That was a very Ron Burgundy moment for you. Well, I mean, I have many leatherbound books. It's a real, you know, it's a tragedy, really, because I own the pocket squares.

I just don't put them in. Because you're never actually going to an event that calls for a pocket square. So just because you're not doing that, you were the Brian Schottenheimer of fashion. I am the Brian Schenheim. Hey, there's some evidence that Brian Schenheimer is going to pick things up this year. A little throw into the backs this year. If you're throwing a bunch of dump offs to your backs, I'm not sure that makes you a more efficient offense. Let's go. Let's go. I got one more very quickly and it kind of connects

to what I was saying before. I really gained an appreciation over the last month for the offensive staff that is not the play caller. I was talking to Bruce Ariens when I was in Tampa and we were discussing kind of how they put together the game plans in Arizona. And I asked him how much of the game plan had already been decided before he even came to it when he was the head coach of the Cardinals. And his estimation was 70%. That's how much he empowered his assistants to really kind of pare down the menu that he would have on Sunday. And we want to kind of make these play callers geniuses that just conjure this shit out of thin air. But in reality, a huge part of the battle is finding the right plays against the right defense on a Wednesday, rather than dialing up the right play on a Sunday.

Just the amount of work and the amount of games that are won before the game even starts, I think is something that I really did not appreciate to the degree that I should and talking to so many of these coaches, especially the play calling head coaches, about how important it is to assemble the right staff and find guys that synthesize information well, all of that stuff. I just found those conversations fascinating. NFL jobs, just to go back to an earlier thing, very hard. Yes, very difficult. And just one more kind of connection to that, just the amount of dialogue it takes with your quarterback to make sure that person is comfortable. I think Baker and Freddie Kitchens meet every Saturday to go over the entire game plan and throw out the stuff he does or doesn't like.

And this, again, goes, I don't know, a lot of Bruce Ariens talk here, but Drew Stanton told me that in 2012, when Drew Stanton was with the Colts, and it was Andrew Luck's first preseason game. They were going through their game planning meeting the day before. And Bruce Ariens goes, all right, Andrew, what's our first third and long call? And Drew Stanton, he's been in league for like five years. And he's just like, what? You're asking the rookie quarterback, what we're going to call first?

And Arians is like, this is your offense, man. Like, all I do is sit here and call the plays. You are the person running this. And just the ways that different coaches around the league try to inspire trust and confidence and belief in their quarterbacks, I think is an ongoing process, again, that I just never really understood. Interesting. Yeah. Bruce Ariens is good with quarterbacks.

Certainly is. But as Drew Stanton reminded me, it's easy to be the quarterback whisper when your four quarterbacks in your career are Andrew Luck, Baker, Mayfield, Carson Palmer, all of whom were for number one overall. all picks and Ben Rothusberger. He loves Bruce and he was not trying to take anything away from him, but the message was talent certainly helps. Everyone knows about the risks of driving drunk. You'd get in a crash, people get hurt or killed. But here's some surprising statistics. Almost 29 people in the United States die every day in alcohol impaired vehicle crashes. That's one person every 50 minutes. Even though drunk driving fatalities have fallen by a third

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excited about. And one of the reasons that I wanted to have this conversation today is that Monday, which is today, I don't know when this podcast is coming out, but Monday was the kickoff of Browns Process Week on the ringer.com. A whole week associated with the Browns because the Browns are, I think in all of our estimations, the most exciting team in the NFL. What say you, Kevin Clark? I would put them in a group with Kansas City and Indy. Okay. So I agree with you to a certain degree. I think the Chief's offense just from a purely, I don't know the right way to put this, just from like a production

standpoint and maybe even an aesthetic standpoint is the most exciting. But I think the personality is associated with the Browns. And when you throw Baker and Odell Beckham and all of that in there, I'd say they are the most anticipated team in the NFL, even if they are not the most exciting. Is that fair? The thing

is, is the appealing thing about the Browns, aside from the talent and the personalities, is the newness of it all. We have not seen Cleans. We have not seen Cleveland, we saw a little bit of it last year. I mean, even the game Baker goes into. It's in prime time. There was so much excitement there. Yeah, I was in Arizona. That was really fun. I was watching it at a bar. I remember that. And so we saw a hint of what Cleveland in a big game atmosphere celebrating something looks like. But we haven't really seen it at its peak. They have not reached Apex Mountain as a fan base to

borrow a term from another podcast. And I think that everyone is projecting this year to be at least the start of something, even if they're not going to go 15 and 1 and, you know, win a bunch of games of Sunday Night Football, whatever. Maybe that's 2020. If that's 2021, I don't know. But I think we're going to see some really exciting football from them in big moments and that's not really been the case in Cleveland ever. I sat down with John Dorsey in a field house and in Cleveland, and then we walked outside briefly, and he was hounded by fans in a way I've never seen a general manager get hounded ever. I ended up having to take some photos of fans. They were trying to take selfies and I was like, I'll just, I'll just take it. This is weird. I'm standing here. I'd take photos of fans

with John Dorsey. And the only way you reach that is, A, you're a fan base that is really excited about their team. And B, you're a GM who built a really, really cool team. This is all on paper. we've talked so much about the idea that it's just, you know, with so many new names and new faces, training camp is just incredibly important that John Dorsey told me he really likes the idea of hiring all these teachers. And one of the reasons that he got aggressive with the moves they made, where that's Odell, where that's, you know, someone like Eric Murray, Cream Hunt, whatever, the reason he got aggressive like that is because he felt like the staff was just full of teachers who could really quickly

teach them the fundamentals and get them up to speed. I found that interesting. You know, there's, I feel like this is not the year they contend for a Super Bowl. I know that there have been a lot of people who've said, okay, they really do have a flawless roster or whatever. I don't know. I mean, they still have offensive line question marks.

They don't. I'm writing about that for later in the week. They don't have a flawless roster. I know, and I've seen that. A little cold water. Yeah, they're going to be good. They're going to be good and they're going to win some big games. I don't know they're going to compete for a Super Bowl this year.

And so I was, but I was extremely just intrigued to see what Cleveland looked like this year. I had a great time with the training camp, and it was an exciting team. Training camp isn't necessarily like a rock concert everywhere you go, but in Cleveland this year, it absolutely was. Yeah. I mean, there is just, I don't know, a buzz around that place that just is really, really cool. I mean, you could feel it.

You could feel every single time Mayfield drop back in 11-on-11. Somebody was ready for something to happen. And that's just not normal at a training camp. It was kind of funny because some of the other reporters who were coming in from out of town who maybe had not been there. I've been to Cleveland every single year for training camp since 2012, since I started covering football. And some of the reporters were asking, the Browns officials, they were saying, so is this like the biggest crowd you guys have ever gotten or is this more people than normal? And they were like, no. They're like, we always have a huge, even when we're going, you know, even when they've got Pat Schumer and they're on the road to, you know, the first overall pick.

or whatever, a top five pick, there's still a huge crowd out there. And that's what's amazing about the Browns, is the fans have always been there. They're just excited now. More excited. There's a different feeling. It does feel different.

I mean, I'm writing about that for tomorrow. You touched a, in a huge way with how they built the team. I'm going to do it as part of the play-calling series, which is the way that Baker and Freddie have kind of built this thing and how Baker's the perfect person to kind of do this. And that's one of the reasons that I'm looking forward to this, because we talk about the personalities and the stars and all that. And yeah, of course.

Baker Mayfield and Odo Peckham are two stars in a sport where there aren't that many stars. But one of the things I'm really looking forward to is just aesthetically, this thing is put together in a way that is set up to be thrilling. I mean, you have a Freddie Kitchen's offense, which he's taking from Bruce Ariens, who's entire, it's like no biscuit, no biscuit, whatever. They're just chucking it all over the place. Baker Mayfield threw 14 touchdowns that traveled 20 or more yards in the air last year. That if he had thrown 15, it would have been tied for fifth in the league, a five-way tie.

Every single guy in that cluster above him at 15 through at least 62 more passes that went 20 or more yards in the air. They got more out of big plays than any team in football. I mean, compared to how many they had, even Kansas City. And I just, you have that offense with a guy who, we talk all about all the time. about how accurate Baker Mayfield is and all this, which he totally is. It's incredible watching him plays a football. But this is a guy that says, fuck it, a lot. He is really willing to let that thing fly. And in an offense built by Freddie Kitchens, partially inspired by Todd Mocken, whose his quarterbacks last year in Tampa were second and third in average air yards.

I mean, this group is literally built to be the most exciting team and the most exciting offense in football outside of Kansas City. And that's why I cannot wait. to see it. I'm right there with you. Is that your number one most excited team? Irrational excited? Although I think so. I will say we tried to call this irrationally exciting. That's rational excitement. It's true. It's true. Yeah, they don't really fit the bill, but they're definitely number one in the power rankings here. Who'd be number two for you? I just need to make a strange announcement. Someone I got an alert that someone I've never heard of faved my Dorsey sit down. And it is the general manager of the Toronto Maple Leafs. So get excited Maple Leafs fans, because

is Kyle Dubas, dubus? I don't know, someone will correct me. I couldn't even begin to tell you. Is all in on John Dorsey. We're doing it. All right, who's number two for you?

Hey, okay, so this is a tie because they're both in the same genre, okay? Okay. They're both teams. I don't expect to compete, but it just might be completely insane offensively. And I don't mean numbers-wise.

I just mean it will look strange, okay? The Arizona Cardinals and Buffalo Bills. Now you've been... I like both of this. You've been to Arizona. Maybe you can shed some light on this. Both, I'm ready to just put...

When Josh Allen takes a snap, literally anything in the world is possible. Absolutely anything is possible. It's... Because with my homes, that's not true because the bad plays aren't there. So not everything is on the table. Also, Mahomes just doesn't generate, you know,

80-yard runs or whatever. Or he doesn't hurdle people. I mean, anything, is there any possibility that's off the table for Josh Allen when he takes a snap? No. What could possibly be off the table? He could throw it 100 yards. He could run 100 yards.

He can throw it backwards, 100 yards. Yeah, he could run 100 backwards, 100 yards. He could take an insane sack that looks wild. It is everything. is possible with Josh Allen. And that's why I'm excited to watch Josh Allen. Now, Arizona, same sort of deal. Do I think Arizona's going to win big this year?

I do not. Do I want to see Cliff Kingsbury running the Kingsbury offense and Kyle Murray doing his thing, surrounded by some questionable talent? Absolutely. You were in Arizona. Tell me about it. I'm with you.

I just think that they're going to do something fascinating. And I know that they haven't looked very good in the preseason. and there are legitimate concerns there. You know, with the handclap stuff and whether or not it's actually functional in the NFL, that I feel like I can understand where people are a little bit worried. Outside of that, though,

the idea that the Cardinals aren't doing, they're not clicking on all cylinders in the preseason, do you think the Cardinals have any incentive to play the way they're actually going to play in week two of the preseason? No. Well, no, it reminds me a little bit of, first of all, the Baltimore Ravens are on the same boat,

just like we're not going to show anything in the preseason because we're doing, some different stuff. But also, you know, Chip Kelly was famous for this. I mean, the Chip Kelly offense

looked incredibly vanilla when he first took over the Eagles. Then the first drive in against Washington was like the coolest thing it's ever happened on NFL field.

It was incredible. It was on Monday night. I remember it vividly. But the other one I would say is remember when RG3 started against the Saints in 2012? Yeah, they were running Baylor's offense.

They ran Baylor's offense. And I was talking to Dan Arlofski about this this week. And he's like, if it gets you a win, think about how important that is. over the course of the NFL season.

If you can jump on someone in week one with something they have no ideas coming, that can be one win for you in a league where 10 gets you to the playoffs. That's massive. And I don't think the Cardinals are going to make the playoffs, but I do think that this offense

is going to be fascinating no matter how it goes. I remember there was an editor at the journal because I watched the Chip Kelly Washington game at work. And there was an editor there who just kept saying, this is it.

This is it. Because he thought that, like, that was the moment that was going to change football forever. And it kind of did. It did. Sort of. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, I think that, you know, we joked. There's a lot, been a lot of Chip Kelly died for this jokes, you know, since the Eagles have been good and since the NFL has embraced certain ideas. And some of that is overstated. But I also think some of it is legitimate. You know, I tried to report that story last year. And I got a bunch of quotes and I got bored and wrote some other stuff. Yeah, I can understand that.

I can write it again. I can write it this year. Talking about, talking about the Cardinals not winning big. Can you name me? No. The Cardinals two starting cornerbacks. Well, you mean once Peterson is suspended? Sans Patrick Peterson.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Can you name me the two starting corners for the Arizona Cardinals? No. Who are they? Tremaine Brock, who has played on at least half the teams in the NFL, and second round pick Byron Murphy, who people are excited about. Oh, I know who Byron. Yeah, I know Byron Murphy.

I think he's pretty good. Yeah, but you need three cornerbacks to start in the NFL right now. And outside of those two. We have street free agent Chris Jones. Don't know who that is. Street free agent from this year's draft, Nate Brooks, a guy named Dietrich Nichols,

who was a college free agent last year. And Josh Shaw used to be a corner. He went to USC, I remember, because he was the guy that broke his leg jumping off that balcony. And he's listed in the safety on the step chart. And lied about it. Yeah, and lied about it.

So let's unpack this. Let's unpack this. They got Matthew Stafford. Week one. That's Stafford thrown for 4,000 years. But the Lions might run the ball 50 times in that game. Okay. Then we have Lamar Jackson, so hopefully they can tackle.

Hopefully these guys can tackle. That's all they need to do. We have Cam Newton. Okay. And then we have Russell Wilson and Bryant and Chattonheimer. It's going to be. You know what that means? It is funny that they have four of the one-heavyest teams in the league.

Cardinals, four and O. It could be much worse than that, though. because they do have four of possibly the run-heavyest teams in the NFL in their first four weeks. Then they got Andy Dalton. If they had Matt Ryan, they've Matt Ryan in week six. That's actually not a terrible stretch, man. If they have Matt Ryan, if they met Ryan in that stretch, because they have them in week six, six, that would end the world.

So let's chat about one team that you just threw out there that is definitely on my list. The Cardinals are going to be second for me. I'm sorry. Peterson suspended six games. They will play Matt Ryan. Six games. Okay. So in the sixth game, they play Matt Ryan.

Yeah. RIP. Great. Great. Yeah. That's going to go super well. All right. So you threw out a name there.

Then they get Elon Manning next week. So everything is fine after that. I am really excited to watch the Baltimore Ravens. Yeah. Because I'm totally in on this let's revolutionize the NFL shit. Just do something different, guys. Yeah. I'm with you.

I'm there. And I also think that I kind of believe in Lamar still. Like, I just feel like this can work. I don't know if it will. And I can understand every argument against it. But I do think he can. can get better. I think that we've seen it in the preseason already that he's just seeing defenses in a slightly different way. And I just love the way this is constructed. I'm buying the

Mark Andrews height, man. I mean, you watch that guy at Oklahoma and he was a monster. I don't know how he fell to the third round. And he's a perfect compliment for this. And if you're going to run a spread play action offense as the way you throw the ball, that's exactly what that guy did with Baker Mayfield to be the most productive college tie down in the country. He fits them perfectly. I think Miles Boykin has a ton of talent. Like coming out, he was one of our favorite guys. And for him to slip the way he did, I feel like all the cool shit they're going to be able to do with Hollywood Brown when he eventually comes back.

I don't know, man. I'm looking forward to this. I don't know if it'll work, but I do think it's a fascinating experiment. Yeah, I'm with you. That is a better version, a much better version, because I think they're actually going to be pretty good, of the Browns and Cardinals thing. I was talking about because I just don't know what to expect. That's why it's so exciting.

I think they're in the running to win that division. So it's completely different than those teams. But I'm just saying from an offensive standpoint, when I'm watching, I'm watching the Baltimore Ravens if I'm flipping through the channels on direct ticket, a Sunday ticket on the first Sunday. I want to see what that looks like. That is going to be really cool.

So something I find so cool about them and so interesting is that their offense is built unlike any other modern offense. And in a way, you could construe that it's built to really dominate, not dominate, but it's built to take advantage

of modern defenses and the way they're built. And their defense is built to take advantage of modern offenses because it's built from the back forward, which is typically antithetical to how most teams build.

So I don't know. I love the plan, man. The one counter, I would say. The one, counter to that point is that the San Diego, Los Angeles

Chargers, did quite well running an aggressively modern defense, which is just to put seven defensive backs out there. So, in theory, in theory you are correct. This is going against sort of the fact there's no bulk in the linebackers anymore

and all that stuff. You can run over these guys. But the Chargers did quite well with the defensive backs package. And they tried it against the Patriots and they did less well. It's almost, and I think that even what I said, I'm not sure I totally believe because we know that it's not about getting bigger

and running smaller defenses over. It's about creating space when you're trying to run the ball. I mean, that's what's most important. But I think that from the outside looking in, there is that just weird sort of split in terms of, you know, I don't know. I don't know what I'm trying to say,

but I think that you're right. I think your point is closer to the truth. I'm glad to came around. on that. Yeah, I got you. It's fine. All right. Do you have any others? Um, I think we kind of covered it. Is there anything? Yeah, those are the ones at the top of the list for me.

I mean, I think we both talked about this. I'm really excited to see what Rogers looks like in that offense. Oh, well, yeah. We've talked to that in our audience, yeah. Yeah, I mean, that's been something we've hit over and over again. I just think, and you know what? You know what another one connected to that? Andy Dalton? I really, I really, no, I don't care. I already threw out Andy Dolton.

Sorry, buddy. I already did the Andy Dalton thing. I already did it. I legitimately believe that Dak Prescott is going to look like a different player if the Cowboys play this right. The Cowboys play right, meaning is it Gellate it plays for them? No, I don't even care about that. I think if you run this offense the correct way, Tony Pollard can do plenty. If this really is a modern offense and if Jason Garrett gets the hell out of the way and let's Hell and Moore really have the keys to this thing,

I feel like this can be a system that puts DAC in advantageous spots for the first time since his rookie season. That year, the Cowboys used play action on 24% of their dropbacks, which in 2016 was near the top of the league. I mean, the Falcons led the league at about 27%. But as smarter coaches around the NFL have started to adopt it more wholesale, the Cowboys haven't changed. They literally didn't do anything different from 2016 through 2018, and that's why they stagnated. If this really is an offense that's going to implement the packages, the formations, some of the concepts when it comes to motion that the smart teams around the NFL use, I feel like we're going to see a different version of Dak Prescott.

I'm not saying he's going to be Jared Goff and Sean McVeigh's offense, but I think that comparison isn't totally off in terms of how much better he can be going from an antiquated system to an actually modern one. Hey, if you put Dak Prescott in McVeigh's system, Would his numbers be better or worse than golfs? I think they'd be really similar. I think I agree. That's kind of what I'm saying.

All right. I think that we really underestimate. I guess we don't, but I think people underestimate just how much system matters when it comes to quarterback production. And I think Dak Prescott could look like a different player. I honestly do. I agree.

I do think that there's some quarterbacks who can sort of transcend system, but those two are not. Those two can be hamstrung by the wrong system for sure. They're not. I'm with you. They're not generational talents here. No, they're certainly not,

but they're good. Pretty good when you give them the right amount of help. Pretty good. Yep. All right, guys, that's all we got today. We'll be back later in the week as we ramp up toward the season here. As always, thank you so much for listening to the Ringer NFL show on the Ringer Podcast Network. We'll talk to you later.

All right. Thanks, guys.