The Ringer NFL Show - Scenario Predictions for Every AFC Team in 2026

Episode Date: July 14, 2026

Austin Gayle, Steven Ruiz, and Diante Lee shine a light on every division in the AFC conference and speculate on possible outcomes for each team in the upcoming 2026 NFL season.(00:00) Best-, worst-, and weirdest-case scenarios for every AFC team in 2026(02:08) AFC North predictions(24:07) AFC West predictions(51:14) AFC East predictions(01:04:59) AFC South predictionsThe Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit www.rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available.Host: Austin GayleGuests: Steven Ruiz and Diante LeeProducer: Chris SuttonVideo Editor: Stefano SanchezProduction Supervision: Conor Nevins and Arjuna Ramgopowell Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome into the ringer NFL show. It's not Sheila Capadia. My guy is still on vacation. Instead, you're stuck with me. It's Austin Gail. I'm going to have on the ringer's finest. Stephen Ruiz and Deonté Lee. We're going to look at the AFC teams.

Best case, worst case, and weirdest, most shocking case. We threw that in, just a little sprinkle. It's July. Hope you guys like it. I guess let's get to it. If you want a $3,000 a month payday for life, what would you feel free to do? Maybe take a long weekend, every weekend,

or try a bunch of new hobbies. Would you feel free to upgrade and listen, ad free? Don't worry, we get it. Every $20 ticket could win you $3,000 a month for life and supports life-saving cancer research at the Princess Margaret. Feel free to buy your payday for life ticket today. Raffle number 155-2194. Please play responsibly.

The Hulu original series Furious is coming to Disney Plus. Starring Emmy Rossum, Furious follows FBI agent Alice Black on the hunt for a mysterious and calculating serial killer. both walk their own paths toward justice, and as their lives start to intertwine, the line between right and wrong begins to blur. Don't miss the three-episode premiere of the Hulu original series Furious on July 27th, only on Hulu on Disney Plus. Welcome into the Ringer, Austin Gale here with my best friends. My best friends at the Ringer, my summer best friends. It's Stephen Ruiz and Deonté Lee.

Stephen, I'll start with you. You're rocking baseball stuff. You're just stacking days in the summer, right? Just trying to get back to football season. I'm always stacking days. We were talking before the pod. Like, that's the go-to saying for a bad coach. If we ever hear Deonte saying it, we know his school is cooked.

Yeah, yeah. He's telling the defense, we're just stacking days right now. It's like, okay, we need you, buddy. We need you more than that. What are you doing right now, Deontze? Is it like summer install? Like, how deeps the playbook? Talk to me.

I mean, we're pretty close to having just about everything installed. You know, this is really more getting shape season, right? So, like, all throughout the spring, they get to have fun. We're doing all the speed training, all the agility work or in there moving weight around. This is probably the six-week period, well, they'll like me the least, right?

Like, I will say for me as a coach, my biggest thing is like, I don't lie to them. If today's going to suck, I'm coming out the gate saying, you're not going to like this today, okay? It just is what it is, man. I don't run from that, and I think the players kind of appreciate that. I can see you going to Mike's singletary route and building a hill.

Building a hill and being like, yeah, we're going to run up this hill every day. I could see that. I can see that being one of your tricks to get these guys in shape. I mean, you live in San Diego like I do, man. If the construction costs weren't as crazy as they were, we might actually have one already.

We could do best case, worst case scenario for your team, Deontz, but I don't think we will. Not today. We don't have time. We were going to do all 32 teams today, but just for the AFC, producers have asked us to put together the best case, worst case, and weirdest case.

I'll handle weirdest case. Let's start with the AFC North. I want to start with the AFC North. And we're going to start with the Cincinnati Bengals. we can start weird case if we want. I don't have a deep one here. I think I'm interested in best case first, Deontay. Because I think is it obvious?

Is it Super Bowl? Is it with Zach Taylor? I'm interested in what your best case is. Are they a legit Super Bowl contender to you? Okay, so I try to approach this honestly, right? Like, I think that there's probably two-thirds of the league maybe has a genuine case of saying that they can make the playoffs, maybe half the league and feel like they can win a playoff game.

And I think there's probably only like six to eight teams that I think should genuinely feel like, conference championship or better is in our horizon. I don't view Cincinnati in that light, right? And it's not a slight to them. I just think that it's an uphill climb just given where the AFC is at, right? You try to chart out where you project each team to be in terms of the playoff picture. And like they're in that cluster with, you know, with Kansas City, with teams like Indianapolis,

with some of these teams who are maybe just trying to fall backwards into the six or seven seed and just give themselves a shot. So for me, best case for them is that Dexter Lawrence is a transcendent force for this defense. it brings them or gets them trending closer to being a serious football team, and he gets to serve as a pivot point for what would hopefully be, I think, a stronger 2027 than I think would be in 2026. I think right now you're probably talking about them still in that 9 and 8, 10, and 7 range. Maybe you can scrape in and hope to be competitive against the 2 or 3 seed in the AFC. See, that's my worst case scenario, is that they kind of get back to that 2022 form

where they're obviously a competitive team and they can make a run in the playoffs, but they're not that team that, like, from start to finish in the regular season is dominating. Like, there are stretches where, like, oh, the Bengals are going to make the playoffs? Like, that's where they were before the injuries kind of took a toll at the last couple of years.

But I think if that happens again, then you're signing on for another year of Zach Taylor because you're not firing him after a playoff run, even if it's a short playoff run. And then that means 2027, you have Zach Taylor, you're running back, and I don't know how you guys feel about Zach Taylor, but I think he is a ceiling,

he lowers the ceiling for this team. I think they have to move on from him to finally get to that Super Bowl aspirations they've had for the last couple of years. And after 2027, there's kind of like, it's a turning point for this franchise because T. Higgins needs a new deal. Dexter Lawrence will need a new deal. Orlando Barron Jr. will need a new deal. And then I think Burrow and Jamar Chase will be looking to get paid again.

I could see this team looking very different in 2028. And if you waste these next two years on Zach Taylor, I think you kind of wasted this. this window you've had since 2021. It's frustrating that the like, what feels like maybe most likely case is that like maybe this defense is better than last year, but still not insane.

And like you're saying, Deonté like scrape into the playoffs or whatever, that ends up being kind of like their worst case because you're right. And that, you know, they end up, you know, probably committing again to Zach Taylor.

Now, do you think Ruiz, Deontze, Deonté, go back to you, do you think Zach Taylor is the biggest reason, like, if this offense finishes like outside the top half of the NFL and like

explosive plays, success rate, EPA, is that going to be, if Burroughs healthy and everyone's healthy, is that like, are you like crowning, would they finally get rid of Zach Taylor? Because I feel like even average and smart, like every game watching NFL fans think they should have fired Zach Taylor a long time ago.

Like, why is he still there? It is because you can kind of just blink or get out of bed and wipe the, you know, the, the mucus off your nose and out your eyes. And they're going to be a top five, top eight offense, you know, kind of sight unseen, right? I think that we've seen that anytime to Joe Burrow is healthy. I think if you are Zach Taylor, the one thing that you have to be very mindful of is at the moment that that stops being the case to your guys' point, he immediately goes on the hot seat, right? Like, you can explain to the way the defensive struggles because of just where the roster is standing.

And I think that that for me is probably why I'm more lukewarm on them is even after the Dexter Lawrence deal and adding a guy like Brian Cook, who I do think will genuinely help some of the issues they were having up to spine to that defense, right? The combination of he and Lawrence, you still look at their linebacker situation. And you have to be honest at asking yourself, what the leap from one year to the same, to the next if you were watching that team on tape because there were just so many games where they were just cats chasing lasers, right? Not picking up motions, not understanding where the run fakes are going and where routes are coming from behind them. I don't know if that gets fixed in one year's time. And I think that you're relying really on some of the hardest things to replicate

from one year to the next. And that's, you know, corners like Dax Hill and DJ Turner being stickier in coverage than I think we might have expected coming into 2025 and expecting that to happen again. I think that what we've seen over the last half decade is that these corners who are not in the true upper crust tier one, right? You know, quadrant one types in terms of coverage and not giving up big plays and being able to produce at the ball. It's just not sticky on a year-to-year basis. I don't know if I trust that Hill and Turner are going to be those guys. If they are, then obviously it changes this team's ceiling. But I think if you're asking me right now, this is still going to be, you know, maybe the fourth or fifth best offense in the league at worst.

you're probably still looking at like 20th or 21st and like DVOA or most efficiency metrics on defense. And that to me just absolutely spells out what Cincinnati has been over the last three to four seasons, which is a team that's going to look really bad in some spurts. Their offense is going to carry them across the finish line, and you're going to be a wild card adjacent team. I don't know if their ceiling is much higher than that. I feel like you're right to point out there. They're bringing back the same corners.

It's the two rookie linebackers two from last year now going to sophomore seasons, Barry Carter, Demetrius Knight. And I just don't really even trust the edge group like Miles Murphy, Boye-Mafé, the new guy they brought in from Texas A&M, second rounder, cash is how. I don't know how much better this defense is going to get. And even if their offense does have this kind of high floor, it feels like it's just going to end up being kind of the same season they've had. Either Burroughs healthy and they flame out in the playoffs or Burrow isn't healthy and they kind of panic down. But we've got to go to two other teams here. My weird case was that they trade Joe Burrow this season or they fire Zach Taylor before week nine, which I think would be weird case in a very good way. Let's go to the Ravens. Very similarly, I had weird case, trade Lamar Jackson. The defense is going to get better. Let me run this through. Are you just trading every quarterback? No, no, no.

The NFC North, I feel like Burrow and Lamar are in interesting cases, both like at 30 or later. You even mentioned with the Bengals, like, potentially in 2027, 2028, this team's looking a lot different. Are they hitting like hard reset? Burroughs like scared to turn 30. Lamar, you know, if they don't figure it out with Lamar, let's say the defense gets better, right?

Staying with the Ravens. It's probably going to, right? A lot of people are excited by, Jesse Minter coming over and I think that defense I think should get better offensively though the offensive line should be better I think they added a lot of like

what they needed on the interior but if it doesn't get better right and this Declan O'Doyle experiment doesn't work out and he can't figure out the Lamar thing or let's say just by chance Lamar isn't healthy and they're not like he's not 100% in all these games

are the Ravens I know it's like crazy to say they're going to trade Lamar Jackson in the same way it's crazy to say the Bengals trade Joe Burrow but like I think they could come out of this season more confident in Minter and the defense than they are in at least this Declan O'Doyle Lamar thing. Now, the more likely scenarios that Lamar is pretty good,

and Declanodal is okay, and maybe they move on from him down the road, and it's Lamar's still the future. But I don't know. I think it's going to be an interesting season with, I think, high expectations for both sides of the ball. I mean, their favorite win this division, they should win this one.

Yeah, that leads to my worst-case scenario. My worst-case scenario is the Ravens go into the season with Zayflowers, Rashad, Baitman, Mark Andrews, as Lamar's top three passing out. Oh, wait, that is what's happening again. Yeah, yeah. I'm with you. Like, I think the trenches.

and really need to be improved on both sides of ball, which means Olava Vangadis to hit the ground running, and then Matapuque has got to come back healthy from an injury that I think some people were worried was career-threatening last year. And those are big question marks, and if those question marks go the wrong way, I think the Ravens could be having a similar season to last year or the season before that.

I think you guys are right, and I think that we sequenced this properly, right? Because the best-case scenario for Baltimore is very straightforward, which is that Jesse Mentor does for this defense exactly what he did in Los Angeles. their top five unit, which I think if you were to expect that no Lamar Jackson offense when he's healthy can be bad, right, and that the worst version of it is what we saw last year when he was clearly not right, even after he came back, that still probably wins this division and gets you an

opportunity to maybe make a run towards a conference championship game, right? Like, I don't know if any team in the AFC should feel like they have enough distance between them and the next best team to feel like they're safe. And a team like Baltimore, I think, can thrive in that environment, right? I think that one of the things that will be interesting comes back to what you were talking about, Austin. And I think that that's stuff that looks past the 2026 season, right? When you have to start making conversations about what the next contract for Lamar Jackson looks like. I think this team has also lost a lot of its depth over the last two to three seasons.

And you look at their two deep. And this is a team that I don't think can really afford to suffer many injuries anywhere, right? It's not just a quarterback thing. It's not just a non-beamata BK thing. There are a lot of guys with questions, young players who have not developed the way that you might have hoped. and I think offensive depth that is just kind of fall into the wayside. Some of that is because they have had good players that have gone on to play elsewhere, right, because there's more opportunity.

And it's not necessarily a slight against them because they're number ones outside of the receiver position are about what you want them to be across the board, right? But I do think that there's a very narrow margin for error for this team, and this happens to be in a season where expectations are about as high as it could be because you have Lamar's contract coming to its end, and because you are bringing in a coach that is supposed to be everything that they couldn't get out of John Harbaugh at the end of his tenure in Baltimore. Yeah, there's more margin of error

on the defense side of the ball because of Minter. I think there's less margin of error on the offensive side of the ball because if Lamar Jackson's even 90%, it changes the entire offense, right? If he's 80% if he misses games, you hope they have a completely brand new interior. Left guard, it's the first round pick

that the Raiders should have had when they traded away Max Crosby. It's Van Giuwana. He's going to start for them at guard. You have Pinser now at center and they brought in John Simpson and brought him back at right guard. So the interior should be better.

The receiving weapons, Like you ask fans, football community, you ask NFL fans, like it just doesn't feel like it's enough. Though people like say flowers,

they don't love him, it doesn't feel like they have a true number one. And then you're kind of relying on Derek Henry just still avoiding this age curve, which I think, you know, all the math shows that the longer, you know,

you can't really predict when it's going to happen. It's just when it happens, it looks really bad. But until it happens, he could still be kind of rolling for 1,800, 1,800 plus yards in like 10 TD. So I do think offensively,

that's why like this weird case, it's like, could they like galaxy brain at the end of this season that their real problem is Lamar Jackson and that this defense is thumping, say it's like second in the league by most metrics and it like explodes under Minter and they feel like their real problems are

Lamar can't stay healthy and they have to build the offense around him. I don't know. Like is that I think Burrow and Lamar, I'm not trying to just like be crazy. Like I do think like both of them are interesting, interesting parts of their career. The Ravens legitimately just like fired Harbaugh

and they need to find a new dice roll with Lamar and with Burrow, the Bengals think it's going to work with Zach Taylor, but they don't know. Those two quarterback specifically, they have higher expectations. than what they've delivered. It's not even like a galaxy brain thing, though, with the Ravens.

Like, we've seen them kind of tiptoe into the Lamar Jackson negotiations a couple years ago. So I think if they have any reason to raise a red flag, they're going to do it. I guess he's a two-time MVP. So, like, saying, like, you'll trade him, I guess it's crazy. But like, they did that when he was a one-time MVP. They were like, I don't know. I don't know. And much younger.

And then the entire league colluded to not offer anything for him. What was that? Anyway, the Browns, speaking. Do we need to really get into this? I put my weird case was Deshaun Watson comeback player of the year, only ahead of Shadur Sanders comeback player of the year.

Are the rounds going to be even exciting to root for at all? Deontes, start with you. What is actually the best case? I'm sure it's not wins. It can't be playoffs. There has to be some other best case for them. You know, it's funny.

This team, when I think about Cleveland, sometimes I think that the best case is a worst case. I would much rather take the angle that Deshawn Watson, or Shedor, Sanders, whoever ends up winning this job is so bad that it totally ensures the fact that they get the first overall pick in next year's draft, and then they have all the control they need to go out and get the quarterback that they actually want for the future, right? Like, I don't even want to waste time trying to lay out some aspirational case of how this team can be watchable or enjoyable, right?

Like, there's no Miles Garrett anymore. I think Jared versus will be fine. They're actually like their front seven a lot. Exactly. Like bad defense, not even, no, Devin Bush. Like, you're not, like, you're just not even going to think the same. Like, it's going to be, the locker room is wildly different. I mean, quite literally, right after Jeremiah Ousukoramo started to look like a good linebacker, he suffers an injury that effectively puts his career in jeopardy, right?

We really haven't heard any progress that he'll be back, you know, up to this point. So I think that for me, it's really just a matter of, let's play out the string in 2026. Let's hope that we're in the top two, you know, in the draft for next year. And we have some control over getting one of Donseymour, Archmanning, or whatever quarterback, breaks out if it's not one of those two come by next spring. Honestly, I have nothing to add. I said if this season doesn't end

with them on the clock, it's a bust. And honestly, I don't even know if that's true. We've never really seen the Browns pick at the top of the draft where we know they're going quarterback. So that would be fascinating to watch. And I would love to see how the front office and Jimmy Haslam handles that. Because last time he drafted a quarterback in the first round,

I guess it was Baker Mayfield, but the time before that, he got advice from a homeless man. So anything's on the table. The true worst case, though, is that they like finish middle of the pack, right? Like they win like seven games somehow, and Watson kind of looks good for moments, and Shadur maybe looks good for moments,

and then they are on the outside looking in at one of the top guys, right? Like, that's the true worst case. I would argue if it was Shadour that you could actually kind of be okay with that, right? Like, because there's still no tie to have to play him very long, but if he gives you enough to where, hey, we can ride with this guy maybe as a fringe, you know, average starter-ish guy.

I think you can live with that. Well, it's not ideal. You'd really want to get a young guy on a rookie scale, contract that will give you some hope that you could be a playoff team again. The actual worst case scenario is that Deshawn Watson looks like a good quarterback because then it opens up a conversation of do we, are we actually going to cut this guy this offseason, right? Like, and that I think is the worst place.

God, I hope they don't end up there. I really don't. I really don't. We were talking joking off like like, like, uh, how good he'd have to play for people to actually vote for him for comeback player of the year. I think it would legit have to be like MVP levels. I don't, I think he'd have to be like undeniably a top six guy for, for, for people to actually put boats down.

Like, I would be shocked if, like, even if he's like average, people aren't going to be like, oh, yeah, let's give it to him. He's gone somewhere. No, no, no, no, no. He has to be undeniable. That would be awful for us. Because that means that we would have to talk about the John Watson or regular basis. And you get like, six and two at the front, halfway to the seat.

Like, come on, like, that would be insane. And you get the people that would be like, oh, the media has an agenda against them. They don't want to vote for him. And then you have to kind of put, and then you ask them, why? Why do they have that agenda? And then it just gets weird from there. Okay. Steelers are last up in this division.

head to the AFC West. I have questions on the Steelers. I have some some weird case ideas as well. But table set us here, Deonte, with the best case for the Aaron Rogers, Mike McCarthy reunion in the first year of the post-Tomlin era. I feel like we're underrating how much attention is going to be on this season for Pittsburgh, I think. Like, hasn't had a winning season. All this stuff is like kind of crescendoing into something that good or bad, I think is going to be spectacular. It's funny. There's a lot of irony in this. I think the best case scenario is, something that Mike Tomlin was great at throughout his tenure, which is that he plays perfect AFC spoiler, right?

They're able to go out and you sweep Baltimore, you find a way into the playoffs, you end up playing against, you know, I don't know, maybe it's a Denver or a Houston or Buffalo, some team that we think should have a shot at winning a Super Bowl, and it just grind the game in an absolute dust to win a playoff game and they get their doors blown off in the division around or whatever, totally wasting a playoff spot, right?

Like I think that that's kind of the best case in error for this team, which I think is unfortunate because there's a lot of things about this roster that I'm actually really intrigued about. I'm fascinated by their wide receiver room. I actually think that in terms of player type and fit with the scheme, I actually think a combination of D.K. Metcalf, Michael Pittman and Jeremy Bernard, would actually be really interesting into Mike McCarthy offense, right? It's unfortunate that they have to deal with zombie Aaron Rogers as their quarterback,

but if you were telling me that, you know, mid-2010s Aaron Rogers was working with this wide receiver core, I would like, oh, man, you could just book the trip now to the AFC title game. He is going to win another MVP with this unit. And I think that their combination of tight ends as well would all be perfect fits for younger Aaron Rogers. I just think that this team, this roster construction is about eight years too late in the Rogers experience, unfortunately. That's what kind of worries me, though,

is that we get like a rewind of like the late stage McCarthy-era Packers where we're in 11 personnel, three receivers on the field. Yeah, triple slants, spread shotgun formations. and you don't utilize what could be a diverse personnel type of offense where you're getting something out of the run game, you're getting something out of the play action game. And like the moves and the offseason kind of speak to that because you do have three receivers that you can play now

in Bernard and Pittman adding to Metcalf. So I'm worried that we're just going to see that style of offense and it's going to be bad or it's going to be mediocre at best. And then the defense, I think with Patrick Graham coming along, is going to be fine to good, which has been for the past couple of years. And we just get another Mike. Tomlin season, but instead of Mike Tomlin, it's Mike McCarthy. That sounds like worst case. I feel like if I'm a Steelers fan, that's my worst case.

That's my worst case. If I'm a Steelers fan, the last season I want is a Tomlin-ish season without Tomlin. Like I don't, I don't want that. You want a bottom out, right? Yeah, yeah. I like their receiving core a lot. And I think it would be sad, but obviously realistic if Mike McCarthy of all this time, like watching the NFL, I remember when he said he watched every play of the Cowboys, whatever, but like he's not realizing that you need to get under center. You need to run more two plus tight-end personnel sets. Like, you need to try other stuff. Like, that's where the league is going.

You got to run the football from under center. You need play action from under center. And, like, you got to try stuff outside of 11 personnel. Like, I feel like we felt that a lot last year, the draft and, like, free agency kind of reflected that people do want more tight ends on the field. If McCarthy's like, no, I'm still playing my tricks. This is going to not be a Tom and Ness season. I feel like they probably win like four to six games.

Right. Like, I feel like he has to, I think, adapt the offense to where the entire league and like, specifically like where the league is countering defenses, right? linebackers have gotten smaller, defensive tackles have gotten smaller. And so now they're saying, okay, you want to come out here with like two linebackers and four defensive linemen. We got big dogs up front. We're just going to run down your throat.

Like that counteraction is happening. I think this kind of comes back to the irony I was speaking to, right? Like you look at what this team is between the tackles and it is like perfectly built to embrace where I think the league is going. They have good athletes on their offensive line. They can move bodies. You have multiple tight ends that will be a perfect fit and being able to use different personnel groupings to get underst.

center and really kind of lean on a downhill or an outside zone type of rushing attack. The issue, though, is that we're talking about Aaron Rogers and Mike McCarthy. And I can't imagine two people in charge of the offense who could be less interested in where the league seems to be headed. True, true. So I do think that, like, the stills in nature of this roster also just speaks to how Pittsburgh has just been kind of hanging around in this space for the last decade, right? Basically, since 2017, this team has just been totally unwilling to let go up what is

clearly not happening, which is Super Bowl contention. as it's currently constructed, and they've tried to turn this roster over. And I think that honestly, they've done what I think Minnesota tried to promise at the beginning of the Kevin O'Connell era, which is like this competitive roster pivot. They've actually done that really well. And I think that what we've come away with after watching this team for the last decade, I would say specifically over the last two to three seasons, is that that's just not that interesting to watch.

This is just not a very interesting offense to watch. And I think that best case scenario probably is an uninteresting offense that is quick passing game, not a lot of downhill runs. You don't get many explosives. And then a defense that I think is actually perfectly fit and perfectly tailored for what Patrick Graham wants to do schematically. And they're just sitting on teams on one end of the ball and then sitting on the ball when they have it, right?

And that is very Tauminous. That is very Pittsburgh in the last decade and something that while I may not want to watch, I think can get you 9 to 10 wins and help you kind of, you know, again, another team that can kind of backdoor their way and to get in the 7th seed in the AFC picture. And the part that Austin left out about Mike McCarthy

watching all those plays was like two months later he admitted that he lied. He was lying. That was arguably like the most creative and deceptive thing he's done as a coach for the past decade. Like I want to believe that part of part of he really wants to believe that while Austin and I were working at PFF grinding film that he was just like remote watching viewing through us and then just drifted you know drafting off of our takes from that time. I forgot he was your guy's boy. He was a PFF darling back then. You guys are responsible for this. McCarthy, of course, they're responsible. He said he watched all the plays, right? I mean, he had to have. He had ultimate.

Let me read you my weird case, my shocking case. The Steelers have a drama-free 2026. They win 11 games for the first time since... Yeah, yeah, it feels impossible. They win 11 games for the first time since 2020. They win a playoff game. Convince Mike McCarthy and Aaron Rogers to run it back one more time. And I think that part of...

Obviously, most shocking, drama-free would be insane, 11 games, all that stuff. like I'm kind of buying that this offensive line is good. I'm buying that they have two tight ends that they can play that are good. I like their three receivers. I think that you're right. You're dealing with zombie Rogers, but you're dealing with familiarity in McCarthy. And then defensively,

they dealt with a lot of injuries last year. And as a Raiders fan, I love Madman, Pat Graham coming over here. And I think last year, according like pretty much every metric that matter, that was the worst defense Tomlin has ever fielded. Like, legitimately like the worst defense. It can't really get much worse.

So the defense is going to get better. If Deontay and I are kind of right with Pat Graham, And these guys just stay a little bit more healthy than they were last year. And then offensively, it's hard to imagine the Rogers relationship maybe not being a lot worse than it was last year. So I don't know. Like a part of me is like if you had to bet, does this team win six games or 10 games next year? I'm leaning closer to 10. I think 10 is 10 where I'd lean.

Yeah. I think it's another eight, nine win, 10 win season, man. I think it's more the same, which is very funny. Okay. Let's take a break and then we'll get to the AFC West. All right. We're going to start with my Raiders. this is what honestly got us to do best case, worst case, weird case,

because I sent this in the Slack and then Arjuna said, okay, I guess we could do that. I said weirdest case, Fernando Mendoza starts week one or earlier than Tom Brady wants, and a rift is created between Kubiak, Mendoza, Brady, and SpyTech. Because the big thing about with this whole thing is Brady said, you should not play rookie quarterbacks right out of the gate, right? He did like this whole TED talk about it, right?

He did like where you can't do this, you shouldn't do this. I would be shocked if Fernando Mendoza starting week one. I'd be shocked if he's starting before Tom Brady has given the seal approval that he's ready to start. I think the other weirdest thing that could happen is that, you know, Fernando Mendoza starts after the buy, which is like week 12, he plays those last five games, helps them get in the playoffs and we win a playoff game and some things could happen, right? Like, I think there's, help me out, Deaunze. Is there a best case where the Raiders win a playoff game in 2026?

I think the best case is also a weird case. And it's that like Kurt Cousins is still the player that we saw for like the first half of the season in Atlanta. and like there's actually a functional quarterback still somewhere in there, right? And this team is competitive, maybe not winning games, but competitive enough. And then you do kind of have that weird conversation of like, well, if Kirk Cousness is playing this way, when actually is the right time to hand the keys over to Fernando Mendoza, like are we actually going to get through an entire season where a number one overall pick does not, you know, log a meaningful slap in his rookie season.

That to me, I think would be a really fascinating case. And I think that you can make an argument that that's a best case scenario. I think the other thing to me that I might lay out. for them as a potential best case scenario is that Max Crosby is genuinely motivated. He is healthy. He's back. He gives you this 20-sac season. And that ends up being the catalyst for this team.

Like you said, maybe sneaking its way into the playoff picture. And that also kind of, I think, extends the window of time where you don't have to worry about whether or not Fernando Mendoza is a franchise changing talent. Because you've got, you know, a veteran quarterback. You have enough on your defense after all this money you spent to bring in the Kobe D. and Quay Walker, Quitty pay. all these people who were supposed to be here to help, you know, replicate, you know, some of the production and decent defense that you would have had

without Max Crosby before the trade got rescinded, that all those pieces end up fitting together perfectly and you end up having a good enough defense and enough kind of moxie from Kirk Cousins at this age for you to be able to hang around and I think maybe be like a 6 and 11, 7 and 10 type of team. How would you feel about getting excited about Kirk Cousins as a Raiders fan, Austin? I would ideally, I've said this multiple times now. Ideally, he's starting through the buy. The buy is week 13.

The Raiders get five games after the buy. Two of them are against the Cardinals and the Titans. The other three are division rivals. The first three out of the buy are home games. You give Fernando two really shitty teams, Cardinals, Titans, and all three division rivals, two of those at home. I feel like that's like the right. And it doesn't really matter.

If the season's lost by then, you're like four and ten, whatever you end up being, like I feel like getting Fernando that time experience against all three rivals, three home games out of the buy would be great. That would be like the best. case. But if it's more like what Deante is saying, and it's like that Alex Smith season with Patrick Rahms, where like Patrick for Holmes only plays one game because Alex Smith, like they're going to the playoffs because of Alex Smith. I don't think that's happening.

That would be really, really best case with Kurt Cousins and the Raiders, especially because I think we're kind of like, yes, the offensive line's going to get better because Pete Carroll's son isn't like actively hurting them and like taking them down. But like it's still like not a great group and it's pretty dependent on Colton Miller staying healthy and some of these other pieces. I think there's concerns about the receiving court. that are very fair. Like, I don't think it's, like, Kirk plays well.

It's not even a guarantee that they're a six-win, seven-win-win team, right? Like, there's still, I think, a lot of holes offensively. The cornerbacks, like, they're still problems. But, you know, I am bullish on Cubiak, and I'm bullish on Fernando. And the fact that these guys might be calling plays slash quarterbacking together for the next two to three,

three to four years, ideally. That's a scenario we, like, legitimately haven't had, even if you go back to the Jamarcus Russell days, when they drafted him first of all, Lane Kiffin was fired four games into his next season. Like that's not going to happen with Kubiak, right? Like there's just objectively a better system at the important positions. Owner, which is pretty much just Brady at this point,

coach with Kubiak and now obviously Fernando coming in. If Kirk wins nine games, you have to buy Kirk Cousin's jersey. Deal. Oh my God. An authentic one. Not one of those like crappy fanatics one. That's a guarantee. I'm not going to buy a fake jersey, of course.

Absolutely. It'll look good right next to my Fernando Mendoza jersey. All right, let's get, you want to get to the Chiefs? Let's do Chiefs. We just skipped over worst case scenario. Oh, did we? Wait, wait. Well, it's kind of obvious the worst case scenario. So I didn't take this one seriously.

They play as shittily as they've been the last 20 years. The last 20 years. But Mendoza gets Josh Rosen, gets traded to Miami, is out of football in three years, and ends up launching a run for public office on some problematic viewpoints. And we all have to pretend, like we never liked them in the first place. That's not happening.

Let's be careful here. That's worst case and some ridiculous stuff that you're bringing it. That's not happening. Okay, I'm upset. Fernando's not going to be Rosen. How old were you the last time you watched them win a playoff game? I was, uh, so 2007. Okay, so this is very much in the realm of possibility. I see that, but I don't want to see Rosen.

The fact that we're bringing Rosen into the mix of Fernando this really is not, it's not fair to me. It's not fair. Other things I wrote down that I don't think will happen. Max Crosby traded at the deadline to the Ravens again for two first round picks. And then, um, I said, a healthy Brock Bowers. gets less than 140 targets. Like, is there like a world, is there a world where Brock isn't,

you know, everyone's been saying like the JSN of Kubeiak's offense, but I don't think it's like the same production, same usage, or whatever, but like I think he's going to be the focal point of the offense. He was going to be for Chip Kelly until he got hurt in that first game. Like I think if Brock is healthy, I would be surprised if he doesn't have 140, 150 targets.

It's going to be, yeah, that would be the most depressing outcome if Brock is healthy and is bad or not productive. And then you're like seeing like memes on Sunday where he's got like Shane Gillis. He's got like Shane Gilli. like photoshopped on his head. You know what I? That's happening. That's happening.

All right, let's get to the Chiefs. And let's start with Worst case. So we don't forget it at the end. What is, you know, it felt like last year was like a year from hell. I remember writing after week one, are the Chiefs cook, a blog for the ringer.com, ended up being right. But like, I think this year expectations have to be higher.

And they honestly, I feel like there has to be this like level. It's something the Chiefs haven't dealt with before going into the season. We're like, they aren't like this like crown jewel. They do have to kind of prove themselves again. What is the realistic worst case for them in 2026, Stephen? What I have is that Patrick Mahomes gives into his competitive nature and rushes back, plays the opener, which I think is happening. I think the schedule makers know something because they scheduled them for the Monday night

opener against the Broncos. And you're not scheduling a Justin Fields opener, you know? I don't want to watch Justin Fields Bo Nix. That would be rough. That would be rough. That would be rough. I'm kind of getting like the RG3, 2013 vibes. remember they were on Monday night football against the Eagles

after his ACL tear and the vibes were just never the same again. And I don't want to see Patrick Mahom struggling through another year, which I think is going to happen, especially if he's hobbled because the depth chart still looks mostly the same. Maybe Kenneth Walker rejuvenates the run game, but if that doesn't happen, he's going to be carrying a lot of weight. And even if he is healthy, if I'm the cheese, I'm holding him out until after the week five by,

they get the Broncos, just give that game away. But after that, you get the Colts. you get the dolphins, you get the Raiders, no offense, Austin. But I think you can come out of that two and two, and then out of the buy, you get a gauntlet. You get the chargers, you get the Seahawks, and you get the Broncos. I'd rather have 100% Patrick Mahomes for that

than him trying to prove that he's healthy those first couple weeks. Especially as a scrambler. I mean, you need, so much of what we've seen on like third downs, money downs, where he's getting like so much of his, like, it goes from like a sack. So the EPA would have been like negative 10 to like a positive because he gets a first down. Like that's where he's not going to get the,

those plays that have mattered so much to him being successful, specifically winning games, if he's not 100% healthy. And I think rushing him back, like, you saw, like, even with a fully healthy Patrick Mahomes last year and a very close to the same receiving core and offensive line as last year, and the same head coaches last year, you can start slow. So why force it, like you're saying, rush him out? What's your read, Deonti, you think he's starting week one? I kind of think that he is.

I have no reason to believe that he's not, right? Like, and truthfully, he's on the field already. They paid him this all season, right? I think partially is a thank you for playing below market, you know, as, you know, Doc Prescott is getting $60 million and all the guys that, you know, are not as accomplished as Patrick Mahomes or getting $55 plus million on their extension. I do think that he's going to be there. I do think he's going to play.

And I think that that kind of dovetails into what my best case scenario is, which is that the combination of Mahomes, Kenneth Walker and like Rishie Rice whenever he's there are like the 2013 heedles, right? If I'm going to make a cross-sport analogy where they just genuinely look like they are playing the sport at a different level. than everybody else, and it is all being led by Mahomes being otherworldly again. If you look at this roster, man, like, I just don't know how this team gets back into the playoff picture, let alone the contention picture in a way that is not asking Patrick Mahomes

to be football Jesus. Kenneth Walker alone, Kenneth Walker alone is just not enough. And I do think that he can be an explosive piece of the run game. I do think that Rishi Rice can get back to being a yak threat, right? Especially in an RPO-led scheme. But I don't believe that Eric B. Enemy is going to be able to sit in the office with Andy Reid and say, you're changing this offense. We also have never seen anything from Eric Viena

me to suggest that just because he spent some time with Ben Johnson, that that means that he is going to bring the Ben Johnson offense over. I still, I have to see it. I think the run game will get better with the enemy and Walker. It has to. Two years ago, they were the worst team in the league by percentage of 10 plus yard runs for running backs.

That was the worst team in league. Last year, they were the worst team in the league. So back-to-back years now, they've legitimately no team in the NFL has created explosives. I mean, everyone has a different metric. I like looking at 10 plus for runs, but no team in the NFL has gotten less 10 plus runs than from their running backs in the Chiefs over the last two years, right?

Like, I think that it's got to get better with Walker. I think that I'm the minute I'm selling the Chiefs is as soon as I hear that Walker has a little something with like an ankle and camp and it's like, I'm done. I can't, I can't put all my faith in Bichard Smith and BNamy and whoever, like do they sign

Cream Hunt back? Like, I'm not doing that. I think that Rishi Rice, like we have the problems with like him staying on the field. I feel like Worthy's not a number one. He might not be a number two. Kelsey's 36, 37 years old. Like, we're... Their vertical threat is Tyquan Thornton again. They bought back. They brought him back. They said, yeah, they can't use this guy. They didn't bring him back. They could not afford to not have Tyquan Thornton B.A. starting a team. That's insane. I feel like, it's going to be

a hard team to root for if Walker's hurt at all. And every year of his career, he's been like on a pitch count because he gets hurt all the time. And I'm scared. When they made the Walker thing, it was like, you know what they say like, don't put all your eggs in one basket. They're like, fuck it, dude, we'll dump the whole day. damn thing. We got to improve the run game. Let's spend all this money on one running back that we know is explosive, win healthy. And like, I don't know. Like to get the season we got from Walker last year,

including the Super Bowl run again, like, I mean, what is the chance of that? One in a hundred? One of a thousand? Yeah. The odds are long. Please, if you have heard of any of these backup offensive players, stop me. Jimmy Holiday, I had to look twice to make sure that we weren't talking about. That's a jazz singer. Jimmy Holiday sounds like a utility second basement, right?

the Kansas City Royals from. In the 70s. That's insane. Jaylen Royals, another player who sounds like a corner outfielder right from the 80s. And Amari DiMarcato, most NFL fans know, probably

from the fumble that led to one of the worst collapses and losses last season with the Cardinals. So this is a team that does not have a very impressive skill position group on the whole already, especially outside of Kenneth Walker. Even if you're assuming the best out of her she-rise, and you're telling me that

all their depth, that this is their depth, this is what's next in line for them. You need not only the guys that I mentioned to be heroes, but guys like Kingsley Sua Mata'a, guys like Trace Smith, like there cannot be any slippage at all up front. I mean, it's built on a house of cards. It feels like it's built on the house of cards. One injury is going to affect another. And if like what you're saying, you know, Eric, Andy Reid, and what feels like, and you guys know, and you guys are, you know, Deonté, you're literally a high school football coach.

But it feels like we're undergoing a pretty major offensive shift over this last year and this upcoming year with prioritizing getting under center and putting big tight ends on the field and trying to change what defensive have reacted. And while the chiefs, you know, I mentioned, you know, they're the blasting NFL and creating explosive with their running backs. They've been top 10 in passing explosives, pretty much the entire Mahomes era. It has mattered less over the last two years because it's become more important to run the football. And I think going through this transition and hearing you guys say like with Reed and then also with another coach we were bringing up before, McCarthy, it's like, yeah, they're not going to change. It's like those are the coaches I kind of want to fade in 2026. Because I do think that if the draft is any indication, if who's been paid at the tight end position and how people are thinking about receivers now, like all that is like I think signal that if Andy Reed, McCarthy, I'm sure other coaches as well.

Like if they don't kind of like make a change, they're going to get swallowed whole. I mean, look, like, it's just the fact of the sport, right? It sounds sacrilegious to say, but this is just a fact of the sport. Guys like Andy Reid and Mike McCarthy had a decade of being on the cutting edge of what was happening offensively because they beat everybody else to the spread shotgun era. And now that decade has passed us by. The meta is in the hands of other coaches now. And I think it is okay to ask the question of whether or not the now modern meta of football has left guys like this behind.

It is perfectly within the realm of possibility. It may not matter because Patrick Mahomes is still passionate. Patrick Mahomes, right? It may not matter because Kenneth Walker is one of the most explosive rushing threats that we have in this league. And a guy who can also contribute to what they want to do in terms of underneath passes in the screen game. It just might not matter enough if Andy Reid is not where he needs to be as a play caller. And I think you can make a genuine argument even before the, even before the Patrick Mahomes injury, that this wasn't just a talent issue, that this was a guy that just did not have the forcing fastball painted on the corner the way

that we have come to expect from Andy Reid in this era of Kansas City. I don't think any coach is beyond that line of questioning when you have Bill Belichick coaching fucking UNC right now. Exactly. Come on now. Very true. Maybe weirdest case is that they end up moving on from Reid. I think that has to happen. I mean, there are more conversations about that happening after this season if they don't at least touch.

How many games do they have to lose before Kansas City people start asking that question? I would say this season, you missed the playoffs. They're saying, Reed, it's time to pack. It's time to pack them up. We need to maximize this guy named Patrick Frickin Mahomes. And if you don't want to spin, because they'll start saying the same shit you are. The media will start pushing out. They're like, he's lost his fastball.

The screens aren't working anymore. He can't just run gun all the time. And like, they'll throw him under the bus way quicker than they ever will Mahomes, right? It's always going to be between play caller and quarterback. Every team in the NFL has this, who are their fans going to blame first? So he's the play caller. And is it going to be the play caller or the quarterback. I think with there's some teams where the quarterback is maybe more under fire going into the season or at some point than the, than the, than the, than the officer coordinator.

I think that's the situation in Philadelphia. Honestly, I know we're only supposed to be talking about AFC teams, but I think that just the tea leaves, it feels like the Eagles could be more committed to David Blow that Jalen Hertz down the future. If like they're adding receivers that work the middle of the field. Like if Hertz doesn't, you know, if it doesn't work, like

are they going to be, I feel like these the Blau decision and all these new officers. Sean Manion. I'm confusing. Sorry, sorry. There's like three, there's like three mediocre backups that have become offensive. It's like a weird trend. Zach Robinson, David Blow. Like there's a lot of like former quarterbacks that are now like Davis Webb like that are now offensive play callers that were not like even coaches that long. They're all the same tie.

The reason teams like the Eagles like Denver are hiring these guys early is because they literally have to because as soon as you show any flavor. If you're an offense play caller that shows any little flavor where the coach or a quarterback or an offense that they think they can maybe have you're going to be you know gobbled up by the next head coaching cycle like this last year we thought it was going to be kind of light 10 head coaches open up. We have like 18, 19 new offensive play callers. Sorry to get on this tangent. But like I do think that how many new offensive play callers in the league this year is going to be a big story, but specifically these like new young guys. Like Sean Payton's not calling offensive plays for the first time in how long? Like how long, like that's insane.

We'll get to him, I guess. Let's get to him next. That's perfect. It's Denver. Davis Webb, who was the offensive coordinator last year, but was not calling plays. Or was he the quarterback coach? I can't remember. He was not calling plays last year.

Sean Payton was obviously calling plays. He's been calling plays for a long time. He gave up play calling to it. in the off season. It was this big story to Davis Webb. I want to get to best case, worst case,

weird case, all that. Over under, what are we setting at when Sean Payton's taking over play calling duties? Yeah,

I got him on Cuff. Yeah, I got Davis Webb on Cuck Watch. I put him on Cuck Watch like a month ago. Yeah. I'm saying week 11.

Yeah, I don't think that Web, if anything bad happens, it could be a game. It could be a play. And Peyton feels like he could do a better job, which I feel like

it's impossible. to think about the man that I know Sean Payton has in the years he spent in the NFL thinking about he's in control of this offense but for the first time in his career not calling plays I just don't see how it lasts. I just don't. I think it's crazy to think that they're going into this year and like yeah,

Davis Webb's going to call offensive plays for 17 games. That feels like the weirdest case to me. That would be insane. If I'm Davis Webb, I am calling practices from inside the booth. I don't want to be anywhere near Sean Payton at all this year. He's going to question every call. It's a great call. Where is he going to stand? He's got to be in the booth.

He's got to be in the boat. Dude, if he's on the field, every time the camera cuts to him, it's going to be Sean Peyton standing in front of Davis Webb, in spite of the fact of Davis Webb is holding a play card. He's going to be, you know,

Sean Payton's going to have his back to the field. He's just going to be face-to-face with Davis Webb as he calls the play. Did you get it first? He didn't. Did you? I think that leads to my worst-case scenario, though. It's just that Davis-Web isn't ready to call plays.

And there is that break glass of emergency in case of emergency with Sean Payton. But the Broncos is, offense has been inconsistent and average with Sean Payton calling the play. So I don't think that's like the remedy. That's not going to solve everything. And I think if you do have Webb struggling and you see Bo Nix kind of his development stalls out. And then like I have, I don't think this is going to happen because I think the defense is very talented. But how often do we see a defense put together three elite seasons in a row? Yeah, this would be three. Yeah, it's very

much in the realm of possibility that the defense takes a step back. I don't think it will take a major step back. But if it's not top five, top ten, and the offense is inconsistent and they have a rookie play caller, that's the worst case scenario. I think this team goes like, they win like eight, nine games. I think the problem is, is there's a real year from hell chance.

Yes, yes, yes. The defense has taken a step back. Let's even say that's a 5% step back, 10% step back versus the two really, really dominant years that they've had. And then offensively, if Webb is struggling a little bit, and even if Peyton doesn't officially take over plays,

but like the pre-game looks a lot different. Like Deonti, you could probably hit on this. Like the week-to-week game planning looks a little different and weird and starts getting tweaked all the time. And I don't think Peyton will have to wait long to also just start throwing some blame pie at Bo Nix. We already saw that in the off season. And like, it was when we didn't talk about enough

when Bo Nix got ruled out with that weird ankle thing in the playoffs so he didn't end up playing in the AFC championship. How quickly Peyton ruled him out? Have you ever seen a coach ever after an injury, even one that was seen on the field, ever rule a player out that quickly. We didn't even see this injury happen. And Payton comes to the press conference.

And one of the first things he says is he's out. Why? He's frustrated. Why? He just found out that Knicks also had other ankle injuries. Remember? And then later in the off season, he's like, oh, man, I wouldn't have drafted him. He literally said, I wouldn't have drafted him if I knew about these ankle injuries.

So he probably finds out about those other ankle injuries. Like, I can't. Chill out. I can actually sue you for a HIPAA violation? But like, can we not do this publicly? Caden said it was bound to happen. The ankle injuries were bound to happen. Well, that's him being an asshole, I think.

Because that's not true. Like, it's like, they're bound to happen because he just found out that these ankle injuries existed. And, like, him being in the league as long as he's had, he's probably seen this before and been like, holy shit. Like, if I knew about this, like he just said, I wouldn't have drafted you. And him finding out all in the same moment that, like, Knicks has these ankle injuries. He's not going to be able to play this next week. I feel like he's ultimately frustrated. And then there's this other prideful part of him who was probably like, if I win with Stidham, I'm the goat.

If I was sending that up before the AFC championship. He's like, I believe it's Stidham. I've seen him do it. I've done this before. Yeah. All right, let's get off Siddum and the Broncos. Let's go,

let's finish the AFC West with the Chargers. I don't have a weird case because I don't think anything's off the table. I thought weird case would be like fans actually turn on Herbert and 80% of the team starters stay healthy. That would be like genuinely weird. But like, I don't know.

I guess Ruiz started us with like the worst cases that they all get hurt again. And like none of the, like how does the McDaniel, Herbert, Harbaugh, shit at all without injuries, I guess, or is your worst case just injuries?

I think it's just an injury but like if you're going the non-injury route I think it's the rebuilt interior offensive line isn't better any better and Herbert again is facing just an onslaught of interior pressure which like no quarterback

can deal with and we don't get to see the zenith's outcome of this Mike McDaniel offense because I do have some concerns about the defense because you do lose Jesse Minter and that defense has always been greater than the sum of its parts the last couple of years

I think if you did like a draft of the top 100 defensive players. How many charters go in there? Maybe two? Maybe Durwin, Tully, maybe. I don't know. Derwin and Tully would be for sure. I don't, there would be a tough argument, I think, for the rest of the guys.

Tony Jefferson is still penciled into the stud. I love Tony Jefferson. Oh, no. It ain't penciled in. He's still a starter, buddy. It ain't penciled in Penn. I was at miniccan. Tony Jefferson is one of their two safeties.

Okay. That is happening. That's depressing. But yeah, if they're, their replacement for mentor, I forget his name. What is it? O'Leary? O'Leary, yeah, if he's not as good as Jesse Mentor, which is a high bar to clear.

Yeah. At a certain point, like, every year we're like, oh, like, you guys, like, everyone, like, he's like, OCs, DCs, like, these guys are changing the game. And then, like, when they leave, we, like, don't talk about it. Yeah, well, that'll fucking replay. It's like, no, that, like, eventually these guys got to matter, right?

Like, so Mentor has to be, at least, like, deviations better than Chris O'Leary, or why would they be a difference? I don't know. I hope it's not all fake, right? Or is it all relationships, Deontte? Is everyone just kind of getting jobs because of based of who they know? Are you a fraud to you, Deonte, D'Ate, calling this place? The place carrying you?

Listen, man, I am 100% of benefit of nepotism getting into coaching. I won't run from that at all, okay? That's good to know. I'm glad that there was a lot of people on Reddit that were starting to speculate. But I think, to me, I don't know, we didn't probably, we talked a little bit about how many trap doors are for Denver. I think that the same thing kind of exists when you talk about the Chargers, right? And I think that that even ties into their best case situation.

I think this is one of the few teams where best case scenario is also absolutely something that everybody is demanding the charges to deliver. It is going to be a very difficult thing for them to achieve, which is giving Justin Herbert a top five offense and winning in the playoffs. I don't think you can have one and not the other because it will ultimately fall on the shoulders of the quarterback, right? If Mike McDaniel genuinely gives him an explosive, versatile, modern offense and this team does not win in the postseason, everybody can write out the tweets. now. You can go ahead and load them up in the drafts. You know what it's going to look like in January. There's going to be AI slop. If, man. I love the AI. I love If Man. Those get me every time. I'm sorry. Those go mega platinum. When like Herbert's got the superhero soon. There will be Madison Beer AI songs on Suno. Okay. Absolutely slandering this man.

If they do not win in the playoffs, if they win in the playoffs, it's because of their defense and not because of a Justin Herbert, Mike McDaniel offense, you are still going to hear all the critiques about how this guy. is not the quarterback that all of us in the media continue to promise him to be, right? This is a very high bar to clear. I do think, though, because this team is notorious now for not spending in the offseason, they don't make aggressive moves in the draft, they just kind of pick and stick with what they've got and expect their young guys to develop and their old bets to continue to play above the minimum contract value that they're playing on. We're asking a lot, okay?

We're squeezing blood from stones in Los Angeles. And I have no reason not to believe in his coaching staff. right? Like Chris O'Leary is an unknown quantity as a play caller, but if we're to assume that he's going to do what Jesse Mentor was doing as a play caller, I think that the bones of that defense should probably provide you with at least a league average performing unit, right? If Chris O'Leary is able to just, you know, kind of paint within the lines the same way that Rahim Morris painted within the lines when, you know, he got to Los Angeles, got to the Rams after Brandon Staley left, right? I think that that's possible with him. I just, we have to see Amari and Hampton run for 1,300 yards and 11 touchdowns, right? Like, we're going to have to see that. The offense has to be like top six, top four. You've got to get a thousand yards out of quitting Johnson or Ladd-McConkie, if not both, right? Trey Harris. I like Trey Harris a little bit.

Like, there's just so much riding for a team that I don't think should genuinely be in the Super Bowl conversation right now, given how their roster is constructed, we're going to hear them talked about like they are, you know, one of the three top teams in terms of Super Bowl eyes. And I don't know if that's fair, but I just think that that's the reality of it. Yeah. I mean, I think that it's going to be a pass, right? if things don't work out. But even if the offense is like average, like fringe top 10,

there's going to be a pass like year one growing pains with Mike McDaniel. Jake Slaughter, the center from Florida that they took that they want to play a guard, has never played guard before. Right. So like you're going to be, you're going to be in with a lot of new first. The interior offensive line is completely rebuilt.

You have a new offensive play caller. You know, the receivers are returning, but like still, like there's a lot of new chemistries being formed offensively, defensively, with mentor leaving. I think it's okay to expect that like so much,

I always kind of when I'm thinking about like, is a team going to be good? next year or not. Like I'm thinking about newness. Like how are there new coaches, new quarterbacks, the new players, like what percentage of snaps are changing? The charges feel like there's so much newness that it's like kind of hard to imagine that they're not going to have a handful of games, not go their way because they're just not ready for those those games. They don't have that chemistry yet. But like, if this offense sucks, like if it sucks and Herbert's healthy and I don't

even give a shit about the offensive line. Like if it just isn't good and like people just keep making excuses to the offensive line. Like at a certain point we're going to have to, you're going to have to be like, okay, like how many, how many more ifs are we going to throw out there? Like if, if Mike McDaniel, Mike McDaniel, Daniel can't fit it and they just hire the new interior. I think at a certain point, you need to rise above. That's based on the notion that, but that's it's based on the notion that Justin Herbert underachieves, right?

And I think, yeah, it's based on the notion that the people, the people that like hype him up are doing it just because they have like some affinity for Justin Herbert and that they're not watching the film and they're seeing the best point. I know this is important. The funny thing about the Justin Herbert, the funny thing about the Justin Herbert hype is that everyone that hypes him up in the media absolutely hated him as a prospect. True. Seth Galena.

May you remember. The Herbert guy. He said he could not play. He said he could not play. People forget about that. We'll start with the Jets. Weird case. Shocking case. Aaron Glenn is carried off the field by the Jets secondary

after a road playoff win. I honestly I thought you were going to say an interception. I was the first interception. I just think there's, the reason one of the reasons I wanted to do like shocking case or weird case is because one of the ones I immediately think of Aaron Glenn not losing his job. He feels like

one of the most pre-fired head coaches going into the season that I can remember. It almost feels like as pre-fired as AJ Brown was pre-traded. Can you even remember when a player was pre-traded like AJ Brown? It almost feels like more likely AJ Brown was traded or versus Aaron Glenn gets fired. I think those odds are kind of close.

I mean, you're a defensive back, you're a defensive-minded head coach. You're the first team ever to finish an entire season without an interception. It can't get worse from here, but I don't think it gets better enough for him to save his job. The worst case scenario is that we get like the Rex Ryan situation. You remember like the end of his Jets career where he's like he's going to get fired and then they would like win like two games at the end?

They would win like two games at the end and then they were like, we can't fire this guy. Let's bring him back. Like I think that's the worst case scenario is that he doesn't prove to be a good coach, but he doesn't get fired. Which I think is very like I think he gets carried off the field because they beat like the dolphins in the last week. I don't even know what their schedule is. How many times have you guys seen a franchise that knows that it is squarely in a rebuild? And from year one to year two says, you know what we need to do? We need to get older and slower and less inspiring at premium positions, right?

Like basically everything outside of drafting Omar Cooper, Omar Cooper Jr. and Kenyon Sadiq is about this team just getting a whole lot older and a whole lot slower and making it a lot harder for you to project what they're going to be on both sides of the ball, right? I just don't know what to make of this team. Of all the teams that we're trying to lay out a best case scenario for, I was probably grasping most at straws for New York. Like Cleveland, it was clear that losing is the best case scenario. For New York, I genuinely don't know.

Yeah, they need to win. Like, I genuinely don't know what the best case scenario is for this team. This is a team that was so poorly situated six months ago, right, that maybe the top quarterback would have been one of the top two quarterbacks had they gone in the draft, decided I'd rather be at Oregon again than go get NFL money. Okay. I think Gino could be fine for them.

Stop, stop. We need to hold Austin personally responsible for what they did to Gino last year. I think he'll be better than he was in Las Vegas when Chip Kelly was calling plays. They did it for this. Yeah, I reject this. I reject this notion because I watched the last six weeks of his time in Seattle. This Gino was always coming. I think that Las Vegas exacerbated it, but this Gino was always 100% on the way.

And now you're telling me that you're probably. putting this guy back into Jets jersey and Jets' vibes are going to keep him from from being a turnover machine again. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I've seen this movie. But he has Frank Wright calling place for him now. Stop.

Oh, certainly. No, I'm joking. I'm joking. I'm joking. I'm joking. I'm going to be better than he was last year because the Raider situation is like uniquely insanely terrible.

It was two Pete Carroll sons and freaking Chip Kelly. Like, it was terrible. Like, I think it's going to be better. Right. The problem is. Now his play caller is going to be another guy in his 60s who last time we saw him did not look like he was very interested in continuing to be in the NFL. No allegiance is.

I bet you, Reich is like, okay, what am I going to do when they promote me to interim head coach? Like, you're saying, what are they going to do? Like, I'm going to think about the offense. Like, he's like, I think the defense, you know, when you said they got older and slower, and a lot of that was on defense. And it's because Aaron Glenn knows he needs, he needs the defense to be better. And he's got, you know, David on Yamada. He brought in Demario Davis.

He brought in Mink of Fitzpatrick. Okay. Yeah. They could not tackle last year. They could not cover. If you can't tackle to me, that that's on the coach. You got to, I, I, like, you have. These guys in the NFL, they don't know how to not tackle.

Right? Like, I feel like, how does a team get all these players together that don't know how to tackle? I feel like some of it has to be just like coaching, right? Like, I feel like, I don't know. I think the Jets are going to be terrible next year. And I think the best case scenario is that they're the worst team in the NFL and they pick Arch Manning or whoever at number one overall. Like that is where they need to end up.

As someone who's been a fan of a team in a rebuilding lame duck coach scenario for a long time, the best thing for them is their young players look good and they lose a lot of games. Right? It's like Sadiq looks good. Omar Cooper looks. good. David Bailey has like eight sacks and you lose like every game. That's where the jets are right now, sadly.

All right, let's move to the Patriots. I won't start with weird case. I'll save that. I'll save that one. Let's start with best case. I think we need some positive mojo. Everyone's worried about the schedule being harder and the offseason situation between Braybill and Rossini and Brayble having to prioritize

his family very fairly. Some of you've been speculating if he's even going to be the coach week one. What is the best case scenario? for the New England Patriots in 2026, 2027. AJ Brown and Romeo Dobbs are the exact one-two punch that this offense was missing last season. And they have another top five passing attack this year

and it launches them towards another 11, 12-win season where they win the AFC East, right? Like that is a very clear best case scenario, right? Like, I think that the stage is set for that to happen separate from all of the Braverall and Racini shit, right? Like, you look at the way that they approached this offseason and I think they did what they needed to do. You bring in Elijah Barrett Tucker to help, you know,

improve their life. left guard situation, which I would argue, if you go back and watch the playoffs, was just as bad as Will Campbell, right, at left tackle. The entire left side of their line was just not functional at all. You go out and you draft Caleb Lomu, who I think is a player that does not necessarily have a role right now, but you bring him in as insurance in case Will Campbell is so bad, even after he gets healthy, because I think some people forget that he had a knee injury. He came back from late in the season, and that was kind of the catalyst for him just not looking as athletic, not being as confident in his pass sets. But if Campbell is bad, Lomu comes in, and

he's bad as well, then I think you're going to have different conversations about what the worst case can be. But the best case now is you added along the margins, and then you've got what you hope is a superstar receiver who still has at least two more seasons of that level of production like we saw in 2022 and 2023 still in him. And that that is the launch point for this team remaining, you know, one of the top two Cs in the AFC. Yeah, I think there's like this team is the most clear where like the line is between worst case and best case and it's A.J. Brown being A.J. Brown and not being. the AJ Brown we saw last year where we kind of saw some signs of slippage, especially on like the deep vertical stuff. If he's not a needle moving factor, then I think we're going to see the same offense we saw last year just against a much

more difficult schedule. Yeah. And then I think we could see some regression from Drake May that's not necessarily his fault. Going into the, his third offseason, which is typically when you get a contract extension, some weirdness there. Mike Rable's head might be somewhere else. Maybe you get some friction between those two. And like, that's the worst thing. And then you're back in 2020 where the coach and the quarterback don't like each other.

Realistically, though, is variable stepping down, right? Like, that is a... Is that the worst case scenario, though? Like, what if he's not there? I think Drake May was good enough where, like, whoever the coach is there, it's going to be successful. It's not weird. Josh McDaniels is within the realm of worst case scenarios.

That's what it would be. He'll be fine with Drake May, though. Drake May is good. Yeah, maybe. Will Josh McDaniels be fine with Drake May? or what Drake may be fine with Jack McDaniels. I think it's much more of the latter than it is the former. Yes.

But that's what I'm saying. That's my theory. Sure, Josh McDaniel has been a terrible head coach, but look at his quarterbacks that he's had. He's had Jimmy Garoppolo. He wanted Jimmy Garoppel. That's his choice. Yeah, that was dumb.

Yeah. But he didn't get to pick this quarterback. Still, I think that I wrote weird case that McDaniels takes over and then they win the Super Bowl over the Rams and B-Star and Dinosy to Drake May. But I think how quick. if AJ Brown's season doesn't start as expected, right? I think in Brown's head is like two touchdowns, 150 yards game and they're winning everything.

But like if it doesn't start as expected, I know he said in that interview he's not going to start trashing his players to the media. How quickly does that change, you think, if things aren't going well in the first half of the season? Like, does he become a headache quicker than maybe people think?

It's like, oh, it's with Rabel, everything's fine. But like, I don't know. Like, is it? Like,

if things don't go according to plan, which I guess it's hard to imagine because, like, they're just going to funnel targets to them. but I don't know. I'm not worried about that because I think his gripes with the Eagles offense were legitimate.

Like it wasn't like he was just pulling them out of thin air. Like he was right about everything he said was right. Also, everybody in Philadelphia, aside from the quarterback, was very open about the things they did not like about that offense. AJ just happens to be the most dramatic, right?

And the most willing to force his way out of that situation. But I don't think that there's any misgivings or any misunderstandings about what the issue were there. That doesn't mean that he was justified and going on streams, you know, and tweeting all the time, but he was not the only person in Philadelphia, player, staff, personnel, wherever

you want to look, that did not feel very similarly to the way the AJ felt. Okay, give me worst case, Stephen, for the Buffalo Bills. I feel like Deontze, we'll get the best case. I imagine it's Super Bowl. Anytime you have Josh Allen, that's kind of what they're looking for. But what is the worst case? They moved on from Sean McDermott. It's now

Joe Brady as the head coach, the offensive coordinator who was there from last year. Is that enough? Are they going to miss McDermott? I'm interested what your worst case is for them. Is there a year-from-hell chance for the bills? Or is Josh Allen too good and this team too good to really have a miss-the-playoffs kind of year? No, I think Josh Allen would have to get hurt for there to be a year-from-hell situation

just because he is that good. But my worst-case scenario is that Jim Leonard, the new DC, isn't as good as Phil nerds think he's going to be. And that further exposes the lack of defensive talent on this team, which I think is a very realistic possibility. because Sean McDermott, like, their defense hasn't been great the last couple of years, but Sean McDermott knows how to coach defense. He knows how to coach. Yeah, he's a floor-raising defensive coach.

And if Jim Leonard isn't ready to call plays in the NFL, which I think he is going to be ready for it, then this could be a disaster where the defense kind of, the defense stinks. Joe Brady has this new responsibility, and you kind of see, you kind of put a dent in his play calling. So the offense is a little worse, and they had the same problems they had last year,

not being able to create explosive plays, especially against man coverage. And then Josh Allen has to put on the Superman cape even more than he did last year, which I guess was kind of overrated because they did have a run game. But if the run game isn't as good, then yeah, I could see this being a season from hell for them

is they don't win the division again, which I think could happen. That was pretty close to my weird case. I put Prince That is promised, which is Jim Leonard, this defense coordinator that the Phil Nourdeslaw that's taking over from McDermott. And I think there's another prince

that was promised in the fact that they're promoting Joe Bray. to head coach. They're kind of saying, like, we're good with the same offense and this guy, this DC from college,

we think he's going to be the guy that takes it over the hump over McDermott. They, but they hire McDermott back as a consultant on the way. He helps write the ship for the defense.

Leading with four, leading by four, with 12 seconds left, Mahomes finds Tyquan Thornton wide open for a 68-yard touchdown to win the AFC championship. That is my weird case. I think I can see.

A McDermott coming back as a consultant would be a dream, but sorry to cut off your best case, De Anse. Give us what's actually going to happen. I mean, the best case is just that they're in the AFC championship game or better, right? Like that Jim Leonard is as good as promised, right, that Joe Brady is a ceiling razor, right, as a head coach, just from a culture perspective. I'm probably more concerned that he's in the Josh McDaniel, you know, better coordinator than head coach tier, right?

And it's not, and it will be bad in a different kind of way, right? Like, Josh gets to Denver and his whole thing is, I'm trying to be young Belichick. So I'm going to trash players and meetings. Cheaping. I have shit talking behind everybody's back. Right. I'm going to cheat. I am trying to, I'm going to my GM's office every day. And I am trying to, you know, put my thumb on the scale to get these players in the building that I want. And none of them really pan out.

Josh McHenger's his little finger. 100%. I think they're a plotter. Right. My concern is that Joe Brady comes in and says, hey, after being, after coming in, you know, behind this hard ass and Sean McDermint, I'm going to be players coach guy. And it turns out that players coach is actually not what this team needs. Right. I think that that will probably be within the realm of worst case.

Maybe Daniel? Is that like the... Yeah, I guess so. Yeah, that will probably be it. That will probably be it. Does he run back the 9-11? Motivational speech? I think he could. I think he could. Joe Brady's like last ditch effort is to try and kind of run up some of the old tricks. All right, we have five teams last.

How quickly do you think we could do the dolphins to wrap up the AFC East? I have... Best case is number one overall pick, man. Yeah, that's obvious. Yeah. My worst case is that the dolphins start off bad, confirming everyone's suspicion that. they're tanking, but they get better as the season go along, playing themselves out of a top

three pick. So they have to draft a quarterback. That feels like it's going to happen. Let me keep going. Let me keep cooking. They have to draft a middling talent at quarterback, and Jeff Halfley ends up resenting him, and then he gets fired, and then it turns out that ownership incentivized him to tank, and then he sues the league. Stop. That's going to happen. I put receiving court, shocking case. Receiving Corps is top six in the league, led by draft Twitter's finest. Malik Washington, Greg Dulcich, Jalen Rager, Terrace Marshall, Tutu Atwell, and Jalen Tolbert.

That receiving core is legitimately like, I found a clip from the Senior Bowl. I kind of think this guy is good for the entire receiving core, which is kind of incredible. Yeah, that would be weird because draft Twitter would be right. Would be right. Even if you throw Chris Bell in there, the guy

they got from Louisville in this draft. Like their entire receiving core is guys that some people kind of like that one time. I would be shocked I'd be shocked if this is a top four, top six receiving core in the league next year. All right. AFC South. The Colts.

Part of the reason I wanted to do this exercise, too, because I think one of the most shocking things that happened last year is that from weeks one through nine, the Indianapolis Colts were like as good by efficiency as the 2007 Patriots. So there was like a very absurd thing that happened at the start of the year and then obviously the Achilles, whatever, whatever. But Deontale, let's start with you. Best case for these Colts here, is it just running it back? Is it doing what they wish last year was?

Yeah, I think best case is they. Jonathan Taylor has a Sequin Barkley-esque, which is really the pace he was on, if not better, you know, last season. He has this Sequin Barkley-esque impact on this team that is trying to protect its quarterback from being as exposed, right? Very similar to what we saw in Philadelphia a couple of seasons ago, where it's just a bunch of 20-plus yard runs from Jonathan Taylor with a healthy Daniel Jones. You get just enough explosive passes from Jones to Alec Pierce. And this team is kind of able to cobble together enough. And maybe you get a healthy sauce gardener. and sauce gardener starts looking like the sauce gardener he could have been right before the calf string

once he got traded. I think that all of those things are within the realm of possibility. Again, we just start talking about bands of outcomes. You feel less and less confident as you start laying out all the ways of wishes this can go sideways. But best case scenario is that you have an offensive player of the year talent and Jonathan Taylor actually deliver on that and that's enough to get this team into the playoffs. Worst case? Worst case is that the Colts trade Anthony Richardson in preseason. Daniel Jones gets off to a hot start again. They re-signed Chris Ballard. Then Daniel Jones turns back into a pumpkin. Anthony Richardson gets a starting job somewhere,

maybe Cleveland and plays well. And they're screwed. They're screwed with Daniel Jones, and they have Chris Ballard for a couple more years, and Anthony Richardson looks good. I turn it into Anthony Richardson Cope. A Chris Ballard extension would be a shocking turn of events. I think that he's missed on just too much now.

I mean, the quarterback makes like, you can't move. You can't move past the Anthony Richardson miss. Like, you can't. Like, it's not, it's not part of the process. Like, you can't be like, well, well, everyone's going to get to goose egg. It's like, no, dude, that was a multi-million dollar decision. He said that himself.

He was like, that's the reason I'm not taking quarterback. Exactly. If I take a bad quarterback, I'm out of here. And then he did it, and he's not out of here. I think that your worst case is possible. I think it's more likely that, like, I think it's hard to imagine Daniel Jones starting the season hot with just, like, coming off the injury and stuff. Like, I feel like it's more likely that, like, if they get warm,

it's like in the second half of the season this time and like maybe they sneak in. I think the AFC South is getable. Who knows? I think the Colts could end up having like a really average season and non-notable season that probably feels like an outcome. Shocking though. I do think their formula from last year,

they could do that again. It wasn't like, because like the offense line was solid. Like Shane Seichen is a good play caller. And like Daniel Jones wasn't like playing out of his mind. The scheme was just good and suited him. And they lost Michael Pittman, but he wasn't like,

he wasn't the guy. Like getting out of that contract was honestly smart. They lost Braden Smith, the right tackle, but he's been not the same player he was two years ago. And I feel like the losses on offense. There is like some running backs up, but it all kind of starts with like, is Daniel,

what version of Daniel Jones am I getting? Because I know it's not going to be what it was for the first nine weeks last year when he looks like Tom Brady. And I also probably know it's not going to be like the worst I've ever seen. Where does this end up? And like honestly,

when you keep talking range of outcomes, it's like somewhere in the middle and the Colts are probably fine because the defense I still don't think is that good. my weird case was that Daniel Jones, Alex Pierce, and Shane Steichen do it all again with Carly Ursaid Gordon assisting Big Lou

to a resurgent year. Somehow with just awful, awful, awful pass rushers. Anthony De Richardson plays a wildcat big slot roll, throws for 180 yards and four touchdowns, runs for 600 yards, and eight touchdowns, catches 50 balls for 500 yards and four touchdowns. Like a Terrell-Pryorkech-Stuart type. Could we see it? Could we see it?

Texans. Let's start with, it feels like worst-case, honestly. was last year. But, I mean, you have such a good defense. I think you get worse. I think he can get worse. C.J. Straub signs a massive extension before the season, then he's the same quarterback.

I was actually going to extend on that. I don't think that that's the worst case. I think that the real worst case is that he's excellent in the regular season, shits the bed in the playoffs. There's no contract extension. And then Houston has to make a decision on which quarterback they think he actually is. No, that is good. That's like Stephen A. Smith thinks he's a bad quarterback because he played bad.

in the play. Like, if you pay attention to the regular season more so than like a one-off playoffs. Do you think that Nick Casario is not listening to someone like a Stephen A. Smith? I would hope not, but I don't know. There's also like, it's like something that we all were catching on to last year and some of it was weather, some of it's the offensive line. But like, there is something to like when you find out your quarterback shits his pants in the bright lights. And you're like, oh no. Like we might just have this. And like, that was the where Sam Donald was until really last year where he won that Super Bowl. Like everyone was kind of like, oh yeah, are we just going to get regular season Sam Darnold?

And then we get in the playoffs, she's going to throw four picks. Like, if Stroud is a darnold in that light, like, we have a handful of sample of size to make that prediction. But it's obviously such small sample. But like, if you don't win a playoff game and look good in the playoffs this year and the defense is as good or even like close to as good as it was last year, people are going to be really, really disappointed. Honestly, I think the worst case scenario is the offense is so bad that the team thinks about

moving on from Damiko Rines, which I don't think like they should. I don't think they should think about that. But I think Cali is the one under fire. But that would be a second OC. That would be a second OC. Still, though, I still think, I still think if this doesn't go well and, like, say it doesn't go well in the regular season, right? Like, they're, like, kind of average in the regular season offensively,

and, like, they need to, like, turn it around. Like, Nick Cayley getting this next year, I think that they're more, they're more committed to Stroud than they are Cayley, and they'll give him another O.C. They will. Like, slow, like, is slow like even coaching in the league anymore? No, he is. Okay.

So, like, I don't know. I think, right? He's a Dolphins O.C., buddy. He's calling plays. He's not just coached, he's calling plays. We'll see. We'll see. We'll see. Weird case, I put, C.J. Stroud is carried by the defense into the playoffs. They sneak a wildcard round purely based on their defense.

Texans crowds and Reddit threads are calling for Daddy Longnecked Davis Mills to save the season after playing sort of fine in three games where Stroud missed because he was hurt. Then Stroud turns into a completely new player becomes playoff Eli Manning and the Texans for a Super Bowl. Like that to me feels like the most shocking case. Like him, like, rising to the occasion in the playoffs would be the best case, most shocking case thing that could happen for Texans fans. You're really low on CJ Stroud.

No, like, I feel like they need to see in an important game that him like rise to the occasion. Like, they just have to. Like, are they not? He's won two playoff games. I guess I am maybe over, maybe too low on Stroud. And this might be recent C. He based the Steelers last year. And the Chargers.

Like, come on. I don't. He has, he has, he has playoff wins. But like, I feel like how he played in this recent run was like not great. No, he was back. And I think that, again, like, it's unfair to the quarterback, and it was unfair to Darnold until he won a Super Bowl. But, like, until you're a big game's guy, you're not.

And everyone's going to think you're going to be bad in these games. It's where Herbert's going to be. It's where all these guys are going to be. I think the fair question with Stroud should be the ceiling question. Because, like, I think he's established that he's a good quarterback. And if you're still questioning that, you're just not watching the games or you're out of your mind. I don't know.

But I think it's very fair to ask if he's ever going to be better than good. And you need better than good to be a long-term winner. But do you need better than good if you have the Texans defense? How long is the defense? There's a short shelf life on a defense. Let's just say this year. Like if he's better, if he's just good this year,

I feel like they could, if he's just good in the playoff games they played last year, they're in the Super Bowl. Yeah, if he wasn't god awful last year, they're in the Super Bowl, it's like, if that happens again,

and he's got awful in their most important games down the stretch, like, they're going to maybe fire an Akali and give it another run, but like, it's just going to keep kind of coming back with that. You just absolutely cannot count on the fact

that Buffalo, Denver, Kansas City, and New England will be flawed enough to lay out the type of scenario where Houston just not having a god-awful quarterback is enough to get them to the Super Bowl. I think that they just missed out on a very golden opportunity because our quarterback just was not prepared for the moment. That's true. All right. Jaguars, let's start Best case.

Best case is that Trevor Lawrence plays like an MVP caliber quarterback. I think we're going to have a very similar conversation when we get to Chicago when we talk about NFC teams and that he's able to lift, you know, he's a rising tide that lifts the boat for what might actually sneakily be a bad defense, right? Like, to me, and I don't know if I'd make the argument that Jacksonville's defense was, like, actually terrible or just like an abject disaster. I just think that you would have to,

you would have to sell me on some of their metrics being sticky from year to year. I would say that the interception rate... Very turnover dependent. Exactly. The interception rate is going to be very hard for them to replicate from one season to the next. Now, if you want to tell me,

they didn't miss many tackles and they didn't give up many explosive plays and those two things will stick from year to year. You can sell me on that. I just don't know. if their actual ceiling is as high as what we saw over the last like nine weeks of the season when it just seemed like everybody in Jacksonville was blacking out. And they got the other thing that's very hard to replicate year over year, which is an explosive rushing attack.

So you're telling me a team that won 13 games on the back of explosive runs and forcing a lot of turnovers is still going to be high in the contingent race. It's just very hard for me to buy that. We've just seen too many times on a year-to-year basis, a team that has Jacksonville's profile in one season, taking a step back, even if they are decent but not looking anything like what they did to close out the season prior. And I think that they're definitely a risk for being that kind of team in 2026.

Yeah, and I would say their worst case is, it doesn't require Trevor to take like a major step back. If he has the same season where like there's parts of the season you're wondering if he's the guy, other parts of the season, you're like, oh, holy shit, this guy's really good and ready to take the leap. He has another one of those seasons. And then the defense does regress,

but plays well enough for Campanali to get a head coaching job. And you go into the next season, you're like, do we have the quarterback? and we definitely don't have a DC anymore. You have questions about everything. I think that's worst case for them. I don't think they're going to bottom out. I don't think they're going to...

I mean, the fact that they... Campanil, and they're keeping Cohen, right? There's so many teams this year that do not have their same play callers going in next year. They have their same quarterback who people feel could be a top six town. Like, there's continuity that I feel like raises some of the floor, but I agree that the defense will regress because it was turnover dependent. Like, if you strip out, you know, turnover EPA, you see that's close to the middle.

They lost Devin Lloyd, who, like, I think the same... stats kind of inflated how good his season was last year, but still, like, you're losing the center of your defense. I put for weird case, Trevor Lawrence, because I just don't think this is going to happen. I don't think this is going to happen. But Trevor Lawrence and Liam Cohen backslide. Their relationship backslides. You see public kind of arguing on the field.

They're getting upset. Brian Thomas Jr. has to break them up multiple times on the sideline before he's traded for a day three pick swap at the deadline. The defense gets better somehow, but the offense gets worse. Travis Hunter gets a pro ball nod at cornerback. but makes four to ten critical procedural errors or drops on the offensive side of the ball that ultimately costs a big games to playoffs. I wrote that one a little bit longer.

But I think the true shocking scenario would be their defense getting better and their offense getting worse. I don't think there's like it's hard to like map out like how that even happens with Campaniel staying and obviously what people feel like was a really, really, really good year one between Cohen and Lawrence last year. I don't think that's like the friction between them two between those two is out of the realm of possibility because I feel like we kind of saw it might have been perceived. A little bit, right? A little bit. We kind of saw it early in the year.

Last one. Titans. Let's go, let's start with worst case. How bad does it get? How bad can it get for Tennessee next year? I think Cam Ward's rookie mistakes become sophomore mistakes. Yes. And like not in a way that's an indictment on Dayball.

And they kind of let him cook again. And they look for another quarterback and they let him kind of lead that charge. And he goes after another Josh Allen type. Dude, I have Brian Dayball falls in love with Miss Tribisky in the office. season. And Ingrid forces him to start early in the season before week six. The Titans improve offensively, narrowly missing out on the playoffs and improved defense under Sala. Entire off season is spent on Trubisky versus Ward, Dayball versus Sala. Can you imagine Daveau and Trubisky kind of like, because Trisky is their backup now. If Ward

Biscay gets in there and Dave all kind of likes the guy, I don't know. I'm logging off. I'm logging off. And not from the internet. I'm logging off from life. Yeah. Okay. Are you bullish on Cam Ward? Deonté? Do you think that their best case is like in like, realistic case is that Ward takes like a significant year two step under with dayball and and and it's all of there now. I think I'm caught between thoughts right. Like I am bullish on cam ward and I'm also I'm willing to be optimistic about the match between Brian dayball and cam ward because I do think the best version of Ward probably needs to just be cut loose on early downs right like you just need to get him in the gun spread things out and just say hey man we're just going to let you rip it right

Like you think about Josh Allen right in 2020, when his career started to take a turn for the better. And that's not me saying that Cam Ward is going to turn into that. But if you look stylistically at what Buffalo was, they were pushing the ball on first and 10 all the time. Right. Like that was part of the thing with Josh Allen is that there was just a trust that, hey, we're going to run for averts like an old school air raid team all the time. And we're going to trust it. You're just going to push a ball downfield, scramble around if you need to. You're going to find open guys.

And then you throw a good enough deep ball to just give guys a shot. and we're going to trust that the variance will work in our favor. I think that Young Cam Ward probably needs to play that way, right? Like, I don't know if you'd want him playing in a very precise timing-based. Soon as your back foot hits, you've got to drill this dig. Otherwise, the entire concept is dead, right? I don't know if that's the best fit for him. So I do trust that match.

The thing that holds me up from being full bore, I'm a big believer, is the fact that, like, I just can't touch this offensive line. I just absolutely refuse to touch this offensive line after the last two years. years. Every year they have brought in either a new free agent or a new highly drafted guy that is supposed to address the biggest hole in that offensive line and inevitably another league springs. I don't, and when I look at these guys, I look at Dan Moore, I look at J.C. Latham. I don't know if those are good enough bookends. I think that Peter Skoronsky has been better since kicking inside to guard. I just don't, he's not a Quentin Nelson, obviously. He's not a

top end guard and definitely not a world changer for them. And I don't know where the run game. I don't know where the early down stickiness, the stuff that is going to have us looking at, true media saying, hey, this team has got a 95th percentile success rate in this specific situation, you're going to have a hard time finding that for me. That's not just Cam Ward being a hero. And I don't know if Ward is necessarily ready to be that guy just yet, even though I'm a believer. Cam Ward is one of those, like, dangerous quarterbacks for like people like me are like people that evaluate quarterbacks because he's so fun to watch. And he's like a gamer, like he's going to try stuff. He's like the opposite of Derek Carr, no offense.

sauce. No, I hate Derrick Carr. Come on. Yeah. Derrick was it. But pre-2016, Derrickar, I was all in. He sucked then, too. He did not suck in 2016. He did. All right. He did. But anyway. He did not. But anyway, you overlooked the real flaws in his game, like the accuracy questions and stuff like that. But I do think he has a good chance to be good. But I want him to be good. So probably going to overrate him. Yeah. There's, I, um, do you like, I was going to ask you about their offensive line because I know they added two starters on the interior. It's like

Slotman and Bolson. You don't like their tackles, Dan Moore, Latham. And what about the receivers? They brought in Wondell Robinson over from the Giants to play the slot, drafted Cardinal Tate from Ohio State in the first round. They still have Calvin Ridley.

They brought in Daniel Bellinger, San Diego State Legend, Giants tied in. Like, do you like their weapons at all? Or is that also just not good enough? I think optimistically you're saying you're in the league average range, right? Like, I just don't think there's enough.

How does it even work then? Like, the offense of mine isn't good. We don't like the weapons. It's all on day off. I'm not touching their offense. All my best case scenario stuff is about Robert Sala being transformative for this defense. Like I can't touch this offense until I see it. If Ward's good though, if Ward's good, it won't matter if the weapons are mediocre.

I mean, the offense line could re-tank that. I don't know if Ward's good is the sales pitch. I think it's what it would have to be exceptional. All right. Let's get out of here. That was the AFC. Maybe they'll let us get on here and do part two with the NFC for another hour and a half, two hours. who knows we'll end up being.

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