The Ringer NFL Show - Ravens Release Justin Tucker, Plus AFC East Offseason Grades and Predictions

Episode Date: May 6, 2025

Sheil, Steven, and Diante start the pod by discussing the fallout surrounding the Ravens' release of kicker Justin Tucker. They then go through every team in the AFC East division and issue grades for their offseason developments so far while also sharing their way-too-early predictions for their levels of success next season. The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit⁠⁠⁠⁠ www.rg-help.com⁠⁠⁠⁠ to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Hosts: Sheil Kapadia, Steven Ruiz, and Diante LeeProducer: Chris SuttonSocial: Kiera GivensProduction Supervision: Conor Nevins and Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

All right, my birdie buddies, my car saving pals. My eagle enthusiast, it's Joe House here. Major season is finally upon us. The Masters, the PGA Championship, the U.S. Open, the Open Championship, and Fairway Rowan is here to break down all of the storylines. Offer a little help on those betting cards for every single major this golf season. Join me and our in-compet. Comparable accomplice, our tour boots on the ground.

Nathan Hubbard, as we guide you from Augusta all the way to Northern Ireland, Royal Port Rush. Away we go. Welcome to the Ringer NFL show. Shield Capadia here, joined by Stephen Ruiz and Deonté Lee. We are starting a little off-season series here for May and June, where we're going to go division by division. Listen, we're not doing full season previews.

We don't have all-hour takes ready. just yet. So we're going to go give you those in August and September. But we can look at, hey, what did each team do this offseason, sort of grade the off season? Did they get better? Did they get worse? And just a little check-in. How are we feeling about each team at this point in the off-season? So we're going to start with the AFCEs today before that. Get to some news. Deontay, we got to start with you because we're trying to get people to that ringer YouTube channel and your fit today is reason enough, maybe more so reason than anything else we've done for them to check it out.

You know, I think I try to play the straight man on the podcast, and maybe this is my way to kind of break through. Yeah, exactly. You know, I think everybody's searching for their bit on this, you know, never-ending kind of walk we're doing on the internet. I guess mine is going to be dressing up. But yeah, man, I'm fresh off of the Cowboy Carter tour last week. My sister has been, you know, has worked with Beyonce in the past, is working with her now currently and gave me a hookup so that way I could go see her live.

And definitely at, if not, number two on the list of live performances I've seen in my lifetime. My sister doesn't work for Beyonce. She's just a loser who doesn't work for Beyonce. I don't know about you, Sheel. Yeah, I know. I said before we came on, good sister to have. Deonté gets the hookup there, got to see it in L.A. So yeah, he's got the cowboy hat on.

So check that out on the Ringer NFL. My sister did give me a free air fryer a couple months ago. So I guess that's, you know, that's on par. Have you used that bad boy yet? Oh, yeah. It's getting used. Best, best usage so far? Vegetables in general.

Really? Okay. Air fried vegetables are really good. Have you done the leftover pizza in that thing? Oh, yeah, yeah. That was the first thing I did. That's fantastic. I mean, that to me is better than any other way to reheat the

pizza the next day. Put that thing on 350, three minutes. It comes out. It's like it just came out of the oven. Sometimes I just, I don't eat as much the initial pizza night because I want the leftover the next day in the air fryer. You're playing the long air. That's smart. There you go. All right. Let's get to it. We got to start

off with some news out of Baltimore. The Baltimore Ravens release. Justin Tucker statement from Eric DeCosta says sometimes football decisions are incredibly difficult. And This is one of those instances.

Considering our current roster, we have made the tough decision to release Justin Tucker. Justin created many significant and unforgettable moments in Ravens history. His reliability, focus, drive, resilience, and extraordinary talent made him one of the league's best kickers for over a decade. We are grateful for Justin's many contributions while playing for the Ravens. We sincerely wish him and his family the very best in the next chapter of their lives. So you might see that noticeably absent is any reference to the 16 allegations of inappropriate behavior made by massage therapists in the Baltimore area as uncovered by the Baltimore banner with their terrific reporting. So yes, first line there, football decisions. Ravens drafted a kicker.

Ruiz, you just wrote about this. People can check out your piece on the ringer.com. Your thoughts on not only Tucker's release, but how the Ravens handled this. And many of you have kind of, you know, at least been in my mentions or our mentions about our conversation about the Ravens in our draft recap episode where we talked about Mike Green, the edge defender. They drafted from Marshall who faced two sexual assault allegations before their draft. All right, Ruiz, what do you make of this Tucker situation? Yeah, I mean, it was disappointing to hear how they framed it, to hear that there. was no mention of the 16 women.

But I just want to call bullshit on what Eric Dacost is saying. He's saying, like, these football decisions are very difficult at times. I feel like making it a football decision made this very easy. When you look at Justin Tucker's recent track record, his salary cap hit, how much money they stand to save by cutting him and making him a June 1st release. And it's just par for the course for this organization. I know they've claimed that they've changed things since the Ray Rice fiasco, and they they instituted zero tolerance policy,

but they haven't really acted on that zero tolerance policy at all. And right now, at least they are implying that they didn't apply it to this situation by making it a football decision. But even going through recent situations, like you go back to the Ray Rice situation, they've welcomed him back to games, they've honored him at games, they could have just completely wiped their hands of that situation. They chose not to because he did play well for this organization when they won a Super Bowl. you can even go back before that.

Like Terrell Suggs, I know it wasn't covered because Ray Rice was kind of a tipping point for this league where the league started to care about these instances of domestic violence and players committing it. But before that, Torel Suggs had a protective order taken out against them, against the mother of these two children. And she had documented five years of abuse from Torel Suggs. That never gets mentioned. Violent abuse, if you read the allegations, that never gets mentioned. The Ravens didn't act on that.

the league didn't suspend him for him, and the Ravens repeatedly bring Terrell Suggs back to be a part of like pregame and halftime festivities. So this zero tolerance policy, I think we already knew it was kind of bullshit, but this just confirms it. And the way that they stated it, I think, confirms it even further. Deontay, what was your, what was your take when you kind of saw the statement that the Ravens released about Tucker? I echo some of Stephen's sentiments, right? I think that the funny thing, maybe not the funny thing, is probably the wrong turn of phrase. but an interesting piece of it is that it is an easy decision, whether you consider it for football reasons or reasons beyond football.

He was a bad kicker last year. Not only bad kicker directly cost Baltimore games that might have allowed them to be the top overall seed in the AFC, right? He was actively costing them games. We had conversations on this very podcast about whether or not they'd be better served trying to hit the open market in the middle of the season to source a different kicker. So that was a conversation that we had going into, going through, out the season and definitely into the off season.

And then in January, as the allegations are released, as a reporting from the Baltimore Banner gets released, if you wanted to release them at that point in time, you could have. Obviously, you know, I don't know the most many people have noted this, you would have to deal with maybe a little bit of acrimony from the NFLPA. So, like, I'm not here really to finger wag about the omission in the statement as much as me not understanding why Justin Tucker needed to have such a dignified statement about his release at this stage in his career. And I'm not saying you have to trash him on the way out and say, like,

we were just trying to get better at the position. But you could just say, like Stephen said, I mean, it's a football decision. And we have to make a change with our roster. We're looking to get younger at the position. You know, Justin Tucker has contributed a bunch of this franchise in scene. That's it. Like, you don't have to say anything else. It can be done.

Nobody necessarily needed a direct acknowledgement that that's going on past the public comments that they gave around the combine. But I guess it's just, it's just disappointing. And we've been having this conversation for the last week when you think about the selection of Mike Green. And then obviously this extends for the last few months when you think about the Justin Tucker allegations and the reporting around it. It's just been really disappointing for Baltimore because you're trying to hold them to the words that they have given us publicly. Yeah. Right.

And if you are judging their actions based on their messaging, it just makes it really, really difficult to find the congruence between the two. And I don't think any of us are naive enough to think it's just a problem in Baltimore. I think every team deals with these situations awkwardly and without competence, and they usually put the football side of things first. But, like, this was such an easy PR win for Baltimore. They just ignored it. Like, every player that gets released doesn't get a statement. You could just release a link to a new story that says we have released Justin Tucker.

No more explanation needed. Or you can have that statement, still give them this flowers for every reason you felt the need to do that. And they're just say, Justin Tucker is no longer a part of our team, but we're still going to participate in this investment. investigation, whatever the NFL needs from us. We're not, like, disconnecting from that. We didn't get any of that. We got this, which I still think is a line of bullshit,

that this was a football decision because going back eight days before the banner released its report, Eric DeCosta was on record saying, I envision Justin Tucker being a part of this team next year. So if this was a football decision, how, like, when did it change? What new football information did they get? Since Justin Tucker hasn't kicked a field goal since then, hasn't attempted to field goal, the Ravens haven't played a football game, So somewhere along the lines, it became a football decision for them.

And I think it's because that was the easier decision to make. If Justin Tucker had a good year, like in line with what he had done, this would have been a far harder decision to make. We saw this with Ray Rice, who was still a productive player, although he had a down year before the domestic violence incident. But they tried to hang onto him as long as they could until it wasn't possible to do it without sacrificing your image to the PR gods. And they gave into that eventually.

but not without being reluctant about it first. So I just think all around, this was like an easy test for Baltimore to pass to be like, look, we have made changes. And I feel like they've failed at every step so far. And now that they've kind of separated themselves from him, they didn't wait until the investigation was concluded, like they said they would.

They don't have to deal with the repercussions when that stuff comes out. He's not a player on their team. It's easy for them to disconnect from it now. Like they took the easiest way out by not cutting him early and by not waiting for the investigation to play out, by just, you know, trying to claim that it was a football decision. And listen, in terms of timing, they very well could have an idea of when the investigation,

you know, the findings from that investigation are going to be released. They have calls they can make to the NFL offices that say, hey, you know, this is coming down the pipeline in mid-May, okay, let's make sure we get rid of him in early May so that we're not answering any questions about this. I mean, he was part of that organization for a long time, a 13-season run. these allegations, these are not a one-off. You know, again, according to the Baltimore banner, I believe these were from 2012 to 2016.

You know, so now all those questions, which they still will get, you know, the investigation will cut, the findings will come out. And then John Harbaugh or Eric DeCosta will have their press conference and they'll say, you know, these findings, and they'll say, you know, we're going to talk about the players that are here. I'm telling you right now.

That's what though. Well, he's not a part of this organization anymore. We cooperated with the NFL, but we have nothing else to say. And so they washed their hands of it. And yeah, you know, the easy thing to do here, like you said, Ruiz, you can just have a real quick state. If you want a statement, you're right. Not everybody gets a statement. He was with the team a long time.

So if you want a statement, have the statement. We thank Justin Tucker for his, you know, 13 years. We're releasing him and we'll cooperate with the NFL's investigation. At least acknowledge it. They don't acknowledge it. It's the same thing with the Mike Green. They draft Mike Green. And then again, the quote, the more even,

After we did that last podcast, the quote I thought about was when he's saying, we have the best scouts in the NFL. And I'm like, are you kidding? I mean, can you imagine? Like, if you were a friend or a family member who levied the allegations of sexual assault against Mike Green, and now you're reading Eric DeCosta, he thinks his scouts are qualified to make a judgment on whether those were credible or not credible or whether the guy's going to get into trouble down the road again. So this is the way they have handled it with these situations. As you mentioned, it's not just them, but they do, at least in recent memory. They have a history. These are the same people in charge, I think, which makes it also relevant.

They haven't had a change in coach. Eric Acosta's been there. The ownership's been the same. And it's been handled in a similar manner throughout. So, yeah, this leaves a bad taste in your mouth. It leaves a bad taste in my mouth. It probably should. and they know it's kind of with a level of arrogance that they it's with a high level of arrogance that they operate.

And they're probably, I don't want to say right about it, but they are able to now wash their hands of this. Like they're not going to have to answer any more questions about it publicly. They'll bully the media. If people push, they'll try to get, you know, stuff squashed if they need to. And they'll try to move on and they'll win a lot of football games because they have Lamar Jackson. And by the second week next year, we won't be talking about it. So in that sense, I understand their strategy, but the strategy is gross as well. That's kind of the crappy part.

It's like they get to hide behind this idea that they are one of like the prestige organizations in the NFL, just because Lamar Jackson has been carrying this franchise for the last couple of years. Like before he was there, they were not winning games like that. John Harbaugh's was on the hot seat, actually. That's why they needed to make a change at quarterback. So this kind of covers up the fact that they're doing all this other like shitty stuff behind the scenes. Yeah, it's a wild league, but it's true. I mean, one great quarterback and everything your franchise does,

job security extensions, people getting paid, PR stuff, off-field situations with other players. It's all a different situation for a quarterback that has Lamar Jackson, for an organization that has Lamar Jackson versus an organization that has whatever crappy quarterback we want to throw. The funny thing is they played hardball with them. That's true. too. Yeah, that's true too. Yeah, you're right about that. That he was not someone they took care of and, you know, acknowledged what they had at that point in time either. It got pretty much as messy as any MVP level, any situation with an MVP level quarterback has gotten in recent memory, quite honestly. So there you go. That's the big headline from this week. Not a fun one, but one we wanted to address, did not want to ignore here with Justin Tucker and the Baltimore Ravens. All right, let's take a little bit of an early break.

hour breaths, and then we will get to the AFC East offseason breakdown. All right. We are back on the Ringer NFL show. So here's the format for this. So we're going to start with the AFC East. Like I said, we'll get to every division in the next eight weeks or so here. We are going to grade their offseason. And I don't, you know, we'll give a letter.

I don't know that the letter matters as much as we just want to kind of talk about, hey, here's what they did. Did we like it? Do we not like it? Do we feel like they got better or worse than what we saw on the field? last year. And then we're going to give a way too early prediction. So this is like a, hey, this is a check-in. This is one thing I'm feeling right now. Check back with me in August. We'll call each other out when we change our minds during those shows and we'll get to it then. But let's start

with the Buffalo Bill. So the bills obviously continue to be the favorites in the AFC East at minus 240. They are among the three biggest favorites to come out of the AFC along with the Ravens and the Chiefs, and overall, only the Ravens and the Eagles have better Super Bowl lot. So Bill's over-under-win total is 11 and a half. Let's start with grading their off-season. So I'll give you guys a little rundown of what they did, at least from my perspective. They prioritize their own guys. You know, they, Josh Allen, Khalil Shakir, Greg Rousseau, Christian Benford, Terrell Bernard,

all these guys got extensions or reworked contracts. They bring back Matt Milano at a. lower number. The offense is almost exactly the same as last year. You know, they lose Mack Collins, but they signed Josh Palmer and Elijah Moore. And that's basically it on offense. So you're getting pretty much the same offense you got last year. And then defensively is where they made some moves. They signed Joey Bosa to a one year around $12.5 million contract. They signed Michael Hoyt from the Rams. They signed Larry Ogun Joby. And both those guys are facing six game suspensions for I believe it was PED usage.

So they're not going to have either of those guys for the first six games of the season. And then as we talked about on a recent show, they threw a bunch of darts at their defense during the draft. First five picks all used on the defensive side of the ball, quarterback Maxwell Hirston, defensive tackle, T.J. Sanders, and Edge Landon Jackson on the first two days of the draft. All right, Deonti, when you sit back and you look at the offseason for the Buffalo Bills, what grade do you give them? Did you like what they did? Honestly, of the AFC East teams,

this was the hardest one to grade for me because there's so much continuity, right? And I wanted to make sure I graded fairly. I gave them a C plus, but I don't necessarily, and it's not a pejorative C plus, right? It's just that there's not a lot of margin for them to grow,

at least on the offensive side of the ball. And what they're doing defensively, I think, is a lot of just adding depth, right? Just trying to take more chances at finding impact players or just impact play out of multiple players. and we said this going into the offseason that they didn't have a lot of cafes to do much differently.

So I think they took the kinds of chances you needed to. No one to Larry Ogden Jobie and Michael Hoyer going to be missing time. I think that they'll be fine because they drafted T.J. Sanders, Deoni Walker, Landon Jackson, guys who can show up and help and don't have to start right away. So I'll give them a C plus from that respect. And they kept, you know, they kept their coordinators in the building, which I think is probably maybe the biggest win outside of the personnel,

is that they get to keep their offensive coordinator, Joe Brady in, who's had some of the best years of Josh Allen's career now under his belt. So I'm happy with what they did. I'm just acknowledging the fact that there's really not a lot of space left for them to climb. Yeah, I have a question. Did you guys grade them based on process or results? Because I think based on results, I am inclined to agree with Dea. I don't think they improved much.

But I think them fighting against regression was the main goal coming into the offseason, especially losing Joe Brady. I think, yeah, like DeAnddei said, that's the biggest win of the off season. and I'm a little bullish on the offense being the same because now you have all of the component parts. If they had to bring in a new offense coordinator, I'd be a little bit worried about this receiving court. But we saw it work last year,

and I'm inclined to believe that it's going to work this year. And I also appreciate it the more subtle approach to the offseason from Brandon Bean. I know we defended him when he had the rant on the radio show. But I do think they identified the reason why they have lost these playoff games, and it's not because of a lack of playmaking on the other. offensive side of the ball. It's not even like a lack of playmakers in the secondary. It's the lack of pass rush and the inability to get to these elite quarterbacks that they always seem to lose to in the playoffs. And I think they at least took a swing at that without kind of mitigating their

future, their ability to build in the future. So I gave them a B plus, but it's more like a, yeah, they kept the status quo and that's a good thing because they're one of the best teams in the NFL. There you go. I gave them a B. So we're all in a similar ballpark. Yeah, for these teams, I tried to look at where are they as a franchise? What resources did they have available to them? And what did they do with those resources? And as I was doing the bills, I was like, I don't think there's a team that I've changed my opinion on less than the Buffalo Bills from the end of last season to right now. Yes, they made a bunch of moves, but I'm like, I think I know what the bills are going to be. I think I know the bills are going to be playing on the second weekend of

the playoffs barring a Josh Allen injury. And then it's a matter of whether, like, I think, I know, like you guys said, some of these defensive moves pay off or not. So the reason I didn't give them higher, the BOSA swing, I don't know if I love that when you have limited resources. Now, I get it because I do think there's upside and maybe this will look like a brilliant move. It's only one year, but it's one year, $12.5 million. I don't know. I can't tell you, hey, they should have done X instead of that at this spot, but it feels like

they've just taken so many swings on that defensive line and have had a hard time figuring it out. and this is a guy who's played in 18 games over the last three seasons. And I know he was playing injured last year, but even when he was playing, I don't think it was the Joey Bosa of old. So I get the swing, but I didn't look at that and say, that's a home run. I do it every time. I think I probably would have looked at some other options in terms of spending that money. Don't you think when you're at this point, though, that it makes more sense to take

a swing like that rather than, I think there are two types of like, yeah. There are two types of mid-range, you know, pass-rratcher acquisitions in the off-season where you're paying around 12, 15 million. One is like the guy who hasn't really played much, but he has some production, you're not sure if it's going to extrapolate over a full load of playing time. And then you have the guy that hasn't been available. And if he is healthy and he is playing at his best,

$12 million is a bargain. I think when you're a team trying to win a Super Bowl, those are the kind of bets you have to take. Whereas when your team is trying to raise your floor, I think you take the more conservative approach. Yeah, that's a fair point. There is a argument for they should swing for more high variance. because, yeah, they kind of need that.

If they get the 90th percentile version of Joey Bosa, that's going to make more of a difference than if they spent that money on a couple depth guys. So you're right. There's a point there. I would have been a little risk-averse there with the injury history, but that doesn't mean I'm right. All right.

So we're all in the same ballpark there. Better or worse than last year? This is actually an interesting one because when you are 13 and 4, they were 13 and 4 last year, they were in the AFC championship game. They were in the game late in the fourth quarter, still didn't happen for them. You know, there's not a lot of room to go up. There is some room to go down. Ruiz, do you think they are better or worse now than they were last year?

I want to preface this by saying that wins aren't a team stat. They don't really tell you how good the team. No, no, I'm joking. But I think there is a very good chance that they could be better and then lose, you know, win fewer games. I can see them winning 12 games and I still feel more confident and then going into the season. And I kind of do with this team just because I expect some progression for this defense. Like you look at the numbers and you drilled out into them, it's kind of backwards of what you would have expected based on how they approach playing defense. They obviously play lighter bodies.

They play a lot of nickel, more nickel than anybody, no matter what you put on the field on offense. But they were really good against the run. And they were really good at producing tackles for loss in the run game. I think they were the best team. They had the highest rate tackles for loss against the run. They were able to get into those passing situations. they weren't able to get off the field. And if the work does pay off,

and by the way, I've got to say, I'd like to move of bringing in some PED guys. That would have been one of my solutions, you know, get some PEDs in that defensive line room. If that pays off and they can get off the field, then I think there's a chance that this could be a very good defense, and I expect the offense to pick up where it left off last year. I do love the Ruiz running, you know, PED stuff.

He might need to be a consultant. He does have ideas for how, you know, like, listen, you don't need to shy away from this, let's come up with ways maybe there's an edge in the market somehow whether it maybe it's not bringing in the pd guys maybe it's masking it maybe it's you know taking a suspension at a certain time i don't know but yeah i i do any time you bring up one of your p ed takes i will say i do enjoy it i grew up a giants fan like baseball giants fan i was a huge berry bonds guy so that explains the origin story there uh yeah i was going to say that paints it pretty clearly there you go dante uh better or worse than last

this Bill's team. I'm going to say better and I'm just separating the win totals thing, right? Like Stephen was saying, I'm not really concerning myself as like, oh, are they going to be a 14 or 15 win team?

It's entirely possible, but the margins when you're trying to win that many games are so tight, right? We saw that with Kansas City last season, and I think that for Buffalo as a team that's made multiple deep playoff runs,

I wouldn't be surprised if they took on the identity of what Kansas City was two seasons ago. It may not be a bunch of one score games, but it's, we're going to manage the clock as much as possible. We're going to try to stay out of high leverage situations as often as possible. Let's not give up explosive plays defensively.

And then we just trust our quarterback to get us over the hump in the second half of games. And I think that that probably evens out at about 10 and 7 to 11 and 6. Maybe if you get hot, you go 12 and 5 or so, but I don't think that's going to matter, right? Like when I do power rankings, I'm probably going to have them about tied with Baltimore at the top of the AFC, you know? And that's where I expect them to be throughout the course of the same. season, and I do think that they're still going to be an AFC championship team, it's just going to be the matter of finally having the ball at the end of the game

and getting over the hump once they get there. And they're one of those teams, and they have one of those quarterbacks where you kind of give them the benefit of the doubt throughout the regular season. Like, they're one of the teams that can afford to use that as like a testing ground to figure out what they need to be by the time January rolls around. So even if, and we saw that two years ago. I don't remember we were all freaking out when they were what. I think they were like eight and six or something.

I don't know. But we all freaked out, but they were fine. Like they made the playoffs. And by the time the playoffs rolled around, we were all like, oh, this Bill's team, it's hard to beat,

even though their record compared to other years wasn't as good. Yeah, to that point, they have won between 11 and 13 games in five consecutive seasons. It's basically like if Josh Allen is healthy, you can pretty much put,

now there could be an outlier season, but you can safely say that's kind of the range they're going to be in. I mean, since his rookie year, they are 71 and 28 in, in the regular season. That's crazy. 71 to 72% of their games, they have won in the regular season with Josh Allen as the starter. That's different supporting casts, different defenses, different

offensive coordinators, different state of Sean McDermott job security, all those things. It hasn't mattered. They're just, you know, pencil them in for 11 to 13 wins. So I think there's two, I have them down as slightly worse. I suspect they'll mostly be the same. But if I'm asking myself, Do I think it's more likely that they win 14 games or 12 games? I went to 12 games and a couple, a couple of reasons for that. One is they benefited from turnovers when you look at EPA more than any team in the last 10 years in the NFL. Their defense, I believe, got more EPA on turnovers than any other defense in the NFL. And Josh Allen only threw six interceptions last year.

Now, maybe that's sustainable. Maybe there's some, you know, a little bit, a little bit of luck in there. when you look at the turnover stuff. So I just feel like from a turnover perspective, they're probably going to get dinged a little bit more than they got dinged last year. They were pretty healthy last year overall. I mean, their offensive line, they're five starters. And this has been two years in a row.

So maybe those guys get credit for being durable players. But their five starters played over 800 snaps, which is just rare for one unit, especially your starting unit from week one to the end of the season to play that many snaps together. So, you know, maybe one guy suffers an injury or something. And you take, again, I'm talking slight, slight step back. I don't think they're taking a very big step back.

Now, the other end of this, they have the fifth easiest schedule in the NFL, according to if you go by the Vegas projected win total. So that actually is working in their favor where maybe some of the regression stuff gets canceled out by having a little bit of an easier schedule. So I think they're going to mostly be in the same range. But if I have to choose it, I'm going to go slightly worse. All right. Way too early prediction, Deont.

what do you have for your way too early prediction for the bills? That this is a number one offense in the NFL. It's probably my way too early prediction. Okay. Like, I think that this is the team we're going to be talking about Sheal in November saying they've been number one in offensive DVOA for the last three, four weeks, and they've got a nice stretch of schedule coming up where they should be blowing teams out, right? Like, I think that that's the kind of conversation that we're going to be having about this.

Oh, when you look at them last year, really the last few years, right? And I think Stephen has been on top of this since they started making changes off. offensively, they've become very success rate-driven. And we talk about Kansas City in that respect as well. I think that this year, the way that they're going to try to manage games in the first half is still going to be in that vein. I just wouldn't be surprised if they just try to take a few more chances in the play action game. We definitely saw that when they were playing at their best.

You remember, they had that kind of rocky start to the season, and then they ripped off like seven, eight weeks straight of just looking like the most unstoppable offense in the NFL. And a lot of that was based off with their play action deep shot game. I think that having Josh Palmer will help. I think a second year of having Keon Coleman in the offense is an ex-receiver will help, especially on third downs and in the red zone. You could tell that that's what they wanted out of Amari Cooper that just never really materialized. And I just love what Kalear Shakir does for them in terms of creating yardage after the catch,

in terms of finding hidden yardage. And that doesn't even touch what they can do in the running game and what they've been doing in the running game for the last two seasons. I just kind of expect this team to be able to control games every time they have a possession. and I think that that's what we're going to see from him in 2020. I think there's like a very good chance that Josh Allen takes another step because we saw him kind of take the more mature approach to playing. And it could be like a Patrick Mahomes situation where he kind of went through that transformation

and was even better the next year when he won MVP and they beat the Eagles in the Super Bowl. So I could totally see that happening with them. So in my prediction, if Deontes comes true and mine comes true, then this team is probably winning the Super Bowl. My prediction is that Sean McDermick gets them back to playing defense at a top five level by EPA. Just because I think- Not five. Okay, so you like their defensive moves more than I do. Yeah, it's not so much that. I just think that they were kind of unlucky last year.

Like they had some bad luck on third down where they were one of the worst third down defenses, despite their success on early downs. Usually early down success leads to late down success, and they didn't get that. But if you look back through how that works like year to year, the nerds tell us that's not usually a sticky thing. If you're like bad on third down or, you know, really good on third down, you can expect some regression to the mean. And I think adding some of these defensive linemen may help in that regard. And obviously they draft a cornerback. I'm not saying that Maxwell Harrison is going to be good right out to shoot.

But I think him and this entire secondary will benefit from the last couple of years where, you know, these guys have had to step up and play when they weren't necessarily expected to play at the beginning of the year. That's interesting. So the nerd stuff is going in opposite directions with them on the defense with. They were lucky on turnovers, but not good on third down. but both those things tend to come back to kind of the average year over year. I will say this about McDermott. I don't trust him in a playoff game against a great quarterback,

but regular season, I almost feel like he sets such a high floor. I mean, they've never had a bad defense in Buffalo in the regular season. I think the lowest they finished is like 16th. And that's over a seven-year span, different players. And so I think he's a good defensive coach who has not been able to figure out what we always talk about, what's your game playing going to be against a great court?

They just get lit up. But, you know, it's mostly Patrick Mahomes, I should say, but they haven't been able to figure that out. Yeah. The thing I'm really thinking about is like, at least as far as Stephen,

what's Stephen is saying is, stylistically, what does this defense look like? And if you look at some of their coverage splits, what I think that we've seen over the last few years, is that you're seeing more single high from them. And then when they play against elite quarterbacks, and I've noticed this,

And I pointed this out about D'Amico Ryans in Houston last season as well. I think these defensive coordinators who have built a high floor on taking away explosive plays because they're playing any split safety shells, they all seem to acknowledge that when you're playing one of the great ones, you have to be a tight coverage team. And to me, you draft a guy that's as fast as Max Harrison to play opposite Terrell Bernard. In acknowledgement that, we've either got to play a bunch of cover one or single high coverages, and we've got to play tight, matchy type quarters. and that means it trusting our pass rush to get home. Our front four have to get home,

and we've got to win one-on-one matchups on the perimeter. I think if they get to the heights that Stephen is talking about, we're going to see them make a little bit of a personality change similar to what Houston did in 2024, where you're not seeing as much split safety, very highly detailed zone coverages, where you're dropping the spots, and everybody's got this great feel on the back end

and more we're in your face. We're going to challenge wide receivers at every point in the field. We're willing to risk some more passenger. experience calls, we're willing to risk, giving up a few more explosive plays from time to time, just to make sure that we're denying the ball on early downs in the passing game. And if they're able to accomplish that, if Harrison is ready to take that on, if Bernard stays healthy and their linebackers are healthy, I think most importantly, I think that now you really have an opportunity to become one of the better defenses in the league.

Yeah, and those things are connected, too. Like, how good your pass rush is, allows you to play more aggressively on defense. If you don't think you have a good rush, maybe you're more willing to, you know, sit back, or maybe you're more willing to blitz and not play that in-between coverage. Where you're just playing man coverage, it's a normal rush, but you trust your pass rush to get home where your quarterbacks don't have to hold up in man coverage for four seconds at a time, which hasn't been the case against his team in the past couple of years.

All right, Bill's fans, you're going to like this portion of the pod because Deonté says best offense, Ruiz says top five defense. And my way to early prediction is that they break through. They get to the Super Bowl this year. I was thinking about it. I was like, what's my prediction going to be? And then I said, well, if I had to pick one team to get there, you know, I think for most people, it's going to come down to one of three teams. And I think I like them as much, if not more,

than the other two teams. So I'm going to say the bills break through. Listen, if Josh Allen's healthy, again, bottom five schedule projected, they keep knocking on the door. I don't believe that there's, you know, one little thing missing that he doesn't have it and they're never going to do it and they're choking. I believe they're going to keep knocking. And one year, they're going to break through. And so as of May 6th, I'm saying this is the year they break through. Are they beating the cheese or someone else taking care of their dirty business for them? I haven't thought about it. Let me give that.

We'll talk when we get to AFC West. I'll let you know. I go division, but this is segmented, Ruiz. I'm not jumping ahead. I can't jump ahead in May. I got to go division by division. Think about four teams at a time each week. Your cheese prediction has to be who they lose to in the playoffs then.

Okay. I like that. I like that. We'll put that down right now. All right. Next team here. I went with the next team in terms of division odds. And guess who it is?

It is the New England Patriots are the second team. Wait, is that right? No. Yeah, that's right. That's right. The New England Patriots are second, had the second best division odds here in the AFC East. They're over under for wins is seven and a half.

And they are plus 164 to make the playoffs a very active offseason. They fire Gerard Mayo. They hire Mike Rable. He hires Josh McDaniels as his offensive coordinator. By the way, I was looking at this coaching staff. I mean, a lot of familiar names on here for better or worse. I'll get your guys take on whether it's better or worse. But Todd Downing, Doug Morone, Thomas Brown, Ben McAdoo making appearance.

You know, you got to scroll down the Patriots coaching. It's one of those. It's not at the top when you go to their team website. But you scroll down and you see Ben McAdoo, I believe. in an advisory role. So brand new coaching staff here in New England, lots of turnover with the roster around 10 new starters. Offensively, Stefan Diggs and Matt Collins and free agency in the draft. They take wide receiver Kyle Williams and running back Trayvion Henderson. Offensive line rebuilt. They draft Will Campbell and Jared Wilson in the first three rounds there. They signed veterans,

Garrett Bradbury and Morgan Moses. So you're potentially looking at four new starters on the offensive line. a brand new group of wide receivers and a new running back who figures to be in the mix quite a bit there with Remandre Stevenson. So that's offensively. Defensively, they signed Milton Williams,

Harold Landry, Roberts Blaine, Carlton Davis. So those are the big moves. You got Vrabel running the show. Ruiz, what do you think of the Patriots offseason? What was your grade?

I ended up giving, what did I end up giving them? I ended up giving them a shore. I didn't give them a letter right, just sure. Why not? Like, I have the money to spend. For me, it just seems, it seems like a floor raising offseason rather than a ceiling

raising off season. And the ceiling, how high that gets raised is obviously dictated by Drake May's development and how he progresses. But, like, they spent a lot of money and they brought in a lot of recognizable names, but I'm not sure anyone that they brought in is going to be a definite, like, positive producer for them this season. Like, Stefan Diggs, $69 million for an off-injured receiver. who's kind of been on the decline even when he's been healthy of late.

Milton Williams, he had a good year. The tape checks out, the numbers check out, but it was one year playing alongside Jaylen Carter, who is one of the, he has the best gravitational pool of any defensive linemen right now, maybe, now that Aaron Donald's not around. Carlton Davis, I like him as a player, and I think, you know, he kind of returns that ability to play tight man coverage through New England, which we haven't really seen since the Super Bowl years, but he's been hurt too, and he's, you know, getting older. We don't know if that that deal is going to work out. So I feel like there's a wide range of outcomes here, and I'm more

inclined to lean towards the lower end of the spectrum. Like, I think there's a lot of pressure on Mike Rable because, one, you're replacing a one-and-done coach, and let's say you win the same amount of games, because I think there is a chance that that happens, that this roster isn't that much improved, and, you know, you finish with six wins. And the last coach got fired. what happens to you after you just spent all this money in the off season? I think there's going to be some awkward questions. My prediction is based around that. I'll save that for later, but I'm not terribly high on this team outside of Drake May.

Now, if Drake May takes a step, and I think that's very possible, then I think these moves look a lot better in hindsight. Interesting. I think there should be a lot of variance and opinions here on the Patriots. Deonté, what did you make of their offseason? There is a lot of trust being given to Josh McDaniels, And that is probably the thing that I am hung up by the most is you look at the offensive staff.

Like you said, there's a lot of, you know, I don't know if you guys watch NBA on T&T, but they had a thing, you know, called who he played for. There's a lot of guys who have been offensive coordinators and former NFL

head coaches that are on this offensive staff. But basically there's only one guy who has a track record of working with a highly successful quarterback. And this guy that was working with, essentially the greatest quarterback of all time. I don't know how much credit you get to give, Josh McDaniels in that respect, unless you truly believe that Todd Downing

can help in that as well. And I don't even think that his role is particularly tied to the quarterback position. And he doesn't have a long track record of running great offenses either. So I gave them a B minus. And just like I talked about the C plus with the bills, to me it has a lot more to do

with like, did you just do some of the things that were very obvious that you needed to do? Did you deliver on some of that stuff? And I think that they did. They did address their front seven, which they needed to. You got in a number two corner, which I do think will help Christian Gonzalez. I think the best version of Christian Gonzalez is a guy who can play in the slot or outside based on the matchups that you need.

And bringing in Carlton Davis, who is a physical outside corner, might be able to unlock that for Gonzalez and really allow him to kind of meet that all-pro potential that we know that he has. And then on offense, I guess a lot of it really is just like dart throws and shrugging your shoulders and saying, hey, we think Drake May is the one. And he's going to make it right, even if it's not perfect. So there's a lot up in the air. but I did give them B-minus for at least delivering on hiring a decent head coach,

bringing in a staff of guys who have run somewhat competent or better offenses over the span of their careers and addressing the defense, which is something else that I think they absolutely had to do. We could start the game show Patriots assistant or North Carolina assistant. I'd be like either way with some of these names. Yeah, I also give them a B-minus. I think they would have loved to do more on offense in a free agency, in the trade market and whether it was guys not wanting to play there, guys resigning with their own

T. It didn't work out. It didn't work out. If you get Chris Godwin, maybe I give them a DB plus, right? I might feel a little bit differently. So I think if you would have talked to Patriots fans or even the organization in early January, they would have admitted we would have liked to have more than what they actually got there on offense. I am also not a big Josh McDaniels guy. I will get to more on that here in a minute. And I do worry about Rabel leaning on the familiar with some of these guys, you know,

and I always get on NFL head coaches for this. Are you just going with your buddies or people you know, or are you trying to build the best possible whether coaching staff roster, whatever? I mean, he hires McDaniels. They go out and they sign Harold Landry. I know that wasn't the only move they made, but that made

my, you know, eyebrows raise a little bit that like, oh no, I've seen this story before. So I just, I don't feel like, I like their draft. I think they did a good job in the draft. I think that, you know, Will Campbell was a good pick early on. I like what they did. Kyle Williams, I liked. I thought Henderson was fine there in the second round. I still don't believe the organization deserves the benefit of the doubt. So I was kind of on the fence and I'm like, let me, let me add that minus in there because I still, I don't trust them, you know, under this ownership, trying to figure this out.

Now, maybe I'll be proven wrong, but there's some of that that I still want to see here. Next question. Better or worse than last year? So they won four games last year, Deonte. How confident are you that they will be a better team this year? I think they'll be better, but I would still probably bet the under on seven and a half for them. I think that that's probably the best way to land. I think that they will be a firmly mediocre to just below average football team looking at it now, unless Drake May plays out like. a solid pro bowl fringe all pro level. And I think that that's still success for them, right? If that's the conversation that we're having about this team, is that they're 6 and 11, 7 and 10, and we're competitive against Buffalo,

you know, just competitive in the AFC period. I think that that's a great way to kind of reset expectations. I would just hate for this team to walk in and, you know, Mike Grable is giving you a bunch of bluster about how competitive they're going to be or they have a great preseason and everybody's thinking that this is going to be a fringe playoff team.

I don't think that they're there, quite yet. At least I need to see this offense deliver upon that before I'm comfortable saying that they're a playoff caliber team. Ruiz, what do you got? Yeah, I think they're going to be better. I think they won four games last year. They spent all this money. The talent

has definitely improved. I think this is one of the more improved rosters from where they were coming from. But they spent a lot of money to do it. I think in year one, it's going to look good. I think in two or three years we might look back at it and be like, I don't know if that was the right approach to that offseason. I do love their draft though. I think they took the approach to building

up the offense that I think we all expected in free agency, but they push that money towards the defense. Maybe it works out, but I do think it's contingent on this being the right hire, the right coaching hire with Mike Rable, and then Josh McDaniels also being the right hire as an OC. I think those are two very different questions. I think for the first time in my career as a ringer employee, I'm higher on the Patriots than my co-hosts for the first time on this pot. I don't remember this being the key. I'm a little uncomfortable. I don't know. I might need to take a break or something. I'm not used to being in this spot. I look at it and I think what Drake May did last year may even be a little underrated. When you look at the circumstances, when you

look at the supporting cast, and if you look at the last 10 years among 31 qualifying rookie quarterbacks, he ranks ranked fourth in dropback success rate ahead of C.J. Stroud from the previous season, I'm not not saying he played better than C.J. Stroud, but that's just one kind of statistical metric that man, when he dropped back to pass, a lot of good things happened where the offensive line was not good. The past catching group was not good. The offensive coaching was not good. And he still kind of found a way to find answers where I thought he did a really good job. You know, I thought he might take a little longer in the NFL to develop, to show the tools that we saw in college.

I didn't think we were going to see that right away. And I think we saw those things right away. So that makes me, you know, a little more bullish on this team that even, even if they're just setting a floor of relatively average, maybe even just a little below average supporting cast, that the offense has a chance there. Now, having said that, I was ready to ding them for some stuff

if you guys were more bullish on the Patriots. So let me build on a couple things you guys said. One, Vrable in Tennessee, and we've discussed this before, all right, in a one-off playoff situation, he might be good there. But overall, they did not have great defenses in Tennessee. I mean, they were above average once in six seasons.

with the Titans. And so do you really believe in this Patriots personnel? Because if not, there's not a great track record there for, hey, he's going to make it work like Bill Belichick did, where he just, hey, I know exactly what I need and the defense is going to be good. So that's offensively. And then honestly, if they hired a different offensive coordinator, I would be really bullish on this team. But with McDaniels, like, can I see one year, please, where he's outside of the Belichick bubble, where he's shown even a sliver of competency? We've literally never seen that. I mean, he's had two head coaching opportunities where he can't even get out a year two because it's such a disaster.

He's had five years where he's called plays away from Belichick. All five have been below average offenses. Now, some of those quarterbacks were not very good. I get it. But I just want to see it like once away from Brady, away from Belichick, both those people. Because I know he's done some good things when Brady has been gone. But still, the greatest coach maybe in NFL history was right there next to him, you know, able to help him out.

So that's the thing that really makes me nervous about this. But I do think a path to them being a surprise team in the NFL exists. My biggest question is kind of the scheming and how big are those offensive line and wide receiver upgrades? Do they get them to average? Or are we looking at this in week five saying, you know, we thought they upgraded. But, man, Will Campbell struggling or Stefan Digg still isn't on the field? Or, you know, Matt, wait, Matt Collins and Kyle Williams are the two most targeted players?

in year one. So there's a lot of question marks there that make me a little hesitant. But I do feel like I'm more bullish on them than you guys are. I think your concerns are right. Like all those are rightfully placed. To me, the thing with Josh McDaniels is that he did not cultivate what New England was offensively. Charlie Weiss was there for the initial run as offensively. Our Earhart-Purkin system was built before. There was ever a thought of Josh McDaniels. And he just got to work with the quarterback that basically had a library full of play calls already there and knew what all the answers were, knew where all the leaks might be and how to solve those problems. It's like the opposite of what Drew Reeves and Sean Payton was in New Orleans, right?

Where the coach is coming in with this long cultivated offense that goes back through the Parcells era and all that. And then you're bringing in a veteran quarterback. It's like, oh, I know all this stuff, right? I'm a supercomputer. I can handle all of this and we can build confidence in it together. I just don't, like you said, I've never seen Josh McDaniels know how to identify what works for a quarterback, what makes for a good quarterback, how to get the most out of the quarterback. how to get the most out of the quarterbacks they have, but there are limitations.

It's just how to build year over year, right? We've seen flashes. We've seen a month where it looks like, okay, the Patriots could run the ball or maybe the Raiders did something interesting. Maybe the Broncos did something interesting under them. And then it immediately goes to shit right after that. As soon as a defense makes an adjustment,

he has never had a second answer as a play caller. So I'm very bullish on Drake May, like you said, Sheel. I just, this offensive staff, man, I just don't know how they get it done in the passing game because I don't trust the guy that is here ostensibly to build the passing offense. Yeah, it wouldn't be the first time that a tablet young quarterback kind of sunk under these expectations around a bad supporting cast. So, like, that's my concern.

But if there's any reason for hope, I think it's based on Drake May. And I think Drake May is the type of quarterback who could, if he hits, could elevate an offensive coordinator like Josh McDaniels. I think it was the other way around when he was working with Mack Jones. And, like, to Shield's point, you don't know how much of that was Belichick. You don't know how much of that was the infrastructure that was already in place when Mac Jones got there. But I do think that's the best case scenario season for them,

based on what the roster looks like now. You win 10 or so games. Maybe you sneak into the wild card. There's a moment there in October where you could have delusions of grandeur because you guys are punching over your weight. But in the end, I still think there's a low ceiling on this team. All right. What's your way too early prediction, Ruiz, for the Patriots?

My prediction is that Rable ends the season with the shortest odds to be the next coach fired within the division. I love this. So compared to Mike McDaniel, compared to Sean McDermick, compared to Aaron Glenn, I think he'll have the shortest thoughts by the end. And just because of what I laid out earlier, I think he has the most pressure on him. If they have a season, like if they don't improve by more than three wins,

I think we're all going, wait, why did they fire Girard Mayo? He could have, you know, if you gave him this roster, maybe he could have squeezed six wins out of this team. I love it. All right, Deontay, what do you have? What's your way too early prediction? I think my take is kind of sandwich between the conversation we just had about their offensive coordinator and Stevens take, which is that McDaniels is won and done because they're

winning in spite of their offense and we're having conversations about whether or not Brable can get this done. And like as we were talking about McDaniels, I do think that this says a lot more about Brable as well, right? Like I just have questions about for a guy who got to sit for a year and figure out where he wanted to be and try to figure out how we can get into a place where he has power over personnel and, you know, he gets to kind of handpick the spot where he's going to be safest in terms of job security that you could not source an offensive coordinator that had a little bit more of a proven track record than Josh McDaniel. That to me is so concerning and I can 100% see this going awfully in terms of the passing

game and that they have to part ways. And now you're going to be talking about a quarterback who we think can be a star on his third offensive coordinator in three years and a head coach that we're not sure if he knows how to build an awesome. offense or how to find an offensive staff that can get the most out of a quarterback that's talented is Drake May. All right. I'm going to be the glass half full guy. Now remember the phrasing of this way too early prediction.

This is the one that is most likely that I'm going to change between now and August. But I'll say way too early, they're a wild car team. I don't know if I'll stick with it. This is a Drake May. This is a bet on a couple things. One is just Drake May, second year leap, better support. Cass, can he be one of the bright sort of rising stars in the NFL this season? I think that is in play with Drake May.

They also have the NFL's second easiest schedule when you look at projected win totals. That's working in their favor. They got crushed by turnovers last year. They got below average injury luck. Maybe some of those things swing in their favor this year. I'm not saying a great team, but can they be in that 9, 10 win range and compete for a playoffs by the AFC?

So it's tough again. By the time August rolls around, I'm going to be like, there's no way I'm picking them over some of these other teams. But this is what May is for. So I'm going to be hopeful there for you again. Very uncomfortable. First time I've been in this role on the Ringer NFL show, but I've got them sneaking into the playoffs. All right. Let's take a break. We come back. We're going to do the dolphins and then the Jets. All right. We're back on the Ringer NFL show. Miami Dolphins. They had the third best odds to win the division at plus 600 below the new. England Patriots, but their win total is above the Patriots. It's at eight and a half and they are plus 176 to make the playoffs. I'm going to start us off here with the offseason grade.

And I'm going to give them a D. I don't like what that. I'm looking at this backup quarterback situation and just like, what are you doing? You know, Tua has missed four plus games in all but one season. And your answer to that is Zach Wilson and Quinn yours. Like, you should have learned this lesson by now. So I don't like what they did there. I look at it personnel-wise, offensively, Tehran Armstead retires.

We'll see what happens with Tyreek Hill. I wasn't all impressed with the additions. Defensively, they lose Javan Holland, Emmanuel Akba, Kaleas Campbell. They draft Kenneth Grant in the first round to make the owner happy. I'm just looking at this on both sides of the ball. It feels to me like they got worse personnel-wise on both sides of the ball here. So I look at that. I look at the backup quarterback situation.

I look at the fact that you gave Jalen Ram, and Tyree Kill extensions before last season. And both guys have already made trade requests. Like, what are we talking about? It's great. You're not great in them for last season. If I do bad at one semester, I don't expect you to hold it against me.

Yeah. No, it always connected. But your GPA is cumulative, you know? Yes. The GPU is cumulative. Yeah. Giving the extensions wouldn't have been bad if you had a plan for giving them the extensions. Now we find out that you have two unhappy players and they both might be gone here.

So I'm giving them a D. for my off-season grade, Ruiz, am I being too harsh? No, I'm giving them a D-2. That's why I asked the beginning, are we doing this based on, like, process or results? Because, like, from a process standpoint, I do think it was like a take-ar medicine type of off-season, you know, by default just because of their salary cap situation.

They had to shed a lot of talent. It's been happening for a couple of years now just based on how the roster was built. But I think this is the team where I have the widest gap between my off-season grade and my expectations for the team. Like, I do agree with you. Look at the depth chart. It's like this team is worse off than last year.

It's hard. You can't delude yourself into saying that they're contenders here. Where I think going into the past couple seasons, you can be like, oh, the offense is what it's been in October and September. The defense, you know, it has talent. If it stays healthy, they could, you know, they could make some noise in the playoffs. I think this is the first year where you're like,

all right, best case scenario, they like sneak into the wild card. But I still trust this coaching staff. And I think I trusted even more after what I saw out of Anthony Weaver last year. where, first of all, they finished seventh in EPA allowed per play on defense. There's a wide gap between their EPA performance on defense and their DVOA, because I think DVOA is adjusted to opponent, and obviously EPA doesn't take that to account, so they beat up on some bad defenses.

But if you dive into the numbers, there are some very good signs that Weaver is kind of creating the same thing we saw in Baltimore where it's a tough defense to play against if you're a quarterback. They create a lot of unblocked pressures. They send a lot of six. them pressures at you. They can do different things. They can change up their defense week to week to attack what you do on offense. So I'm bullish on the defense, even if they do lose some talent, even if they lose Jalen Ramsey. And I trust Mike McDaniel. I know that, you know,

Deontes kind of losing trust in him. I don't know about you, Sheal. But I think if two was healthy, Tyreek stays around, which I think he is going to end up staying around. I think we could see this offense kind of bounce back from where it had been before last year, where everything went wrong with this team. Everything that could go wrong went wrong with his team. They still won eight games. I got to say, watching Deontes shake his head and disapproval with the cowboy

hat on is another nice element to this and another reason why you should be. Again, you can watch the videos on Spotify on your Spotify app or on the ringer NFL YouTube channel. All right, Deontay, why were you shaking your head? What do you got for their offseason as well? You know, I'm glad you guys gave them these. If I would have gone, I wish I had gone

first so I could have asked you this question. before I got your grades, but I think that I've kind of got it now. I don't know if you've worked in education, but to me, there are two types of educators. There are ones who believe in giving Fs and the ones who don't, and I think that says a lot about you as a person and your personality and how you handle evaluating people. To me, I don't believe in giving Fs. I try to fight giving Fs as often as possible. So I'm giving them a D, but I'm giving them the D with the note of, please say,

after class, and I'm sending the email home that we need to have a larger conversation. about what's going on with your performance. Because I just can't find, I can't figure out why any of the moves they made were the moves that they made. I don't know why you gave out those contract extensions. And I understand what Steven's saying about strictly in terms of the off season,

but you look at the trajectory of the franchise and everything has made more confusing based on the money they've paid, the picks they've made, and the trades that they have it. If you wanted to trade your highly priced veterans in Jalen Ramsey and Tyree Kill, That makes all the sense in the world. But you know what you don't do?

You don't give them four-year deals. There's no need to give a guy four-year deal and tie up your current cap. And it especially doesn't make sense when you look at the machinations of Tua's contract, which basically like after 2026, you can kind of cut ties if things don't work. If he can't stay healthy

and take your medicine and reset the franchise there, so I don't know why they extended guys past age 30 deeper than their quarterback's time, their quarterback's current timeline. So that was really confusing to me. I don't think that they did enough to address the defense, at least not in the way that I would have liked. I think Kenneth Grant will be a fine player.

I don't know if he papers over all the problems that they're going to have. I'm very concerned about this back seven, and I think when you get to predictions, we can have a deeper conversation about that. And I do like the staff. It's not that I think that Mike McDaniel can't call a good offense. It's not that I don't think that Anthony Weber is a ceiling razor as a defensive play caller.

I just look at this whole thing, and I look at how Chris Greer has handled this. this roster, this too deep, you look at the depth for a team that has a lot of guys with injury concerns, their edge rushers didn't get better and those guys are always missing time. Their quarterback is often missing time. And you think about the fact that like, a guy like Joe Milton, who I don't even know it's a real NFL quarterback, went for a six-round pick. Why couldn't you have gone and gotten that guy for a day three pick?

And at least you have a strong-arm player that might allow you to access some different things in this offense than you can with Tua, right? And a guy that I think because of his stature will probably be able to hang in the pocket and be able to get up, taking those hits, throw the wall in the middle of the field, if you're able to develop them in that way. This is a D, but this is spiritually to me in F, because I just don't know where this team is going,

and I have very little hopes for what 2025 is going to be, unless it's a perfect case scenario. I can't believe Ruiz didn't make the joke there that they couldn't acquire Joe Milton because that would have been too embarrassing for Tua during practices. Ruiz, are you okay? Are you feeling okay over there? No, because I was talking myself into, like, vouching for the Zach Wilson pickup.

And I couldn't bring myself to do it. I couldn't figure out the tape. But I will say this about Zach Wilson. I do think he could replicate what Tua does in terms of targeting over the middle of the field. I think when we saw Zach Wilson at his best, which is a very low bar, I might add, in New York. That's how the offense was operating. Like he was getting, he was running play action. He was getting the ball out quickly and he was hitting in breakers over the middle of the field.

I'm not saying he can do that as consistently as Tua. I don't think so. But I think he's a better option than they've had. past years. I think he's better than Tyler Huntley. I think he's better than who else had they played Skyler Thompson? Yeah, I don't know. I don't think I agree with that. I think he will perform like the worst quarterback in the NFL

if he's in there. Maybe I'll be wrong. Maybe I'll be wrong. That's how I feel about it. If he has to play and he most likely will have to play, which brings us to our next question, better or worse than last year. Ruiz did just make the, you know, it is a fairly compelling case about why they should be better. It's that they were eight and nine last year to have missed six games. And so, you know, if he misses three games or four games,

is that enough to make them better? So Ruiz, what do you think? It sounds like you have them better than last year, potentially? Yeah, I think they're better than last year. I think they have almost a Rams type season, a 2023 Ram season where, you know, they shed some talent in the off season, but their coaching staff makes up for it.

And they kind of elevate a younger roster compared to what they have had in the past. I think the offense bounces back. and I think Weaver shows and establishes himself as like one of the ceiling razors as a defensive coordinator in this league. So I'm to say like 10 wins. Deante, I'm sticking up for the Patriots. Ruiz is predicting the Tua lead dolphins.

I haven't said one thing about Tua. If anything I argued, I said Tick Wilson might be the kind that has to step up. I mean, it's amazing what can happen on a May show, you know, when you're just looking months in advance. That's what the off season gives you, right? Enough distance where you'll say things you'd never say during the regular. I need to see him make one stick throw under pressure. I'll take back everything I just said.

What do you got, Deontay? Better or worse than last year? They're worse, and it's because that run that they went on to close out the season is about as false, about as false a run as you can get. They beat the Rams, which was a quality one at the time, right? They beat them early in November. Then you have wins against the Raiders, the Patriots who are not ready to compete. I remember that Thanksgiving night game against the Packers.

they just got to remind everybody exactly why you can never take Miami seriously against contending teams. And then you go beat the Jets when their season is over. You beat the 49ers when their season is over and everybody's hurt. And then you beat the Browns when they're basically tanking trying to get as close to the number one pick as possible. And you lose to the Jets when they had little to play for and you needed that win to try to position yourself well as far as Tari Breakers went. So I don't have any hope for this team competing in 2025. I don't think that they're going to be a bottom five team in the league, but they're definitely not going to meet that eight and a half one total projection

because I just don't trust their durability. And even when their guys are available, I have not seen this team beat other good football teams in the league. All right. This is where the analytical part of my brain goes up against the heart wants with the heart wants part of my body. And the analytical part kind of leads towards Ruiz. You know, 8 and I, I know Deiate said it was fraudulent, but listen, they have a bottom 10 schedule this year.

They're 38 and 24 when Tua starts. That's even before McDaniel. They've been well over 500 when Tua has been their quarterback. They got crushed by injuries last year. One of the five teams most hurt by injuries when you look at adjusted games lost on FTN. They got killed by turnovers last year. They played six different offensive line combinations, played at least 50 snaps. You add all that up.

And you can really make the case that, yeah, not going to be a great team, but could they win nine or 10 games? Sure, I don't trust it. I'm fading them. I'm saying worse. I just don't trust the talent on the roster. I don't trust to her to stay healthy. I don't like the backup quarterback situation. And this feels to me like potentially a season that could go sideways in a hurry for them.

It just kind of been trending in that direction. They haven't hit a rock bottom. It's just been like, all right, you don't trust them. All right. they're under 500. I do wonder if this is the season where it kind of takes a bigger dive there. And so I don't like the dolphins as of now going into next season. All right.

Way too early prediction, Deonté. What do you got? I think that for me, I'm going to say that they end up having a bottom half pass offense because the offensive line is just not viable. I don't know if I trust Patrick Paul yet as a left tackle. I do appreciate the fact that they gave him a shot and didn't draft over him in 20, you know, in this offseason. and I do think that you pick a guy like that in the top 100.

Last year, I think you do need to give them a shot to earn the job. I just don't, I look at the interior, you think about the guys that have left over the years. Jonah Sabanea is a good player, an athlete, a guy who fits their scheme well, not the best pass protector to me. And this team is just, I always feel like when I'm watching Miami, it is a high wire act in the passing game,

where if it's not perfectly manicured, if you're not able to get Jalen Wattle on the move, If you're not getting the ball to a healthy, you know, fastest version possible of a Tyree kill, I just don't see it. I really struggle to see it. And I think that we witnessed a bit of that in the run game where they were really explosive in the 2020s season. You come back in 2024. It's not as effective, right?

You're not getting as many big pops in the run game. There's just a lot of questions up in the air for me. I think even if Anthony Weaver gives one of the best coaching jobs in the league, I just don't see them having their floor raised enough on either side of the ball to be competitive. Ruiz, what do you got? What's your way too early prediction? All right, I got two for you. I got a bonus one, which is Zach Wilson throws for 300 yards at one point, in a game at one point this season.

And the other one is Mike McDaniel, coach of the year. Wow. I love this. You're coming in hot with these. These are guys Mike McDaniel coach of the year. So Ruiz is bullish on this Dolphins team. I'm going the other direction. Tyreek Hill does not finish the 2025 season on the dolphin.

So maybe he starts there. Maybe he doesn't get moved this summer, but they start slow. Trade deadline comes around. If you're another team, you're like, I don't want to tie recal for a long time. But, you know, if we're talking about two months here when we're trying to win some games, get into the playoffs, win a championship, hey, maybe we'll sign up for that. So you're not signing up for the full tie re-kill experience, but maybe you sign up for two months of it. So I think his time in Miami is running out and he won't finish the season on the dolphins.

All right, there. That was fun. We've had, this is good. We've had very different opinion. I feel like on both the Patriots and the Dolphins. And now we finish with the New York Jets. They are plus 520 to make the playoffs, the third worst odds of any team in the NFL to make the playoffs.

Which that surprised me a little bit that they were all the way down there, but maybe it shouldn't have. They are plus 1,700 to win the division. So huge underdogs, way below the Miami Dolphins and the New England Patriots. And, of course, the bills are first. And they're over under for wins is five and a half. one of the lower totals in the entire NFL. Deante will start with you with their offseason.

They hire Aaron Glenn and a new staff. They replace Aaron Rogers with Justin Fields. They draft Armand Membu and tight end Mason Taylor. They lose Devante Adams. They signed Josh Reynolds. They lose cornerback DJ Reed. They signed cornerback Brandon Stevens. How do you feel about what they did this offseason?

I'm going to kind of steal from Stephen here and say, sure, for my grade, right? Like, I kind of had them right at sea, and a lot of this is like, Aaron Glenn is unproven as a head coach. I thought it was the right hire for the situation based on the pool of guys that they were interviewing at the time. And I do trust that as a personality type,

that he can step in and be what this organization needs. I think Darren Moogie will probably be decent. If you look at the way that he's been kind of tepid with spending in the offseason, not being, you know, not being over the top, not making any rash decisions. And I look at the depth chart, and again, you look at it on defense, you look at the offense outside of wide receiver, you know, where I do think they still lack a top guy on the outside. And there's, there should be enough here. And this was the same conversation we were having when Aaron Rogers was a quarterback. There should be enough here for this team to find something competitive, very similar to what Denver was in 2024. I'll give them a C now, but this is a very kind of contingent on Aaron Glenn as a game manager and then Justin Fields is a quarterback. that.

Ruiz? Yeah, I'm in the same spot. I'll give him a B-minus. I think the one thing I took issue with this off-season was the Justin Fields contract, not the swing on Justin Fields, but why was it so complicated? Why do we need four void years? I don't understand that. I guess they're basing it around, oh, he could become something.

But he's 26 at this point. I think he's who he's going to be for the most part as a quarterback, and I don't think you need to tie yourself to him where you're still giving him like $3 million cap hits in two years when he's on the team. I think that was a bizarre move for me, but I do like the restraint here. I like the coaching hires, but we don't know anything about these coaches. Like, Aaron Glenn has never been a head coach. I liked him as a defensive coordinator.

I don't know how it's going to work out. And the same is true for his offensive coordinator. But I'm looking at the depth chart, and you can talk yourself into this, especially if they're good in the trenches, which I think they have the talent to be something in the trenches, especially if a lot of these offensive line picks work out this year. and then you get a replication like maybe 80% of what Detroit's offense was those early years under Ben Johnson,

under Dan Campbell, you get a run game that's boosted by a quarterback you can definitely run. And then maybe Justin Fields takes that, you know, bad play avoidance that he showed off in Pittsburgh, combines it with the explosive playability we saw in Chicago and you get like, you know, a mix of those two.

Then I think you have an offense that can do something not like special. I don't think they're going to be a top 10 offense, but it's going to be anything. It's going to be better than what we've seen in New York with this team over the past couple of years. So I'm going to give them a B-minus. I'm still kind of low on them in terms of sealing with how much games they're going to win. But I do think they're going to be more competitive than they've been of the past couple of years.

Yeah, I went B-minus as well. I thought their draft mostly made sense there. So I didn't have an issue with that. I thought taking a swing on Aaron Glenn seemed like a fine process. You know, he did a good job last year with that decimated Lions. defense and then there's that. I always think of that NFLPA survey where, you know, players rate Aaron Glenn very highly, which, you know, just not being a jerk, I know it doesn't sound like much, but not just being someone who players don't hate, you are clearing a certain

bar in the NFL as a head coach. So it doesn't mean it's going to work, but can he give you some version of what Dan Campbell gave the Lions? Can he be that type of coach where he just feel like players like coming to work, players are playing hard, players understand their responsibilities, these young guys are developing that maybe you didn't know they were going to develop. It's not a given, but I think it's possible when you hire someone like Aaron Glenn. The reason I don't have them hire is I'm with you, Ruiz. I kind of, I don't know if the field signing happened at a time where there were just a hundred signings around the NFL.

And so it was like, yeah, we'll get to it. But like looking back on that was very aggressive to sign Justin Fields to two years, 40 million with 30 million guaranteed. Like I know when I was doing the free agency stuff, I thought, all right, he's going to get a Sam Darnoldish type contract, you know, where it's like, hey, can we get something out of this former first round pick? And that was one year, 10 million. I'm talking about Sam Darnal last year with the Vikings one year. Yeah, $10 million. And it certainly felt like Fields had more suitors than I anticipated. And the Jets were like, we don't want to mess around with this. Let's go out and

be a little bit of aggressive and get him. But I mean, listen, over the last three seasons, he ranks 34th out of 36 quarterbacks in success rate ahead of Bryce Young and Will Levis. Last year he was benched for Russell Wilson when the team was four and two. That's Mike Tomlin telling us something about who he thinks gives him the best chance to win. So I just, I don't know that there's this version of Justin Fields. Now maybe there is. I love his highs. You know, you could put together a reel of his top 25 players and be like, you got something

here. I love his scrambling ability and his running ability. And he didn't turn the ball over with the Steelers last year to your point, Ruiz, whereas there's some kind of mix of these two versions of Justin Fields. I need to see that to believe it. So I understand why they did that. They needed someone at quarterback, but I did think that was pretty aggressive. And the unknowns with that, the unknowns with the coaching staff, I couldn't give them higher than a B minus.

All right. Next one here. Better or worse than last year. I want to ask a question based off of what Ruiz just said because I think I had a similar thought to what he was hinting at there. if you just take two through 53 on this roster. So take starting quarterback out of it and say two through 53, Deontay, where do you put this roster? Is it among the best in the NFL?

Is it no? But it's above average? Is it average? Is it below average? Or does it stink? I know I'm putting you on the spot here. So you know, you can pull up a depth chart there and kind of whatever your gut tells you. But this was a thought, you know, I had that I'll get to in a minute here that I was thinking

about when we were doing this exercise. guys. It doesn't stink, right? Like I say it's an above average roster. That's what I said. It does have some clear holes, right? Wide receiver, clear hole. They still haven't necessarily landed, you know,

your A tier, first tier type of pass rusher, right? So there's still a lot of hope that the draft capital they've spent, you know, in the past, in the three drafts prior to 2025, lands them a guy that can produce, at least on like high leverage passing downs because they've missed that as well. They don't even have, you know, that designated pass-fresh guy who's a certainty to get to the quarterback more often than not. Obviously, they thought that Hassan Redick would be that when they brought them in last offseason and then you get all the fallout that comes with that contract situation. But you look at the depth chart, you look at the two deep outside of quarterback and it looks like it can be a playoff team.

You know, I look at them and I'll say, why can't they be what Denver was last year? Why can't they be what Pittsburgh was last year? A team that just off of competitiveness and if you can just get some confidence out of their quarterback, back play, that team can be in contention to at least be a 10-win team, an 8-to-10-win team. And if you're in that kind of fringe, six-seven seed mix, you can make the playoffs if you beat the right teams at the right times. And I think that the Jets can do that if I'm just looking at their roster. Is that fair, Ruiz?

What do you think? Are we being too generous? Because I looked at the same thing. The reason I asked the question, I looked at 2 through 53, and I said, this looks like an above-average NFL roster. I think the O-line has a chance. They've got a good wide receiver. who I like. They've got multiple running backs. They have a star defensive tackle. Their linebackers

are above average. Sauce Gardner, maybe not coming off of his best year, but I still think he's a bona fide number one corner in the NFL. So like Deontes said, there are holes. The offensive line, I might like it on paper, but it's not totally proven. The edge group is not great. But I thought overall, when I did this exercise, the roster was better than in my head I thought they were going to I mean, if you're looking at just two through 53, I think just like comparing them to last year's playoff teams, I would say they're kind of comparable to the bottom of that pack. Okay. If the Steelers, I think Steelers might have like more recognizable name, a little more star talent,

but I think on par, like these teams are pretty equal when you ignore the quarterback position. And even when you include the quarterback position, because the Steelers don't have a quarterback right now. But yeah, I think that they're built at the right spots for a team that I assume is going to approach this season, kind of like an underdog. when they go into games, they're not going to, you know,

trying to light it up and extend games. They could build around the trenches. If they have, if they're dominant in the trenches, they're just merely good, which I think is well within the range of outcomes based on their talent, on the depth chart.

And the coaching staff is what we believe the coaching staff will be and is, you know, similar to what we saw in Detroit. I think this is a team that could punch above its weight and win seven, eight games. So I think it's going to be better than last year.

I just don't think there's like a playoff ceiling for me, and that's because of the quarterback. Would you have Deonté better or worse than last year? I have better, and it's something, it goes back to what you said, Sheel. It's almost like to borrow from our bosses, the parlance, the Ewing theory, right? We're like, yes, the quarterback is worse. If you're going, you know, one quality, you know, if you're judging one quality to the next between Aaron Rogers and Justin Fields, I would say that Aaron Rogers is still a better quarterback in fields, but I think that having Rogers out of the building,

having Nate Hackett out of the building, having Todd Downing out of the building, I think Robert Salah, I think his voice kind of started wearing people out in the building as well. I think that this team will probably just be better by having fresh faces, a different approach to games. You're not going to be asking your quarterback to be a superhero.

And the best versions of this Jets roster, you know, prior to trying to acquire Aaron Rogers, was built to play that way as well. That's not saying that it's an optimal way to play. You'd like to have a quarterback good enough to where you can lean on them, especially in those high leverage situations. But I think that their approach to football,

again, I mentioned Denver. I think about the Chargers last year. I don't know why this team couldn't be similar in that respect, even if their quarterback is not as good. Yeah, I haven't better as well. I don't think they're a playoff team just because, like Ruiz, I don't believe in the quarterback. I kind of need to see it.

to believe it. But this defense was very good the previous two seasons. Then they fire Robert Salah. It all falls apart. They have injuries last year, but I think there are some talented players there. And I made the same comparison. I was just thinking of Justin Field situation in Pittsburgh last year versus his situation here. And I think it's comparable. I mean, I don't think it's really that much different. You know, I think the O line could be as good. I think the supporting cast could be as good. And so is there a version of, and they were four and two with fields last year. So is there a version of run the ball, play good defense, fun culture, Aaron Glenn's got everybody ready to run through a wall for him. Like you guys said, they're

underdogs. There's no, there's no expectations on this team this year. No one's going to pick them to even make the playoffs. So you're going into all these games just like, let's go. Let's see what we got here. I think that's a nice recipe potentially for a frisky like seven win team, maybe. You know, just maybe some surprise wins in there. Everyone's feeling good at the end of the season. Not a good team, but a team that can be a little bit better maybe than some of those preseason prognostications indicate. All right. We'll finish with way too early prediction for the New York Jets.

Ruiz, what do you got? Now that I'm looking up last year's numbers, this isn't as bold of a prediction as I thought it would be because the offense was better than the defense last year. But that's my prediction that this year's offense is going to be better than the defense. this year. And if they do win games and they overachieve, I think it's going to be because the offense is overachieving and not necessarily the defense. Wow, interesting. Okay. Deontay, what do you got?

So you started the show being higher on the Patriots and you're used to. Stephen was higher on the dolphins than I think he usually is. And I'm higher on the Jets than I've been over the last couple seasons. I think this team takes Pittsburgh's mantle as the ugliest 7C, the ugliest team to make the AFC playoffs. I think they absolutely get boat race by the two or three seed once they get there.

But I think this team is going to be one of those negative point differential, but they won close games, they blow out, they get blown out against the good teams, and they find a way to sneak into the playoffs on the back end. We need to keep track of our wild card picks. I think I had the dolphins. I think you have,

Sheel, you have the Patriots, now Deontes, Jets. This is Division I. We have three more in the NFC. By the end of this, we might have like 12 different wildcard teams. That's true. We need to call each other out. You can't.

your predictions cannot lead to a point where you have more than seven playoff teams in each conference. I like that. Will we be smart enough to track that? Probably not. I won't. I can commit to the fact that I will not. Listen, that's why we have an audience.

You know, you can comment on the pod. You can tweet at us, whatever. Hey, you screwed this up. Man, that would be such,

do you know the last time the Jets made the playoffs, Deontay, off the top of your head? Oof. That wasn't the Mark Sanchez years, was it? I think it was. with Mark Sanchez.

So, like, if you're a Jets fan listening to this, you don't care if it's negative point differential. Yeah, yeah, you don't care if it's ugly. You don't care if they get boat raised in the first round. If you get to sit down on Wild Card weekend and watch your team play in a playoff game, something you have not been able to do since the 2010 season. It's a great reminder that expectations for different teams and organizations are different. not everybody's playing to get to the Super Bowl.

So that would be quite the outcome for the Jets. I had for my way too early prediction that after the season, or maybe even at some point during the season, you're going to hear a lot of talk about how this is an attractive situation to bring a rookie quarterback until. That's going to be like the talking point that, hey, the team's not very good, but some of these younger players are performing,

and Aaron Glenn's got something going on, and maybe the OC shows us something. And hey, Garrett Nessmeyer, or whoever it is, whoever that quarterback is in the first round next year, come on down, you're going to come into a good situation, and maybe, just maybe, there's a light at the end of the tunnel for the New York check. So we'll see if that comes to fruition. All right, that was fun.

This is good. I feel like I'm getting, this is almost like you're getting ahead of your summer reading. I feel like these are exercises I would usually be doing in July, and now we're doing them in May getting a sense of these teams. And so that was the AFC East. We'll do a different division next week, and we will continue to do this weekly series through the next couple months here before we get through every division. All right.

Thank you to Deante Lee. Thanks to Stephen Ruiz. Thank you to Christopher Sutton for producing and Kiera Givens on social. I'm Shield Capadio. We will talk to you next time on the Ringer NFL show. Must be 21 plus and present in select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino, or 18 plus and present in D.C. Gambling problem.

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