The Ringer NFL Show - Jared Goff Gets a Massive Contract Extension, and Ranking Every Team in Tiers

Episode Date: May 14, 2024

Nora, Steven, and Sheil run through some fresh news items from around the league, starting with Jared Goff becoming one of the highest-paid quarterbacks in the NFL. Then, they tier all the teams in the NFL. They talk about everything from who are the Super Bowl contenders to who’s already looking ahead to 2025 (52:53). Hosts: Nora Princiotti, Sheil Kapadia, and Steven Ruiz Producer: Isaiah Blakely Social: Kiera Givens Additional Production Supervision: Arjuna Ramgopal and Conor Nevins Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Join me, Danny Kelly, along with Danny Hyfitz and Craig Horrell Beck every week on the Ringer Fantasy Football Show as we prepare for the 2024 fantasy football season. We'll cover all the biggest news and topics across the league as well as whatever weird topics are listeners email us about. That's the Ringer Fantasy Football Show on Spotify. Hello and welcome to the Ringer NFL show. I'm Nora Princiotti and I am joined by Stephen Ruiz and Shield Capadia, the dream team assembled here today. for the second time because we recorded a lovely podcast, a nice podcast earlier in the day. It's Monday as we're recording this. Did a little bit of news and notes around the league.

Did a little bit of ranking all 32 teams into tears, had a lot of fun with that. Great off-season content. And then we get off the Riverside. Get off the recording. right around a little after 4 o'clock Eastern time Monday afternoon. And then less than 10 minutes later, Jared Goff. Jared Goff. I'm not joining you.

I'm not joining you. Jared Goff. Come on, Stephen. You're going to do it. You're going to do it before the pot is over. Jared Goff signs a four-year, $212 million extension with the Detroit Lions. And we quickly reassembled the podcasting team right here. to do a little update for you guys.

So the rest of that pod will come after this discussion of Jared Goff, but we felt we needed to get back on here and talk it all through. Shil, were you expecting this Jared Goff extension news to drop in the middle of your Monday afternoon? Oh, it's not. I was doing a little podcast hit, and all of a sudden the phone started blowing up, and I'm going, what is going on?

Did Ruiz mess up his audio? Do we have to record something else? here. That's a good bet. That's a good bet that I messed up my audio. And no, it was Jared Galt. We got a fridge coming in here through the front door, which I was supposed to be. Listen, a lot of domestic things Shield was supposed to do after the podcast.

But that's okay. We get some breaking news. We get some Jared Gough. I want to hear Ruiz's spicy take on it. I think we'll go back and forth a little bit. My guess is I'm probably going to be in the position of defending the Jared Gough contract. So looking forward to the discussion.

Okay. Well, let's start there. Four years, $212 million overall. $170 million is guaranteed. Now, remember, that's an extension. Jared Gop was signed through this season owed around $34 million for his services in 2024. This is an extension. We are, of course, waiting for final details on the structure of the contract, which will influence what degree of ability and when the Lions could potentially get out of this deal if they want.

wanted to and what this actually means for Goff in terms of how he stacks up with other quarterbacks, other quarterback contracts around the league. But in any case, pretty solid payday for Jared Goff from the team that had to overpay, had to pay extra in the trade with the Rams where they sent Stafford to get Goff, to take on Goff's contract and take him back and return now gives him $212 million, uh, makes him be, second highest paid quarterback in the NFL on a per year basis second to Joe Burrow. Tom Pelliserro did report that he will be under contract through 2027 with a team option for 28.

So that's starting to give us some ideas about the structure of this. But Stephen Ruiz, good idea, bad idea. Jared Goff and $212 million. I mean, it's a bad idea. Let's get that out of the way. But it's something you have to do. Like, I can't, I can't kill them too much. I can't kill Brad Holmes.

I can't kill Dan Kay. example, like they've spent the last three years talking up this guy saying they believe in him. We saw that bare fruit last year. They go on this magical run. They almost make the Super Bowl. He needs a new contract. I don't know what else you do. Like I think they're in the same position as the Rams where when they gave Jared Gough

a record-breaking extension after the year they made the Super Bowl. I just don't, I just don't see how it works out. I don't see how paying Jared Gough the same amount of money that you pay Patrick Bomes or that other teams paid Patrick Mahones and Lamar Jackson and Josh Allen and Justin Herbert. I just don't know how you win. That's not a winning model. Unless they strike gold this year and they have like, they've done enough in the offseason, I think to go for it this year. I just don't see how this contract ages well beyond 2024. I think a year from now, we're questioning this decision. But right now, like, it's just so hard to not sign him. Like the momentum was going there. Detroit

just chanting his name at sporting events that the Lions aren't even participating in. They had to sign them, but I just don't know how you celebrate paying a market deal for a quarterback that's maybe the 12th best quarterback in the NFL. Here's the thing, though, is that when you talk about they didn't really have another option, what I think they did well in this is you got to give Detroit credit for getting out ahead of this early because there's other quarterbacks in line for contracts, this offseason potentially or coming up soon. You know, that's Trevor Lawrence, Tua. Doc Prescott, we're all anticipating is going to actually get to free agency next year.

But in theory, this would be the time to do it if they're able to come to a deal there. And then Jordan Love is coming down the pipeline as well. That doesn't necessarily suggest that every single one of those guys is going to get to this level or surpass it. But in the case of someone like Prescott, we're expecting eye-popping numbers there.

And I do think that the Lions made a good choice here in trying to, you know, in getting this done, on the early side because, yes, the numbers are big and the guarantees feel big and, you know, the fact that it's only Deshaun Watson with that outlier contract who got more guaranteed money from a team in a quarterback contract. But we know how this works. The numbers only go up. The quarterback numbers only go up.

If you look at the list of the highest paid quarterbacks, okay, you have Burrow up there at 55. Gough is at 53 and you know, I'd rather have Joe Burrow than Jared Gough, right? I'd rather have Justin Herbert who's third or Lamar fourth. You get to Jalen Hertz at 51. It is really reflective of when the quarterback signed the deals more so than a ranking of the skill sets of the passers. And look, it's going to be a tough way to live eventually,

but the Lions have drafted well. They have a lot of contributing players who are on their rookie deals still. So I do think they're still going to be able to go for it in this window. Now, 2027, it's not that far away. I can certainly foresee a circumstance in which maybe they wish they could move on

a year earlier than that or something like that because they would rather be able to have an extra chunk have changed to build out a roster around the quarterback and have a quarterback who they feel like they could get someone similar to Jared Goff at the same, at the same, with the same skill set at a much lower price. But the reason that, you know, I would even go a little bit further than saying I can't kill them for this than to say, look, the numbers are eye popping and it's a little bit scary, but I get it, is just that it's not, you know,

You know, four years, the last year seems to be an option. So that's probably where some of those guarantees fall away. And then in that window, for most of that window, you're going to have a relatively cheap core around him because they have drafted pretty well. And then you add in the fact that, and you know, we talked about this a little bit on the episode that we recorded earlier, Jared Gough played the best football, I think, of his career last year. And for this deal to work out in a way where. the lions aren't regretting anything here by the end of it.

I think that arrow probably has to be pointing up in a way where it keeps getting a little better and maybe he he tops that this year and the future. But, you know, next gen stats was thrown out a tweet as people were sort of talking about this breaking news, pointing out that Jared Goff was really good against the Blitz last season, through for over 1,600 passing yards, was sacked on just 4.3% of his dropbacks. dropbacks against the Blitz, which is the lowest sack rate in the NFL. That's something that he's struggled with earlier in his career. And you can say that, you know, some of that has to do with the offense that he's in

the circumstance that is around him. And I think those are inseparable things. But he has taken strides. So, you know, if I'm the Lions, I don't know that I want to like wave a flag and say, we're the smartest organization football. We gave Jared Goff $212 million. That feels like poking the bear. a little bit. But I feel a smidge more positive than just like, I get it. What else are you going to do?

Just because of what he's accomplished in getting to that organization as a cast off and then proving that he's someone who they can win a lot of games with. Yeah, I think the case. So I think like anytime we rip one of these, we should also have to say what would our plan have been? What would be all alternative if it's been because you have to put yourself in Brad Holmes and Dan Campbell's shoes and be like, all right. You're like, I agree. You see the headline. Jared Goff's second highest paid quarterback in the NFL. Everyone's going to have the same reaction. What? Jared Gauss, the second highest paid quarterback in the NFL. What are you doing? How could you do that? But you don't have another, it's not like I have another quarterback on the roster who you've been grooming. That's number one.

To Nora, to your point, you can wait a year, which honestly, I probably might have been a little conservative here, been like, you're under contract. Jared. We're, We love you, but let's just, let's play out this year. We don't know what's going to happen next year. And then kind of see where you're at. I would have been more comfortable with another year of that play. Like you mentioned, to see, all right, is he still playing the best football of his career? Does he not regress?

And then if you have to pay a little bit more next year, you can do that. Those are all fair. If you're a Lions fan, like, you're probably fine with this. You're probably like, listen, our franchise stunk for many years and we're finally good. And we were a field goal away from getting. to the Super Bowl last season. And our offense was fifth and offensive DVOA last year and seventh in 2022 with Jared golf.

And we can talk about the supporting cast. This isn't like the greatest supporting cast ever assembled, you know, like Sam LaPorteur was a rookie last year and he was awesome. It's Amman Raus St. Brown. You know, it's Jemir Gibbs. Josh Reynolds was their wide receiver too. It's not like he had like the greatest, you know, supporting cast in the history of the NFL. And he still performed at a pretty high level.

They beat good teams. They beat the Chiefs. They beat the Rams. They beat the Packers. They lost two games last season by more than a touchdown on the entire season. I mean, this was a highly competitive team with Jared Gough. So I would feel a lot better about this. If you said, if you knew internally, hey, Ben Johnson doesn't want to go chase that head coaching job next off season.

Like if you told me, hey, you're getting Ben Johnson for the duration of this Jared golf contract, then I would be like, all right, let's go. You have Penn A stool. You have these guys signed to contracts and let's go try to win a Super Bowl. I think there's a case there that golf can operate at, you know, Stephen, you mentioned, and I probably agree if I had to rank all the quarterbacks, he would probably be right around there. At 12, statistically, he's been better than that. You know, he's been what, fifth in EPA for pass play or whatever it is, which speaks to

how he operates in the offense as a whole. That's not a golf stat. That's an offense as a whole stat. So I think that's the case if you're a Lions fan and you're excited about it. Like, I don't think this is going to, is his floor that low? I mean, he's had like one season where the offentee's quarterbacked has been a complete disaster and he's been a quarterback for seven seasons since his rookie season. So it was like, I don't know.

It was the one season where he didn't have a good supporting cast. Like, I mean, we could say he played the best football of his career. In the playoffs, he was pressured on 39 dropbacks. He was going to bring up weather. Yeah, I'm not even going to bring that up. He was pressured on 39 dropbacks. He averaged 1.9 yards per dropback. Less than six feet per dropback.

Patrick Mahomes averaged three times. that under pressure. Like I, everything, every time we talk about the evolution of this, of this position and like what we're looking for, we don't talk about Jared golf. We use Jared golf as, as the player we're not looking for anymore. He cannot move. He cannot throw on the move. In that 49ers game, the key play on fourth down, you could, you could say it was a drop. It was a pass behind the receiver. I'm forgetting who the receiver was, but Jerich got moved off his spot and missed a very easy throw, a five-yard throw. That's what happens with Jared Gough, it's happened for seven years now.

We've seen this movie for seven years. It never ends differently, and it's never going to end differently. And now it's going to get worse. You're paying him the same thing that the Ravens are paying Lamar Jackson. I don't understand it. Like, I don't understand how it can work out. I understand why they did it. But if I was signing Jared Gough to that money, like, I would not be excited about it.

You don't get, they're not participating in the quarterback market to me. Like, the quarterback market is paying elite quarterbacks over $50 million. It's not paying league. average quarterback's 50 million. Okay. So what would you win a couple games? If Brad Holmes called you and said, here are options, what do we do? What would you have done?

Make him play out the year. He's Jared Bob. He has nowhere else to go. You're going to tick off the player, though. If you tell, like, I just don't think that you can go to Jared Goff at this point and say, you're going to play out the year. And then if you do, if you do well enough, then maybe we'll explore the tag because we want to go year to year with you because you're Jared Goff.

think look, it's a totally, it's more than a valid point. It's, it's objectively correct. He fell apart in that game and clearly still has that in him against a good defense and in a circumstance where, you know, it's all on the line. And that's the number one thing that should be scary. Two of the lions about making this commitment. But I do think that, you know, if we talk about what the alternative is, I don't know that you can, I don't know that you can play out the year and say to Goff right now, we're going to go year to year with you because you're not

the prototype of a modern elite quarterback, which he isn't. But- But they're paying him like one now. Well, right. And there's certainly downside to that. But I'm just not sure that my point being that I'm not sure saying we're going to go year to year is really as available of an avenue

as it seems like it is, given the fact that he came in as this cast off, given the fact that he clearly, clearly means an immense amount to the other players on that roster, you know, is Dan Campbell probably the A number one reason that Ben Johnson keeps wanting to stick around there where he could go somewhere else? Sure, probably. And, you know, I don't know how you fit in just sort of the fact that they have,

they've won a fair number of games. The arrow is pointing up. They're accomplishing a lot. But clearly he likes working with Jared Goff too. So I'm, I, I, I kind of disagree with the, the idea that you can just go to him right now and say that. I think if, if we're looking around the league,

and maybe the point is that teams got to figure out how to, how to do this and how to deal with the emotions of, of a quarterback in that position. Otherwise, they're going to really hurt themselves because I think you can have a similar conversation. in Miami, which would potentially be even more disruptive to their long-term potential. But I think it's a pretty tall task to say to the Lions, go to Jared Goff and say, you don't get to play in the same financial ballpark and the same contract ballpark as some of these other guys.

Because you're not as good as them when, you know, that's just not really how we see quarterbacks. get paid. It's, are you up? I don't know. I was kind of as you were describing that, I was kind of like, this is a guy they maybe could have done that with.

Like I think I would have waited. Jared golf has had a weird career where people are telling me sucks every year and he wins a lot of games and he throws for a lot of the yard and he just like that was a hard situation. I think that is usually I think we give athletes too much credit. But he really got trashed and like the Rams literally had to give up an extra first round pick. to get rid of him.

And now he's getting paid a lot of money. So I mean, I think you could have said to like, like, like, Dak Prescott's going into the final year of his deal. Like it happens. And if you're,

if you have a coach like Dan Campbell, then you have this culture. We cannot be using Dak Prescott and the cowboys as the paradigm of. No, the quarterback's out there. Okay, but Kurt, I mean,

Kirk cousins played into the last year of his deal last year. Like, it does happen. It's not like it never happens. And if Dan Campbell's strength is like, as this emotional culture guy. And you're like, all right, do we want to just chill here for a year?

Because the truth is, you could have had Jared Gough for two seasons. I mean, you have him under contract next season, and then you have the franchise tag after that. So you have other windows to pay him a lot of money. Like if he balls out next year and you get to the Super Bowl, then you're having an easier conversation about it. If he, if he doesn't and you use the franchise tag, you buy another year and you're able to do it.

So I actually think sometimes, like, we kind of overweight that. Like I do think if it were me, I probably would have. And you might be right, Nora, like, we don't know the personal dynamics. It just might have been like, we don't believe in doing that. We believe in. Like, they might just be like, we like Jared Gop. You guys are crazy. He's better than you think.

And we want to pay him right now. If it were me looking at it, you know, objectively from the outside, I would have liked to buy a year and seen him do it again and seen where I was at next year. And then you know what? If it means paying him $56 million per year instead of $53 million per year, for year just to get that additional information and to feel better about it, I probably would have rather done that. I don't disagree with that.

I just, I think it's possible that a valid concern was sort of upsetting the apple cart. I will say, I mean, I'm sure it's happened. It's hard for me to remember a lot of times when core members of those teams were up in a public forum for basically no reason chanting Dak Prescott or chanting, chanting Kirk Cousins. I do think that there's a particular thing with Detroit right now, which we may eventually come to see as a weakness. We may eventually come to see like, okay, Dan Campbell established this culture that really

turned things around quickly, but it's maybe player friendly in ways that eventually ends up leading to conflict. Or we look at how Brad Holmes is operating and going like, you are falling in love with your good decisions, which is quite possibly. something that's that's at work here, right? It's like the idea that they have been this reclamation, they have done this sort of reclamation project with Jared Gough and it's been, you know, nobody thought it was going to happen and,

and they've had all that success. There is an automatic instinct. If a front office feels like they took part in that to reward it and to sort of anoint it as a success by giving out a huge contract, that's, that's dangerous. as Sheel says, never fall in love. And it's totally possible that

we're going to end up feeling like some of that was at play. I just think it, I mean, you know, Kirk Cousins, Kirk Cousins has been, when he was going year to year in Washington, he was Miffed. When he was, and maybe I'm misinterpreting Gough and Gough's personality.

Maybe he truly just doesn't get angry. Maybe he's just like, walk all over me. I love it. But I wonder if that wouldn't have been the case. He definitely got angry with McVey. He definitely got angry with McVey. And it worked out for the Rams. So pissing off Jared Goff has been a hundred percent success.

A trying true strategy. You win a Super Bowl every time according to next gen stats. Let's talk a little bit about what this is going to mean for other quarterbacks in line for contracts this soft season or the other teams that have sort of big QB question. Jerry Jones, man. Just keep waiting for Dak to be like, yeah, pay me. less. It's fun to all the benefits for playing for the Dallas Cowboys. Like, if you're, sorry to interrupt you, but if you're a Cowboys fan, please, you got to be livid at the way they're, like, this is crazy. This is absolutely crazy that you think of all the franchises, you're just going to

wait and wait and wait, and wait, and this guy's going to take less money. Like, Jared Goff just got paid friggin $53 million per year, and you think your guy's going to take a discount? Like, this is going down a bad road for you, Jerry Jones. Somebody wake the man up. What are you? doing Dallas. Crazy. It's a second time doing this with DAC too. And the same thing happened last time. I'm going to pay more.

Like, I don't get what Jerry's up to you right now. But like my takeaway for the other quarterbacks like Jordan Love, Trevor Lawrence, Dak Prescott is just give them whatever they want. I would give them $60 million right now if Jared Gough is going for $55 million. Two, that's another discussion, more complicated discussion. But those three, I wouldn't, I wouldn't, like, I would make Jordan Love the first $70 million quarterback if you asked for it. Look, there is a line and Jared Goff is absolutely one of the players who sort of, you know,

depending on the day, depending how you feel, kind of defines that line where you're wondering, man, is it really worth going there? Can this quarterback really help you win? This would be my question I would ask myself before I give a quarterback a contract. Would Brian Flores give this quarterback the same contract? That would be my question. The answer for Jericho would definitely be. no, I can tell by his game plans, it would definitely be no for two.

We could tell because he was in Miami before. That's a great. That's a great rubric. I do think, I, asking would this defensive coach give a quarterback this contract feels like a real way to get a lot of nose? Because my sense of defensive coordinators in general is they tend to feel that the quarterbacks are vastly pampered and overrated and deserve absolutely nothing. But I like the logic behind it. the thing that it sort of underscores is that if you're sure you have a quarterback

who's over the line, who's on the positive side of the line, pay them as soon as you can. Yeah. Just pay them. Don't wait. It only gets worse. Jerry, it's not getting better.

The only way to get a discount on like a veteran quarterback with some track record of success is like the Jared Gough trade, the lion's made. That's the only way is a team discarding a quarterback. that they've moved on for. Like, I've never seen it before. I've never seen a team acquire a veteran quarterback on the cheap, except maybe the Bucks with Tom Brady,

but that was a different, those were different circumstances completely. It is really, I mean, it really makes the DAC thing if he does potentially go play somewhere else. Just so, just an all-time organizational fumble. Not that we know that that's happening, but it does seem like, it does seem like this may end up being a data,

point in the story of how the, the cowboys just really, really messed things up there. But we will have to, we will have to find out. Where are the Lions, Sheel, in, in 2027, as they're considering Jared Goff's option for 28? What do you think? I mean, we'll have to see, like, how long they're locked. We've seen teams are able to move on from quarterbacks with dead cap hits more now than they did 10 years ago, if that's the case.

It does feel like it adds a little bit more. What the Rams did with Jared Kauff. Right. Yeah. So it feels like there is a lot of pressure on them this season, I feel like, because you've got the offensive coordinator. You've got the pieces in place. You've still got guys on rookie contracts.

I think they can get to the Super Bowl this year in the NFC. When I look at the landscape, I mean, I don't know. I think they're going to be a pretty competitive team. Now, you'll play this back for me in 2027 or two years from now. I think that I don't think this is, I think this is going to be like a solid window. I don't know that they'll ever get over the hump. I think there will be moments like the one Ruiz described where it's the Lions against a quarterback who's a little bit better than Jared.

And that guy makes the play. And Jared Goff doesn't make the play. And we'll say, well, that's the difference type of thing. But I don't know. I think the pieces are in place around him. I think the offensive line, they'll continue to invest in that. And that will be there. And I just think he's 29 years old.

He hasn't gotten injured. You know, he's played every game the last two years. so durable, not old, and can function, can operate an offense with the right pieces, the right coordinator around him. And I know that it sounds like a huge dig and you can say everyone can do that. Everyone can't do that. We've seen it. Like the numbers they put up the last two years, not every quarterback can do that.

And from a talent person, like, yes, he can't move. He's got a big time arm. He can like rip throws in the middle of the field. He makes some of those, you know, throws that, throws that require talent. That's why he was the number one pick. So I'm probably a little bit more bullish on them. I'm not, you know, going to go as far as to say, I still think at the end of the day, I would have preferred.

I would have been a little more conservative and waited a year. But I think they're going to be like a pretty good team for the duration of this contract. And really, once you get like, what, two years down the road, if you see a quarterback in the draft you like, like, you can take that guy. You can try to get ahead of it because that's the other thing. I mean, the Packers didn't have to worry about, they had the guy in waiting, which I ripped at the time. But like if you always keep your eyes out,

when you have someone like Jared Gough and you see someone, hey, this guy could be special, let's just go take him like that. That is the way to do it. Easier said than done, though, obviously. Stephen, 27 Lions, where are they? That's tough because I think that's just outside their window.

I think they have like at least two years with this Jared Gough deal. I don't think this is going to like sink them immediately. That's why I can't kill the deal too much because I do think this is a team that has put all their chips in the middle of the table in this off season to go for, to go for it, which I think is like commendable.

And I think that's the approach they should have, especially with this quarterback. But 2027 is that's, it's, it's tough to project because I don't think Ben Johnson's there anymore. And I wonder what the supporting cast looks like. Like they just made Penae Sousel, the highest paid offense of Lyman in the NFL. They just made Amman Rae St. Brown, the highest paid receiver in the NFL. By the way, I don't think he's anywhere close to one of the best receivers in the NFL. So that's a questionable value deal too. They're now paying two of their best players on offense, like deals way over.

I would argue their market value. you. So I think it could get tough down the line, but the next two years, I still think they're like fringe contenders. And I think if they get the right breaks in the playoffs, they can make a Super Bowl run. But like, I'm not putting them in my list of contenders to start the season, like as like bona fide Super Bowl aspirants. Like I like they beat Baker Mayfield, man. I can't get too excited about beating the Rams by one point in Baker Mayfield at home. I'm sorry. I can't. It's smart of you to bring up the other, um, extensions they've done this offseason because, And now I doubt that this was, you know, this isn't the reason that you go and do a deal like this.

But the lions, they were pretty capped out. And it's fairly likely that this deal will be structured in a way that actually reduces their cap commitments to Jared Gough for this season and pushes things towards the back. So it actually does help them sort of go all in in the immediate this year and maybe to some degree next offseason. I do. look, I just, I think when you're talking about a team, I'm oversimplifying a little bit, but when we're talking about a team as being in a window where a Super Bowl run feels realistic, then you go for it. And do I think that they may regret this by the very end of the deal or be looking to move on before it's easy? Sure. But, you know, if that ends up, the likelihood,

if they really only want two years of the guarantees on this, they're probably talking about moving on from something like, you know, $40 to $50 million guaranteed, which is not ideal, but it is certainly done. It is certainly done on a reasonably regular basis in this league. So it's a mixed bag. It's, you know, it's Jared Goff. And because of his history, it's sort of like,

it's amazing or it's terrible, but we'll just have to see because the lions are in a window and they're certainly going for it here. Anything we're missing before we hop off here and go back to our regularly scheduled programming? Not that I can think of. The one thing I will say is like I think in a vacuum, it's a bad deal. Like that was my second take on it. It was like it was a bad deal. But like when you consider all the details that you laid out, I don't think it's like necessarily a bad deal. and I don't think it's going to prevent them from winning anything in the near future. I think long term, it could end up being a problem.

And my concern would be what it prevents you from looking for. Like it might prevent you from looking for a quarterback. Maybe it might prevent you from looking for Lamar Jackson last offseason, for instance. I think that's where you run into the problems. I don't think like paying Cherikoff is going to tank their next two seasons at all. Yeah, I think the goal is to always get the Mahomes or Allen or Lamar. And then, but then like there's this big group of teams where it's like that's not available to you. What do you do now? And this is probably one of those that falls into that category.

All right. Good stuff. Congrats to Jared Gough. Congratulations to Ben Soak for being on his first day of paternity leave when this breaking news dropped in the middle of a Monday afternoon. Thank you to Stephen Reeves and Shield Capadia. Thank you to Isaiah Blakely for hopping on to produce this emergency breaking news edition to the pod. And with that, we'll get to the rest of what we recorded earlier today. Thanks for listening. All right. Let's do some news and notes.

And then later on, we've got a very fun ranking the league in tiers segment for you. But we'll start with some of the latest happenings around the NFL, including that this Saturday, the Patriots announced that they have officially named Elliot Wolf, their executive vice president of player personnel, which effectively changes nothing about how their front office has been operating. because Wolf has been calling the shots there through free agency and the draft, but does conclude what's been a little bit of a convoluted process in terms of whether or not this was a real general manager search if he was going to be the general manager and what that meant in particular with their compliance with the Rooney Rule. Because there's been some speculation that this process was not done. viewed as totally on the level around the league.

The Patriots did technically comply with the Rooney role because they interviewed Eagles director of scouting Brandon Hunt and the Panthers director of player negotiations and cap management, Samir Suleiman. But according to Albert Breyer in this week's MMQB column, both of those candidates just met with the crafts in Boston last Wednesday. They didn't go down to Foxborough. They didn't meet with, you know, meet broadly with people in the organization. And before that, there had been some notable personnel execs around the league,

including Trey Brown with the Bengals and Quentin Harris with the Cardinals, who declined interviews, which we could speculate has to do with just how desirable of a job is that, but also could stem from a viewpoint of they don't, they don't actually care that this is not a legitimate an interview with the potential to actually win the job, they're just going to give it to Elliot Wolf. So why would, why would someone who gets other interviews doesn't necessarily need the experience? Why would they bother? To me, what was telling was that when the Patriots sent out the, the press release about this, the first statement from the craft is not even like, Elliot Wolf is great. Elliot's done such a great job this offseason, like so happy.

It starts, as I have stated multiple times during the off season, the plan was to observe the working relationship and the involvement between Elliot and Gerard and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's from Robert Kraft. Which to me was just a little bit telling because it's maybe not ideal if you have to start off your, yay, we hired the guy we wanted to be our de facto general manager with, I keep telling you guys this and you don't understand what we mean. And everybody's ragging on us for things and nobody's paying attention. and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Blah. So this seemed like from my, my vantage point, this worked out fine. It seemed like they wanted to hire Elliot Wolf. Elliot Wolf's track record is perfectly fine to have as your senior personnel executive. But it's just the way that they went about it that makes you wonder if things in New England are firing on all cylinders. I've, because I just monologued enough about, uh, everything that's gone on with this job search. Sheal, I know this is something that you and Ben had talked about a little bit from the perspective of just how desirable of a job would that be.

But does anything about the funkiness of the actual process here influence how you're feeling about New England and feeling about their front office right now? They, I mean, the crafts, it just doesn't seem like a buttoned up process. It doesn't, it seems like a rabbit ear. organization since the end of the Belichick era. And it might not matter at all. Elliot Wolf might be a very good de facto GM as Solac was ragging on any time you mentioned Elliot Wolf for like the last three months. You had to use the word de facto there. If Drake May is good, it's not going to matter.

I mean, the process of I wanted to see Elliot Wolf and Gerard Mayo work together. And I wanted him to make the most important pick we've had in the last, what, 25 years. And then I was going to decide if I wanted him to continue to make decisions. So listen, either it's a situation where it was Wolf all along, most likely. And like you said, they might have had to go through the process to make sure they weren't violating any rules. Or the other thing here, which I think is a big thing, is that owners in this specific situation and many around the NFL want the person in charge of football stuff to they want to be able to have input with that person. So maybe it's a try, hey, did Elliot Wolf? Was he willing to listen to what we?

said about Drake May and the other options in the draft. And yeah, okay, I kind of like having lunch with him. And yeah, we had a couple of drinks. And he seemed open to our input, Robert Kraft and Jonathan Kraft into the football process. So it's, you know, again, it could work out fine. Wolf, Drake May. Really, everything depends on Drake May. But in terms of, does this look like a smooth transition in the post-Belichick era? I would say no to that. It's also, I wonder if there's a little bit going into it where they wanted to have a slower process to kind of get people used to the idea internally because Elliot Wolf, I mean, he did, he basically leapfrogged Matt Groh. Within the organization, Matt Groh was someone who had a close relationship with Belichick,

was brought in during those times and had a good relationship there. So I wonder if there's a little bit of sort of internal getting used to the idea that had to happen. My point of view is that I think they're, I don't want to say they're lucking into good decisions, but I do want to say that they keep, they keep arriving in the right place after having gone about making decisions in a really funky, seeming way. And I think you can, you know, you can talk about that with the draft, you can talk about that with even just like, look, you end an era with Belichick and they had a succession plan in place already, though they didn't expect to use it this quickly, with Gerard Mayo, and then effectively don't really undergo a particularly serious search for

their highest personnel person. So they don't do the legwork of seeing if this is the right fit, seeing if there's anybody better out there, seeing if they can just like sort of mine the league for ideas. But I do think Elliott Wolf has a decent track record and, you know, GMing is is sort of convoluted enough that it's hard to rip them for it. But it does seem to me that someday this process, this type of process might lead them into a decision that does feel like it's going to have adverse impacts, even if they've been relatively lucky or maybe there's something I'm missing to have made reasonable decisions. at least so far.

But it makes me want to say watch this space, as some say. Stephen, do you have Patriot's thoughts? I just think this was telegraph, a telegraph move, and I think it's why they got declined for interviews. I turned down for interviews. Beyond getting to take Drake May, like the most important pick in the last 25 years, as Schill said, they got, Wolf got to extend Christian Barmore, re-signed Nwayu, Dugger.

They resigned a bunch of players. He spent $75 million in Cap Space. Yeah, this has been a, very active offseason and active with ramifications for the next five to ten years. So they gave him a lot of slack. They gave him a lot of freedom to shape this roster. And I think he's done a decent job of it. So I do think every time you limit a talent pool when you're searching for a position as

important as this, I think it's bad process. I think it's always good to extend the candidate pool as widely as you can. But I do think like the early signs are good for rule and the direction. franchise is headed it. I don't want it all to seem like we're making light of a team possibly going around the Rooney Roll, particularly when this is a team that, you know, was was tangentially involved in Brian Flores's lawsuit and had had Bill Belichick be the person who'd sort of accidentally potentially tipped Brian Flores off that his interview with Giants had not been on the level. And that's a really, really big deal, right? And even

if they believe that Elliot Wolf was always a person that they wanted for the job, it's a systematic problem with the league. And if the Patriots want to say that they're on board with diverse hiring, which, look, they have an African-American head coach, which in Boston is really significant. And I think that's commendable. And I think that they want to be seen as having done that with some of those intentions. And there's some piece of that that's undermined. if their GM search is conducted in this way.

In general, I think it's just like what we're sort of, they're just being a little weird about everything. It's all fine. Like the front office structure seems fine. Elliot Wolfe seems to have done a good job. Gerard Mayo seems like he's getting his footing and we'll have to see. It's a tough act to follow with Belichick. But it's just like,

why does it always need to be like this? It's been a weird off season. It's been a weird off season. Like they've had the documentary come out on Apple Plus. They've had the Tom Brady Roast, which I think was like a weird moment for that franchise, as crazy as that is, as that sounds. It's been a weird offseason. Yeah. So I suppose we'll have to wait and see for more results.

All right. Staying in the AFC East. Connor Hughes of SNY reported Monday that the Jets made, quote, legitimate attempts in the offseason to hire someone who would, quote, essentially replaced Nathaniel Hackett. And I'll quote again, not as a new. offensive coordinator, but a title above who would run the show. This is following at the end of January, a piece in the athletic by Zach Rosenplatt and Diana Rossini, who reported that Robert Sala had explored, at least by the end of last season, had explored adding to the offensive staff and making play calling more of a collaborative

effort, which was also an indication of how they were feeling about Hackett. And so Hughes, I guess, is following up by saying that since then they have made some actual overtures. Obviously, nothing has happened there, but that the Jets did in fact go out and put some feelers out there to see if there was someone that they could bring in, not just to help out, but to put over the top of Nathaniel Hackett and not be the offensive coordinator, but be an overseer who, if I'm reading this report, correctly would be higher up than Hackett on the org chart and have the ability to override his decisions, which again leaves us in a place of wondering what's going on with the Jets. Stephen, I'll ask you this question first. Would anyone have wanted that job? No, I thought they already had that position filled and I thought it was filled by Aaron

Rogers himself. Like, I thought that's what his job was to babysit Nathaniel Hackett. But, like, the closest comparison to a situation like this, if they had hired somebody is like Gary Kubiak a couple years ago, do you remember when the Vikings brought him in to oversee like Schifansky when he first started calling plays? It was a little weird, a little awkward. And it led to some, some early season problems and they finally got over him. I don't think this will matter, though. I really don't think Hackett's going to be a problem with Rogers is out there. Like, the value of a good offensive coordinator is like setting a quarterback up pre-snap and telling them like, if you see this, get to this play. If you see that, go to this play. And Aaron Rogers, he has

those ideas on his own. He can do that on his own. So I really don't think the Hackett thing matters. And I don't think it was a move that was necessary for the Jets, assuming Rogers is helpful. Shield, do you think that Hackett should be seen as a weakness, a real weakness in the Jets 2024 outlook? Yeah, I mean, ideally you want your offensive coordinator to be adding something, someone who you're trying to overcome or you can say if he's like a net, you know, neutral. It's like, that's a good thing, which I agree with Stephen. That's kind of the best case scenario here is that like, Hackett, don't screw it out. Rogers is like, I got this. Honestly, I think the Jets were in a tough spot. I'm sure internally they were like the best thing for us. We watched Nathaniel Hackett last year.

He's not good at this. Let's get someone to replace him. If you do that, I mean, you've handed everything. Everything is built around the quarter of your entire franchise is on the quarterback's back, who you traded for in Aaron Rogers. So now you're going to go, well, how's Aaron Rogers going to react if we bring someone else in to replace Nathaniel Hackett? It almost has to be somebody who Rogers approves up and has worked with before. I mean, you're not going into this season with a brand new offensive coordinator who Aaron Rogers knows nothing about and expecting that to succeed.

So I think they were just caught in a tough spot. So yeah, ideally when I'm looking at like the Jets and all right, can they actually make a run? Can they make the playoffs this year? that does kind of stare at me quite a bit because I always look at the play caller and the offense and can this guy do something? And it's like, well, all right, that's not going to be good. And the question immediately goes to, well, maybe Rogers can overcome it. He's had so many reps. He's worked in this scheme before. So I think that's kind of where they're at going to this season.

I feel like the interesting part there is that the Jets tried to fill this role or create this role and we're unable to do what it sounds like. It sounds like. And that seems like, oh, we're having trouble finding a coach that will come in and coach this quarterback. Because you know what it leads to me? Like I was thinking it either reads to me like let's get this out there that we were trying to replace Hackett and could either that or, you know, it's just like a situation where like you mentioned, it's like, all right, bring someone else in to manage Hackett where we're still, we still have Hackett, but someone who Rogers also approved.

Like, let's be honest. If you wanted to upgrade from Nathaniel Hackett this offseason, you would have been able to upgrade from the thing. Right. He did seem a little fishy to me. You would have been able to upgrade from Nathaniel Hackett, but would you have been able to get someone who you think is an upgrade to take a job that is articulated as being a better job, a job that has final say,

but also you have to work in this really complicated structure where he's still there and he's still called the offensive coordinator. And everybody knows that the quarterback's actually the one who makes the decision snap to snap on the field. and the quarterback likes Hackett. I'm very much with you, Sheila, in the sense that my takeaway from this is just like the Jets stay dramatic and someone might have an incentive to get the idea

that they weren't totally happy with the rest of the coaching staff out there at this point in the off-season calendar. But I'm not surprised that nobody wanted to take this job. All right. Next one. We have the season opener. So the full schedule release is, is going to be this Wednesday night. We'll have more on that on this feed later this week.

But the games are already being announced in dribs and drabs, including September 5th, Thursday night. That's the season opener. And that's going to be Ravens at Chiefs. Stephen, what is your way too early Ravens at Chiefs preview? Damn, I have a prediction. Do you want to find a score? I didn't say prediction.

I just said preview. Like, what are you thinking? I think we're going to figure out everything we need to know about the Ravens. we'll get into this in the next segment. But I think there are a lot of question marks with this team, having lost what they lost on the defensive side, especially with Mike McDonald, who was such a big factor in their season last year,

if they compete with the Chiefs or they beat the Chiefs, I think they were a better team last year than the Chiefs were, even ignore the AFC title game result, then I will lock them in as my Super Bowl favorite. And now if they get embarrassed by the Chiefs, I will be have concerns. I will be concerned about this team efficient. I love that you started.

with, oh, come on, I have to have a prediction and then came out so ready to be like, I'm going to make my Super Bowl prediction based on the outcome of this one game. 31 and 23 chiefs. Let me remind you, the Detroit Lions beat the Kansas City Chiefs in the opener last year. Chiefs go on to win the Super Bowl. Lions do not. That's a good point. But it did preview a lot of the themes for the season for both teams in that game.

That's true. That's true. I love it. I love the enthusiasm. Sheila, you have opening night thoughts? Too good of a game for opening. night, you know, I kind of want a crappier game. Too good? Yeah, because everybody's excited for the first game. Like, you give me something like, we're all excited. We're going to watch. You don't need

to. I want to see Lamar and Mahomes in like week eight, week nine, week 13. When, when the teams are good, then it's like, oh, is this an AFC championship preview? How do they, then you're going to learn more like week one. Think about how much teams change from week one to week 18. So you're too good. You should have gotten more inferior opponent. That is my. No, this is a good take. I do agree with that take. I do not agree with the alternative of putting a crappy game. Not crappy, mediocre. What's the worst? Mediocre team. What's your ideal opening game? Yeah, yeah. What if you threw the charger? What if it was a division game? Couldn't the chargers have been in there? Jim Harbaugh's debut, you know, against the, it's not like a team that's going to win the Super Bowl. But I don't know.

That that. That's the first team that came to mind. So someone who's like a fringe, maybe playoff team in there, but has a little bit of juice, whether it's because of the coach or the quarterback or whatever. That would have been more fun. So, yeah, Chargers chiefs. I don't. I don't. that strongly about it. Listen, I struggle to come up with scheduling takes. I'm trying here, but, you know, that was just the first thing that came to mind. I got to be honest with the audience. Football podcasters lament in mid-May is I struggle to come up with schedule takes. I like Chargers Chiefs as an opener. I do appreciate that we're, that, but you guys both came to that with Stephen saying he's going to decide his Super Bowl winner based on week one, uh, based on the first

game of the season and she'll coming out with the first game needs to be worse. I appreciate That's why you guys are pros. I feel great about it. What a segment. All right. Last little nugget, producer Isaiah, dropping this in the chat, helping us out, doing the legwork. A late breaking news edition to the rundown here. Buccaneers safety, Antoine Winfield Jr. agrees to four-year, 84.1 million-dollar contract.

This is per multiple reports, including I'm looking at one. from Ian Rappaport, includes $45 million and guaranteed money, makes Winfield the highest paid defensive back in the NFL, which is the first time in league history that a safety has occupied that position. Shiel, you're our contracts guy, free agency monitoring expert. What do you think about this move by the bucks? Yeah, I was just looking. I had him ninth on my overall list of top 50s.

50 free agents. I mean, it's just another example that the longer you wait, when you have a guy who's in his prime, he's entering his age 26th season, he's coming off and all pro season. The price is only going to go up. Like if you did this deal in November, December last year, when you're like, man, Winfield's playing awesome and we still have Todd Bowles and he's a key player on our defense, you know, you're going to get a little bit of a discount. And so good job by Winfield saying I'm willing to play on the franchise tag. If you want to extend me at the top of the market, I'll take it. If not, I'm playing on the tag. and I'll hit free agency next season when I'm 27 years old. So it's an example of if you're a player in your prime and, you know,

you can bet on yourself a little bit more and you can kind of not throw away the year. He still would have got paid $17 million. But it's kind of the smart way to do it. So I think it's fine. If you're the list, I'm always in favor of like lock up your best players at premium positions, pay them and go forward. Like that's how you build the team.

So I'm fine with it from the Bucks then. I think if they were to look back at the process, they probably would have said, maybe we should have got this done earlier. And he definitely plays like a premium version of the safety position, because there is some question about the value of that position, but not the way he plays. Like he played in the slot. He can play man coverage if he has to.

He creates turnovers and he's like a universal scheme fit. Like he doesn't need to be in a Todd Bulls defense to be an effective player. And this franchise gave Baker Mayfield $100 million over three years. I'm not going to get worked up over four years, $84 million for the best player on the team. To your point, 15 sacks. for a safety over the last two seasons. Like, that's more than a lot of, I mean, I know there's stuff schemed up that, you know,

it's not like he's always beating a plot. But still, like that's hard to do. He's very good at that. And like you said, he can match up against tight ends. He can do different things. He forces fun. He has a playmaking safety,

which I always enjoy. I feel like he's what people think Derwin James still is. Or like Darwin James pre-in-jured. Like, he's actually what the idea of Derwin James, who's kind of, you know, fallen off for the last few years, although it could have been as... Well, congrats to Antoine Winfield.

Good stuff. Kind of a newsy. A little bit of news here on a Monday. Don't say the offseason doesn't have anything going on. It's good stuff. Let's take a quick break. We'll come back. We will rank the entire league in tears.

You'll know everything you need to know from one to 32 after this next segment. All right. Welcome back to the ringer NFL show. I'm Nora Pinceiati. I am here with Shield Capadia. and Stephen Ruiz. And we're going to rank the league in basically four tiers.

We have four main tiers here. Goes from Super Bowl contenders down through playoff contenders, down through. Teams are sort of focusing on culture this year. Could go up, could go down. And then the last tier is teams that are pretty much just scouting for 2020. this season. I will do a little bit more as far as explanation of the individual tiers as we go through. I have everybody's lists, but Stephen and Shield don't know where everybody else ranked some of the teams.

So we'll go through. There might be a couple of surprises. Everyone was encouraged if you needed an extra tier and needed to call something out to include that. So I'll throw a couple extra little things in that. there as we go down. But let's start at the top, which is with the Super Bowl contenders. And the main takeaway here, Sheal, congratulations, because you get to be the optimist on this pod. Because the main thing that sticks out looking at the lists here is that Stephen shared that he is 95% confident that one of three teams is going to win the Super Bowl. Whereas

Sheal, you had one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten teams that you think are capable of winning the Super Bowl. I was in the middle. I had six. Stephen, you think that the chiefs, the 49ers, and the Ravens, who you caveated might you think might not belong here. A little iffy on them. It might be a tier two team to me.

No, like I've done this exercise many times throughout my career. Like one of these teams is going to win the Super Bowl is a very common conceit for NFL content. And I'm usually up around like seven, 18, 16s. Like this is the hardest it's ever been for me to kind of envision other teams winning the Super Bowl. Like the bills haven't done it where they've been at their best. And maybe we shouldn't skip ahead to the bills yet. But I feel like I have to defend my take by tearing down these other teams that I left out of the tier. But like the bills took a clear step back, losing Stefan Biggs. The Bengals like, there are too many question marks with Burrow coming back from another injury. They were third in adjusted game

flaw. So it wasn't even like they had injury problems. Like they had very good injury luck. They had very, they had a bad defense, which I feel like everyone has just ignored because of the Burrow injury. And then first of all, they were 27th and EPA allowed on defense. They weren't even like a bad defense. They were one of the worst defenses in the league. And that really started to like manifest over the second half of the season.

And I don't know if we've seen enough defensive improvements from them. And I have to remind you guys, like they were five and five when Burrough started. I know he was banged up for the like the first month of the season. but it wasn't like this was pretty, even when he was out there. So I think there are question marks with them. And then the lions, the question mark is obvious. It's Jared Gough and like, where does he go from last year? And those are the only teams that I really considered moving up to the first year.

Okay. Well, so let me give you Shield's actual list. It's Chiefs, Bills, Ravens, Bengals, Texans, Cowboys, Eagles, Lions, Packers, 49ers. And then I have Chiefs, Ravens, 49ers, Bill's, Lions. to your point about the Bengals, I struggled hard on that one and ultimately felt like there are enough questions around the defense and that I was, if I had included them, I was resting on a type of season long performance from Borough that we've really only seen once. So I did end up taking them out, although there was an iteration of my list where I wanted to

put them in here. Sheal. First of all, if I'm an NFL team, I want Sheal. Sheal is just like, if anyone can win the Super Bowl, it's the offseason, we're feeling good. I love the energy. Take your pick of any of these teams that you really feel like has this strong case. Mount your defense. Anyone not the Chiefs 49ers or the Ravens?

Well, I approach it by like, by the fan base. Like if you're a fan base, do you realistically? think your team, we know like almost every fan base probably thinks their team, or a lot of them half the league, so even more than I had. But like these ones, if they're fans like, you know, tweeted at me, emailed me and said, hey, our team can win the Super Bowl. Here's why I would say, yeah, I agree. I think there's a formula there. So I went on a rant on the Bengals very recently. I am a big, I am the Bengals believer on the ringer. So I'll skip that one because I don't want to repeat myself. I generally agree with what, you know, Ruiz you said about the, this isn't the best version of the

bills here at the same time. Like, they're 48 and 18 in the regular season with Josh Allen over the last three years. Like, I just, you know, they lost a point flip game to the Chiefs last year. I agree with you. This isn't the year I would pick the bills to get there, but I think they have a chance. I'm scrawl. You know what? I would take issue with your, with your Lions one.

Let's do that. Now, I think they've got a great shot to get to the Super Bowl. In fact, I made a pick, I think, to Solek in a recent pod where I said, all right, if I had to pick one right now, I'm going to go ahead and pick the lion. So after last season, Dan Campbell did his whole thing in the locker room where he's like, we might never get back here. And it was like, man, this guy's just too real, too fast here. They just lost a heartbreaking game here to the 49ers.

But after that, they keep their offensive coordinator, which I think is a big deal. I mean, I look at that offense. I think he's an excellent offensive coordinator. Jared Gough, I'm with you. He's not Josh Allen. He's not Patrick Mahomes. We can name a bunch of other quarterbacks. who he's not. At the same time, to me, he wasn't the reason they lost the NFC championship game.

I mean, I thought he played well in that game. I think he's played well when he has a structure around him that you can trust. Like, I think he's been a starter seven times and he's, you know, quarterback like a top 10 offense in DVOA five times. So I understand he got McVeigh. Now he got Ben Johnson. But like in this scheme with these surrounding pieces, I think their offense is going to be really, really good. And I like what they did defensively. They threw a bunch of darts at that secondary with Carlton Davis, Amick Robertson with the draft in the first round. So Terry and Arnold,

so they, I'm not saying it's definitely going to work out. I don't think they're going to have a great defense, but I just look at it. I think they're going to have a really good offense. I think they're going to have a mediocre defense. I like Dan Campbell. I look at the NFC.

And I'm like, I think they've got as good a shot really as anyone else. So that's my defense of the alliance. My question is like how much improvement you need to see out of them for them to repeat what they did last year. because I do think they kind of overachieved in the playoffs and what they did in the playoffs kind of hides what happened in the regular season.

Like, I know they went 12 and 4, but this team had a worst point differential than the New Orleans Saints last year. I mean, I feel like that's a big deal that we can't ignore. And then the one image I can't really get out of my head is that Ravens game, seeing Jared Goff go up against an elite defense

that could really take away and mitigate the advantage that Ben Johnson provides. Plus, it was an outdoor game. It was kind of cold, kind of windy, and you really saw the worst of Jared Goff. And I just can't get that. image out of my head. That's a team they should be competing with if they're expecting to win a Super Bowl this year. And it wasn't even close. And we haven't really seen them take on contenders yet.

So like the few times we have, they haven't been super competitive. Like the 49ers, yes, but I do think the 49ers were, I don't know. I feel like the 49ers are different challenges because they have a different type of quarterback and their defense wasn't very good when they played them in the playoffs last year. But I just want to see this team actually beat contenders and look the part. And I don't think we've seen it just yet. I think we saw glimpses of it in January last year. Here's what I would say as a fellow Lions, lion's believer is all of that is, all of that is fair, right? But I still, I still do think that Goff played the best football of his, his career last season. I think it's reasonable

to feel like that arrow could still be going up because he is in this system. It seems like he's a great relationship with Johnson. He still has that type of tutelage. It's a good system for him. He seems to be getting a little bit better. Against the Blitz, he seems to be getting just like a little bit, playing a little bit less of that automatic style. It was concerning to see the problems crop up, particularly in bad weather. But hey, the Super Bowl's

in New Orleans. Got to get there, though. I don't think they have the shot that the chiefs have, but I think they belong on the list. Can I say one crazy thing here? Actually, maybe two. I don't even know how to articulate this. There's something about the bills who are just so clearly a worse roster than they were last season and the season before where it just makes me wonder, like, this team has had such

weird circumstances around it for the last couple of seasons. Maybe in a weird way, this is what they need. Like, maybe the bills who every season, they have these expectations and then they don't get there. And it's tortured and people are mad. And like, maybe there's an addition by subtraction thing almost where it's like they get the monkey off their back of everybody really, really believing that this is the year and they just do something when it's less expected. I wouldn't I wouldn't rule that out just because it's felt so tense in Buffalo for much of the last couple of years since the 13 second game. And I wonder if that helps them in a strange way.

And it wouldn't totally shock me, even though I have absolutely no evidence to back that up. Anybody want to tell me I'm crazy? No, it happened with the Rams, I feel like, like twice in the last five years. Like there was a point, especially when they were about to get rid of Jared Gough, where it felt like the Rams were done. They had just made like the desperate trade for Jalen Ramsey at the trade deadline. It was like, this team is going nowhere. They went like nine games.

And then all of a sudden they have the best defense in the NFL. And then they're back. And then two years later, they trade for Stafford. They went a Super Bowl. Then even last year, you could kind of say the same. thing happened. Nobody had the expectations for that team. And then out of nowhere, they made the playoffs. We're one of like the brightest or the best stories of the second half of the season. So I could see that happening. But the one thing I can't see is them winning the Super Bowl. I can't

see them surpassing Kansas City. I can't see them surpassing Baltimore. I definitely can't see them surpassing the 49ers with all that talent they have. Like my second tier was I could see a run to the Super Bowl. I just can't see them winning. And I think the downside of the season could be a major step back. I think there is a scenario where the lions come out of this season and those comments from Dan Campbell seem prescient where they're like, we're not going to make it back. And like there is a major step back and they go, oh, Jared Gough's not the guy. I could see Joe Burrow maybe getting hurt again and Big Lose defense not recovering from last year. And that being sort of a dark turn for that franchise. And the bills, of course, that's on the table. We've seen it over the last two years what's happened

with them. So I wouldn't be surprised if that arrow keeps pointing down. Okay, here's my second crazy thing. Did anybody else think about putting the Jets in this category? Yes. I did not. I just the number of things that would have to go right. I mean, I couldn't. These other teams, it was much more reasonable to me.

Like, they would almost have to have. And we'll talk about them probably in the next tier. But to actually win the Super Bowl, the amount of things that would have, it's like a perfect season almost. And then I look at like the coaching. and I'm like the old tackles, the old quarterback coming off in Achilles, all these things added up. No, I could not get there with them. Here's my only, I didn't end up doing it, but I did think about it. Because if the phrasing is the teams that can win the Super Bowl, I do think we should acknowledge

that they're in a slightly different position than, you know, think about what Stephen was saying with the lions, right? where it's like, yeah, super deep roster, stable build, good coaching staff, get the direction of the franchise, a lot of things have gone right, like the philosophy, like the vibes, like a lot of things, also have this nagging feeling that even though it's totally obvious to expect that they're going to be in the playoff picture and capable of making a run, that when it really hits the fan, either golf's not going to be able to get it done or if they're playing in January in bad conditions, they're not going to be able to get it done. And it's just this thing of like, do we really believe that the ceiling could be that high?

And I do think the Jets are in a different position than that, where they are heavily, heavily, exposed to injuries and drama. And if you ask me if I think that there is a significant likelihood that those things are going to put a damper on what they accomplish, the season? I think the answer is yes. And so if it's, do I think that the Jets are going to, are going to do it? No, I don't think that that's super likely. I think that there are just so many things that could pop up that that would get in their way to doing that. But if you tell me that the Jets are penciled into the second round of the playoffs, let's say, and then I'm thinking about, okay, that probably means that Rogers stayed healthy or is healthy at that point and missing a few games was okay now that they have Terod Taylor as a backup quarterback and it's not Zach Wilson.

And then we're talking about a roster that if they stay healthy, and again, I think this is maybe the team that is the most exposed to injuries just because of where they play and who is on their roster. But if they do stay healthy, it's a good roster. They were third in defensive DVOA last season in a season where for a lot of it they had very little to play for. And it's even despite the fact that there is at least the potential for a fair amount of dysfunction behind the scenes, I do start going. Like, if they get to that point, the ceiling is really high. that doesn't mean that the number of outcomes in which they reach the ceiling are that many. But the ceiling to me feels high in a way that I would differentiate them. You know, I ended up putting them in tier two and we can go to their next.

But I would say that they stick out to me because a fair number of these teams, I don't think top out in a place that's similar to where the 2024 Jets could top out if everything goes right, which it probably won't. But you said about five times you threw it. It probably won't happen. But no, I totally. But there's a, but everything. I totally agree with you.

Like, I think if everything goes right for a number of these teams versus if everything goes right for the Jets, the Jets are a better team. If everything goes right, then I mean. I would say even like a team like the Dolphins, maybe. Dolphins are a bad, a bad example because they have such a high ceiling. But I would say, I think the Lions are the perfect comparison. I do think if you stack the Jets' 95th percentile outcome for this season, it's maybe sixth in the league, I would say.

And I think the one point that maybe we're overlooking is like the top of the AFC, I think has more question marks than ever. I think the Chiefs are in a solid spot, obviously. We saw what their almost what their floor was last year and they still won the Super Bowl. It's kind of crazy to say. But beyond them, like the bills, the bills aren't what they were. Like the Bengals have question marks

with their defense and obviously Burroughs health. The Ravens lost their defensive coordinator. There are a lot of question marks at the top. And I could very easily see the Jets. If they stay healthy, which is a big if, probably not even the if.

It's not going to happen with all those guys they have. But if they do stay healthy, this could be a top two, top three team in the AFC. And I definitely think they can make a run to the Super Bowl. If I'm combining my first two tiers, which it sounds like I should have done

compared to you guys, I would put the Jets. I would think about putting the Jets in there. I'm just wondering if you thought it was totally crazy. Let's go to Tier 2, which is the playoff contenders. The way that I thought about this was teams that could easily make the playoffs. You could definitely see them making a run. But you could also see things going badly and badly enough where relative to those expectations,

coach gets fired, GM gets fired, quarterback gets traded, or there's a meaningful change. in one of the big defining roles of the organization. Steven, you had the Bills, Bengals, Lions, Eagles, Cowboys, Texans, Packers, and Dolphins. Basically the entire league, yeah. She'll have the Dolphins, Jets, Browns, Steelers, Jaguars, Chargers, Bears, Falcons, and Rams. and I have the Cowboys, Falcons, Bears, Texans, Packers, Jaguars, Chargers, Eagles, Seahawks, Jets, Dolphins, and Bengals. Let's start with the Rams because, Sheel, this worked out to you having pretty good belief in the Rams this upcoming season. What do you like about L.A.?

I actually think I'm going to end up being lower on the Red Rams that most people by the time we get to all. August or September. I looked at this as kind of like, yeah, fringe playoff teams, teams where playoffs are kind of the expectation for the franchise going into the season. And so when you have a quarterback who's 36 years old and you have Sean McVeigh and Stafford played really well last year, the expectation should be the playoffs. I actually will not pick them to make the playoffs. Like I did my exercise of teams that made it last year. I don't think they're going to make it this year. I think they're in a tough spot. I mean, they were the healthiest team in the NFL last year. if you look at adjusted games loss.

So it's like if they get stung with some injury regression, defensively, you lose Aaron Donald and Rahim Morris. Like I feel like Morris we kind of just forget about because Donald is, it's like, well, they did lose a very good defensive coordinator as well, or at least someone who might be hard to replace there. So I think the defense is not going to be nearly as good. Cooper Cup is entering his age 31 season. And like I said, Stafford is 36.

So there's a fragility with this group where I feel like they're sort of just one or two things going wrong. that their season could really go down the drain. At the same time, there's some jettiness to them, like you mentioned. If you told me, hey, you're getting Stafford for every single game, you're getting Cooper Cup for like 14, 15 games. That could be enough for me to be like, all right, they have as good of a shot as anyone in the NFC.

So I don't like to go against McVeigh, because the offense, most seasons is going to be good, and he's going to figure out solutions, and they invested in their offensive line. But overall, I just see, like, which teams can withstand a come couple things going wrong. I don't have them on that list, but I think playoffs are probably still going to be the expectation for that. All right. Well, I feel like you just, you know, Stephen and I left them off this list, but She'll, I feel like you just kind of made made our argument for us.

Thank you for doing that so articulately. But I hear your point where the high end, as long as it, you know, you have Stafford, you have McVeigh. There's some potential there. Let's talk about the bears. Stephen, I'm curious what made you leave them off of this list because Sheila and I, sheel and I both took a shot there. You know, buying some Caleb Williams hype,

feeling like that roster is a little bit better developed and a little bit more ready to compete than a roster that is getting the number one overall draft pick added to it typically would be. What makes you think they're falling a little bit lower down? I get them out of my second tier just because I reserve that for teams that I had seen done it already. Like, I've seen them make the playoffs. I've seen them win playoff games.

Like, I've seen the Packers. I've seen the Dolphins make the playoffs. I've seen the Cowboys and Eagles make the playoffs. The Bears, like, I think they could end up being in this tier. They were two and six in one-score games last year. And a big reason why they lost a lot of those one-score games was because of the mistakes of the quarterback in the fourth quarter. And I don't think those mistakes are going to happen.

Like, if Caleb Williams is a good rookie quarterback, not a good quarterback, like, in the landscape of the league, a good rookie quarterback, I feel like the wild card might be this team's floor because they had the number one defense after like the after the first month of the season. I think it was even before the trade for sweat happened that they had already like started to play well on defense. You have Caleb Williams who now has maybe definitely a top 10 receiving core, I would say, maybe a top five receiving court. But Dune's as good as I think he's going to be.

The question is about the offensive line and the coaching staff. We haven't seen this coaching staff like in big games. We don't know whatever Flus does, like how he makes decisions in big. games and playoff spots. You have to see that happen. And then the offensive line is just everything's on paper. They have good young players and it could turn out well, but I have to see it first. But I could very easily see this team being like the Texans of last year. Offensive line play number one underrated factor in team success in the months of May and June in NFL analysis. So I certainly take your points there. Shiel, how are you feeling about the

bears? Yeah, I was looking at it. And the NFC is hard to figure. out and I was like, can they be one of the seven? I mean, you're going to be one of the seven teams. You know, they don't have to go 13 and four. And right now, the vet, the, uh, fan dual odds, actually, they're minus 1.30 to make the playoffs. So like the betting market say, it's more likely than not that they're in there. They have the third easiest schedule. If you go by projected win totals of your opponent. So easier schedule like, uh, like Stephen said, you know, the defense was coming on last year. Caleb Williams, if he's just like competent and gives them some like stability. You know what I mean? It's like last year.

For the ups and downs of a Justin Fields, like I think Caleb Williams, one of the things I really liked about him is that, yes, he could make the 1% plays. But if you're just like, hey, you know, complete eight passes in a row between like five and nine yards here, he can operate like a robot if he needs to. And so they also added Shane Waldron as their offensive coordinator. I think that could be an upgrade as well. So I think I just added it all up. And I'm like, I don't know. You know, he doesn't have to be as good as C.J. Stroud last year. But I think there's a path for them to win nine or ten games and make the playoffs. In week 11, this team very easily could have beaten the Lions.

Like they had a lead against the Lions. The Lions came back and beat them. Like they were competitive. Like I said, two and six and one score games. This wasn't a terrible football team last year. And I think they've gotten a lot better in the offseason. And that is with the fact that there's been some reporting recently, I think, mostly from Ty Dunn, who interviewed some Bears folks, mostly, I think, in anticipation of

this season and talking about Caleb Williams and stuff. But there have been some dribs and drabs coming out that indicate that, first of all, Justin Fields and Nick Foles, like, really weren't getting along and there was drama. And it just, it seems like they might have kept things relatively under wraps, but that that was not a fun quarterback room to be in. That's mostly my reading between the lines. But it just seems like there's some particular. potential for things to get a lot better very quickly.

There. The other thing I want to ask you, Shil, about your list is the AFC. Why does you include so many teams, Sheila? Why didn't you follow the instruction? The AFC North in particular, we've got the Browns and the Steelers in our playoff contender lists. And I believe we have already ranked the Ravens and the Bengals as Super Bowl contenders.

So shaping up to be a. real bloodbath in the AFC North over in Capadio world. The Browns, I find so hard to figure out what to do with in general. How did you approach tiering Cleveland? Yeah, I don't think the Browns or the Steelers are going to make the play. Contender was my keyword. Can they contend for a playoff spot? Yes. I mean, yeah, Deshaun Watson hasn't played a good season of football since 2020. I mean, it's been four years since he's been healthy and a good quarterback in the NFL. They have the third hardest schedule in the NFL. So I just see them as like a mediocre team that maybe they find a way and they get in there.

I'm not going to pick them to get in there. And the Steelers are a hard team to figure out as well. You know, we talked about them, I think, on our draft pod where we're like, oh, we kind of like what the Steelers did this offseason. Look at their depth chart. They've got some good players there. And then I look at it and it's like, well, it's still Russell Wilson and Justin Fields, complete unknowns or knowns that aren't good at quarterback. They were seven and two in one score games last year.

They faced the hardest schedule in the NFL by projected win total. So I will never like come out strongly and be like, I did this once in a bold predictions call. This is the year Mike Tomlin's not going to finish 500 or better. Guess what? As you know, they finished 500 or better. So I learned my lesson. I'm not going to come out that strong. And I think if you're a Steelers fan, you're probably like kind of excited about this team and this season.

I think that that's reasonable. I just think when I look at the landscape of the AFC, I will probably be like, all right, they got too many things working against them for me to pick them to make it. But I think they're in the mix. I think they'll be a competitive team. I mean,

history says, right, they absolutely will be in the mix as long as they have Mike Tomlin. So I think that's totally fair. I think of them just sort of like in the spirit of the categories as being a culture year team in the sense that it feels like the stakes of this season. And yes, you know, Pittsburgh fans love, love their Steelers, love their football, would love to see a run, would love to see a competitive team.

And I would not be surprised if they're hovering right at the cusp of the playoff picture in around 500 and you can see them getting it done. And they play a game or two in the postseason maybe if things break right. But on a sort of fundamental level, doesn't it feel like this season is about do they set themselves in a place where it feels? like, oh, maybe they make a real run at Dak Prescott. And maybe things feel good enough there so that if you have to compete with, you know, I heard what you in Solac we're talking about on extra point taken. If you have to compete with a Miami, if you have to compete with a, with an L.A. And maybe you don't have as much to offer in terms of the destination can make a football

argument there. That to me feels more like what's at stake in Pittsburgh. in 2024 versus, you know, could you really get to a championship game just because that feels a little bit rich? The other team that I want to talk about here is, and I want to say to Stephen Ruiz in particular, how dare you abandon Justin Herbert this way? What do? You left him off.

You relegated him to the third tier of the league. I didn't. No, I relegated the Los Angeles Chargers. let me be very clear. I relegated them to the third. But let me, my, my title for this tier was after the season, we're either going to be very excited or are down extremely bad. And I think the charges are definitely in that territory right now.

Having not, they didn't miss the playoffs three years in a row, but I think they would have rather missed the playoffs than have that game against the Jaguars in the wildcar round. But if they have a fourth year where they don't win a playoff game with this quarterback, like if I'm that fan base, I'm giving up all hope if they haven't already. But that's what this category is for me. That's where I put the Browns, because the Browns definitely can make the playoffs.

This team was, they made the playoffs last year and they were, I think, 29th. Yeah, 29th and adjusted games lost on offense. 27th on defense. They got decimated on both sides of the ball. Still made the playoffs. And I did think Deshawn Watson played a little bit better down the stretch.

Like the best three games of his Browns career came in like the last month before he got hurt. So I think there is some reason to be optimistic about that team. But you can also see the inverse of that. If Deshaun Watson has another bad year, like it's over. And it's not over in the fact that they can move on. It's just over like, this is not going to work out ever. We need to, we need to blow this thing up.

And then the other teams I have in here are like the Jaguars. The Jaguars and the charters are in the same boat to me. Like you have the quarterback. You have that piece and the question marks are about everything else around them. If you get everything else around them right, like you're going to be in tier two, tier one this year. I just don't have confidence in that yet. I need to see it first.

See, I'm getting a little bit. And of course, this is so dangerous. But I'm buying in a little bit on the idea that the Chargers, who yes, I agree with you, are in a little bit of the same boat as the Jaguars. And I might like what the Jaguars have overall around Trevor Lawrence a bit better than what the Chargers have overall around Justin Herbert. But I do, I wonder if Harbaugh's ability to influence that place in year one is getting a little bit underrated. I think the fact that they are clearly investing.

their offensive line and trying to make that a strength and trying to put Herbert in a position where he'll be well protected, where he can hopefully use his strengths as a quarterback to better effect. It makes me wonder if there's going to be a situation which he can just play to his strengths in a way that we haven't really seen regularly in a couple of years. And I know there's questions about the offense because of the coordinator and other's questions about what Harbaugh really wants to do in terms of how much he wants to rely on the quarterback versus a sort of ground and pound

run game. But I do not think that Jim Harbaugh is going to be silly enough to not know what he has. I'm not worried about that at all. I'm not worried about the run pass ratios at all with that. I feel like that's been made a big deal. Like I've seen a lot on Twitter too. But like I don't, Jim Harbaugh wins everywhere. He's not a dumb coach. Like I feel like people are trying to paint him as like an outdated archaic coach, but like the dude just won a national championship in college football, which

like is ahead of the NFL in terms of X's and O's and scheme. And it has been for the last couple of decades. I just think it's a ridiculous concern that people have. And he won it, he, he won that national championship with a quarterback who has a lot of strengths, but is not Justin Herbert. And when you have J.J. McCarthy and then you also have a really, really, really good offensive line and ability to run the football, you're going to make different decisions about what that balance is relative to what you're going to do when you have Justin Herbert. Also, by the way, the story of Justin Herbert over the last few seasons looks pretty different and a lot better if he were playing in an offensive infrastructure that didn't rely on him to save the day

at every possible turn. The best season of his career came in, or like, I guess the one relative to expectations was that rookie season when he played under Anthony Lynn who runs an offense like Greg Roman. Like when Greg Roman got fired in Buffalo, who replaced him? Anthony Lynn, it was the same offense. So I do think like I think any questions about like how he's going to fit in the scheme, but like those aren't the concerns to me. The concern to me is like they're a year away because they just had to strip down the roster.

The defense needs work. I do like the defensive coordinator. I don't like Greg Roman as the offensive coordinator higher, but I trust Jim Hardball. So this category for me was can make the playoffs, but definitely not winning the Super Bowl. And I think that fits for them. I think that's fair. I guess the point that I'm trying to make here is, yes, the roster needs a fair bit of work. But if we just look at the chargers from the perspective of how much better can they get with Harbaugh and his head coach,

Justin Herbert playing in a system that might help him substantially. good offensive line, defense potentially freed from some of the constraints of really wanting to play in a staley style. I think that bounce can be significant. I don't think it can be significant to vault them into the Chargers can compete for a Super Bowl, even though I think that Justin Herbert is the type of quarterback who your aims should be to be in that Super Bowl conversation all the time. I just don't think the roster is there.

But I think that that bounce can be meaningful. So that's why they're in tier two, not tier three for me. Before we get to tier three, Stephen had a tier 2.5. And tier 2.5 per Stephen Ruiz is just called, how's the Achilles doing? And I think based on that that you can imagine the two teams in that tier are the Jets and the Falcons. I think a lot of this is pretty evident. Steven, do you have anything that you want to say about this tier? No, yeah, it's two and a half.

The answer to that question decides whether they go into tier two or tier three. For me, like, I see the Jets as more of a tier two team and I see the Falcons more as a tier three team. I think there are more question marks around Kirk Cousins' Health. Whereas if I think that if I think Aaron Rogers is healthy, if he is healthy, they're going to win like 11 games. I have no doubt in my mind with that defense and that quarterback. I think they'll win 11 games.

If he plays, give me 15 games from Aaron Rogers. said 11 wins. I can't say the same about the Falcons. I don't know what this Falcons team looks like. It's hard to project because we haven't seen this coaching staff work together. We haven't seen Kirk Cousins play in a new system in a while. It's not really a new system, but it's a new offensive coordinator. It's going to be interesting.

And I don't know what to make of the defense. We don't know what the defense is going to play. How are you feeling about the Falcons show? I mean, 11. I'm stuck out. He just came out. I don't know how many minutes were in. The Jets, 11 wins with Aaron Roder.

That is, I almost said 12. Almost said 12. That's spicy. Falcons have the easiest schedule in the NFL. The division stinks. It's just like, I don't think they're that fun to really talk. It's like they don't have the ceiling. I don't think they're getting to the Super Bowl.

I think they're going to win games. I don't think they're going to be must see TV. I think Kirk Cousins will be. Kirk Cousins, if he's healthy, and they'll be fine. But to me, it's more about kind of the surrounding pieces, their schedule, their division, where I think they got a good shot to at least make the playoff. What team did you just describe over the last five? Like, they are the Vikings now.

Like, Kirk Cousins didn't leave the Vikings. He just brought the Vikings to Atlanta with them. That's what they are now. You're right. Without Justin Jefferson, without Brian Flores from last year or Mike Zimmer in the years before. Because, yeah, they had some seasons where, yeah, you're right. I mean, I think that's a good reminder. You know, we see the Kirk Cousins, like, salary numbers.

And I think we have this vision of what he was at the beginning of last year. And if we zoom out to what is. what that experience was like for the, its entirety. You're right. It's probably not even as good as what I just described. To be quite honest, that's the high end.

Yeah, that's the high end of what it was like. We could, however, say something similar with the Jets in the sense of, and I know that I've talked up their potential, there's a difference between Aaron Rogers being on the field and Aaron Rogers not being impacted by his recovery from his Achilles injury,

right? Like it shouldn't get lost in, the story of how the Jets got to this season, that the fact that Rogers tried so hard to come back as soon as he could last season could end up impacting actually how well he recovered and how stable that part of his body is for this season. You know, if you're talking about something like a torn Achilles,

I am obviously not a doctor or a medical professional, that does to me seem to be a pretty clear binary. Either it's intact or it's not. in terms of if he's actually going to be like out and missing a ton of time. But I think there's two things to look for with both of these guys. But I think of it in terms of the jets, especially just because of how Rogers recovery process went, which is one, just, you know, do they stay on the field? But two, how are these old men moving around back there?

Yeah, that's a good question. How are we looking at? Because like the last time we did see him healthy, there were question marks about how he was moving around and whether it was what we saw when he won MVP. But like Kirk Cousins bringing the Vikings to Atlanta, all Rogers done is bringing the Packers to New York. Like it seems like they had the same ceiling as what year was that? 22 Packers.

Like that's the team that this feels like. Which definitely has like a playoff run in them. All right. Let's do two, three. This is, Stephen, you had two parts to this. The first part has the Rams, the Browns, the Jaguars, the Chargers, the Steelers, the Seahaw. the Bears and the Colts.

And then after this point, you differentiated them saying by that for these teams, it's not happening this year, but the arrow is pointing up. And that's the Vikings, the Cardinals, the commanders, and the Patriots.

Sheal has a category that's actually the higher of these two that are in this, this tier three. But this category is called directionless and mediocre, which I really loved. I thought that was fantastic.

And that's the Bucks and the Saints. And then after that, which I think is sort of mediocre but less directionless, the Patriots, Colts, Raiders, Broncos, commanders, Vikings, Seahawks and Cardinals. And then I have the Rams, Cardinals, Browns, Broncos, Colts, Vikings, Patriots, commanders, and Steelers here. I was interested that the Seahawks ended up all the way in tier three for both of you. Sheel, what do you think is stopping Seattle from being a team that we feel like we could see

winning a couple of playoff games? I could definitely see them making the playoffs. I think if I were sketching it out now, like they're right on that fringe in terms of wildcard teams that I could see making it. I mean, you look at them, last year. Like I feel like now in our heads,

there's this idea that they stunk last year. Like they didn't stink last year. They were mediocre. They were 12th in offensive DVOA. And since then, they've added one of what we think is the brightest defensive minds in the NFL in Mike McDonald and also everything you hear about Ryan Grubb, the offensive coordinator he hired from Washington.

Like people love this guy. People love that coaching staff. I would say of all the new coaching staffs in the NFL that not the unknown people, you know, like this is the one that's getting. buzz from, at least in my experience, from football people that are like, no, like, these guys are really special. And you never know how that's going to turn out. Sometimes people say that. And then a year later, you're like, man, you were wrong. That they stink.

Look at them. But I think they've got some talent on the roster. They've got a veteran quarterback. Like, there are pieces in place. I want to see what the offensive line looks like. And is that going to be good enough? But I think they've got a shot to sneak in. They're not like so good where I think they're going to win 11 or 12 games. But could they win nine or 10 games? But could they win nine or 10 games and be a feel good story and Mike McDonald wins coach of the air like that that's absolutely within the realistic range of outcomes for me. Steven, how are you feeling about about the crew in Seattle? Yeah, I do think this is like has the potential to be a good team.

They were 12th in offensive DBOA. They were 10th in offensive EPA. So like even the offense, there was a lot of question marks about like Gino Smith and the offensive line and all that. But the offense in the aggregate was was pretty good. A top 10 unit last year, top 11 unit, however you want to split it. And then the reason why I don't have them in tier two as like a legitimate playoff contender is that I think it's going to take time for McDonald to get his defense up and running. It took time in Baltimore.

There was a lot of miscommunications early. Like I can't forget the Dolphins game in September when two or three for like five touchdowns and it was a bunch of communication bus. Like when you have to learn a complex defense with a lot of volume, it takes time. And I think it takes a lot of live reps too. You can't do it all in practice. So that's my one concern. And then the offensive line on the offensive side. I think Rubb is going to be a good offensive coordinator.

They got good pieces, got a good skill group. I think Chino Smith is a top 10 quarterback, but an offensive line can tear you down. We've seen it in Seattle over the last two years. When that offense has fallen off, it's been because of the offensive line. Until I see that it's solidified, I can't have confidence in that being like a viable Super Bowl contender or even close to it. Shil's Gino on your top 10 quarterbacks list? I wouldn't have him 10. I would probably have him 15.

six like in the in the probably right or right you know top half of the league i like to gut check this because i'm so used to this i'm so used to this you know chino spith top top 10 quarterback top five quarterback top one quarterback in this league depends on the day you get numb to it you're like the frog in the boiling water so i like having you here to say like come on tell me tell me how it really is i mean they i'm i'm not going to say what i was going to say i was going to make a jayland oh come on i'll leave it on the table i was just going to make a two hundred and fifty five million quarterback joke, but I don't want to get any more Eagles fans on me. They hate me as it is.

All right. Anything I'm missing that stood out. I think we've talked about a lot of the teams that we had variance on in earlier tiers here. But anyone you want to flag from this third section. to me it's just like a lot of teams with young quarterbacks and do you have something or do you not have something? The Patriots, Drake May, the Colts, Anthony Richardson, the Broncos, Bo Nix, the commanders, Jaden Daniels, the Vikings, JJ McCarthy. And so you add all those, it's like some of those teams are going to come out of this season and you're going to be like, wow, this is a team on the rise because this guy can really play.

And others, you're going to come out of the season and be like, shoot, did they completely miss on the quarterback that they drafted there? So that's why I put all these teams in kind of the same category where you're not necessarily, it doesn't matter what your record is. It doesn't matter if you're in the playoffs or not. Like if you're a Patriots fan, you want like three Drake Mae performances that make you feel like, oh my gosh, you know, wait until this guy gets more reps or just like five plays a game or whatever it might be. And I think that's the case for a lot of the teams in this tier.

Colts might be the number one season that I'm sort of excited, excited about in a way where it just feels like anything could happen. I mean, I guess not more than the bears and some of the, you know, we've seen some of it from Stroud and Love who were sort of the exciting upcoming quarterbacks from last season. And I do think the way that the Texans approached the off season makes me really curious to see them this season. But Indianapolis, it just feels like that little taste of Anthony Richardson that we got

before he got hurt last year was so exciting. And I think because their offseason has just been so sort of listless, it diminishes. Like it almost makes people forget. And obviously that has that has impact on the 2024 roster. But I just I can see them going in so many different directions and feeling so many different ways about Indianapolis after the season. I'm with you. Like I would not be surprised if next off season we're all raving about Shane Stuyken and Anthony Richardson and what they do. last year.

Like, it wasn't just that Anthony Richardson was exciting. It was Anthony Richardson in Stuyken's offense and everything they were doing. Like, they were doing some crazy shit in the run game in the red zone. I know a big talking point for us, Nora, before the season was like where the explosive plays were going to come from. They came from Anthony Richardson. He had like three 20-yard runs in like five weeks in like five games. Like if he can replicate that without like the injuries.

And the injuries, to me, were like kind of freak accidents. He scored, I got injured on a touchdown on one of them. I don't know if it's going to continue, but obviously it has to change his playing style. They can't use them like Josh Allen and Cam Newton in the red zone. But I do think you can get a lot of juice out of them in the run game. And I can't wait to see what that looks like. Yeah, looking forward to that for sure. All right.

Let's close things out. Tier 4. Scouting for 2025. Actually, this isn't so universally hopeless as it feels like it might have been. Stephen, you had the Saints, Titans, Broncos, Panthers, Bucks, Raiders, and Giants. Sheel, again, our token optimist for the day, only the Titans, Giants, and Panthers down here. Everybody else got something to play for in 2024. And then I had the Giants, Raiders, Saints, Titans, and Bucks.

and then I did feel that I had to pull the Panthers out into a separate category of David Tepper as your general manager, sad face. So keep pounding. I will say this. I was on the fence with a couple of these teams. Like the Saints, I think the Saints can be a lot better than we think. Dennis Allen is a very good defensive coordinator.

Derek Carr is not an answer, a long-term answer, but he's a decent NFL quarterback. I think we've kind of gone overboard with underrating him to a certain. certain point. Like, he's a decent quarterback. And they have some offensive weapons. Crystal Lave was very good, has been very good to start his career. So I could see them being better. And what if Spencer Rattler is something? I'm throwing that possibility out there. I'm all in on Spencer Rattler. I think he's going to be a good quarterback. He's going to start eventually in this league. I don't know if it's

going to happen this year. But I do think there's some reason to be optimistic. And then like the Broncos and Panthers, I could very easily could have put them in the next category. But the difference between them and like the commanders and the Patriots is I like Drake Bay. And I think Jaylon, Jane, could be good. I don't think Bo Nix is going to be good. I don't think Bryce Young is going to be good. So that's why I left them out. Yeah, I mean, I think probably I'm being too harsh on the Saints by including them here because I think they will win more games than the rest of these teams. It's just so hard for me to figure out where they're going. Right. Yeah. And what the point is and what, you know, what what they're doing to make 2025 better than 2020. better than 2023. That made this category feel like the right one for them.

But they do, you know, to your point, they have a better quarterback than most of the teams that we're talking about here, even if Carr isn't a long-term answer there. Sheal, some of these teams like the Bucks stayed out of the bottom tier for you. where did you feel like the cutoff point was for the last group? Yeah, it's kind of what you're like I put I put the bucks in the saints in directionless and mediocre because it was like I don't think their records are going to be horrible. I'll give the bucks credit. I mean, they like, you know, post Tom Brady,

they bounce back and like they the saints want to do kind of what the bucks are doing, which is sort of just stay in the middle and they can't even accomplish that. Like they can't even get in the playoffs or the bucks at least were able to do that. It's just like you lost your offensive coordinator. You brought Baker Mayfield back. What is this really going to look like? You know, you had a nice season last year. To me, it's just, it's the classic case of don't overreact to what the team did last year.

Now, I was wrong about them last year. I thought they were going to miss the playoffs and they made the playoffs. But that's why I kind of put them in that tier. The Saints are just so mediocre. Again, I think we talked about in the draft. It's like I don't even enjoy talking about them. There's nothing interesting I have to say about them. Dennis Allen, good defensive coordinator, terrible head coach.

Derek Carr seems to annoy everyone around him. He's just in that middle ground. Their best defensive players are all like 35 years old. They'll somehow probably win eight games. And if they win nine games or 10 games with some luck, that's possible as well. So yeah, I just stuck with the Titans, Giants, and Panthers as the teams where I have a hard time. Like, they don't have the, the Panthers, you could say, like, all right, well, they have a young quarterback. But then the TEPA thing just overrules it.

Like, if it was a, if it was an organization with infrastructure, I could maybe bump them up and say maybe we'll get some culture, good vibes with the second year quarterback of the new head coach, but with the Tepper off season and the flip in the lid. And thank you to the ringer NFL show listeners who send me updates, by the way, on that sign in Charlotte. Fantastic. Literally multiple people through multiple channels. I asked for it once and you're now sending it to me.

I appreciate that. So I can't get the Panthers. The Giants, it's like, you know, is Brian Daibald going to be the coach after this season? I mean, maybe though they could be mediocre. Like that wouldn't shock me. I don't see it. And then the Titans, I don't see it with them either. So those are teams where it's like, I guess you could make the case that any of them

go up a notch into the get a good culture, good vibes going on, but I couldn't get them there. I do have to ask, are we underrating the Titans? This is a team that's made a lot of like splashing moves in the off season. And there's certainly like talent on the roster. It just doesn't really make sense what their timeline is and what the direction of the team is. But like, I could certainly see them overachieving and maybe winning nine, 10 games. I do think that's on the table for them.

But I don't think it's going to happen. I don't think Will Levis is the answer. But I could see talking myself into a Lil Levis style of quarterback. Yeah, I mean, it all depends where you are on Levis, right? Is if you feel like he's got enough to, now that they have acquired some talent in the offseason and upgraded its meaningful parts of that roster, if that, if he's going to be able to tie it all together and actually sort of make something out of that, then, yeah, I, I,

doesn't necessarily change how I feel in terms of not knowing what the direction of the franchise is and sort of not totally understanding, unless he does enough where it's like, oh, Will Leves is going to be your franchise starter, which feels unlikely to me. But maybe he's got a little bit more

and can get something out of it. I mean, maybe Brian Callahan is like the new scheme Lord of the League, Maybe he's the new Sean McVey and he turns them into like a Jared Gough, like, style of quarterback in terms of production. Like I can certainly see that happen. And then we have a totally different outlook on this team going forward. But if that doesn't happen, I don't know how you like even reconfigure this off this roster with the commitments you made with salary cap this office.

It's really strange, a strange way to build the roster, especially for a first time like GM taking over for the first time. It's also crazy because it's been like this three. through multiple key hirings and firings. And for several years at this point in Tennessee, where it's like they're all in and then they're not. And then they make some moves to start reshaping things and purge the roster a little bit.

But then they go and do something like they did this off season with Ridley, with Sneed, and just kind of seem like they're going all in again. And they are just when you think you've figured the Titans out, they do something that goes in the complete opposite. They signed Julio Jones when it didn't make sense. They signed DeAndre Hopkins. Like they're the team that always does this.

You're right. It's always the Titans. All right. Any, Sheel, any parting thoughts? Any, no,

I think I think we got it all out there. We have more shows to fill. So if you're saying, hey, you didn't hit on our team, well, we'll hit on your team. We have space to fill in the weeks and months ahead.

But this was a good exercise to be like, all right, what's kind of the goal of every team? What are fair expectations for every team? who are the hopeless teams, who are the surprise team. So it was good. Get oriented a little bit, one to 32. All right, great stuff.

Well, this has been the ringer NFL show. I'm Nora Princiotti. Thank you to Sheel Capadia and Stephen Ruiz, my co-hosts for the day. Thank you to Isaiah Blakely for producing this episode. Thank you to Kiara Givens for her work on socials and video. And thank you to Connor Nevins and Arjuna Ramapal for their additional production supervision. A combination of my illustrious college. and co-hosts. We'll be back later this week to talk about the schedule release. And another

combination of us will be back next week. We will keep you updated on all offseason happenings and we'll have more fun stuff coming soon. Thanks for listening. Bye.