The Ringer NFL Show - Ranking the Top 10 NFL Offenses for the 2026 Season!

Episode Date: August 4, 2026

Sheil and The Ringer’s own Diante Lee get together to share, analyze, and debate their respective power rankings for the top 10 offenses in the NFL as we approach the upcoming season. (00:00) Ranking the top 10 NFL offenses for the 2026 season  (03:38) Jacksonville Jaguars  (09:53) Kansas City Chiefs (15:47) Denver Broncos  (23:21) Green Bay Packers  (31:30) Detroit Lions  (36:30) Chicago Bears  (44:19) Baltimore Ravens  (53:49) New England Patriots  (59:20) Los Angeles Chargers  (01:04:43) Dallas Cowboys  (01:08:10) Cincinnati Bengals  (01:15:55) Buffalo Bills  (01:20:32) Los Angeles Rams  (01:25:17) Honorable mentions Make your rise with the MVP Bundle. Available now. Upgrade Your Performance with Orgain Creatine. Available at Amazon, Costco, Walmart & Whole Foods. The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit ⁠www.rg-help.com⁠ to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Host: Sheil Kapadia  Guest: Diante Lee  Producer: Chris Sutton  Video Editor: Stefano Sanchez  Production Supervision: Conor Nevins and Arjuna Ramgopowell Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the Ringer NFL show. I'm your host, Shield Capadia. Today, we are going on the record and identifying what we believe to be the top 10 offenses in the NFL going into the 2026 season. Fun exercise. I like to do it every summer to really go on the record with takes. Sorry, how good do I think each of these units is actually going to be? My guest today is the ringers Deonté Lee. We'll count them down. We'll start with 10. We'll see where we'll. agree. We'll see where we disagree. I think there are going to be some disagreements in this one, and we'll talk it all out. All right, let's take a break. We come back with Deonté Lee. This episode of the Ringer NFL show is presented by organ. Orgaine creatine helps improve muscle size, strength, and power when combined with a regular exercise and weight training routine. Plus, it's certified with informed choice, which means it's tested for prohibited substances in sports. Upgrade your performance with organ creatine available at Amazon, Costco, Walmart, and Whole Foods. These statements have been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not

intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. All right, we are back here on the Ringer NFL show with my friend Deonté Lee. We've done this before, Deontay. I don't know how many years we've done it or whatever, but we have ranked. the top 10 offense is going into the season. I like to do one through 32 offense, one through 32 defense just every summer, basically, to kind of get in my head. How do I feel about these teams? Because I noticed that I had like 10 teams written down initially that I was like,

oh, they're in the 15 to 20 range. And it's like, Sheal, they can't, 10 teams can't be in the 15 to 20 range. I thought this was actually quite a challenging exercise to narrow it down to 10. I thought that there were maybe 17, 18 teams that you could really make a case for here. I don't know what you guys might have been arguing about at your lunch tables back when you're in middle and high school. But I remember when we used to debate things like the top five or top 10 rappers of all time, you just start throwing names out. And then eventually you're like, we're talking about 18 people for a 10 person list. Like we have to trim some of this.

I think that I struggle with that. I also found myself just being more bullish, I think, on more offenses across the league than I thought I would have been. going into this exercise. I think we'll try to do defenses next week, and I feel like it's the opposite. Offense, I felt like I could easily got into 15, 18, where I'm like, they have a chance to be in the top 10. And you look at the defenses around the NFL,

and there's like, there's like five. You're like, I feel really good about them. And then you're just like, man, I have no idea, you know, all these other deeps. So it is different offenses and defenses. Okay, we're going to do top tens. We're going to start with 10. I think here's how we do it, Deonti.

We'll start with you. You give me your number 10. You make the case. If I have that team elsewhere on my list, I'll tell you where I have them. And we just spend time talking about that team. And then I'll give you my 10. And then we'll kind of work our way up to the top five, the top three, and eventually who we have as the best offense.

So get us started, number 10 on Deontes list of projected best offenses in the NFL in 2026. Who do you got? I've got Jacksonville at 10 here. And like, this was a cluster. for me between like 10 and 14 where this really is like how do I feel getting out of bed in the morning making this pick. I think that for Jacksonville, for me with Jacksonville and I think specifically with Liam Cohen and one of the things just throughout this exercise I kept coming back to is what did I see on film last year that felt the most stable? And we talked a lot about

Jacksonville. I think this offseason and ways in which that they may regress, they might not have. I don't think anybody should expect them to be as hot to start this upcoming season as they were down the stretch of the last six to eight weeks last year. But one of the things that we saw them kind of building on a week-by-week basis was an ability to find explosive runs and ability to find early-down success in the run game. And then I think after they traded for Jacoby Myers and you started to see more of a breakout from Parker Washington, you started to see the ball gate out of Trevor Lawrence's hands quickly underneath, allowing guys to go create after the catch and then on third downs,

having these dependable guys that can help you move the chains. I think I'd just come back on the whole just feeling like, this is an offense that isn't necessarily complete yet, right? Like, I still think we need to see Brian Thomas Jr. step into the role that I think Jacksonville ultimately wants for him being that unguardable ex-receiver option. But they've got a solid enough offensive line. You've got a great play designer and Liam Cohen.

You have a quarterback that has all the physical tools. And as we saw in the second half of last season, when he's not turning a ball over or taking unnecessary sacks, he can keep a good offensive float. He can not just average. He can genuinely be the driving force. in the passing game for an offense that is above average, that is in that top eight, top 10 area across the league.

And I think I have a lot of trust in that, as well as the explosive play potential with some of their best players. I would not be surprised at all if we're sitting here at the beginning of October and Jacksonville has the highest explosive play rate in the league because they do have so many guys with game-breaking speed, and you've got a great offensive play caller to design plays for those players. I love the word you use trust there, because that's really what I think the Jaguar,

ranking comes down to. I don't have them on my list. I had them on my list. You know, I have five or six just missed. They were just missed for me. I want to see it again from Trevor Lawrence and Liam Cohen because I think they really, you're right. By the end of last season, I mean, I was thinking back to the playoffs.

Like if you were predicting that the Jaguars could make the Super Bowl, you weren't crazy. Like they were playing really well towards the end of the season there. Going into the postseason, it felt like you said. They found something after that Jacoby Myers trade was sort of, It feels weird to say. It's not like Pooka, Pooka or JSN,

but it's like he really did kind of help them as a complimentary piece with the other players that they have. And they only had him for what, half the season. And now they get him for the full season. So I do like that. I do believe in Liam Cohen.

I think he's a fun character because he seems willing to antagonize other teams, other coaches mix it up, which, listen, I grew up in a time where there were a lot of characters

in the NFL. He and Robert Sal are in the same division now. So we might get some fireworks. I love it. I'm probably a little bit slower to embrace the Trevor Lawrence has found it now. He has all the physical tools. He's putting it all together. I have no questions about it than maybe some others.

I see the upside. He absolutely played better. Last year was nice to see him in kind of an offensive infrastructure like that. I just kind of need to see it again from both these guys. Because Cohen's personality is a little volatile. I'm like, huh, if this does, doesn't go well. Like, you know, what's that building going to be like? I don't necessarily love the moves their front office has made. But I don't think you're, you know, like I said,

they just missed on mine. And that was just because I didn't have that full trust that what we saw in the second half of last year is going to carry over. Because if you look at the whole season, they were 14th in EPA per drive, 14th in DVOA. Like, if you take the bigger sample, it wasn't quite as good as my head remembered. But again, it got better as the season went on last year. I mean, your point about Trevor Lawrence is well made, right? And I think that for me, the question that is just going to hover outside of like Travis Hunter or what his usage is going to be and Brian Thomas Jr. and whether or not he can take a step forward again, the way that he looked as a rookie, if he can kind of recapture some of that. The real question to me is just like,

what do you actually believe about this offense? Do you believe that Trevor Lawrence just got hot for a little bit? Or do you believe that the last half of that season and really how they played in a playoff game against Buffalo as well, because I thought that he played pretty well prior to that game-ending interception, too. It's whether or not you believe that Liam Cohen provides him with a high enough floor that Trevor Lawrence just has not had in his career, where the structure is not going to bottom out around him and force him to be a quarterback that we just haven't really seen in the lead, right?

I think that what we've seen, whether it's been Urban Meyer, the last two seasons with Doug Peterson, is that when the structure of the offense falters, we just have not seen often enough Trevor and Lawrence to be able to be able, able to go into, you know, that Patrick Mahomes, I can bail you out of any situation, that Josh Allen, you know, that elite tier of quarterbacks where it almost doesn't matter what the play call is, it can make anything look good because they can extend plays, because they can push the ball downfield, because they are a threat as a scrambler. He obviously has pieces of each

of those tools that I have named, we just haven't seen it consistently enough to make us believe that, hey, if it's the second half and this team is trailing 14 points and Liam Cohen doesn't have his fastball, that Trevor Lawrence is the guy that's going to drag you out of it. I think that maybe I'm just leaning more on the side of. Cohen has bought enough goodwill with me to make me believe that what we saw in the ground game, what we saw in the play action, the screen game, some of those quick passes is something that you can replicate from last year to this year. And that might be enough to kind of buttress some of the other volatility that might make

me feel a little bit more uncertain about where this offense is right now. Yeah, I mean, Cohen's done it, back-to-back seasons, different quarterbacks, different personnel, different teams. So, you know, I don't think anyone's wrong to be bullish on him. I personally just want to see another year there. All right. So, Deontes got the Jaguars. Number 10, I don't have them in my top 10.

This one we might be spending an hour on. I'm not sure, Deonti. Because I don't know if you're going to tell me I'm crazy because they're too low or I don't know if you're going to tell me you don't have them in your top 10. I've got the Kansas City Chiefs. This is who I was hoping we were talking about. At number 10. Okay, so the case for the Chiefs is pretty obvious.

You just say there are maybe two quarterbacks in the NFL, maybe more than that if you want to add a couple of. But Mahomes and Josh Allen, we can say if they're healthy and on the field, the floor is going to only be so low for that offense. We've seen it with a big sample. We've seen it with different personnel around them. And I was even looking at the numbers last year, but before Mahomes got injured,

if you just look at how the offense was playing, it was actually fourth in EPA per play. Like, it is only statistically, I know our eye test didn't match it. I understand. We watched the games. But just statistically, the performance of that offense, with Mahomes last year was on the same level

as a team like the Cowboys. It was better than what we saw from the Bears and the 49ers. So I looked at that and I go, all right, I know he's coming off

the injury. Maybe I should have him even higher than this. But then I just looked at the pieces around him. They didn't fix it. They didn't fix the pieces around him. The pieces that made us

so frustrated not only last year, the year before. I remember us doing that pod after the Super Bowl against the Eagles being like, they need to like make a splash to add some firepower to this offense.

And here we are a couple seasons later and they still haven't done that. And now I'm like, well, he's 31. He's coming off an injury. The O line could be good, but I'm not sure they're going to be good. I don't think Kenneth Walker could add more explosive runs. He will add more explosive runs. But, you know, is that going to make a huge impact? And then I was thinking about Andy Reed and conversations we've had about,

Does he still have his fastball? And I'm not sure that he does. So I kind of chickened out. You know, I could have gone, they're not in my top 10. Chiefs aren't a top 10 offense. Let's put that on his. That's our Instagram post for this week.

And I wasn't willing to go that far. And I also wasn't willing to be the guy that going, don't sleep on the Chiefs. You all counting them out. Oh, you love the Chargers and the Broncos, but the Chiefs don't. I didn't do that either. I'm just kind of like,

I think they're going to be above average, top 10, but we're still going to be frustrated with them, Deont, where do you come down? on the Kansas City Chiefs. This is so funny. I think that we have two different versions of cop-out answers, right? You putting them at 10 is a very safe thing to do, right?

Because if they're there, you could say, hey, I didn't bail on my holes coming off of one bad year. And if they aren't, it's like, hey, man, they're on the fringes for me anyway. So I thought they could have gone either way. I had another cop out here. I just kind of put them in that 15-16 range where, like, that is my genuine, don't know what to do with you. I've got them outside of the top 10. And I don't know that I think that there'll be a bad offense given my assumption that Patrick Mahomes will be healthy, right? I think that as long as he's available, what he does for this offense, even if he's not scrambling as often because he's maybe nervous about the knee or maybe just by coaching they're trying to get the ball out of his hands, whether it's by run game or quick passes so that way he doesn't have to extend as much.

He still just does so much to lift the floor for this offense that I can see a world in which he is leading a top 10 offense. I think for me, it just comes back to supporting cast. Same thing you were saying, right? Like, I don't have any reason to trust for She-Rice right now, right? And some of that is on field. A lot of it is off-field, right? And, you know, I just need to see it from a guy like him first. I think we also need to see that Kenneth Walker can genuinely be that bell cow.

That three-down, you can lean on me for 300 touches in a season, and I'll be just as good by week 18 as I was in week eight. I think that we need to see that because we have seen him be dinged up and nicked up prior to last season. last season was a lot of kind of perfect case scenario, and he was still sharing that workload with Zach Charbonnet, right? So I'm very curious to see what it looks like with him being a true feature. You've got to lead this part of our offense type of running back.

And outside of Rice, you're talking about Travis Kelsey, who even if he's at his absolute freshest at this age, you still have to be wary of age cliff production drop-off, right, and what he's going to look like for another 17 games, plus a playoff run if he is healthy enough to be able to push this team into the postseason. So yeah, I don't think that this is going to be like the 22nd best offense or anything. It's just like as you start pulling the threads around Patrick Mahomes and looking at some of these component parts in a vacuum and then in comparison to some of the other teams

that we would consider being these top 10, top eight offenses with the bullet, it's really hard to line this up in a way that doesn't just ask you to put all the way to this offense back on number 15 shoulders. And just fresh off an ACL, like I just don't know if I'm, comfortable doing that, at least not at the start of this year. Yeah, I like the scrambling point you made because some of the statistics from last year are just a result of like he was making plates with his legs when stuff broke down. I mean, it felt like he was running more than he ever had in his career. And so now if you're 31 coming off in ACL, I don't think that's the way you would really

want to play early in the season. You know, once you get to crunch time, December playoffs, sure. But I don't think that's going to be something you want to lean on to carry the offense early on. So there's definitely some variance there. Like you said, there's not huge variance. I think if they're like lower than 20, I think that would, and Mahomes is actually playing. I think that it's done pretty much everyone.

If they're top five, I think that would surprise most people. Maybe, you know, maybe you just have blind faith in Mahomes, but, you know, they haven't been a great offense. For three straight years, they've finished between nine and 13. So they've been right in the range we're talking about. This isn't the early years Mahomes where it's just like put them down for top five every year. You can rely on it. And I don't think that has been Mahomes.

I think a lot of it has been the way. they've built this team and a lot of mistakes that they've made. And again, like I said, maybe Andy Reid not being able to come up with answers. Maybe he's got something cooking this year and that'll be the story of this season. But I don't think either of us are there right now. All right. Number nine, Deontay. So so far we differed on our picks.

What do you got? Who's number nine? Number nine, we're going to go to Denver. I've got the Broncos at night for me. Oh, okay. And I think you could make the case that they could be higher just given how efficient this offense has been. Over the last two seasons,

I still, I'm always going to be wary of Bo Nicks as a quarterback. But again, like, this comes back to looking at the component parts. It's actually really interesting talking about Denver, off the heels of talking about Kansas City, because you can't imagine two offenses set up differently in terms of supports for their quarterbacks right now

than you would see between the Broncos and Chiefs. But they've had an offensive line that stayed unusually healthy for the last two years. You very rarely get your five starters throughout a season in back-to-back years away that Denver has been. They really have not had to suffer much attrition from a health perspective up front, which has helped them stay stable in terms of a run game, in spite of the fact that they don't have dynamic playmakers in the backfield

playing beside Bow Nix. They've always been able to kind of dial up these screens, these quick passes, these bootlegs. They just get the ball out of Nix's hands quickly and allow people to go try to create some yards underneath. And they did the perfect thing for that style of offense this offseason by adding a player like Jalen Waddle, right? Like, this is a receiver that can turn a hitch, you know,

that should be a six-yard gain into a 46-yard gain, right? If not a touchdown outright, if you can add that type of dynamic ability, and if you believe that that alleviates some pressure on a guy like Corton Sutton, who's probably best as like a 1A, 1B, or maybe number two option sharing the field with another guy that kind of fits that role, that might open up enough of the offense where, again,

and it might not be pretty every week because they just, Sean Payton's offenses, even with maybe Davis Webb calling it, which I am curious to see how that turns out. They always kind of have these weeks where they sputter, or they're just kind of sitting on the ball on first and second downs and just barely getting it across the chains on the thirds. But I think that in those high leverage moments, having someone like Waddle,

with the institutional buildup that they already have in terms of supports around Bo Nix, I would not be shocked at all if this is a top 10 offense. It probably wouldn't be all that surprise if it's a top five offense. I was so tempted, Deante. They're not on my list. They were my just-missed. I was really tempted.

You made the reasonable case. And they really are, they do stick out a little bit in terms of like which offenses could really make a nice leap this season because of that addition, because Bo Nix is in his 30-year. They were probably somewhere between 11th and 15th, depending on whatever metric you want to look at from last year.

You mentioned the O-line continuity. Unless I'm mistaken, I got this stat wrong here. It looked to me like they had 15 players last year on offense who played at least 300 snaps and all 15 are back on the team this year. And you added Jill and Waddle. Like there's literally no other team in the NFL you can actually say that about. And you mentioned it.

The case for the Broncos being a Super Bowl team is just like they've built, they're built really what they're loaded with talent. I mean, you look at them, their depth chart compared to some of these other teams in the AFC or in the NFL, and like they have an edge against most of these teams. So the only thing that as I was, you know, deciding, all right, do I want to put them up there or not, I thought, all right, Knicks is coming off, these multiple ankle procedures in the offseason. I like his athleticism. His mobility is a big deal.

The way he really avoids sacks and doesn't set them back on almost any possession. He's one of the best in the NFL at that. That. And then I mean, the Davis web thing's just weird. How am I supposed to analyze that? Deante, how am I supposed to analyze one of the best play callers and offensive coaches in the last 25 years with the biggest ego in the NFL being like, I'm giving up play calling duties to this guy who's never really done it before? I don't know how to analyze that. I mean, and I can't tell you that it's not going to be a disaster, right?

But then people just grab that play sheet if it is, so maybe it's not that big of a deal. I don't know. I was joking with our colleagues, Austin Gale and Stephen Ruiz. a couple of weeks ago that if I were, if I were Davis Webb, I wouldn't want to be calling offense at practice from the press box if I could, just to put as much distance as possible between me and Sean Payton. And I think I saw a report over this weekend that he's going to be right there on the sideline calling the offense.

And I just cannot imagine when we get to that Sunday night football game or that Monday night football game and you get a disaster third down and you get that three-way arguing match between Davis-Wive, Boe Nixon and Sean Peyton, right? And then you're going to hear those reports about how Sean Payton is mulling whether or not he needs to take back play calling. So I think that there is, you know, maybe a powder keg element happening in Denver because they are, you know, trying to hand over play calling duties to an unproven commodity in Davis Webb. Again, though, like, it just comes back to infrastructure. I think that the only thing I'm really concerned about with this team is health. And it is entirely possible that they are totally undercut by health because there is a way to read what you gave me in terms of the data of all the

returning starters and returning production they're bringing back. And sometimes that can be a harbinger of something going wrong, right? It is very rare that all of your top producers come back, that have been there year over year, that play a high level of snaps that are never hurt, being able to get through another season with that type of good fortune. And for as strong a supporting cast as this team has, they don't really have a lot of explosive potential, which is why they went out and got Jalen Waddle in the first place. And if they miss him for any time, if they miss someone like Cortland's

Sutton, if the interior of this offensive line suffers from any attrition, we saw this in Philadelphia last year, for guys who have hundreds of snaps of, you know, banging each other in a run game, all of a sudden just can't get the same amount of movement. We can see some ugly warts in this offense really show a little bit more. So I'm just fascinated to see how that plays out. But on the assumption that what we've seen over the last two seasons, that we'll get some kind of facsimile of that in 2026, leaves me to believe pretty strongly that Denver will be one of the better offenses in the NFL.

I like it. Peyton, Knicks, Waddle, Sutton, and maybe the best offensive line in the NFL. I mean, we could throw out all other analysis and be like, yeah, that sounds to me like it should be an offense that ranks in the top 10. I had them again just outside the top 10. But I'm glad that Deonté, I like this. We don't have a single common one.

Nothing in alignment yet, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Let's see if that changes or not. But I think that just speaks to kind of how challenging an exercise this is and how many teams you could really make the case for to be in the top 10. All right, let's take a break. We'll come back. We'll get to my ninth ranked team.

Will Deonté have them in his list? Or are we just going to keep this agreeing? Maybe until we get to the top five or the top three. We'll talk about it all when we come back. This episode is brought to you by EA Sports Madden NFL 27. If the excitement of the preseason isn't enough, Madden NFL 27 is here to fill the gap. Run your league the way you want and see just how fast.

far you could go with the MVP bundle, with access to college football 27, Madden NFL 27, and deluxe edition rewards in both games. From campus legend to NFL superstar, make your rise with the MVP bundle. Learn more at EA.com. Rated E for everyone with mild lyrics, users interact, and in-game purchases includes random items, conditions and restrictions apply, scan QR code for more info. All right, we are back here on the ringer. NFL show Deontay, oh, you know what? I should have got my cheesehead prop over there, but I'm not going to interrupt the pod and go walk over and get it. I've got the Green Bay Packers at number nine. And this was really, a lot of the analytical part of my brain was like, you got to have them in there. Just look at it. LaFleur's history here,

it's kind of wild. If you look at it, seven seasons in Green Bay, His offenses have been in the top 10, six of those times, and never lower than 12th. Like LaFleur, I don't think he's perfect. I think there's game management stuff. I think there's stuff with hiring his staff that I'm like, oh, I wish he would do that different. But just in terms of getting an offense to play at a certain level, he really deserves to be mentioned with almost any play caller in the entire NFL.

So I saw that. I know Jordan Love has become a polarizing guy. feels like, you know, there's always like one quarterback every summer. I don't know if it's him or not. It might be a good one of the guys we talk about later. He and Justin Herbert are like, it's an NFC-AFC version, like, corollaries of each other. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I think the thing with Jordan Love and I think the reason why he has skeptics is because his bad play, I used to think about this early in Josh Allen's career. His bad plays are really bad, where if you're not like watching him every week or you don't care about the analytics, you're just like, I'm sitting down on a Sunday,

watching Jordan Love and he might make a play, like, what a boneheaded play. This is the guy every podcaster's telling me is one of the better quarterbacks in the NFL. The thing is, he doesn't make a lot of bad plays. Like, if you just look at the frequency with which he makes negative plays, he's almost, he's like one of the best quarterbacks in the entire NFL at avoiding negative plays. But when he does have the head scratch air, you're just like throwing your remote at the TV. So that's my theory on Jordan Love. But, I mean, if you just look at it, last three years, he ranks second in the NFL in EPA per pass play.

He hunts explosives, so it might not look great down to down, but he's going to hit on those explosive plays. And I think LaFleur deserves credit for that as well. I'm not totally sure about the O line here this year. They did lose a good amount of players from last year, but they kind of, that's happened before. And they have guys step up. Matthew Golden, I think, is one of the, really one of the key players. maybe in the NFC. If he can be a really good wide receiver,

the guy they thought they were drafting, then I think Green Bay ceiling's a little higher. So I don't have them top five, but I do think they're going to be a top 10 offense this season. Where are you on the Green Bay Packers? I had them 11, and it all comes back to just some of the questions that I have that you were kind of laying out here. And this is not just specific to their offense.

I think across this roster, we've seen a lot of their depth just be slowly stripped away over the last two to three off seasons. and now when you go and look at their depth chart, it's like, man, this used to be a team where I felt like it didn't even matter who their number ones and number twos were on either side of the ball because they just had so much to backfill around them to be able to kind of aggregate that level of production across their roster.

I think this team right now is much more positioned to need. Jordan loved to perform like a first team all-pro MVP caliber quarterback to really need Tucker Kraft, who I think was just activated off of Pup over this weekend to be there and available and looking the way that he did. to start off the 2025 season. And on top of that, guys like Jaden Reed, guys like Christian Watson,

it's really not even a matter of what you can produce because I think that we've seen them year over year be strong production guys when they're available. They just have to be available, right? Like the conditions that have derailed the Packers seasons over the last couple of years, whether it's been an inopportune injury with this offensive line, Christian Watson having to miss a month,

Jaden Reed being kind of 80 or 75, percent of himself over five to six weeks because he's nursing some nagging injury. Those are the reasons why I have them out of the top ten. And I think that that's also the reason why there's so much pressure on this team to deliver on all of the young promise that they have. They don't really have any other pathway to be a contender that I think they can be. They 100% need this offensive line to be above its level. They definitely need Jaden Reed and Christian Watson to be number one, number two receiver types.

And I think that Jordan Love is going to have to be a star for them to be that. in the event that they're able to check off two out of those three boxes, this could end up being the number one seat in the NFC. I think that they have that kind of ceiling with their offense, right? At least they will be in that conversation, I think, with Seattle and Los Angeles. Short of that, though, we could certainly see another season where Matt LaFleur is, you know, feeling his seat getting more, and we're having more conversations about, hey, is there going to be some mutual parting of ways?

Is it ever going to happen for Green Bay in the Jordan Love era? I think that all of these things are on the table. It is a high stress environment for Green Bay, and I wouldn't be surprised if they were great again. I just think I need to see health and then consistency on a week-by-week basis by the players out around Jordan Love more than anything. Yeah, LaFleur is kind of, how I described Love earlier, it's kind of similar where if you just look at the pro football reference page

or you're like, it's kind of unassailable that he's one of the better coaches in the NFL. If you just watched him coach playoff games over the last few years, You would think he needed to be fired two years ago. Yeah, you would think he needs to be fired. Right. So they're kind of a line there. I love the point you made about the O line. I think that might be the biggest one.

Love splits last year, very different, clean versus pressured. He was first in EPA for pass play when kept clean. 13th when pressured, where I know me personally, I hadn't always thought about him as that kind of guy. And those stats can be noisy year to year. It doesn't mean it's going to be like that again this year. But if you feel like their O line might take a step back this year, year, which I think would be a reasonable case to be made, then that could really impact Jordan

Love in a way that maybe it's more so than other quarterbacks there. And then there's just always that like, they run the ball so much on early downs where you're like, I like Jordan Love. The stats like Jordan Love, but does Matt LaFleur like Jordan Love? Because they run the ball at the third highest rate in the NFL. I think it was Richard Sherbin on a broadcast last year. It was like, he doesn't like trust. It might not have been him.

But for some reason, he's the one in my head. Is like, does he trust his quarterback? And I'm like, I mean, that kind of is true. Statistically, it's fair to ask that question when you look at the way they play. So, yeah, I think there are questions about them. I leaned on the history here. It is funny to kind of talk about just like where his stock is. Because I think if we woke up tomorrow and we found out that Cincinnati and Green Bay had traded their head coaches straight up.

I will look at Cincinnati and be like, there's no reason why this team can't be in the AFC championship game with Matt LaFlech who's offense. I woke up tomorrow and found out that Andy Reid and Matt LaFleur traded places. and you're telling me that Matt LaFleur gets to work with Patrick Mahomes and how he kind of uses his spread, this spread iteration of the Shanahan-McBay system, I would have no reason not to have Kansas City as a potential top 10 offense. Even with all of the holes that we were talking about them having earlier,

that said, I still 100% recognize all the disappointments that we've seen in the playoffs. We've seen his offense be out-physicaled by Chicago last year, and that was not the most physical defense in the NFL. We have seen them bump into San Francisco. and the other teams that have just really been able to control the line of skirmage and really been able to take away some of the things I want to do most in terms of pushing the ball downfield off the play action game.

I need to see this team have an answer, right? A legitimate, dependable answer in those scenarios. And this comes back to just the stress that there is on this team to deliver on being, not really a top 10 offense or really a top five offense, because that's what it's going to take to beat the top teams in the NFC. So that is a team I'm going to have my eye on. I would not be surprised again if they're right there. But for me, until I see Watson, Reed, Matthew Golden performing like they can be Pro Bowl players over the stretch of a full 17 game season, I am going to withhold optimism.

All right. Number eight, Deontay, who do you got? Let's see if we can finally agree on a team. Let's see. We're staying in the NFC North here. I'm going to go with the Detroit Lions. Okay. We both have the Detroit Lions in our top 10. I got them all the way up at number four. Oh, interesting. You're really by it, Drew Petsing then. Well, you make your case for why you have them at 8, and then let's see where you're at, and I can tell you where maybe I disagree or I'm a little more bullish.

I mean, that's where it begins with me, is Drew Petsing and I think trying to port over some of the things that he did well in Arizona to what's already available in Detroit, right? Like, I think that one of the positives, one of the true positives of his time with the Cardinals was that he was, I don't want to say inventive, but I think he was willing to kind of ride the tide, right, with his run game. You have a mobile quarterback and Kyler Murray who needs to be in the gun and needs to be more spread out.

We saw them kind of embrace multiple tight ends out of the gun and you're running a bunch of gaps glue to try to manufacture explosive plays. And off of that, now you can use your quarterback in the option game to be able to take advantage of over aggressive defenses who are really trying to crash down to take away those openings between the tackles. I think that in Detroit, it's not going to be that way because Jared Goph, is obviously not as mobile as the Kyler Murray is, but you have an offensive line that they're trying to rebuild or retool to be able to move people again on the interior. And I think that's part of the reason why it got hired, is that they probably looked at all the different ways

in which Drew Petting was able to take a bad offensive line in Arizona, a very specific style of play with Kyler Murray, and still be able to generate some interesting run games. And I think that Dan Campbell ultimately views the best version of Detroit as one that can do that, that can pound teams in between the tackles. And I think the petting can be that. Ultimately, whether or not this is a 8 to 10 offense or a 3 to 5 offense

really comes back to Jared Gough, right? And I think that that is one thing that I don't have a good answer for because we just never saw Arizona string together prolific passing attacks on a week-to-week basics often enough. Under petting for me to feel like this really can be upper-crust NFL offensively. But I do think that the run game will be sure. strong enough, they'll be explosive again. You have Jamir Gibbs. You should have a healthy

Sam Laporta. I think that between the tackles, it can still be one of the five best teams in the league, and then the ceiling ultimately is going to be determined on whether or not Jared Goff can fight away an incoming age cliff eventually and still be able to push the ball downfield in the play action passing game.

Yeah, I just, I'm not like Drew Petting's going to be Bill Walsh and take him to another level. I just feel like it will be a little more settled this year. You know, last year was like coming off a Ben Johnson and Campbell hires a guy and then takes away play calling duties for like, it's going to be one

person's sort of voice and structure and foundation year in Drew Petzig. And I just feel like last year was not as bad as maybe our minds remember. I think they got a little unlucky. I'm not saying it was perfect. There were some ups and downs for sure. When you look at it,

their offense was sixth in EPA per drive and seventh in DVOA last year. And they finished between three and eight for four straight seasons. So I just looked at it. Like there's kind of a small window here where it might not matter who the offensive coordinator is because they are loaded

with talent with maybe the best version of Jameson Williams. We've seen Amon Rae St. Brown, Laporta, Jamir Gibbs. Like when you have all those guys and you're just a defensive coordinator getting ready to face the lions, it's hard because you need to have answers for how you're going to cover all those guys, how you're going to

count for all those guys. I thought the run game, you know, it was kind of a hit or miss last year. There were times early in the first half of last season, I'm like, Jamir Gibbs looks like the best player in football. Like, he's just taking over games. And then you look at some of the numbers. And it wasn't, you know, down to down,

the consistency of their run game really wasn't there. So the O line, this is kind of a running theme. They did make some changes there. They're kind of relying on some young players up front. But I think the O line's still going to be above average. I think the supporting cast is terrific. And we know who Jared Gough is at this point in his, career. If kind of the infrastructure's there, if the conditions are favorable, he can dice you up and

you can be like, how could anyone say this guy is not a phenomenal quarterback? And if some of those things start to falter and he faces some pressure, then all of a sudden, it's kind of like what I mentioned with Jordan Love, probably to a much greater extent where he's really going to crumble under that pressure. So I just felt good about it. I felt really good about them being in like the top bait. And then I was like, well, why can't they be a little bit better than they were last year with some more stability with the play caller? So yeah, I have the Lions at four. Deonti has them at eight, but we finally, Deonti agree on one team in the top 10. There you go. Took long enough. I'm curious. I know we're going to have a lot in the top five that are probably a line, but I am interested about six and seven as well. All right, well, let me get you my eighth number eight team here, Deonte. And am I a sucker for a coach who mentions regression in a press conference?

Possibly. You know, maybe I had him at 12 or 13, but I'm like, all right, if Ben Johnson's just going to pander to the nerds like me, then I'm going to go ahead and have the bears in my top 10. So I got Chicago here at number eight, Deonté. Are the bears in Deonté Lee's top 10, or did they just miss? They just missed there in that 10 to 14 range again with the cluster of teams that could be in there, but I'm just not really ready to totally jump in with them.

But make your case, what are you looking at with Chicago that makes you believe there'll be a top 10 offense this year? Well, there really is. I mean, the nerd part of my brain is like there really is a strong case for them to not be in the top 10. Because they were ninth last year, and if you look at it, they were second in turnover EPA. So that just means that, you know, how much was each team hurt? by turnovers last year. Only one offense was hurt less than the bears by turnovers last year. And that's not something you can really count on year to year.

They stayed relatively healthy. They were eighth in FTN's adjusted games loss metric, which means they had the eighth healthiest offense in the NFL. So I factored those things in. And then I'm just like, I trust Ben Johnson to figure this thing out. The way he just figured out that run game last year and how good that run game was in his first season

where maybe he didn't even have all the guys he wanted. I'm like, all right, that's something you can lean on. The run game. I like that Caleb Williams is going to avoid sacks at one of the best rates in the NFL. That, all right, the offensive line isn't perfect. There's going to be some pressure, but you know what? So he's going to be able to escape some of those with his legs. I know he can create those high degree of difficulty plays. And so I'm not like all in where I'm like, oh, Caleb Williams is going to win MVP and be a top five quarterback this year. I do think that's in play. with his upside.

I don't think you're crazy if you want to make that prediction. I do want to see that consistency from him. I have some questions about the O line, but this came down to talented quarterback, coach I really trust what I saw last year that they're going to avoid taking a major step back. So that's my case. I don't hate it.

I think that for me my hang up is that this run game was really reliant on Joe Tuni who's entering his mid-30s, Jonah Jackson, who just could not get get healthy in Los Angeles and then, you know, kind of finds, you know, finds himself in Chicago and all of a sudden he's good to go. I don't know if I'm as comfortable with really relying on those guys. That said, I mean. Left tackles a question. Yeah, the O line is a question. There's no doubt about it. You know, so there is a lot to be uncomfortable with up front. I think that there's a fair counter argument that all those questions existed last year and they had absolutely no

problem, just dominating teams between the tackles, especially in the second half of the season. And then you look at their skill position group, and in spite of not having anybody who really screams out all pro in 2026 outside of maybe Colston Loveland and whatever you believe of Caleb Williams and his ceiling to be in his third season, the receiving court is pretty well built, right? Like, I think you can make a case that they have all the skill sets they need and maybe just not enough of the name recognition outside of their young star quarterback. I wouldn't be surprised at all of Colston Loveland leads all tight ends in passing touch and receiving touch.

He could be an all pro with tight ends. Based on what we saw over the last five, six weeks of the year, I mean, there was, I'm like, this might be the most unguardable tight end short of Trey McBride in the league, right? Teams just couldn't do anything with them in the red zone. They couldn't do anything with them once they were in plus territory because he is so consistent at being able to get open. And Ben Johnson has done such a great job of mixing up where he's aligned and really kind of growing out his route tree. I think that the two players that would need to show up to make this happen outside of some of the guys we talked about will be Luther Burden and Romadunzee.

I think that last year, going into last year, I was really excited for what Roma Dizze could have been for a Ben Johnson offense. We just didn't really see it come to fruition, right? I think that now there's no DJ Moore, so now there's more necessity. So maybe you're going to see more targets just by just being forced to them because there aren't many other places for the ball to go. And then Luther Burden, I think, needs to be maybe not exactly a Jalen Waddle for this offense. But some kind of version of that, right? Like you think about guys like Ladd McConkey, you know, I mentioned Jalen Waddle, these guys who can take these underneath passes.

And even if you're not breaking them out for touchdowns, you can go turn what should be just a six-yard gain to keep you on schedule into a chunk gain, right, that changes the shape of a drive. Right. I think that burden kind of sells that sold that. That was part of the reason why he was drafted. You know, in the top 100 coming into the league, I think that clearly if you listen to Ben Johnson's comments at training camp and throughout the mini-camp time of the year,

he clearly believes that that's on the table for Luther Bird. And there seems to be a lot of expectations that he's going to step in and be either the Yaman Ross St. Brown of this offense or something more close to kind of what I was talking about in terms of those like ultimate yak threats. And if those two things happen, this could 100% be a top 10 offense, even if the offensive line and run game takes a step back. But again, there's just a lot hanging up in the air in terms of what we can expect from last year carrying over to this year.

And the thing that really holds me up is that their first and second down rushing success rate was third in the league last year. The two teams are behind the Rams and Bills, two teams that have proven already over a two, three year sample size that they can just match teams no matter what you're doing to them defensively. We have not yet seen that from the Bears up front. I think that Ben Johnson is capable of that as a play caller. they just have not necessarily purchased enough goodwill with me just yet for me to think that that's exactly what's going to happen this year. It's funny, Deonté, your view of the Bears is like my view of the Jackwars. I mean, it's really very similar.

And those two teams were kind of mirrored last year. Very similar. The same time. Absolutely. The metrics kind of line up, you know, between the two teams. So, yeah, I think that there is a case to make that if you're bullish on one, you should be bullish on the other. But I think that just speaks to, again, just feel.

Or you have to pick one. How about that? Exactly. You can't be bullish. on both. Exactly. So, you know, and I think that out of those two teams, both could be top 10 and both could 100% be 17th, 18th, because their run game takes a step back and maybe the turnover

margin regresses to something that makes them, you know, look a little worse, even if they are a more complete team, ultimately in 2026. Yeah, two guys who look like bright, offensive play callers who should be around for a while. But you know what? We've said that about other guys before, and it hasn't always worked out two of the most talented quarterback prospects we've seen in the last decade when you're just like, you know, is there anything that they can't do from a physical perspective? I would put both those guys in that category. And now we see, you know, does it take, get to another level with one of these

pairings, both of these pairings, neither of these pairings this year. By the way, if you don't know what I was talking about with the regression thing, I do need to remind myself, not everyone's in our little NFL bubble. Ben Johnson was asked something about, you know, how do you deal with the bearers being hyped coming off a strong season. And he was like, well, we're the number one regression candidate. So I don't, you know, it's just last year you said something about EPA per pass play, this year regression.

It's very easy to, you know, just get me putting the palm of your hands just like, all right, Jill's going to say nice things about us and Ben Johnson's doing a couple of those things. All right. So Deontes got them out of, just outside the top 10. I've got them at number eight. All right, we move to

number seven, Deonte. So so far, the only team we both have in the top 10 is the Detroit Lions. I have a feeling we're going to get on the same page a little bit more, maybe right about now. Who do you have? Who's number seven? So I think that very similar to how you refuse to be on the wrong side of a Patrick Mahomes season, we're like, hey, I'm just going to be safe and not put myself in position where I'm getting clipped up by their social team for not believing in them. I'm the same way with Baltimore. And at seven, I've got... Got the Ravens, right? Okay.

I think for me, the thing that I'm banking on, ultimately, is that Derek Henry is ageless and that Lamar Jackson can be an elite quarterback in any system. Right. I think that we've seen evidence of the two already, right? Lamar's, you know, transitioning to the Todd Munkin offense was seamless, right? And he played like an MVP with Todd Munkin, you know, when he was healthy. And last year prior to the hamstring injury, even though he wasn't playing his best ball, and some of the, we were seeing some interceptions, for the most part, his dropbacks, you know, on a

play-to-play basis, we're still looking relatively strong in the first month or so of the season outside of that Chiefs game. I think that I believe, well, what I really believe is that Declan Doyle, if he was able to bring over the Ben Johnson offense in terms of under center run game to set up easy play action passes, which means now Lamar Jackson does not have to risk his legs as often on early downs, that we can get to something a little more, akin to what we've seen in Buffalo, right, with Josh Allen, where he doesn't have to do a ton of heavy lifting on first and second down, which does free him up in the red zone, in these third and obvious passing situations to just be the ultimate eraser of any issues that that offense has with the bills. I think that ultimately that's what Declan Doyle is probably going to seek out to try to build around Lamar Jackson. And if they're young receivers, they're unproven receivers,

which there are a lot of questions about that receiving core coming into this season, if one of those young guys can break out, or if Zay Flowers can be a week-to-week threat the way that we've seen in fits and starts throughout his career, then I think it's probably a little more comfortable for me making them a top 10 team. Right now, this is a lot of wishcasting and me saying MVP-level quarterback, offensive player of the year level running back, I'm just going to bank on those two Hall of Fame talents being able to figure it out in any offensive ecosystem. And I do have a lot of belief that Declan Doyle can give me some version of what we saw in Chicago last year with Lamar Jackson and this O.

There's for sure a high ceiling there. I mean, it's a very basic level. Well, you said there when you have a quarterback who's won MVP twice and you feel like you're putting him in a scheme that's going to work, it could be fireworks where we're saying, man, why didn't they, you know, they should have done this four years ago or something like that. So I think that's in play. I have them just missing the cut, Deontaine.

And you're probably not that surprised because you were laying out some of the question marks. Here are the two big questions I have about the Ravens. And I want your take. The first question is, is this supporting cast good enough? I mean, I look at this and you mentioned, you're like, Zayflowers and who else is? And then what? Yeah. And it's catching.

I mean, if he's out for a month, who are you throwing the football to in this offense? You know, like you said, there always could be an unexpected player who rises up and you're like, okay. But that's not a sure thing. When you compare into a team like the Lions we just discussed or some of these other teams, it's like, no, I know. They lose one guy. You have all those guys. Defensive coordinators are sweating.

Derek Henry, Lamar Jackson, say flowers, like is, you know, I'm not saying that's easy to defend, but just in terms of the passing game, I don't think they have the type of options that I would like a team to have if Lamar Jackson won my quarterback. That's one. And then the old, are we sure the old line's going to be? good this year in Baltimore? Are you bullish or not? That's a big conversation piece. I don't know if I'm bullish. I think I'm willing to believe that they can be league average. And I think that what Jackson and Henry can do, even with the league average offensive line, is enough to get them over the hump and to be in the top 10 offense.

And I think, honestly, prior to them signing Ethan Posh, and this is me assuming that it's going to be healthy and available and at his best self. Obviously, I know he got cleared right before he signed with Baltimore. And it seemed like there were some, positive signs for his health for the 2026 season. And maybe I'm just wanting to suspend enough disbelief to believe in that prior to, but it was just Danny Pinter and, you know, a rookie in Vega-Yoane and

John Simpson at this age with a tread on his tires. Like, we are, we're, we're, I'm pretty tense about what this might look like. So yeah, at their absolute best, I still think this is probably maybe only the 12th to 14th best offensive line. And I think the median outcome

probably is something closer to 18. 19th, 19th in the league. And then you're just asking your quarterback to lift that level. We've seen him do that. We've seen Derek Henry do that. But a lot of that, I think, is going to be relying upon Zay Flowers being the best version of himself. Honestly, Rashad Bateman.

I don't know where you're at was Bateman. I haven't totally bailed on the ability. I think that the expectation that he was going to fold into a number one receiver role clearly has passed him by. And I think that maybe a Jacoby Lane has to be one of those third down. Andre Hopkins-esque, you can just throw the ball up, and he's going to go catch everything, which was on tape coming out of USC, but that is a big ass for a rookie receiver, right, who didn't have a complete route tree coming into the league anyhow.

There's a lot up in the air with them, maybe more than any team that I've talked about being in the top 10 so far, but ultimately, I think, again, I'm just going to bank on their superstar talent at quarterback and running back being enough to figure this out. Okay, so here's my other question. So one was about the supporting cast, and we'll do this. a little deep dive on the Ravens here, but I think they are a very interesting team going into this season.

Is Lamar Jackson entering a different phase of his career, or was he just playing through injuries last season? Now, we know Lamar Jackson can operate from the pocket. He might just, he might look like a different version who is also an awesome quarterback. I'm not saying,

decline. But there are like some numbers as I was doing my deep dives for this, Deontay. You know, last year, he was sacked on a 11% of his dropbacks. Only Gino Smith was sacked at a higher rate. I said that's a bad quarterback indicator typically is having to sack rate that high. Right. And then you know you have the stat pressure to sack rate, which just looks at how many times were you pressured, how many of those pressures turned into sacks. He was 32nd in that category. All of his rushing numbers were career worst numbers last year. Now this could be as simple as Lamar Jackson was playing injured last year. It's no sign of he's entering a different phase of his career.

But also, when quarterbacks are really great at using that escapability and athleticism early in their career, it doesn't last forever. You know, we have this conversation with quarterbacks all the time. How long can that aspect last? So he's just such an interesting player to me this year because, again, it could be he's not running a lot. Maybe he's not taking more sacks, but that's because the scheme's really working for him. And he's just carving people up. I mean, we can go to his pro football reference page and look at some of the passing numbers over the years. Maybe it's that time of year that's coming for Lamar Jackson.

But that just my radar's up a little bit on that, whether we're going to see kind of a different version of him here going forward or whether that was just kind of a one-year play. I think that's fair. I think that my thing would be is a more pocket-centric version of Lamar Jackson in 2026 and beyond something closer to what Dak Prescott has been at his, you know, when he's been healthy and available. And I do think that that's on the table, right? Prescott didn't come into the league with the strongest arm ever, right? He was a guy who was a little bit more mobile than a pocket passer who just really kind of built up his game, you know, within structure enough to be able to play at a pro bowl, a consistent pro bowl, sometimes all pro level, you know, from the pocket when he's available. And we've seen when Dak gets hurt, you know, because he has suffered quite a few lower body injuries.

All of a sudden, no sac rates do go up. The interception, you know, the turnover worthy plays do go up because he can't escape. he can't extend as often. And I think maybe that is something that's on the table for Lamar Jackson. And that does change the context in which we talk about him, right? Because so much of what makes him unique is the fact that at any point in time, what would have been a sack or what would have been a QB hit on a checkdown is now at 18-yard scramble for a first down, right?

Like, that is something that you do have to fear. And maybe this does mean that he has to phase into a different version of himself going forward. But I think what we saw in 2024 and definitely what we saw in 2020, was when he's dialed in in the pocket and in rhythm, this guy can dice defenses up without ever having to step outside the tackle box. I'm willing to bank on the fact that this was more of an injury-related thing and that when he's back to 100%, even if the rushing numbers, the scramble numbers can tend to trend downward,

continue to trend downward, that we can still see something stable, even if it's not at peak MVP level, I think we can still get a 30 to 33 passing touchdown season, and he can keep those interceptions and sacks low enough to justify him not being a scrambler as often. All right, there you go. There is a case for it. There's some variance, I think, with that offense.

I think the Ravens are a very interesting team. All right, number seven for me, Deonté, I've got the New England Patriots as my number seven offense. They're on your list. How high do you have the Patriots? I actually have them fourth. So I've got, I'm pretty bullish on this team. Okay, so you're pretty bullish on the Patriots. I felt good about having them in my top 10.

You just look at how they performed last year, and then you just look at the big upgrade they made at wide receiver with A.J. Brown and Romeo Dobbs, and you feel like, hey, that could easily make them an even better offense this season. So, you know, I think the case for them is pretty straightforward. They're really good last year. They made it to the Super Bowl. They upgraded wide receiver.

Why wouldn't they be better? Okay. So let me give you the reason why I have. them at seven maybe rather than four. And I was a little bit like, all right, I do think there are potentially some issues here. One of them is, I still don't know that the offensive line is going to be great here. I know it sounds like a broken record with some of these offenses. Now, they did address it. They addressed it in the draft. They're hoping to get healthy play out of Elijah Vera Tucker. But there are some unknowns there up front. And if you look at it, the pressure to sack rate I mentioned

with Lamar Jackson. I didn't realize this last year. I don't think at any time. Drake May, if you include the playoffs, Deontay, 35th out of 38 quarterbacks in pressure to sack rate. His pressure to sack rate was the same as Cam Ward last year. Now, I know he faced a lot of quick pressures. I know the offensive line wasn't good,

but a lot of those pressures ended up turning into sacks. And so now if you're saying you're not sure about the offensive line, and by the way, they got really good injury luck overall, not in the playoffs with Drake Bay playing injured, but in the regular season, their depth wasn't tested as much as other teams. And now if you say, all right,

well, what if they get some injuries up front with a guy like Vera Tucker who had trouble staying healthy? Now I'm getting a little nervous about that. And then I was just thinking overall, what it takes to play 21 games in a season, especially when you're May and you were playing injured

and you were taking hits against really good defenses. I mean, and carrying the entire office, every single down. Correct in the entire regular season. So that made me, you know, year one, he had at least one concussion and I think we weren't sure about the other one. And then last year he's got this injury

that really makes him a shell of himself in the postseason. Those things made me a little bit nervous about the Patriots and their ability to just do what they did last year and do it better because they have two better wide receivers. I think that the Patriots learn the right lesson from that playoff run, which is that, yes, it is possible that we have

a franchise-changing game-altering talent at quarterback that could end up being in the MVP race for the next decade. We also just watch him get absolutely battered by good defenses week over week, and we just saw that slowly sap all the things that made him such a special talent in the regular season. And they went out, and I think that they, as aggressively as possible, try to address some of the things that were a problem for them, you know, down the stretch of the year. So you go out, you add an AJ Brown to go be your man-beater. That was what I think they were hoping that Stefan Diggs could have been for them last year before he just kind of settled into being that kind of chain-moving, zone-beating type of underneath

threat as a receiver. You go get a Romeo Dives, who can now fill in for, you know, what Stefan Diggs left behind. He can be that chain-mover type. He can be a contested catch guy. He can go make catches in traffic. and help them stay on schedule as a passing game. So you check those boxes off. I still think it's fair to have some questions about their offensive line.

But given what they tried to do in one offseason, you go add Elijah Barrett Tucker, who has had health problems throughout his career. But when he's available, plays typically like a top 12 guard in the NFL, right, especially in the run game, which I think they're going to need to take some things off of Drake May's plate. And then you go get Caleb Lomo, I think, ostensibly as an insurance plan

against Morgan Moses getting hurt, against needing to move Will Campbell, if he proves that he just can't handle, you know, the ask of being a left tackle on a week-to-week basis, I think that they gave themselves just enough optionality up front to be able to say, hey, at least for a season, we can say that we did what we could to try to improve the ecosystem around Drake May and not ask him to have to be the most explosive, the most accurate, you know, the best scrambler, you know,

the leader of our run game, really, you know, in terms of being able to keep us ahead of the chains. I think that they did all that they can do. And if their wide receiver core is able to force more light boxes, it's able to dissuade team from blitzing as often, and now you are able to lean more on the run game, you are able to get the ball out of Drake May's hands and clean pockets more often.

That alone should do it in terms of keeping this team in the top 10. They may regress in terms of the otherworldly production, but I think they're a more complete team now than they were at this time last year. Or, yeah, could be better equipped to take on playoffs teams. Yeah, I agree with that just with the firepower. They add it. All right, let's take one more break. We come back.

We get to our top six, right? It's kind of like our top five because we already both have our fourth one there. You had the Patriots fourth. I had the Lions fourth. So we got five more slots to get through. We'll do that when we return. All right, back on the Ringer NFL show, Deonti. Number six, who do you got?

I think my number six team is probably the last one on my list. It doesn't have like bona fide, superstar talent across the board, right? Maybe one of two teams, depending on how you feel about Buffalo, who I know we'll get to eventually. This is the Los Angeles Chargers. Like, I'm buying the good vibes, man. I'm buying the good vibes. We both have them at six, Theonti.

Perfect. We both have the Chargers at six. What could go wrong? Been to a couple of their practices throughout this offseason. So I'm in many camps. Saw I'm at training camp last week. You know, and just listening to some of the quotes that are leaving the building. You know, you talk to people who are there.

they're on a day-to-day basis about how they are interpreting the vibes coming out of the locker room, coming out of the coach's office. I think that there's a lot of optimism that Mike McDaniel genuinely is the missing piece for this offense. And I think that that plus good health actually could be exactly what this team needs. Getting the ball out of Justin Herbert's hands so he's not the most hit, you know, most knockdown quarterback in the league the way that he was last season, building an infrastructure for the run game that isn't as predictable, isn't as, you know, dependent upon being able to just beat guys and man blocking, snap over snap the way that we saw with Greg Roman last year.

And then I think another year of Trey Harris, of adding guys like Candice and Lambert Smith, you know, having a healthy lad McCunky, adding Charlie Kohler to the tight-in room. Like, you look now, the depth that this team has in terms of his playmaking talent is far and away better than what it was two years ago, certainly last year, and assuming health, even if guys do. get banged up too, I should say. They have enough now, I think, to be able to carry this offense through a 17-game schedule and not be asking Justin Herbert to hang in with broken hands or busted ribs and all the other things we've seen this guy have to brave it through on a week-to-week

basis to be able to keep this offense afloat. I think that there is legitimate top-10 potential. I would say that their ceiling is probably capped, I would say, around fifth or six, because I just struggle to see them having a true breakout passing game in terms of just receiving talent that's able to to carry them into that top three, top four type of conversation. But I love what I think this team has done to kind of raise the floor around Justin Herbert. And if Herbert's available on a week-to-week basis, there's almost no way to me. I could see this team being worse than the six to eight range in the NFL. Now, listen, they've only had a top 10 offense once in six seasons with Justin Herbert.

So for the Herbert haters out there, we're, we're telling both sides. He's not calling plays anymore. So, you know, I would ask the Herbert haters to. you know, suspend, you know, suspension of disbelief for a second. Listen, they might say, come on, there's been a few OCs,

you know, they seem to keep getting fired, Deante, every year or two. No, I know you would say, and I think it's fair. That well,

they haven't really found a good one. If you would give up your office coordinator for Joe Lombardi or Greg Mowen, please message me on, on Twitter or Blue Sky. I would love to hear this argument. All right,

listen, you know, sometimes you have to know what's coming with a segment of the audience and you have to address it. Very fair. forehand. So I think, you know, you can, that is, it's only happened once. Again, six seasons with Justin Herbert as the starter, top 10 offense once. We're both bullish on them this year. I mean,

you mentioned the ceilings capped. We talked about A.J. Brown and J. Waddell and J. Waddell, I did get to the point where I'm like, man, a player like that would have looked really good on this Chargers team. Are we going to say that was a missed opportunity for the Chargers? I think potentially we are, but to your point, I'm just kind of putting the trust in Mike McDaniel. I'm putting the trust in Justin Herbert and his talent and his production and his performance. I'm looking at the tackles and saying they got to play more games than they play last year when Roshan Slater missed the entire season and Joe Alt missed 11 games. I'm looking at the pass catchers saying, okay, it's not like a top five, top 10 group, but McConkey, Quentin Johnson, Gadsden, Hampton, in the run game. Like,

there's enough talent there for the Chargers to make that leap and be number six. Now, have we both had Chargers takes and Herbert takes and whatever over the course of our careers that we would like scrubbed from the internet? Of course. I had him, I think, winning MVP in the second season. It did not necessarily go that way. And so, who knows? I understand.

There's always, it feels like Chargers hype in this summer. And we'll see when we get to our season predictions, whether we really believe them in them as a Super Bowl caliber team, depending on what you think of the defense. But yeah, I felt good about it. I felt good about them being in the top 10. And, you know, as I do it, I come up the initial list. And then I start at one and then I get to two. And I'm like, all right, am I sure I like one more than two?

Yes. And then I get to two. All right. Am I sure? Same. All right. And it's just like. We're very similar.

Yeah. And I got to the Chargers and I'm like, I think this is the right spot. I have them at six. You have them at six. Like I said, what could go wrong? Chargers fans. sorry, you probably prefer that we just had them at 32. Honestly, I think that this has been a little too much optimism over the offseason for Chargers fans.

If you're a Chargers fan knowing the curse nature of this franchise, you've got to be feeling like. Can people stop looking at us? Dejavel. I know. It's every year for them. All right. So we both have the Chargers at number six. Number five, Deonté, who do you have at number five on your list?

Number five for me of the Dallas Cowboys. Okay. I've got the Cowboys. up at number three. So we're in a similar range. Dallas Cowboys, you got them top five. Is the case just straightforward?

They were good last year. They're going to be good again this year, or is there more to it? It's really just as simple as that. Like, the things that made this offense as good as it was last season is still around. I trust Brian Schottenheimer

as a play caller, as a game manager. I think that he was clearly able to get more out of deck Prescott last year than what we saw Michael Carthy get out of him. What a sentence, by the way. And I agree with you. No, seriously.

And you would have told me two years ago that I would be under that. If you would have told me at the time of the press conference. That's right. You have to change your opinions based on what you see. And I think he's done a pretty good job. I can't believe it. But it's true. 100%.

I think that what we saw from George Pickens, if you would have told me that George Pickens fresh off of a trade and not being paid was going to show up and be this unguardable ex-receiver for this team, I wouldn't have believed that either. So much so that it kind of came at the expense of C. Lamb's reduction, right, in some points, because Jack Prescott has such a strong connection with George Pickens throughout the year. But yeah, this is a team that just checks all the boxes. You want supporting cast, they've got two, you know, bona fide number one typewide receivers.

Jake Ferguson has been a very dependable tight end. You have a running game that you're able to lean on. You have a healthy Javonte Williams, which hopefully remains his way because he was a very enjoyable watch once we got him healthy again in the NFL. And I hope that we're able to continue to see him affect games as a power runner between the tackles the way that we did last year. Their offensive line is young. You know, it's reliable, both good in the run game and the past game. And they kept their staff together, right? Like, there really wasn't any brain drain. There's really nothing to point to that would tell you that you should be concerned that this team is going to take some unforeseen step back from last year to this year. If anything,

I wouldn't be surprised at all if we're having conversations about how they might be the number one or number two offense in the league if guys are healthy and they're performing at peak capacity again this year. Yeah, I was just looking at history and I know Dak Prescott, not everybody is a fan of Dak Prescott. If you just look at it historically, when he is on the field for them, the offense is good. And that's been with different supporting cast, different offensive lines, different play callers. The last five times Dak Prescott has played at least 12 games, they've had a top eight offense. Like that's a pretty remarkable run of consistency that I think speaks to the quarterback's play for the Cowboys.

Now, you know, the rest of the Cowboys, obviously they haven't had a playoff success, and that's a conversation for another day. But last year, they were fourth in EPA per drive. To your point, they returned their top five pass catchers from last year. They returned seven of their top eight offensive linemen from last year. It's the same scheme. It's the same OC. It's the same staff.

It's just a very reliable offense. Now, could there be injuries or something weird, fluky happen? with turnover, sure, that can happen with any offense we talk about today. But when I just felt like, man, unless something like that happens where you're just, you know, year from hell with the injuries, I feel really good about this offense being really good in the regular season. The Cowboys were almost up there with any team for me. So yeah, I had them at number three. You had them at number five. We are on the same page there with the Dallas Cowboys. All right. So I got to give you my number five team, which I think you might not have in your top 10.

Oh, I see. I got the Cincinnati Bengals at number five, Deante. Nope, they're number three for me. Oh, three! What an upset. Deiante more bullish on the Bengals' offense than me. That was off the board for Vandall for that to be the case. I just feel like I've been the high man on the Bengals on every podcast I've done.

If we want to talk about the whole 53, then we can have a different conversation. But if you're just telling me about one side of the ball, then I'm right there with you on this. All right. So we both like the Bengals. My case here is it's very similar to what I just said about Dath. When Joe Burrow has been healthy and played the requisite amount of games, the offense is generally good. They were, I think, seventh, I want to say, in 2024. They were fifth in 2022.

The health concerns are real. The health concerns are real with a lot of these guys. It's hard. You get hit, and there's a lot, you know, it's a violent sport. And so I don't like to just predict what quarterback's going to get injured. but when you look at Burrow and those wide receivers, it's just like, that's hard to defend every week for a lot of NFL defense.

Jamar Chase is very hard to account for. T. Higgins, very hard to account for. Their run game actually, this surprised me, Deonti, because in my head, I didn't think the run game was very good last year. Statistically, the run game was quite good last year. This is uniquely efficient for the last two seasons. Yeah. They've been able to get away with not really having difference

and making talent in the backfield. And I think the Chase Brown is probably better than he gets credit for it, right? Like, I know the fantasy football guys will be quick to correct me on that and tell me how dependable he is on a week-to-week basis because he does get light boxes. But I think that they've built up the kind of running game infrastructure that they didn't have in 2022 and 2023, when teams just started saying, hey, we'll just play cover two and cover four. And we're just going to make Joe Burrell sit in the pocket and just get beat up by our pass rush. They've built, I think, something that's a lot more dependable now than they used to have.

it's really interesting because the early days of Burrow and those wide receivers was so fun and they're bombing it downfield and it's explosives and then we know what happened. Teams changed how they wanted to play against them. And now I still feel like the way for them to get in the top five, they still need to find a way to manufacture explosives. I mean, if you look at the numbers last year, the explosives are not where you would want them to be for a team that has Joe Burrow, Jamar Chase, and T. Higgins. And I know we've discussed this before.

It's like when a defense wants to force you into doing one thing, you kind of can't just do that thing and be like, all right, they're taking away explosives. Like you still need to find a way and that's easier for me to say when I don't have to, you know, figure out a way schematically or I'm not the players playing. But I almost felt like looking at it, there were times last year where it just felt a little too conservative, a little bit too much of take what the defense gives you and check it down and get the ball out. So I think the way for them to really make that leap into the top three.

or the top five is to combine the run game, which is a little bit better. The O line, which I think secretly is not that bad. I mean, if you look at the numbers from last year, pressure rate, it was the lowest sack rate of Joe Burroughs career. I think they're more towards the middle of the path than to... Their interior is a lot better than it gets credit for. A lot better than it gets credit for. Amarius Mims could end up being a really good player for them at tackle.

So there's just a lot I like here. And again, it's really similar to the team we just talked about with the Cowboys where Joe Burrow, I think, the last, I forget, three, four years, he's been healthy. He's ranked top 10 in EPA per pass play. The supporting cast is very similar. Like the formula works, whether the ceiling is this high or whether it's more 7, 8, 9, 10, we can talk about that. But yeah, I felt pretty good about the Bengals and you felt even better about him. 100%. I think the one thing that the Cowboys were able to access that we just didn't see enough from Cincinnati is they do have an ability to change gears, to play heavier personnel and really be able to mash teams between the tackles and the run game.

Whereas Cincinnati has been a little bit more, give us light boxes, we can count. If we've got a number's advantage here, we're just going to take the four to five yards you're handing away. I would like to see Cincinnati incorporate a little bit more of that. Part of the issue is that because they have built their offense so hyper specifically to be this 11 personnel, spread out, shotgun, let Joe Burrow cook with his 35 to 40 drop. backs the game, it doesn't really lend itself to the current era of football, right? When we start talking about some of the other offenses, we expect to be in the top 10, we've kind of hit on some of the same points, the ability to control games on the ground.

A lot of that comes from being able to get under center and have multiple tight-in sets or be able to add a fullback or a fullback-esque talent, you know, to be able to go add a gap in the run game when you need it. You're talking about play action game, right? Can you draw a defense forward to find easy passes in the intermediate area the field. So that way, a team like Seattle, right, a team like Philadelphia, ones who are really inviting you to just play more spread out and say, hey, we're just going to, we're just going to sit on you in between the hashes. We're not going to give you anything

easy. You're going to have to go get your explosive plays the hardest way possible on these 50-50 balls way deep downfield. And we've got all these different coverages to make you have to pause before you let the ball go. I think the Cincinnati is, very similar to Kansas City, they're interesting teams to kind of look at the meta of the game, right, if you're trying to find a lens of where is the game been at and where is it going. You used to really be able to count, you know, kind of sight unseen a team like Cincinnati and say, this is probably going to be the first or second best offense in the league because they just have superstar talent all over the case. It built very similarly to the old Colts in the Pating Manning era in that respect.

Whereas now, you look at teams like, you know, Los Angeles. You look at what a team like Philadelphia is doing, kind of divesting from that model to say, hey, we want to be a little bit more balanced across the board. You know, you look at the lions, you look at the chargers. A lot of these teams are trying to balance out their attacks, even if it comes at the expense of not having star talent. I'm fascinated to see, I think this year will be kind of a nexus point for this team, maybe kind of that fork in the road moment where they have to decide whether or not it's really about leaning into the superstar talent or if it's going to be more about, hey, we've got to diversify some of these things that we do offensively to get the most out of every single play.

I was thinking as I was looking at all these teams and we mentioned the Ravens changing the way they're playing and the Eagles changing the way they're playing and the way the bills play now. There is going to be a time in probably the next three to five years where we're just going, oh, this team is going back to the spread and playing 11 personnel. And oh, this is, okay, this is back now.

It's no longer getting the tight ends and the fullbacks on there and getting under center and using play action because you know what? The defenses went so far that way with their nickel making sure those nickels can fit the run. Well, those nickels now can't cover these dynamic slot receivers. It's just so funny. It's like every three to five years it's going to be different.

So maybe the Bengals are like, you know what? We're ahead of the curve. We're not changing. The defenses will come back to us. Eventually, the game will come back to us. Eventually, listen, Sean McVeigh hired Cliff Kingsbury this offseason. That caught my attention a little bit. Why is he higher in Cliff Kingsbury?

They need a little trick up their sleeve in case what they used last year doesn't work and they need to pivot again. though? Maybe just a thought I had. All right. So we basically flipped the Bengals and the Cowboys. We got them both is top five. I had Cowboys three, Bengals five. You had Bengals three, Cowboys Five.

I imagine we're going to have the same top two, but maybe you'll... I kind of think it has to be. There's one team I really felt like you were going to have on here that you don't, that I want to get to at the end. But yeah, number two, Deontay, who do you got? Number two, I have the Buffalo Bills. Okay, I got the Bills won. Okay.

So I think that we're going to end up having a similar conversation then about the Rams and why I have them won and maybe what your hold-up was with them being the number one offense in the league. But for me with Buffalo, again, I feel like for the last three teams we're talking about steady, stable, they've got a proven track record already. Their style of play isn't changing. The people at the helm of calling the offense and executing the offense have not changed.

strong offensive lines. They can run the ball of control the clock control game situations when they need to. And they've got a quarterback that can build them out of bad situations. I mean, that just to a T has been why Buffalo, even in those moments, right? I feel like we were podcasting together when they had that cold spell where they got beat up really bad by the Texans. And I think that was kind of like the alarm bells going off moment. But even like two to three weeks before that, you started seeing defenses picking up on some of their tendencies in terms of what they liked in the passing game,

in terms of what they like to do out of certain personnel groupings in the run game. And ultimately, they still turned out to be a really excellent offense because they can just lean on their favorites because they have talent all over this roster. And now if you add DJ Moore and you get a DJ more who's motivated, who is, I think, in an understandable role where he doesn't necessarily have to be some 150 targets guy. He can be a manufactured explosives. He can be a catch on the run in the intermediate area, type of receiver. It can be a screen game guy, right? You can just fold him into all the same things

you've been doing with your tight ends and with Khalil Shakir this entire way. And now you're just thrown into a bigger receiver who has a little bit more wiggle in the open field. And this offense can just, I guess, just add another dynamic piece to what it already does. I don't know that they needed to change anything. I think they just needed a player like more to maybe be able to unlock some things when defenses load up the box to take away the run game. Reliability, consistency. It's just like, I mean, I'm with you. DJ, you know, it's so funny, like the ebbs and flows of an NFL offseason because they make that DJ more trade. And I'm sure that I said on this podcast, I wouldn't have made that trade giving up what they gave up and pay.

Why are they paying him what they're paying him? But then you get to August and you look at the depth chart. And now I like this group a lot more when DJ Moore kind of bumps everyone down. Like I liked the other players. The other players weren't good enough to just stand pat and not do anything. So now it's DJ Moore. Now it's Khalil Shakir. Now it's whoever's your wide receiver three, whether it's Josh Palmer or Kiann Coleman.

He's both tight ends, Dawson Knox and Dalton Kincaid. It's James Cook at running back. It's a very good offensive line. And it's like, oh, okay. Like I do like this group. And I would say if you had to pick one quarterback where you said it doesn't matter who the play caller is, who the offensive line is, who the wide receivers are. You're going to have a top five offense.

I think Josh Allen is that guy. for me right now. I mean, the numbers back it up. The last six, six years in a row, they finished between first and fourth in EPA per drive. That is a remarkable level of consistency. I know all the stats are out there that are like, this is the best team to never even get to a super. This is the best run by any team to not even get to a Super Bowl, which if you're a Bill's fan, you're like, we're not hanging on the banner for that. Especially that franchise. That franchise is experienced a heartbreaks of all heartbreaks I know.

In their history. It's like there, it really is remarkable that they have not broken through. But the offense has just about been the most reliable unit in the NFL over the last five, six seasons. So I think they're going to be right up there. Once again, will they definitely beat number one? I don't know. Maybe not. But I'm just like, if Josh Allen's healthy, I don't care what, who else gets injured or has a down year.

This isn't a Joe Brady thing to me. I mean, Joe Brady, right place, right time, as far as I'm concerned, you know, Ken Dorsey's looking at it going, hey, someone compare the stats when I was calling the offense compared to when Joe Brady was. You know, I don't think it's that hard to come up with a great offense when you have Josh Allen. Now, I do like some of the stuff he's done. You mentioned it earlier, taking some stuff all off of his plate, not asking him to be Superman the entire game, you know, having a good run game, all those things. But yeah, I had the bills won just because I felt like they were sort of, I was going to say, we're session proof, which doesn't make any sense. But you know what I'm saying? It kind of does. The conditions don't really matter. As long as the quarterback's healthy, they're going to have a top five offense.

So I've got bills one. You have presumably the Los Angeles Rams number one. Why did you give them the edge here over the bills? And we're, of course, just picking nits with this right here. Yeah, I think for me, like, I took this exercise all the way down to the end, right, this morning before we hopped on the podcast. And I just kept talking between Buffalo B and, one, Los Angeles being two, and then vice versa.

And eventually I just kind of got to a point where I'm like, this offense is awesome. Nitpicking is for losers at this level, right? Like, let me just like, instead of trying to find all of the trap doors for this team, let's just take what we've seen on film. And a lot of this really is based on the fact that Sean McVeigh and the Rams have built an offensive infrastructure that doesn't really ask Matthew Stafford to have to do what he did in 2021 for this to be a top five offense in the NFL. In truth, I mean, they very rarely need him to play at that level.

I would say that last year, the only times I really caught for it were those three games against the Seahawks. And in the last two of them, he played exactly like we saw a 2021 Matthew Stafford played. And I think that that's a large reason why I ended up when an MVP is because those memories stuck out in that Thursday night game. And then in the NFC championship, even though that was after the voting, I think you just think about those moments, right? When it's called upon at most, when he needed to deliver, you know, in the biggest moments for the Rams, he was able to do so. And then you look at just some of the more underlying metrics, right? Like by name recognition, maybe by volume, and some of the other things that we look at, maybe by box score, we don't always appreciate just how effective the Rams are in the run game. But you go and you look at success

rate, especially on early downs. I mean, they were just beating the hell out of teams. And some of this was before they even went to the 13 personnel thing where they're adding all these big bodies on. they're able to play win 11 personnel that can get two tight ends on the field if they want to they can play with more of their finesse 12 personnel looks if they wanted to between you know your Terrence Ferguson and colby parkinson's who are you know Parkinson is a pretty balanced tight-in Ferguson is much more of a receiver than he is a blocker and still just by formation by motion by Sean McVeigh's ideas and how to craft a run game they're able to find six seven yards sometimes a pop in in a quarter or in a half right I've

I trust so much in what they have built in the run game, in the play action game, and who Matthew Stafford has been in the twilight of his career, what they're able to do in the Red Zone with Devante Adams, being able to kind of feed touchdowns to him. And I think that my assumption is Pookin the Kua's suspension, which I do expect him to get one eventually, won't be so long. I don't think that Alaric Jackson, who might get suspended for his off-to-field conduct. I don't know if that's going to be extensive either.

And they're going to have their guys, right? I'm assuming health and that they're going to have their guys available. And as long as those players are on the field, it is hard for me to see Sean McVeigh not turning in the number one offense in the NFL, no worse than the top three offense in the league this year. Yeah, you mentioned Seattle matchups, and I would even throw in when they faced the Eagles the last couple of years. They have the thing where, because of Stafford's experience and talent and savvy and know-how

and Sean McFa's offensive mind, they can figure stuff out against the best, defenses in the NFL, which I think that is, you know, I think that's a great case for them to be number one, where it's just like, you're probably not going to shut them down for an entire game. You might get the first quarter, you might get the first half, might get the first possession, whatever, but eventually they're like that, that combination is so special that they're going to figure it out. And so they were the best offense in the NFL last year. They've done it against great defenses. I mean, think about it. The Seahawks, like no one was able to do anything against the Seahawks,

except for the Rams offense last year. Like they kind of put themselves on another level. I mentioned earlier, I think the Broncos continuity. I believe the Rams have 13 of 14 players who logged 400 snaps last year on offense. 13 of 14 are back. So they've got that continuity going for them. Yeah, my only real question about the Rams was what it looks like if they lose, you know, Pukunakua. Like it's all depth stuff or if they have injuries on the offensive line,

but it really is first world problem type of things. I'm tired of predicting that Matthew Stafford's age is going to be an issue for them when the guy just won the MVP last year. So yeah, I think it's perfectly reasonable to have the Rams as number one. I have Bills 1, Rams 2. You have Rams 1, Bills 2. So we agreed on seven teams, Deontay, Bills, Rams, Cowboys, Lions, Bengals, Chargers, Patriots. I had the Bears, Packers, and Chiefs.

You had the Ravens, Broncos, and Jaguars. Neither of us had the Niners. That was the one team I was surprised that I thought you were going to have in there. That was the one. That's the one that had me feeling like, am I a bozo? Like, am I thinking too hard about some of the issues or some of the hangups that I might have about George Kittle being hurt and Mike Evans being a little advanced in age?

Like, I'm sorry, man. It's too much for me. And then I think the other team I was thinking about is just like Philadelphia, just because just because of the arguments. we're making about teams like Denver, teams like Dallas, the ones that are really built upon offensive line, being able to win between the tackles, quarterback who is not turning the ball over? Like, is this a team that could be maybe towards a bottom in but can make the top 10 because they're not going to be as volatile as a Chicago as a Jacksonville, maybe as Baltimore might be?

But for me, I think that that's one of those things where first year play caller, big system overhaul, loss of a very talented player, you're going to have to show it to. me first. And I had them 15th, so it's not like I have them being some bottom half of the league offense. Yeah, Niners, you could just make the case. Hey, Shannon and Purdy, it works. It has worked, and they might not be top five, but they're going to be really good. I just, the injuries already, I mean, the summer they've had so far, we're like one week in. I'm just like, I have them a little. I don't think they're going to be bad, but I had them outside the top 10. Eagles, you mentioned, I think there's a case for them. Seahawks, I think there's a case for them if you feel good about

the new OC coming in and then not losing much. The Vikings I thought about getting spicy and being like, maybe I buy this. It's a good supporting cast. That would have been an inspired pick. I couldn't quite get there. I was like, should I do Vikings over Chiefs for content? Nope, I'm just going to go with what I actually think here with the Chief.

So yeah, I think those were some of the teams that just missed out. But that was a lot of fun. Top 10 offenses, I think Deonté, come back next week and do top 10 defenses. How does that sound? Well, Zoo defenses. Hey, man, you're talking my language. I would love nothing more. We'll do defenses next week.

All right, thanks to Deonti Lee from the Ringer. Thank you to Christopher Sutton for producing. Stefano Sanchez on video and additional production supervision by Connor and Arjuna, Ram Gopal. I'm Shil Kapari. We will talk to you next time on the ringer NFL show. 21 plus and present in select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 plus and present in D.C., Kentucky or Wyoming.

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