The Ringer NFL Show - NFC North Offseason Grades

Episode Date: June 11, 2025

Sheil, Steven, and Diante use their expertise to analyze the NFC North division and discuss each team's offseason moves to determine what their level of success could be in the upcoming NFL season. Detroit Lions Green Bay Packers Minnesota Vikings Chicago Bears The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠www.rg-help.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Hosts: Sheil Kapadia, Steven Ruiz, and Diante LeeProducer: Chris SuttonSocial: Kiera GivensProduction Supervision: Conor Nevins and Arjuna Ramgopowell Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Away we go. Welcome to the Ringer NFL show. Shield Capadia here with Stephen Ruiz and Deonté Lee. The divisional off-season reviews look-aheads, predictions continues today with a very interesting division, if I do say so myself, the NFC North. very curious to hear where my co-hosts come down on some of these teams, what they did and how they viewed this division here going forward. So we're going to talk lions, Packers, Vikings, bears, really four teams that could be

playoff contenders in the NFC. Maybe a couple of those teams could be Super Bowl contenders, maybe more than a couple of those teams. So we're going to get to all of it. Deonti, you did mention that you had a question for me. I don't know what the question is or a topic. that you wanted to bring to my attention before we get started. So, hello, and I'm ready for it.

I'm a little nervous, but I'm ready for it. Okay, like I said, I'm not setting any traps for you. It was just something, while I've been in the deluge of, like, all the Rogers, Steelers stuff, I came across a tribute question. I threw it at my dad and, like, he was totally gobsmacked. So he was born in 1968. For a guy who was born in 1968, how many losing seasons do you think he's witnessed from the Steelers? Oh, this is interesting.

Okay, 1968, man. Maryle took the job in 69 and they started winning Super Bowls basically right after that. Okay, we know they haven't had any in what is it the last 16 years, 18 years, whatever it is. With Mike Tomlin, we're talking, what, 57 years, if I'm doing the math correctly. So I'm doing this on the air here. I'm trying to add some, a little analytic span. So 30 out of 39 out of the other 39, I'm going to say eight. You're not far off.

I would say five. I'm guessing a couple in the 80s. The 80s were bad for them. Early 90s is when Coward comes aboard. And I don't think they're really... His first couple of years. I mean, the mid-90s are kind of rough for them. I know a lot of people were mad at Cowher at that time.

I feel like 94-90 is when they turned it around. Yeah, I would say six. Six. Okay. I'm surprised as you guys undershot this. It's actually 11. Okay. I mean, that's still...

It's actually 11. It's insane. I mean, it's nuts. Like, when I was looking to stuff up, just with the Steelers in their history, because obviously prior to the 70s, they were kind of one of the laughing stocks in pro football, right? It took them a while to become the national brand that they are. And just in thinking about how ubiquitous Steelers fandom kind of is, like even out here on the West Coast,

I mean, because we're a transient city in San Diego, because military people come in and out, you see a lot of commanders fans, Steelers fans, Cowboys fans, right? And just kind of research in that was like, man, to only have basically a dozen losing seasons since the 16, I can't really fathom I can't fathom that even as a very spoiled fan because the Eagles haven't lost a bunch of my life I totally get why they're never down to rebuild

because they haven't had to basically for five decades, almost six decades now. Yeah, it's a good framing for expectations why it's like no no playoff wins and all that and expectations are different for various franchises. Ruiz, I feel like we might have stumbled on to something here. Deontes Trivia Corner to start out some shows or something. I mean, I thought that gave me a little bit of a

a jolt of energy. Yeah, I would love it. I went and played some bar trivia last week on Wednesday. Cleared out. Cleared the competition. Wow. Okay. We dominated.

All right. There you go. All right. We have to do a little ringer NFL of Jeopardy. Yeah, a little brainstorming season here at the ringer. So who knows if that will be something we follow up on in the future. But that was 11 losing seasons since 68. Ridiculous.

Unbelievable. All right. Let's get to the NFC North. the Detroit Lions is the first team we will get to. They are plus 150 to win the division, plus 500 to come out of the NFC, that's second to only the Eagles, and plus 1,000 to win the Super Bowl that is tied for fifth overall.

They're over-under for wins is 10 and a half. So this has been a very good team for the last two regular seasons, and now we enter a different phase, at least I think, for this franchise, this organization because they lose both coordinators in Ben Johnson and Aaron Glenn to head coaching jobs. They're all pro center. Frank Ragnow retires earlier this month or the end of last month there. So there is some turnover here.

Having said that, it still looks like a very good team on paper when you add it all up. So those are some of the moves offensively. Frank Ragnow, Kevin Zytler signs with the Titans. So they lose two offensive linemen and their offensive. coordinator. Everything else is mostly the same. And then defensively, Kelvin Shepard takes over for Aaron Glenn. They lose Carlton

Davis the corner, but replace him with DJ Reed. They spend a first round pick on defensive tackle, Tileak Williams. So Ruiz, you add it all up here. Coordinator changes on both sides of the ball. Lose a couple offensive linemen. How do you assess

the Lions offseason? I mean, I got to give them a D plus. I think they started from the worst spot. Before you the offseason really got underway. They lost their two primary play callers. The only team in this division that lost their two primary play callers, if you're not counting Chicago, who showed their play callers the door

and upgraded with obviously Ben Johnson and Dennis Allen. But just the losses on the offensive line, I think, is the big one. Losing Rag now, like if you hear and you read the quotes of like the players talking about, Dan Campbell, and it sounds like they almost feel hopeless. They're like, there's no way to replace a guy like that, everything he meant to us, not just his play on the field,

but also his leadership in the film room, formulating the game plan, finding answers during the game to looks that they hadn't necessarily scouted during the week. So I think that's a big deal because the superpower for this offense was built around that offensive line and your ability to mix and match different concepts.

You could run different run styles depending on the fronts you're facing. You can rely on Jared Goff not being pressured, and we know how big of a thing that is for Jared Goff. So I think one, losing your offensive play caller, defensive play caller, and then losing really the heart and soul of your offense. I mean, it's tough to come back from that. But I will say this about that.

They were really high up in the pecking order, and they had a lot of room to fall. 15 wins plus 222 point differential. The gap between them and Philly, which was second place, is the same as the gap between Philly and 10th place, which was Washington, in terms of point differential. You have to go back to 2019, the 2019 Ravens to find a team that had a point differential as high as Detroit did last year. So, you know, they're falling from a high spot,

but they did fall a decent amount over the last couple of months. Yeah, 15 and 2 last year, 27 and 7, the last two regular seasons, which I believe is the best record in all of the Detroit Lions. I mean, we just talked about the Steelers and expectations for their fan base. I mean, the Lions have not experienced a run like this that they've experienced over the last two seasons. And what happens at this point, Deonté, is like,

the bar gets higher. It's like just a great regular season is not enough. It's about can you make that jump in the playoffs? Can you get to the Super Bowl? Can you win a Super Bowl? Are you as concerned as Ruiz about some of the changes that have happened to this team in the offseason? I mean, you kind of have to be, right? Like from late January of 2024, it's a present day.

They have probably had one of the most distressful stretches of time that you could for a Super Bowl contender. You think about a pass bouncing off a helmet and landing in Brandon Ayuk's hands and that ultimately is what keeps you out of a Super Bowl. And then all your guys just fall in week by week by week with a season ending injury, one after another. And you get to the playoffs, you finally drag yourself to the playoffs after having such an excellent season offensively. And you know your guys are just out of gas.

And that's exactly what it looked like when they were playing the commanders. It's just a team that was out of punches, right? And they still played okay. You just get the worst outside of Jared Gough, I would say. The rest of their pieces played okay. Jared Gough has a bad game. and for the first time they don't really have anything to raise the floor around golf, right? And after that, you lose your two coordinators, you lose the heart and soul of this offense with Frank Ragnow.

So there was really nowhere to go butt down to begin with. And then you just kind of start stacking everything up, unless they had traded for a guy that was basically like in the top three at his position group, there was really no way for them to gain ground. So I ended up giving them a C because ultimately I think that I think they'll be okay, right? Like for a team like this, you're trying to evaluate where do they stand with the things they were strongest at coming in the door. And they did take a step back on the offensive line. So that knocked down their grade. I do like bringing in DJ Reed as your Carlton Davis replacement. So I think defensively, if all they do is run exactly what they did last year, they'll be okay.

There's just going to be questions with whether or not they can be as dominant offensively. And if they're not, what that's going to mean for Jared Gough ultimately. Yeah, golf is the big thing here. It's like so much of what they did it felt like was finding a way to maximize their quarterback strengths and limit his weaknesses. And I think a big part of that was probably the play caller and Ben Johnson and the designer and the schemer. And then the center and Frank Ragnon. I mean, it's a big deal to have a veteran center who can help that quarterback. And so they had that.

And now we have to figure it out. I mean, they bring in John Morton, who was the Broncos past game coordinator. He was previously with the lion. so it's not like he comes out of nowhere. He was with the Lions in 2022. So he has a familiarity with Jared Goff. But it's not about just, hey, here's the game plan like that. You might be able to just replicate with everybody in the building and the scheme and the design and all that.

It's what you guys said, the adjustments, the fixes. Hey, if the offensive line isn't as good, what are you going to do? How are you going to compensate for that? So I just have questions for them offensively. I don't think they're going to be a bad offense. I think they're still going to be a good offense. but it was like an awesome offense last year. And so now how far is that drop off?

And defensively, let me get to this in the next section here. I'm probably a little more bullish on them. You know, I think with the scheme they ran, I feel like you have an in-house replacement there and Kelvin Shepard that you can do a lot of the same things. I think you can get healthier. I think you have young players who you say, hey, maybe they can be ascending or maybe a couple of these guys can surprise next year.

And so I'm less concerned about defensively. I think Deontes right. There is a resilience to this group. You know, Campbell gave that speech after that heartbreaking loss to the Niners that, you know, we might never get back here. And they didn't get back. And they were gangbusters the first two months of the season. Yeah, I had a 15 and two season.

They win that week 18 game against the Viking. So it really was, I think, an impressive coaching job and an impressive performance last season, even though it ended in playoff disappointment there. So I gave them a C plus just because some of this stuff is out of their control. You know, you hired these. coordinators, they get head coaching jobs that reflects well on the organization. It just makes your life a little bit harder. And then a guy wants to retire, you know, there's nothing you can do about that. He's looking out for his health, his long-term health, his quality of life. He could have

paid him. You think if they paid him more, he would have played it? I don't know. It seemed like he wanted some money at least. I think it was one of those pay me for my one last ride. And if I can't get the money I'm looking for it. Then I'm okay with hanging it up. Okay. All right. And honestly, I would put that right up there with losing Ben Johnson and losing Aaron Glenn in terms of. Like, he was the way they talk about him. He's the problem solvers over on the field, right? The way they talk about him, he solves their problems up front. So I think that makes Jared Gough a little bit worse.

I think it makes the offensive play calling a little bit worse, even though I think they're already taking a step back. We haven't seen John Morton as an offensive coordinator really outside of the one year in New York, but it weren't great results. And usually when these Sean Payton assistants go elsewhere, it's hard to replicate that system because it's so based on creating. matchups, which is a game plan. It's not just, oh, here's my playbook, call the plays. So that's why I'm a little concerned. And I think it's a little bit true on the other side of the ball of defense. Like, I don't know what Kelvin Shepard's going to bring to the table.

It was very much a game play in defense to me. I know they played a lot of man coverage, but like with the fronts and what they were getting into, it's just tough. We're going to find out how much coordinators matter. I think this is the team, the testing ground where we really find that up. And then I will say this for me. Oh, go ahead, Stephen. About the defense, like, obviously, you can't count.

as additions, but getting Hutchinson back, getting a Lee McNeil back, Anzalone's back. Obviously, they don't have Carlton Davis coming back, but he was out for a decent amount of time, and they replaced him with DJ Reed, who I think is a like for like replacement there, like not as physical, but he can play man coverage. But

yes, this team was last in adjusted games lost on defense, but they were second on offense and adjusted games loss. So even if they get some positive regression, they might get some negative regression on the other side. So the defense could take a step forward, but the offense could take a step back, and they already lost one of their key pieces in Ragnow.

So I don't even know if you can count like the injury thing as something that's definitely going to end up a positive for them, like a positive regression metric for them. So it's really tough. And then we'll get into this when we talk about better or worse, but the schedule is brutal. Yeah. Yeah. Let's do that now, better or worse than last year because you mentioned it. They faced the second hardest schedule in the NFL according to opponents.

Can I read the road opponents? Yeah, yeah still. Go ahead. Chiefs, Bengals, Ravens, commanders, Packers, Vikings, Eagles. That's eight out of the nine. The other game is the Bears in late season, like in December, in Chicago,

Jared golf, small hands. Like, that's rough. I don't know how you overcome that. Their home schedule is a little bit easier than that. I think they can clean up on the, at home, and they obviously have a tremendous homefield advantage playing at home,

but not a lot of margin for error there. Yeah. No doubt about it. So to the other kind of metrics here to look at, Ruiz mentioned adjusted games loss, which is FTN's metric that measures how injured were you? And like he said, they had the second healthiest, healthiest offense last year, but the most injured defense last year. So that's something to keep in mind.

They were seven and two in one score games. They were sixth in turnover EPA. So they were a great team last year, but they did have some things go their way aside from the, injuries there on defense. So now you look at it better or worse than last year. You know, they were first in offensive success rate. They were second in EPA per drive.

And I think their offensive performance last year almost got a little overshadowed by the Ravens. Like the Ravens had the best offense in the NFL by EPA per drive. But I looked at the last five seasons, the Lions last year, were the fourth best offense in the last five season. So like most years, that's the best offense in the NFL, the way they performed last year. And then you mentioned it defensively.

Aiden Hutchinson back healthy. Can Terry and Arnold be better than he was as a rookie? Was that kind of a growing pains type of rookie season? Or is there a cause for concern there with a first round pick? Can Tyleek Williams, the defensive tackle, give you something right away as a rookie there? And so I think there are some of those things you can look at and build a bullish case for their defensive roster. But Deonti, better or worse than last year? I mean, they're 15 and 2.

So it feels like we're all going to say worse. How big of a dip? How much variance do you see? potentially in kind of them taking a step back here. It would be hard for me to make an argument that they would be at risk of missing the playoffs, right, even though I do think they're going to be worse. To respond to what Stephen was saying earlier, like, I do think it's fair to be skeptical of what John Morton's going to be outside of Sean Payton and what he has built year over

year. I will say if you're just looking at like a too deep that looks most like a Sean Payton offense, it's hard to do better than what the lions have. They kind of check all the boxes, right? You have your field stretcher and James and Williams. have your quote unquote slant boy in Amon Rae St. Brown playing in the slot. You have your Joker in Jemir Gibbs out of the backfield. And now based off what we saw in the second half of the year, looks like a guy that is not just a one-trick pony in terms of being a speed guy on the

perimeter. They were able to kind of lean on him and his workload. And not only was he as explosive as he usually was when he was splitting to work with David Montgomery. We got to saw down-and-down efficiency in a way that was not there in his first year in the league. So if he stays healthy, there's going to be a lot of growth there potentially. And I do think that even if they do take a step back because the schedule is salacious and they've lost some things on the offensive line, I think all the metrics are still going to be fine. I do still expect them to be on a down and down basis just that maybe not as strong as they've been the last two years where like I said, it's just been gangbusters, no matter who they're playing against on a week-by-week basis.

But it's still going to look like a contender. And I do have some trust in John Morton to be able to keep some continuity and potentially even add some things in terms of the play action passing game and really being able to take shots because that's what we saw in Denver in the second half of the year, right? Is that the more time you spent with Bo Nix and where he kind of realized, okay, here's how I tee you up to be aggressive. Here's how I can get you on the move out the pocket. So it does kind of suggest that he understands how to work with quarterbacks and maximize what they are. So I am a little optimistic about them. And before I hand this off, I do have another trivia question to ask, to ask you, She'll and you as well,

Stephen. I don't know if you guys know this about John Morton, Auburn Hills Auburn Hills native, so he's a Michigan guy through him through, played at Western Michigan. Do you know his 40 time? Wow. What position? He played receiver. He played receiver. Okay.

I think he measured it like 511-190. 511. Coming into the combo. Based on looks, I'm going to go 4-7. I know he was on some practice squads. Cold. Ice cold. I'll say that, Stephen. Ice cold. was all right well then that's telling me he's fast i will go 4-4-3

still called 4-39 he was a sub 4-4-4-runner now i want you to look at a picture of john morton and this is not about skin color this is just about appearance just look at that goatee and tell me that looks like a guy that runs a sub 4-440 because i don't see that when i'll think i got jay john martin there there you go all right ruiz do you uh do you agree with dante's assessment that step back but he has a hard time seeing them missing the playoffs, or do you think maybe the floor is a little bit lower? No, I think it is a step.

I think the floor might be lower. That's just because of the division they play in, the conference they play in, the schedule I mentioned. I think it's definitely a step back. I think you would have to be a borderline delusional Lions fan to think they can lose as much as they lost in the offseason and think that they're not going to take a step back

from being possibly the best team, the best regular season team, at least last year in the league. So I'm going to go step back. My one concern with the offense is whenever Sean Payton's offenses were good, the interior offensive line was good. And I think you have a similar situation with Jerich Golf. Obviously, Drew Breeze, you needed that interior offensive line to be good because he was

a shorter quarterback. He needed room to operate in the pocket. I think the same is true with Jared Kauf, although it's not because of his height, it's just because of his movement ability. If you don't have clean pockets and he doesn't have the ability to step up into the pocket and fire off throws, I think we see. saw in that Washington game how I would say fragile his arm talent can be. I think when he's in ideal pockets, he was one of the best throwers of football when he has to move his feet. You see that

ball flutter a little bit. You start to see him throw ducks. He starts under throw balls. He starts to sail balls. And I think we're going to see a repeat of what we saw against the commanders, not to that extent, but I think his life is going to be a little bit harder. So I do think the offense is going to take a step back, maybe a significant step back. But I do think getting healthy on defense should be able to make up some of that gap. So I don't think it's as big as, you know, their off-season moves if you just listed out their losses, would have you believe.

But I do think it's like a two or three game step back. Yeah, it's tough because the over under for wins is 10 and a half. If you're taking the under, you're saying they're going to be five win, they're going to win five fewer games than they did last year, which is. It's hard to wrap your mind around, but again, you look at the schedule. I know. Look at just like general attrition, it's hard to, I don't expect them to win more than a dozen games next year. It's just so hard to maintain that season over season.

They have like such a distinct identity on defense too that if they do lose some defensive backs again and they want to be this man coverage team, like it becomes hard. And we saw that in the playoff game, like outside of Jared Goff, who I think was the biggest reason they lost. The second biggest reason they lost because they couldn't tackle. They missed 21 tackles in this game. Yeah. And when you play man coverage, 13 of them came in the passing game. So it wasn't just like running backs running through their face. It was, you know, throw a little screen pass and the quarterback missed the tackle.

And when you're playing man coverage and you can't tackle, that's a bad combination, in my opinion, because guys aren't really looking at where the pass is being thrown and you break one tackle. You might be able to take it to the house, which we saw on a couple occasions against the commanders. And then they've always had this run game to lean back on to the point where they didn't have to call plays like, 30 other teams in the NFL did. They were kind of like the Eagles, where it was 36, guess what? We could run the football. We can be confident that we are not only going to pick up the first down,

but even if we don't, we'll just go for it on fourth and one and get it anyway. And I think they're going to lose that because I don't think they have the offensive line they had. So I think Jared Goff's job is going to get a little bit harder. I think the pass rush, the opposing pass rush, is going to be able to pin their ears back more often than they were last year. And I think we'll see more mental mistakes from him. I don't think we're going to see him protect the football as well as he did last year. So I just think these little things are going to add up to the point where the season is just going to be harder.

We're going to look up in December and they're going to be a team fighting for a playoff berths rather than one cruising to the playoffs and kind of trying to maximize where they're at before they get there. Over under for whatever your favorite offensive nerd status, EPA, DVOA success rate, for the Lions offense in 2025, I will set it at six and a half. Do you think they will be a ranking in the league? They're ranking in the league. Do you think they will finish over that, which for our purposes would be higher. Higher. So higher. So yeah, top.

Well, yeah, I never know how to do this with a ranking. Yeah. It's over. Sorry. Do you think they'll finish six or higher or seven or lower is what I'm asking you? I go seven or lower. I would say six or higher. It's tough.

I mean, seven or lower, seven or lower, when you think specifically about where they been offensively. It's not just that it would be, it's not just like them being number one over the last couple of years. You look at some of Jared golf's efficiency stats. It looks like some of the best quarterback seasons you've ever seen just looking at the numbers. Like the success rate is ridiculous. The close of play rates are ridiculous, right? Like it's some of the most efficient offense you'll see. I think that everything that Stephen is saying in terms of concerns going into 2025 is fair. I just have a hard time thinking that we're going to see 2020, Jared golf again. The conditions here are just too strong. The infrastructure has been too strong. I still

think that he is very well protected within what the Lions are doing, even if it is not literally as ideal as it's been over the last two seasons. It's hard for me to envision it being much worse than what we've seen since he's been in Detroit. I'm definitely lower on Jared Goff than most people. I think he's more sensitive to the environment than most quarterbacks because the guy cannot move. Like the guy who might as well be sitting in an office chair that swivels around. That's how he plays quarterback and I just think he's going to have to move more often. I think they're going to, it's going to be more rigor, is what I would say. It's going to be more rare. There's no doubt about that. He's been playing on easy mode for two years in a row. And you look at the stats, he's facing more

base cover three than anybody in the league. Like, that's the ideal look. That's the premium look that all of these scheme geniuses are looking for is how do I get the defense to play base cover three? And then I can pick him apart with in breakers over the middle off play action. And that's what he's been. Like you look at his highlights and almost everything. throws the same. I just don't think he's going to be able to live in that environment this year. And we're going to see him tested a little bit. And I do think he has the ability this season to shut people up like me who do think that he's a product of his environment and not necessarily his own progression as a player. I honestly don't see, okay, he's gotten better in

some respects from that 2020 season. But I don't think it's that significant is all I'm saying. All right. Way too early prediction. I don't even know if I believe this, but I'll give you mine because, you know, this is why it's a way too early prediction in June. How about their defense finishes with a higher ranking than their offense this year? Okay. You took mine. Okay. I like the most milk toast when I was comfortable with. Like, I didn't want to be, because I didn't want to say they're going to miss a playoffs. That's way too sure. I didn't want to say something way over the top on either side. But I do think the defense will be better than the offense issue. Well, here's the case. And if you're a Jets fan

listening. This is, you know, you'll feel good about this. Deep, with the most injured defense in the NFL last season, they finished 10th in EPA per drive. I mean, that's pretty impressive. So whether you give Aaron Glenn, you know, how much credit you're giving Aaron Glenn versus the other players just getting, again, Hutchinson back healthy. And I do want to make the point that even with Frank Ragnall, you know, they drafted

Tate Ratledge in the second. Like, they've tried to gear up for some of this stuff. You know, last year they drafted two corners. Terry and Arnold and Rake Straw. And so they've tried to figure this out this year. They draft Tileak Williams. It doesn't mean it's going to work out, but they have tried to prepare for some of this stuff

where who knows, maybe we're doing a week five show and we're like, man, Ratlitch looks like, you know, the best offensive, rookie offensive linemen in the NFL, that kind of thing. So those possibilities exist. Again, I don't know if I will believe this once we get to August and I really have to do my offense and defense rankings. I don't know that I'll have it higher, but yeah, that's my way too early prediction in June.

All right, Ruiz, Deonti had the same one as me. What do you got? I'm just going to go for it. I think they're going to miss the playoffs. Okay. And I could definitely be wrong. I could be over indexing the effect of losing these two coordinators in Ragnow. Like we've seen it before, we've seen coordinators move on, and sometimes they get better

because they get new ideas and a new voice. That's very possible. But I do think those two are going to hurt them. And I think what I've said about the offense, I think they're going to take a step back on offense, especially in the run game. and life's just going to be a little bit harder for the quarterback. And usually when that happens, I could have a significant impact on the rest of the team. And then the schedule on top.

I just don't know how you navigate the schedule, especially if you face any attrition. And if you lose, let's say you lose Jemir Gibbs for three games. You lose St. Brown for a couple games, which could happen after they were so healthy last year. I just think it's tough to overcome that. Although it went out as a secondary one since Sheila and I had the second. I think that Jameson Williams gets double-digit touchdowns and over 1,200 yards this year. I think that this will be a big breakout year for Jameson Williams.

And I've been very skeptical about him as a receiver. I think that his role has actually been much more hyper-specific than what his draft position suggested that he could be in the league, right? Like you really only see him pop on those play action deep over the middle shots. You don't see him separate late with route running. You don't see him early in the progress, get balls early in the progression either. I think that this will be a good year for him. whether it's through the play action game or moving him around.

Well, we can finally get to see the version of Jameson Williams we've been looking for since basically the first half of the national championship game in 2020 or 2021 before he tore his ACL and became drafted and declared for the draft. We've been waiting on that guy all career, his entire career so far, or at least a couple of years he's been in the league. I think that this is where we get to see something closer to what the Lions were hoping that we're getting drafting him early in the first round. I feel like that's the way you kind of make up for what you might lose in the run game.

the explosive nature of the run game without this interior offensive line is you replace it with James and Williams making the leap and becoming that guy that kind of deters defense from getting certain looks. And I think that will help out the run game in turn. Yeah. Yeah. Last year was definitely a leap for him, you know, based off the first two seasons. The numbers actually were better than I remember them being. But 58 catches, over a thousand yards, average 17 yards per reception, seven touchdown. So yeah, that's, type of vertical threat, explosive threat that they've been looking for. But yeah, all the talk out of Detroit is that, you know, they're saying we expect him to take another leap. And I do feel like they, I could be wrong about this. It feels like they've been pretty honest when asked about Jameson Williams. We're like in the past, they're like, yeah, kind of toning it down a little bit.

But this feels like, you know, maybe they feel like he can take another leap. He'll only be 24 years old here in his fourth NFL season. All right. We take a break. We come back. we get to the Packers, Vikings, and Chicago Bears. All right, we are back on the Ringer NFL show. Second best odds in the division.

It's the Green Bay Packers, plus 270 to win the division behind the Lions, tied for fifth best odds to come out of the NFC, minus 110 to make the playoffs, and they're over under for wins is nine and a half. When you look at their offseason, they lose, you know, kind of a little swap at offensive line, lose Josh Myers, bring in Aaron Banks, But the big one, they draft Matthew Golden in the first round, the wide receiver from Texas.

So that's offensively. Defensively, lost some veterans, released Jair Alexander, brought in Nate Hobbs. No major coaching changes. They made a change with their defensive line coach, but coordinators come back the same. Matt LaFleur is obviously running that offense. So it wasn't as eventful, I think, as the of an offseason as the other teams in this division. Deonté, what did you? make of what the Packers did so far this offseason?

There are another C for me, and it's killing me because so many of these teams, I think, are kind of clustered together. I guess all of last year I just looked at them was like maybe the best or most complete non-contender in the NFL. And just looking at their moves, it's hard to place them any differently if that was a preconception you had going into this exercise. And that's where I was at with this team. I think a lot of this has just been kind of like one-for-one swaps in a lot of ways,

unless Matthew Golden steps into the league and is a Justin Jeff. percent level receiver that totally changes a picture of how you look at this offense. And I just didn't see that from him at Texas, right? Like, he's one of those measurables versus play style guys where the 40 time looked great, but you watch him on tape and it's like, this isn't a guy that's pulling away from people. This is not Jalen Waddle where he gets the ball and it looks like he's playing in a different gear at a different speed than the rest of the players on the field. So we're still going to have questions about what the wide receiver situation looks like.

I think their best move was bringing in Aaron Banks to allow Elton Jenkins to play center. I think that they're always really wise about the onboarding and offboarding process for their veteran offensive linemen. They always know how to move guys around and be prepared to patch over wherever their weaknesses are going to be coming into a season. So I think this will be once again, one of the more solid units in terms of offensive line. But the biggest question for me is exactly what it was last season. It's like which one of these young edge rushers is going to turn into something? something that gives them what they need defensively for me to believe that they can make a deep playoff run.

I think what we saw in that Eagles game was like the most accurate representation of this team both times they play. When they're explosive, they look like they can beat anybody on earth. They can go play for play with anybody on earth. There are two matchups against the Lions for confirmation of that as well. But when they need a game breaking piece, a game breaking factor that forces defenses or offenses that they're playing against to totally change the way they approach the game, we have not seen enough of that yet.

So if that happens, then great, that changes the way I look at them. They can be like Baltimore, like Buffalo, like Philadelphia, where they've got all these young pieces that are ascending and it looks like they're ready to take over the league if they can just get over the hump. I just haven't gotten there yet with this team. And I think that what we have in Jordan Love, and this is not necessarily a knock.

I think what we've seen from Jordan Love the last two years is just what he is as a quarterback, which is really effective at what he does and maybe not always the greatest problem solver. think that he is like the best, the most talented version of that Jared Gough paradigm where he's kind of stationary, big arm guy who's going to push a ball downfield within structure. But when things break down, we just haven't seen enough of him being a problem solver quite yet. All right.

The defense, when you were talking about the defense, Deante, it reminded me of kind of what we say about the bills or at least what I've said about the bills up front where it's like they've invested, they know what they want to do. They want to invest up front and build this dynamic pass rush. where you don't have to blitz, and they haven't like struck out on all these guys, but they also, to your point,

there's nobody on there who, if you're an offensive coordinator, the Monday or Tuesday before you, oh, circle, how are we going to block this guy? They just don't have that guy, and they've tried over and over again, you know,

going back to Kenny Clark and Rishon, Gary, and Lucas Van Ness, and Devante Wyatt, I mean, there are a lot of resources poured into this group. And again,

I'm not saying any of those guys are bad defensive players. They just haven't kind of risen to the point where you say, okay, this can be one of the best past rushing units in the NFL. I gave them a B minus, you know, based. It's very similar to what you said. I don't know that they got way better.

I don't know that they got way worse. I think they were a good team last year. I think they're going to be a good team this year. To your point, I think Golden does feel like an X factor to me, where if he can come in and be one of these wide receivers who plays well right away, that certainly can take their offense to a different level. But other than that, I don't know that there are huge differences. Ruiz, where did you land with the Packers offseason?

Yeah, I gave them a C. Just they weren't really active. And I don't think they had to be. Had to be. They were the youngest team in the NFL over the last two years. And you would hope for some in-house progression. That's why you pay these coaches. That's why you drafted these players and acquired these players.

And I think like the wide receiver room, it's hard to talk about the wide receiver room because there are so many bodies and there are so many guys that are at the age where they could take the next step. And if they solved one little flaw in their game, you can really see them emerging as not like a true number one receiver, but someone that Jordan Love can rely on. I think that was the problem. One, you had Jordan Love who was dealing with injuries

and also is not the most accurate quarterback as it is, sailing a lot of passes. And then you have these wide receivers who weren't reliable either, not at the catch point, not in terms of details with running routes. And then you have a timing-based offense for the most part that, you know, people need to be at the right spot, and the ball has to come out at the right time, and it has to be precise.

So I think if any of these guys, just figures out one flaw, whether it's Jordan Love or a couple of these receivers, I think we'll look back at this offseason inactivity and kind of lauded and celebrate and be like, all right, they didn't make any drastic moves because they didn't have to. They trusted the process.

They trusted their ability to develop these guys. But I'm with Deonte. My concern is on the front seven. My concern is the defense. And my point is the same boy that Deante is making and that field made. You have to be able to get pressure on the quarterback without being able to blitz.

And if you look at their overall pressure numbers from last year, they were pretty good. They were in the top half the league. But they beat up on teams that had bad pass protection units because they could scheme stuff up. And Halfley could get into his little design, like simulated pressures and creeper pressures. But whenever they went up against a smart, well-coached offensive line, you saw what happened. They couldn't get to the quarterback. They couldn't get off the field on defense. And I don't see any real change there with the defensive personnel.

I guess everything I said about the offense applies to them, but I think we're a little further along in some of the development of these defensive players. So that's what I want to see. I want to see what this defensive line looks like. And I think that will dictate the ceiling of the defense, which dictates the ceiling of the team as a whole. I do think the offense is going to be fine no matter what. Yeah, remember the conversation at this time last year or last summer was sort of like the offense is going to be good enough. Can LaFleur finally feel the good defense? You know, he's just gone through defensive coordinators and they've invested resources. And the

defense was kind of never good enough. And I think the defense probably outperformed expectations last year, but the offense was like solid, but didn't take maybe that leap that some were expecting. Or maybe it was just a certain games like Ruiz mentioned, you know, certain matchups just gave them problems and they couldn't beat the elite teams in the NFC. I think that's why Deontes saying, all right, they were they were the best of sort of the non-contenders in the NFL, which there's certainly evidence to suggest that that is a fair description for the 2024 Packers, which brings us to 2025, 11 and 6 last year, are they better

or worse, Deontay, with these offseason moves than they were last year? Or maybe not the offseason moves, maybe just other factors that you're considering. I am willing to be optimistic and say better because of that in-house progression that Stephen was mentioning, right? Like, I don't even know, I don't know if I necessarily, at least offensively, I don't know if I necessarily need one of those guys to be an all-star, number one, wide receiver. as much as like if all of them can step up half a tier from where they already are in the aggregate, I think that would do a lot for this offense because they also have Tucker Kraft and Luke Musgrave

to add in as past catchers as well. They have this embarrassment of riches that I think for a lot of teams will probably cause him identity issues. I actually think that Matt LaFour has done a really good job at balancing when to get guys the ball. He knows how to take advantage of matchups when that's there. And he knows how to just kind of set up a good offensive structure. So I'm bullish on the offense continuing to step forward. I think that just like the ceiling of what gets better, again,

and kind of hammer this point home comes back to can you get a fully healthy, highly productive of Sean Gary's season. If you get that kind of second team all pro level production from that guy, you can get 14 sacks, 12 sacks from them, that changes the way that I look at this team. If Devante Wyatt can be the player that they drafted, you know, to be that kind of anchor on the interior that can add something, as a pass rusher from the inside.

That goes a long way. Lucas Van Ness, I was willing to give him a mulligan year, right, a kind of a redshirt year because he didn't play a bunch coming into the league and needed some work to kind of round out his game. I think they drafted him with the idea that his ceiling could be like Max Crosby. You don't have to be Max Crosby right now,

but if we could see flashes of that along with some of the other factors I laid out, now we're in a totally different world, right? Now we're talking about a team that can be, you know, that early, early phase, early era of Baltimore, when Josh Allen was just becoming a superstar in Buffalo, and it looks like, okay, well, if they put everything together, this cannot just be a hot one year.

They might be able to string together three or four years where they're in the conversation for making the conference championship game. And I think that we'll get a little bit of a flash of that in 2025, so I think they'll be better. Ruiz, what do you got better or worse than last year? Yeah, I think they're going to be better. I think they're going to have a healthier quarterback, and that's going to help a lot.

I think, you know, those wide receivers are going to, to get better. And I think there's still a move to be made for them, whether it's acquiring an edge rusher or whether it's acquiring, getting in the Jalen Ramsey sweepstakes or any of that. Like, I feel like there's still a move to be made. They have these, this embarrassment of riches to steal Deontes term in the wide receiver room where you can deal those guys. Maybe you call up Pittsburgh and be like, ask Aaron Rogers, which of these wide receivers was his favorite to play with? And you can have them. We'll throw in some picks and maybe we get a T.J. Watt who's been holding out of mini-calf. I was going to say, yeah. That's interesting.

If you're looking for a disgruntled pass rush to go take a swing at, a lot would be an ideal landing spot for them. I do think this is the year we kind of see them take that step on offense, though, because I think you get the full year of Jordan Love. Now he has two full years of starting under his belt. He has plenty of tape to learn from. I think the playmakers in the locker room, they just have so many, especially if one of these tight ends takes a step.

The running backs, Josh Jacobs was amazing last year. And then I think they expect a lot of Marshawn Lloyd's second year player. I think you played 10 snaps last year. An explosive guy with the ball in his hands. That's a piece for Matt LaFle to get going. So I think the sky's the limit for the offense. I wouldn't be surprised if they're a top five unit. And if you're a top five unit on offense,

you could just replicate what you did last year on defense, which was a little relying on turnover. That's my one concern. But if you can do that, then I think you're right back to where you were, or how we felt about them going into last season, where I think me and Ushield had them maybe making the Super Bowl. by August I might be right back there.

I might be picking them again. Listen, join me. It's an annual Capadia preseason, off-season tradition, talking myself into the Packers as a Super Bowl contender. I'm with you. I'm with you. I was thinking about it today.

I've been doing this job for like almost a decade now. And I don't think I've ever picked another team to win this division besides the Packers. Wow. Okay. There you go. I mean, but I do think there's a, now I'm just talking to myself into.

I do think there's reasons for it. I mean, there were 11 and 6 last year, plus 122 point differential, third in the NFC. You know, they lose in the wildcard round to the Eagles, but look at what the Eagles defense did to like Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs in the Super Bowl. You know, now that loss and that performance doesn't look as bad.

And I'm with you, Ruiz, on the, like, I will take the Jordan Love Stock, you know, give it to me. People make fun of me. I have enjoyed him thoroughly since he entered the league. Last year, MCL sprain, groin injury. elbow injury. They're near the top of the league in drops. 29 drops, I think it was.

Last year, he missed two games. He missed parts of two other games. And he still finished ninth in EPA per pass play. They were fourth in offensive DVOA. Like I just see, all right, if that's a season when a lot of things are going sideways. And Deonti, I liked your point about the personalities. That's kind of on my radar with these Packers wide receivers. I think LaFleur has done a good job so far.

feel like there's just some massaging of egos and hey you're going to get yours when you look at just some of the way things went last year you know the romeo romeo dobbs suspension i was going to say yeah i feel like that matthew golden pick was mat laforer probably sent it a message to the wide receiver group chat before he added in matthew golden it was like yeah i've got a guy now right i mean it was already like that last year if this place isn't good enough for you guys then we've got another one here that we can make it work with yeah so you you already dealt with that last year you and then you just spent a first round pick on a wide receiver. So I do think that that has to be on his radar in terms of figuring it out this offseason.

But I do think there's another ceiling for this offense. I think Love is going to be a high variance quarterback, whether it's game to game, quarter to quarter, throw to throw. I think he's going to have a season where you're just like, all right, this is like the high end of what Jordan Love can be as a quarterback. And I think that could be coming this year with Jordan Love. So I'm pretty bullish on this team. You know, LaFleur, I think we all have agreed going back to last year that he's one of the best coaches in the NFL. I mean, he's won 67% of his games as an NFL head coach. I think those Rogers years where he's winning MVP look even better now as we've learned more about Aaron Rogers since then to just transition Jordan Love into that role and be competitive for two straight seasons.

I mean, he's only missed the playoffs once in six seasons as an NFL head coach. So I think there are some, the arrow pointing up for this team offensively, even though they didn't do a lot in the offseason. Ruiz is right about the turnovers on defense. I think that's a good point to make that, you know, if you just kind of look at the EPA versus success rate, there was stuff defensively where they were really reliant on turnover. So I don't know that they're going to be, you know,

they could be worse defensively this year than they were last year, but I do think there's a ceiling for that offense. So I like the Packers, which I'll just leave me to my way too early prediction, I got them winning the division as of June 10th. And you really could make a case for any one of these four teams. And we'll talk about the Vikings and Bears here in a

minute. I still like the Lions. I'm probably going to have nice things to say about the Vikings as well. So it's hard. We talked about the NFC East. Could they get three teams in the playoffs? You certainly could make that case for the NFC north. But I think if I had to pick right now, I like the Packers

to win this division and kind of take over there from the lion. So that's way too early prediction. Deontay, what do you got? So I'm going to take a page out of Shields book, right? Because you're always good with, I've got to keep the ledger about all my past takes. So I'm not being intellectually dishonest. Don't get caught. I said, I did not pick the Eagles to be the number one seed in the NFC.

I said that Washington would win that division. I think that the Packers end up having the best record in the NFL. Wow. By seasons in. Oh, no. I're putting the current. We're putting the higher NFL curse on the Packers. Sorry, Packers fans.

Look, and the one thing, the one thing I'm always. going to be good for is doubling down on old takes. I think last year when we did the whole exercise of who was going to win the division and set up playoff brackets and all that, I think I had the Packers as my number one seat in the NFC last year. I'm going to stick with that. I think that we finally get the big explosive year, the one that truly stamps its team, that they're in the upper echelon in the NFL. I think that this will be the year for it. And if you look at their schedule, I mean, I think they can beat the Bears twice. You get to see some bad NFC cell teams. They get to see the Cardinals. there are a lot of games for them that they should be able to win,

especially at home and late in the year. I can definitely see this team getting a hot stretch after Thanksgiving and really running away with this thing in the NFC, at least. Yeah, the schedule is so much easier this year, which is so much easier compared to Detroit. Compared to the other top teams in the NFC, it's a lot easier. I'm just going to keep the good predictions rolling. I'm going to say this is the best offense of Matt LaFleur's Packers' head coaching tenure.

I think they lead the NFC, they have the best offense in the NFC, North, obviously, beating Detroit and Minnesota, who has a good shout for that, too. Yeah, I think this is the year where they put it all together on offense. I think they stay healthy, Jordan Love in particular. I think the special teams making changes on special teams will, you know, pay some dividends. They've lost some games on special teams over the last couple of years. My concern is the front seven, but they were able to kind of scheme around that being kind of a concern last year, and I think they'll be able to do that again.

And the offense, if it goes supernova, I don't know if it's going to matter anyway. How do you think the handshake goes when they play the Steelers between LaFleur and Rogers? I think they're still... I think they're on... They're on good terms, right? I don't know. Maybe not. What is good terms with Aaron Rogers?

As good enough as you can be with Aaron Rogers. Yeah, I think LaFleur probably recognizes that, you know, Rogers game. LeFlefore has no reason to have B. Hey, man, I brought in my system and won you back to Beck and BP. Yeah, maybe. I just wonder how Rogers might receive the place that after he got out the darkness of tree, it was basically like hang it up or go somewhere else. True.

No must. That's true, too. Yeah, they didn't want anything to do with them at that point in his career. We shall see. I think that the Packers will be in a better spot than the Steelers when they play. That should be a unanimous take. That should be a unanimous. Yeah, that's true.

All right. We take a break. We got two more teams. Are we going to be bullish on either of these teams? teams. Both these teams, there is a case for both these teams to be in the playoffs. The Vikings and the Bears, we'll talk about it when we come back. All right, back on the Ringer NFL show. Vikings are just behind the Packers in terms of NFC North divisional odds at plus 300. They are tied with the Packers and commanders for fifth best odds to come out of the NFC. They are plus 104 to make the playoffs,

and they're over under for wins is eight and a half. So you look at their off season here. They let Sam Donald walked in free agency. It seemed like Aaron Rogers was like, hey guys, you know, sure, I wouldn't mind coming over there versus my other options. And they said, nope, we're good, Aaron. Go ahead and go to Pittsburgh. They're sticking with J.J. McCarthy. So that's obviously the big move for the franchise and the big story around the franchise.

And then lots of changes to their offensive line where they draft Donovan Jackson in the first round. They signed veteran center Ryan Kelly and they sign free agent guard. Will Frye. So they kind of rebuilt the interior of that offensive line, which definitely was an issue specifically in the second half of last season. And it feels like it's been an issue for a long time, honestly, in Minnesota where the tackles have been solid, but the interior has not been as good. So those are the changes offensively. defensively, it's sort of like how many of these moves do you think matter if you got Brian Flores calling the defense. But they lose Cam Bynum the safety and Stefan Gilmore, the corner in free agency. They lose a couple defensive linemen, but they add a couple veterans in Jonathan Allen and Javan Hargrave. Ruiz, start with you with the Minnesota Vikings, how they handled this offseason. What do you give them? I'm going to give them a B-plus. I really like what they did in terms of retaining some of the key pieces they needed to retain.

Like Andrew Van Ginkle getting him back on a one-year deal, I think that was smart or an extension. I mean, Byron Murphy bringing him back. That was a good move. the reinforcements for the defensive line are going to be key. But I think, like, the big thing, in addition to, you know, bolstering the offensive line is keeping Brian Flores. And this is the first time we've ever seen Brian Flores be with the same defense for three straight years. And, you know, be a defensive play caller for three straight years.

And you saw how he built upon that last year going from year one to year two, where they went from frisky defense that was tough to play against to one of the best defenses in the NFL. I think as he extends this program, I think we're going to see them kind of maintain their spot at top. the defensive standings. And then on offense, like, obviously you're taking a step back at quarterback just because you're losing some veteran talent.

You're losing a guy in Sam Darnold who, like, I obviously had my issues with his play style, but the guy was making big time throw after big time throw throughout the season. And that was kind of what kept your offense together. And you lost that ability and you're replacing him with a rookie who's going to have to be onboarded. I think it's going to take some time for him to get up to speed. But by building up this offensive line with the fries signing, the Ryan Kelly signing, I think there's a better chance that you get a better early down offense

where you're running the ball a little bit more than you were. You're not relying on the drop-back passing game. You're calling a little more play action, which is going to make JJ McCarthy job a lot easier than Sam Darnel's job was last year. And you saw when that kind of broke down, especially against the Rams when Darnel was, what did he take nine sacks in that game? I don't think you're going to see them play the same style of offense.

So I do think they'll take a step back in the passing game, but the rest of the offense will improve as a result. of their offseason move. So I thought it was a very, I think it was a very intentional offseason for them. And they attacked the area of needs rather than banking on what was strong for them last year. I think it was a smart approach,

especially with the team that didn't have a lot of draft capital to work with. Yeah, I'm with you. I thought it made sense. I gave him a B. I'm on board with how they handled the quarterback situation. You draft a quarterback that high, have a plan for him.

They're trying to protect him with the changes on the offensive line. I trust them with the coach. staff at wide receiver. I look at the roster overall. I'm not sure about corner and obviously quarterback is a question and we'll see if the interior offensive line changes pay off. But it's a very good roster. I think overall, you look at it, you know, wide receiver, tackle, linebacker. Like, there are good players, I think, across the board. I like the addition of the veteran defensive linemen that they made too. I think they're in a better spot there than they were last

year. So I'm with Ruiz, Deante. I gave them a B. I thought their offense made a lot of sense. Where do you stand with the Vikings? I'm giving them a B minus. This is probably one of the teams that I was most impressed with offseason-wise. When you look at what names were on the depth chart, we're starting and where they are now, I think that they've addressed a lot of the holes that were necessary. To your point, though, Sheal, the question really becomes how impactful each of these names are and whether you think it's about those players individually or what they do in the aggregate. it. Like to me, drafting Jonathan Jackson, bringing in Ryan Kelly and Will Fries, what that tells me is they recognize it just needs to be a no-weakness group up front for

their offensive line. I think that they wanted to think of it more as like, oh, Christian Darrasaw, Brian O'Neill, we're good at tackle, that's good enough. And the second that Darisaw went down, it really exposed all the weaknesses that they had up front. So addressing it this way was really smart. I think the Stevens 100% on point in that that expulsiveness in the run game, that was a big outlier for them, the first month and a half of the season, we looked like, Aaron Jones was playing better than he ever had in Green Bay. Once that was off the table, it really exposed just how many holes they had on early

downs. And when you get to December and January and you're watching this team struggle in the passing game and everything Stephen saying was justified, but you're watching the All 22 and it's like, geez, man, can this team move the ball if it's not Sam Darnold having to take a hit to push the ball downfield to Justin Jefferson or Jordan Addison? I think they will have a few more elements to be able to stay efficient on early downs, especially on the ground. So I'm bullish on them in that.

respect. And then ultimately, I think it comes down to defensively, do you believe that Jonathan Allen can have a healthy year? And I would say doubly so for Jemond Hargrave. And if they're healthy, are they going to be impact players? Before Javon Hargrave got hurt last year, he was just as much a problem with what was going on in the front seven as anybody else in San Francisco. And Alan just kind of been in and out of the lineup. And he's been one of those guys whose NFL career has been really hard to nail down because when he's healthy and playing at his best, the flashes look like maybe not the upper tier. of defensive tackle, but not far off, right?

Because of what he can do physically, he can be a good interior pass rusher. He can be explosive out of his out of his stance and be disruptive in the run game. We just haven't gotten that enough over the course of his career, I don't think, which is why he's not in Washington anymore. So maybe this is a reclamation year for both of those guys.

And if so, this could very easily become one of the two or three best front sevens in the NFL, at least if you're just judging the names. The question then, to Shield's point, comes back to, can this defensive backfield be as productive this year as it was last year? Barbara Murphy played like he had never played before in his career last year in terms of ball production, right? Like that was not necessarily what he was at Arizona.

If he can be that, if Mackay Blackman can continue to just be a solid, a non-hole in the secondary, then I totally understand anybody who looks at the Vikings and asks why they can't be right at the top of the NFC North. It's just going to be what comes back to, you know, it's going to come back to the quarterback and whether or not that front seven can be as productive as it's been in the last couple of years of Brian Flores. I do think Allen and Hargrave will have better season just going to this style of defense coming from a different, like a completely different style of defense in both cases.

And I think Brian Flores' defense is perfect for their style of play. Especially for Hargraves. Yeah, for Hargraves, especially getting back to that style of defense that he played in Pittsburgh, essentially. I just have all the faith in the world in Brian Flores. especially after last year when they got all these defensive free agents, they brought them in, and they just played perfectly for what he asked of them. And I think that's the hallmark of this Belichick style of defenses.

You ask a guy to do a job. Don't ask him to do what he can't do, and you get the best play out of them. And I think they're more equipped to do that this year than they were even last year when they kind of broke out as one of the top defenses in the NFL. And like the secondary concern, I get it. But this wasn't like the typical Brian Flores defense that you thought of in like New England, where they're playing a bunch of man coverage. Very zone heavy last year.

Very zone heavy. One of the more zone heavy teams, they blitz a lot. And that's another misconception about this team is how they blitz. I think people think of Brian Flores of like this mad bomber. He's just sending cover zero blitzes at people.

He's not. He's playing a lot of safe zone coverage, a lot of two high zone coverage is behind these five and six-man pressures. It's safe. They create negative plays. And then they have guys that are good within the scheme. Like, I'm not going to take away from Andrew Van Ginkle,

the crazy plays he was making. seemed like he was going to jump a screen pass every week and get a pick six. Like they have dudes. They have the coaching. They have the continuity now that this is Flores' third year. I think Flores is getting better as a coach, to be honest with you, compared to what he was doing in New England and Miami. I really think this defense is going to be really good and something that you can bank on every

week being good and being maybe even better than it was last year. Yeah, what you're describing is just great coaching when you have art. Van Ginkles playing the best football of his career. Deontes said Byron Murphy. we probably had the best season of his career there. A guy like Josh Mattelis emerging, you know, you can kind of go up and down the line there. We got Harrison Smith back too.

We didn't even mention that. That was a big deal for them. I mean, it's not a, hey, on paper, this is an awesome defense defense. It is a, all right, we trust the coaching to get the most out of the player. Like you give this same group to a defensive coordinator who you don't really trust or it's unproven and you'd be like, uh-huh, I don't know. But yeah, I think he's earned the best.

benefit of the doubt that he's going to know what to do. It's not like their secondary was loaded with talented players. I mean, you know, guys get paid because of how they perform within his scheme. So I'm with you guys there with Brian Flores. All right. Better or worse than last year. So they go 14 and 3 last year. They have kind of the disastrous eight-day stretch there to end the year, week 18, and then the wild card round. Now, let me give you some, before you answer, some numbers with their offense because I think it's good to set expectations when we look at hey,

J.J. McCarthy coming in for Sam Darnold, what does he have to do to reach the level of Darnold last year or what does he have to do to exceed it? And some of these I've mentioned before, so you guys will probably get bored of them, but maybe we have a listener who didn't hear them before. But offensively last year,

they were 15th in EPA per drive and 12th in success rate. I think if you ask most people, just guess. they would probably say higher than both those numbers. Darnold was 18th in EPA per pass play and 16th in success rate. Again, I think if you ask most people or just looked at the pro football reference page, you would say no, he was definitely better than those numbers indicate.

So those are some of the expectations if we're saying, hey, can you do what you did last year? And I've mentioned before that I've just looked at kind of rookie quarterback performance over the last 10 years. And I know McCarthy's not a rookie, but maybe this is a good template. the average rookie season, they typically perform like the 25th best starter

in the NFL. So again, if you think, all right, well, McCarthy's in year two, he's in a good situation, how much higher

than the average rookie season can he perform? That's another way to kind of take a look at this as well. Now, there's some other stuff here. They were eight and one in games decided by seven points

or fewer last year. They were 10th and adjusted games lost last year. It's kind of the opposite to what Ruiz was saying with the Lions, where they were 26th on offense, fourth on defense. So the defense stayed very healthy last year.

The offense did not. What does that look like this year? So Deonti, you add all those things up. Any other factors you're looking at, I think 14 and 3 would be pretty ambitious if you said they're going to be better than last year. But what do you think kind of the drop off looks like? How close can they get to the team they were last year? I feel like there's been a team in every division I said this about. I think this is a healthier roster, better roster with worse results because of that one score game stat that you brought up.

Not only did they win eight out of those nine games, the one they lost was the Lions game, and they were the better team over the course of that game. They basically just got out executed in a late game situation, and the Lions were able to get just into field goal race to be able to steal that one at the very end. I can't imagine that they're going to be able to replicate that year over year. I don't expect them to be as explosive offensively early in the year as they were last season. Even if J.J. McCarthy is playing at his absolute best. What we saw from Sam Darnold was such a surprise. It's hard to imagine that they're going to be able to do that with the quarterback taking his first snaps under center in a regular season environment. I don't think that they're going to fall off the cliff.

I just think that if they turn out on the worst end of turnover regression, which Stephen brought up, if they're not able to win those tight games, like we're talking about shield, and if the offense is just not as dominant in the first two to three months of the year as what they were last season, those three component parts all kind of lead you to a team that's just not running roughshod over the better teams in the NFL. That was the most impressive thing is that teams that were competitive, playoff level teams, they were able to go blow for blow with those teams. I still think they'll be able to beat up on the worst teams in the NFL because the coaching staff is so strong.

they have an infrastructure built up to be able to take advantage of many teams' weaknesses. I just don't think that they're going to look like a team that's just as good as contenders week over week, which is a big surprise from last season. So I would not be surprised at all if they're worse this year. Ruiz, what do you got? Yeah, I think they're worse, but I think it's slightly worse. I think it might be the inverse of last year where they're kind of peaking at the right time rather than fading down the last couple games of the season.

I think there's a chance the offense is better. the results weren't that good to start with. They were kind of mediocre around league average. But I just think a stronger offensive line getting Christian Derrissol back from injury, strengthening the other interior parts of the offensive line. I just think there's a chance that we see a different style of offense that maybe isn't putting up 35 points or getting these high highs that Sam Darnel got out of the passing game. But it's more consistent week-to-week, puts less on the quarterback,

which has to happen with essentially a rookie starter. And then I think the defense continues where they left off. So I think they still can win like 11, maybe even 12 games. The record won't be as good, but I think you have a better feeling about them after week 18 than you did compared to last year. Yeah, I'm kind of with you. I don't mean to be Team Sunshine. This is very out of character for me. But I don't know.

These teams are good in the NFC North. And yeah, I'm not like the sky is falling with his White team. Let me ask this. How bad does McCarthy have to be for this team to kind of, you know, face plan and go down to like a six-win, seven-win team? That's my question. I don't. I think he has to be really bad. I think the bar for him being bad has to be really high for them to kind of implode

compared to last year. And I just don't think that's going to happen. I think he has a great play caller, a way better offensive line, possibly a good productive run game. And then the best receiver in the NFL to throw to. And then Jordan Addison is like basically a 2A guy. And then T.J. Hawkinson for a full season. Like the pieces are there for him to be propped up.

And I think we get to November. And I'm sitting here yelling at Vikings fans because of where I have them in the rankings and I'm not ranking them high enough. I think that's very possible. I also feel like his style of play doesn't lend itself to just being like complete disaster. You know what I mean? Maybe I'm wrong about that. I would be surprised if he's just turning the football over two or three times per week and just taking a ton of sacks and like, oh my God, this guy has no idea what he's doing. Like I feel like there's a floor there where he can rip some throws over the middle. He can make some plays with his legs. He can chuck it up to Justin Jefferson. There's a couple

schemed explosives in there. Like, I don't, yeah, I'm with you. It seems like there's a formula there. Like he would have to, for them to face plan, I think he would have to be probably one of the like three or four worst starters in the NFL. I don't think he's going to be that with this. We've learned too much about quarterback play that the supporting cast, the play caller can kind of prop you up if you, if you're a certain level of quarterback, can prop you up to a certain level. And again, this is without him having played a snap in NFL. So maybe this will look stupid in week four and he'll be, he'll be terrible. But I have a pretty good feeling about him that he can at least reach that certain level of competency to keep

them afloat. I agree. I mean, at least tools wise coming into the draft, he was right there with Bo Nix. And I would say it was more polished than Nix as a decision maker. Yeah, yeah. Playing from the pocket and playing within structure. So that's the bar. I've just kind of set now with rookie quarterback coming into the league. I think he can clear that. And if you clear that with what else is around him. that definitely sounds like a winning season for Minnesota at the very least. Yeah, that's why I'm optimistic about this offense, even though you would expect them to take a step back with them losing their quarterback,

a quarterback who got paid a bunch of money by another team. My one concern is sealing, but that's more of a long-term concern with a quarterback like him. I know there's been a lot of discourse about his arm strength and whether people are overrating or underrating it. The guy can throw hard. He can throw his basketball. The question with him, for me, at least, is changing speed. changing trajectories, touch, throwing like that. We didn't really see it in Michigan.

You don't know what to expect. It was a small sample size by design. He was in a great situation where the defense was great. They could run the football. He wasn't asked to do much. That takes nothing away from his talent and what he could be in a different style of offense. But we haven't seen it yet.

So that's my concern for him, his long-term ceiling. And it is about the arm. It's not about pure arm strength, though. It's about armed talent. I think there's a key difference in those two things. like bringing up the fact that he had like the highest miles per hour at the combine thing like look at the other quarterbacks who have like will gruees up there too and it's because guys have to throw hard it doesn't matter like if he could throw an easy pitch like if we can throw out to the perimeter with it with more ease i think you'd be a better throw of the football that's what we haven't seen yet i'm very interested to see how that looks miles per hour on quarterback throws all right numbers have got i love numbers that's too far gone too far don't need that number not telling me anything

about how a guy can play as long as he's not in like the one percentile of that. I think he's going to... I'm with you though. I remember watching the Michigan film when he was coming out and I was like, every throw looks the same. I'm like, these are nice throws, but every throw does kind of look the same here. And watching him live that year, I was just like,

wait, this guy's going to be a first round pick. So I think we talked about it before. We've all gone on kind of different journeys here with J.J. McCarthy. So it'll be fun to get to see him actually play in this offense. And hey, my way too early prediction the 2025 Vikings offense outperforms the 2024. That would be impressive.

That would be impressive. Listen, it did. Yeah, that's probably goes back to my. It is. All right. I think the past. We've got too many podcasts together. Yeah.

The past game's worse, but everything else about the offense is better. And it's just an easier situation for the quarterback. Like, it was a very hard situation for Sam Donald. As much as I criticized him, it was a tough offense. He had to throw down field. He had to hold on to the football. I think you saw his warts.

come out at the end of the year when other defenses realized it and they started pinning their ears back and playing in pass rush mode. But I think it's going to be different this year for them. All right. Deontay, way too early prediction for the Vikings. What do you got? I think that they'll end up having the best record in the NFL of the team to miss the playoffs. Oh, I started off optimistic. Yeah, I was like, wait, you just said this about the backers, Deontah, what are you doing? No, I think that's why you had to listen to the whole thing. I think that if I have Dallas going in as a 7C, it is like a 10-11 win team. I think that they end up losing out on some funky tiebreaker,

and they end up being the team that comes up just short because they've lost more games to common opponents or whatever the case may be. But yeah, I mean, at first I wanted to be more pessimistic about this team, because to your point shield with the one-score games, how effective this offense was, all the turnover look that they had last year. This just has all the pieces of a team that is going to fall off a cliff, And then you look at the depth chart and it's like they've gotten better at basically maintained or gotten better at every position except for quarterback. And it's only a question mark at quarterback. It's not for certain that he's going to be any worse than Sam Donald. So if I look up and they're right back at being eight and one again nine weeks into the season, I won't be shocked. It's just going to be hard to maintain that year over year. And I think that the NFC, because so many good teams are playing each other this year, somebody's going to come up with the raw deal and I think it'll be the Vikings. Let me ask this in terms of just primary play caller on both.

sides of the ball. Which team has a better one than Minnesota does go to it? I don't think there is one. I'm looking down the list and I can't figure out one. Maybe Kansas City is the one I would take over them with Spags and 80s. Yeah, that's the best argument. You could take Kansas City, but yeah, they haven't had to do it without the, you know, maybe the greatest quarterback.

I'm with you. Yeah, the chiefs have a, have certainly have a case there. but just I think when you look at what the Vikings have had to do specifically offensively with the quarterback situation, it might be more impressive than what we've seen in recent years than the Chiefs have done with Patrick Mahomes there. So yeah, I'm looking here. Man, it is, I think you're right. It's tough to find one. I'm going down the list.

Nope. I haven't found anybody I don't like better yet. I haven't found anybody that's even close. Let me ask another question. So since we're all high on the Packers, let's go do the, let's talk about second and third place. Roster to roster comparing them,

which offense would you rather have? Ignore the quarterback. So two through 10, which offense would you rather have, Minnesota or Detroit? Offense of line and school players. Minnesota or Detroit. That's a really good question.

I think Minnesota is arguably better now after the offseason. We have to see it play. out on the field. I think I would take Minnesota's. And then the skill group is better. Because Justin Jefferson is that like, no doubt offensive player of the year type of candidate. If I'm just dropping any old quarterback in these systems,

I'm not saying that it's a wide margin between the both of them. I just look at offensive line as a weak link unit, more than like a super strength unit. I look more at wise receiver as a super strength type of unit. And their starting point between Jordan Madison and Justin Jefferson outside of Cincinnati. I mean, in Philadelphia, when those guys are healthy and at their best, they're right there up there with the other two other two top duos. And then defensively, I think I'm taking Minnesota.

So that's like outside of the quarterback position, I feel like Minnesota is the better team on paper, but I mean, it has to be, you have to seat on the field. That's tough. Offensively, lions are better at running back. I'm with you. Vikings are better at wide receiver. I'm not ready to give the vice. You could be right.

I will say prove it to me, Vikings offensive line. that's where I give them the edge over the lion's offensive line. But it's a good point. It's pretty close to, I mean, looking at the NFC here, this like follow, you know, to talk about the NFC East and the NFC North, you know, you've got the between Eagles, commanders, cowboys, all four teams, and we'll talk about the bears here in a second, all four teams in the NFC North. You can throw in like the Rams, the Niners, if you like a hit.

Hipster Cardinals or if you think the Seahawks are going to be better than maybe we do. I mean, there are among all those teams I just mentioned, there are what, six, six spots. Somebody is going to. Somebody's got to come up on the short end of the state. Yeah. It's going to be fun. I think there are a lot of teams packed in there. Maybe not all Super Bowl contenders.

But I don't know. A lot of these teams I could talk myself into, hey, if X and Y go right, yeah, they could be a Super Bowl team. it seems like a bigger group maybe than we've had in recent years here. There's just not that daunting, you know, triumvirate at the top of the conference like we have in the AFC, where like every conversation comes back to the chiefs, the Bills, and the Ravens every single year. And you don't have that, so it feels a little more wide open.

But the competition is, it's fiercer for those finals. The race for number two was probably as fierce as I can remember at any time in the NFL on a conference. Teams are bunched there. All right, that brings us to our last team. Can they be a surprise team? I picked them to make the playoffs last year. Whoops, bad call.

The Chicago Bears plus 500 to win the division, plus 1,800 to come out of the NFC, plus 164 to make the playoffs. They're over under for wins is eight and a half. Lots of changes. This is the opposite of the Packers. I mean, they changed just about everything here. Replaced Matt Ibrose with Ben Johnson,

rebuilt the interior offensive line. Joe Tunney, Jonah Jackson, Drew Dahlman, three new offensive linemen. They draft the tight end. Colton Loveland in the first round. They draft the wide receiver, Luther Burden, in the second round. So just a brand new offense, really, around Caleb Williams. Anyway, you think about it.

Defensively, Dennis Allen, the veteran defensive coordinator, takes over. They add a couple defensive linemen there. They draft a defensive lineman, Shamar Turner. In the second round, you add it all up, Deontay, after last year's disappointment, how do you grade the way this bears offseason went? I gave him a B plus. Like I was kind of on the fringe B, B, B plus,

and it's just because I've got to wait to see exactly what Ben Johnson is as a head coach. I will say this, though, in terms of clearing low bars, it seems like Caleb Williams finally has a coaching staff that cares about him playing the position the right way, right? Like, I don't know if you guys saw the clip of Ben Johnson kind of getting after Caleb for being late on the throw,

and he acknowledged it, the press conference. He's winning the press conference. I'm telling you. Ben Johnson is winning. Listen, there's a part of me that wants to unleash, is, is Ben Johnson going to be, you know,

the offensive version of Brandon Staley, where everyone's head over heels. And then at two years, I'm not going there. I have higher hopes for him as a head coach. But that's always on my radar a little bit when everybody's loving the press conference. I mean, he's definitely beating the robot coach allegations.

He's 1,000% beating the robot coach allegations. With these press conferences, he's had since he's been hired. But I think that drafting Luther Burton to make sure that you don't have to ask a veteran receiver like Keenan Allen to have to eat up all these targets from the slot will go a long way. I think that Roma Densee ran hot and cold, but I like what his role projects to be in a Ben Johnson offense, much more than I ever would have a Shane Waldron offense. And I think that was borne out on film last season. And then if the interior of the offensive line stays healthy, it's some age there, some injury history there between Jonah Jackson and Joe Tuny. So I'm fascinated to see if those guys can hold up.

But if they can get 14 out of 17 games with this core, if they can have injury luck in that respect, this offense can very quickly turn things around. I just think that there's obviously a lot that has to be proven with this team. So I'm not ready to totally jump off the ledge and say that this is going to be in contention for a worst-to-first type of team, especially in the NFC North. I'm just really happy with what we see when you look at

where they've kind of grown in terms of not only the coaching staff, but they're too deep on the depth chart. Yeah, that's where I come down to. I think if you would have laid out what actually, you know, the day after the season was over, if you were to have said this is what the Bears offseason is going to look like. I think you would have, you know, Caleb Williams is one of the biggest winners of the offseason. I think Bears fans would have been thrilled.

Now, to your point, it doesn't mean it's going to work out, you know, the Chiefs are a Super Bowl contender and they were like, all right, we're good with losing Joe Tuny. Sean McVeigh, pretty good coach, was like, all right, Jonah Jackson not working out. Let's move on from him. So they have to prove that those pieces are going to work there in Chicago. But just when you look at an proven offensive play caller and designer,

a veteran defensive coordinator, adding past catchers, trying to reshape the offensive line, you're giving yourself a chance with the quarterback who is the franchise. So I gave him a B plus as well. Ruiz, where did you fall down, fall on the Bears off season? I gave him an A-minus, same thinking, though. And I think you have to base it on what we're thinking about the off-season moves in the moment. Like, Ben Johnson could fall flat on his face.

But, like, in terms of coaches on the market, he was the guy that I would have picked if I was any of these teams hiring a coach. I thought the offensive line remake, it was drastic, but it also wasn't very expensive. Like, they gave away $80 million total across three guys. And they gave a six-round pick and a fourth-round pick in the trades. Like, even if these moves don't work out, they don't really prohibit you from, you know, starting over next year and doing stuff like that. They added two young playmakers in the draft in Lusland and Burden. And then adding Dennis Allen, I think, is just another,

I think you're just going to see the defense. It's essentially the same personnel, but I think this suits them better. I think we're going to see them play tighter coverage. I don't think it's going to be as easy as it was for offenses to kind of pick them apart, especially after they lost Everflus. And then I just think they're bound to be better just based on their late game luck and we can rehash all that went wrong with them.

but three and seven and one score games. They were a Hail Mary in Washington away from a five and two start. And they were a six point lost to Houston and a five point lost the end from starting seven and oh. They lost two, three and one possession games in their first seven games.

So I think the bar for improving next year wasn't even that high to begin with. And I think they made all the right moves and checked all the right boxes. Now, having said that all of this could fail miserably, we don't know what Ben Johnson will look like as a head coach. maybe Dennis Allen lost it the last couple of years in New Orleans.

Maybe these offensive line, and like you said, the teams that gave up on them, maybe they were right. So there's a chance that we're to have in the same conversation about the bears. But I think in June, on paper, it was the best possible offseason for them. All right. Better or worse than last year, Ruiz just answered it a little bit, but I want to know how much better. Because like you said, they were five and 12 last year. So you're not going out on a limb if you're saying, all right, they're better than last year. But is this a team that can legit contend?

for a playoff spot. Do you expect them to contend for a playoff spot? So 25th in DVOA last year, 27th on offense, 22nd on defense. Ruiz just gave you the numbers about the one score games there. They got bad luck there. They got pretty good injury luck. They were third,

the third most healthiest team in the NFL. They had a hard schedule last year. They have a hard schedule this year as well. And so I think a lot of this will come down to Caleb Williams. And it feels like, there's a high variance, I feel like, with Caleb Williams this year.

I mean, if you told me he's one of the stories of the 2025 NFL season and he looks great in this offense with Ben Johnson, I would believe you. The flashes were there last year. The talent is there. If you told me, all right, it didn't make maybe as big of a difference as we expected and he still got some worse and it's going to take a little bit longer for him to develop than maybe people anticipated. That wouldn't shock me either.

So Deonté, better or worse than last year. and assuming it's better, how much better are we expecting the Spares team to be? It's better, but their win total is set at eight and a half, I think. That's really, really optimistic for me. I would still bet the under on their win total. You look at their schedule. They see the Giants, see the Saints,

they see the Raiders, and they see the Browns. If you assume that they're able to beat those teams because that's kind of like the doldrums of the NFL, everything else on their schedule is going to be rough the rest of the way. It's tough playing the rest of the good NFL. North teams, right? They're not the lions where they have the benefit of not having to play themselves twice. So you're going to see the rest of the

NFC North. You've got to see some of the NFC East as well. It's going to be really hard for me to imagine that they can string together the kind of wins that would be necessary for them to get over that 500 mark. So certainly not a contender. I can't even really see them being a French playoff team. I think

that bar is just too high to clear. I think really all this is about is resetting the clock on Caleb Williams. If we can just kind of cast away all that year one was for him and treat this like a pseudo rookie year, I just want to see competent offense around a quarterback that we were really excited to see in the NFL. If we clear that bar, this is a successful year by any other metric. I don't even know if we need that.

I don't think we need like a complete slate cleaning is what I would say. Last year was just so difficult. It was like everything you could imagine that would make a rookie quarterback's season. hell happened to him, including the mid-season play caller change. He had 318 dropbacks where the dropback probability was over 90%. That's wild. 90%. That's based on down the distance.

That's based on game score and all that. 318. Jalen Hurts had like 420 total dropbacks. Any rookie quarterback, Jaden Daniels, C.J. Straub, Justin Herbert, you put any of them in this offense. And I think that they struggled to even get to where Caleb was at times last year with the highs that he had earlier in the year. And then on top of that, you had him calling protections at the offensive line. You were one of the league leaders in empty where you're spreading it out.

You only have five blockers. They ran a bunch of RPO, which always drags down a quarterback's efficiency. It was like they were out to sabotage his rookie year. And the fact that he finished what the sats he did, which were like run-of-the-mill rookie quarterback stats, maybe a little subpar, is pretty impressive to me that he didn't just totally drown under all that water

that they threw him into. So I think that he's going to make a big leap this season. I think that's going to make things a lot easier on offense. But to Deontes point, toughest division in football, tough schedule. They have a long way to go

before they can get to the point where we're calling them contender. So I think this is a step in the right direction. It's just maybe not the step that may, like some impatient Bears fans are expecting after this offseason. So what do you think? are fair expectations for

Caleb Williams in year two. When you look at Ben Johnson as the play caller, whatever you think of the offensive line, whatever you think of the supporting cast, if you look up at the end of the year and he is the whatever, X-ranked

quarterback, like what is that number where you would say that, you know, all right, that's a great step in the right direction and Bears fans should be really excited about this. I would say 15th, 16th, but it's so hard to say because we don't No, like we don't know what Ben Johnson is as a head coach slash play caller. We don't know what the audience of line.

It could very well be another crappy situation for him. But I was impressed with the growth that he showed throughout the year in terms of decision-making, timing, just picking up the offense. It's hard to, it's hard to really state how bad this offense was and how dysfunctional it was without watching. Just like the route concepts, the spacing, guys running wrong routes, guys quitting on routes early. I don't know how many times I watched him run a bootleg, a naked bootleg, and then the defensive end is just right in Caleb's face, right, when he turns around. Just poorly designed offense all the way around. I really don't think any quarterback would have done well in this situation last year.

And he definitely had his flaws with accuracy and timing at times. But those were rookie mistakes that you typically see. And you saw them on Drake May's tape. You saw them on Jaden Daniels tape. It just didn't matter because everything else around them was a little bit better than it was for Chicago So in Drake May's case, in Daniel's case, it was a lot better. Last 10 seasons, 31 rookie quarterbacks, his rookie season ranked 21st in EPA per pass play. So to your point, it was more, it was pretty close to an average rookie season.

Statistically, that's only statistically that we've seen over the last 10 years. I feel like Trevor Lawrence is a good sort of comp here in that the talent is obvious, bad situation as a rookie. Now, Lawrence has had some, has had ups and downs since then. You know, it feels like Williams is set up to be in a better situation, maybe than Lawrence was for his next three seasons there. But still, you know, what does it look like for Caleb Williams here going forward? One of the more interesting storylines, honestly, in the entire NFL is sort of the growth of Caleb Williams and what that Bears team looks like here. All right.

Way too early prediction. By the way, I had better as well. I don't think they're a playoff team that I wouldn't say I would be like shocked if you told me they're in the mix there. I think better but maybe not like a massive leap. It feels like 2026 might be the year

where hey, all right, you get some of more of Ben Johnson's guys in there and they're able to make the playoffs. But my way too early prediction is that this is a top 10 defense. I think they were kind of trending that way in the second half of 2023. I really

liked how they were playing. Last year, everything falls apart. They obviously lost faith in the head coach, Matt Iber Fluse. I think Dennis Allen is the classic, don't want him as my head coach, but sure, we'll take him as my defensive coordinator. The guy has seen everything in the NFL, you know, and I like having a veteran defensive coordinator who has that type of resume, and he has built some very good defenses there in the past.

So I like their talent at linebacker. I like their talent at Corner. We'll see about the pass rush, whether it's good enough, but they've got some guys up front there. So I think it's a mix of talent and the guy who is going to be scheming the defense, where I think this has a chance to be a pretty good defense here in 2025. Deonti, what do you have? Way too early prediction for the Bears. And Stephen said it best, right?

And you've hinted at this as well with we need to really have specific goals set for a team like this, when the expectation is not that they're in a position to contend. I think for me, this would be very specific to the ringer. I think that Stephen ranks him ahead of his cluster of Hertz, Baker, and Tua. So he clears that midway point where he's kind of, you know, in that 14th, 13th range. And if Caleb can land there, then I think that this is a successful season for this offense. I wish all my predictions were just where is Ruiz going to have this guy ranked in his quarterback. And then we could come back and look at it.

All right, maybe we'll save that for a later. summer show we predict Ruiz's quarterback rankings. That sounds fun. That'd be a good bit. Yeah. That'd be a good. Yeah. That'd be a good little bit. All right, Ruiz. What do you got? I'm along the same lines as Deonté, but I'll take it one step further. I think we're discussing Caleb as a fringe possible top 10 quarterback. Top 10 Qee? By the end of the year. And I think it's probably mostly delusional Bears fans who are kind of jumping the gun. But I do think there's a discussion. I think it's a Trevor Lawrence-esque breakout second year where I think by the end of the second year,

we were thinking Trevor Lawrence was a top 10 quarterback. All right. Listen, if you get Ruiz's prediction and you get my prediction, and you probably are looking at a playoffs, Bears is a surprise playoff team if both of those things happen. So there is a blueprint there, a pathway there, for them to be a surprise playoff contender. The bar to clear for them to be delusional about quarterbacks is so low.

Caleb Williams' last year, which was not good, ranked fifth in single season passing yardage in Bears history. Oh, my gosh. The bar to clear is not the greatest here. I remember the Justin Fields debate, so I'll definitely co-sign that. Man. There's so many of those. They never want to hear it, but I just love just pointing out the fact that if we're going strictly off production,

best quarterback in Bears history, Jay Cutler, sorry, guys. I know none of them want to hear it. None of them want to talk about it. But that's still the best by talent and by production is the best quarterback that has ever worn that uniform. We should talk about Taylor Williams and how I feel like people get his. weaknesses and strengths are wrong, and it's all based on the perception of who he was coming out of college where they're like, oh, he's a guy that wants to hold onto the ball and run around too much. Like, you look at the stats and they don't bear that out. He wasn't the opposite for a

stretch. Yeah, he was holding onto the ball too long and being, in adhering to the progression a little too long at times. I think the one concern I definitely have, which will be a long-term concern, in my opinion, is his field vision from a tight pocket, especially over the middle. You see him turn down so many open throws. And I think it's just that he's not seeing the guys. He's a shorter quarterback. I think he needs to, you know, you need to do some things scheme-wise to get him outside the pocket, maybe clear up his viewpoint. But I think Ben Johnson is the perfect guy to do that.

And I think just referencing the numbers I mentioned earlier with the 90% dropback probability. So he had, what did I say, 330 dropbacks. Third place was Eric Rogers at 240. So almost 100 more than third place. Second place was Gino Smith, who was about 20 back from him. So it wasn't just the fact that he had this hardship as a rookie quarterback. It was exceptional compared to the rest of the league. Nobody had it as hard as him.

And they asked him to be a big boy quarterback on top of that. I just feel like it was a recipe for disaster. Whereas you're going to go the other way. You hired Ben Johnson because he makes things easier on quarterbacks. You hired or you bolstered the offensive line because we know that makes things easier on quarterbacks. And I think getting rid of Keenan Allen is also going to bolster their passing game because it was just hard to watch at times last year with it, the way he ran routes and committed to running routes and catching the ball. Yeah, it all comes full circle in the episode. We talk about the

Lions. I think you mentioned that Jared Goff was playing on Easy Mode. Now Ben Johnson goes from the Lions to Bears and yes, supporting cast and talent matters, but his job is to get closer to allowing Caleb Williams to play on Easy Mode than he played last year. What? does that look like in 2025? All right. The NFC North, a very interesting division. Is it the best division in football? The NFC North?

I'm looking here. I think so. It's got to be right. If you're going by Super Bowl odds, it's got to be, right? I think it is. I guess the, I mean, AFC West, I don't think it's going to have a terrible team,

you know, and they'll have a Super Bowl contender. the AFC Now the AFC North Doesn't really register for me In the same kind of way Yeah I think it probably is I think NFC East might be the third But like NFC East

AFC West are probably Buying for second place there If the Cowboys bounce back And Washington doesn't regress Like some people expect I think there's a chance That's one of the deeper divisions NFC West

What about the NFC West? I mean I like that one doesn't right with me I know you're the To me That's like TV rankings. I love watching the NFC West on a Sunday by Sunday basis. I don't know if they're as competitive as an NFC North. All right.

There you go. Great. Fun division. Lots of storylines in the NFC North. All right. Thank you to Deontay Lee and Stephen Ruiz. Thank you to Christopher Sutton for producing Kiera Givens on social and additional production supervision by Connor Nevins and Arjuna Ramgopal.

I'm Shil Kapati. We'll talk to you next time on the Ringer NFL show. Must be 21 plus and present. in select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 plus and present in D.C. Gambling problem. Call 1-800 gambler or visit RG-Helpsheel.com. Call 1-88-88-88-9-7777-7-7 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut or visit MD Gamblinghelp.org in Maryland.

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