The Ringer NFL Show - Scenario Predictions for Every NFC Team in 2026, Plus Jordyn Brooks and Devonte Wyatt Get Big Contract Extensions

Episode Date: July 22, 2026

Austin Gayle, Steven Ruiz, and Diante Lee start the pod by analyzing LB Jordyn Brooks’s big contract extension with the Miami Dolphins, and Devonte Wyatt’s new deal with the Green Bay Packers. They then go through every division in the NFC conference and speculate on possible outcomes for each team in the upcoming 2026 NFL season.(00:00) Big contract extensions and 2026 NFC scenario predictions(01:36) Jordyn Brooks's and Devonte Wyatt’s contract extensions(09:52) NFC West predictions(46:54) NFC North predictions(01:11:08) NFC East predictions(01:33:54) NFC 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 SanchezEngineer: Jason ArreolaProduction Supervision: Conor Nevins and Arjuna Ramgopowell Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome into the ringer NFL show. Austin Gail here. We're going to have Deonté Lee and Stephen Ruiz on again. We went through the AFC. Best case, worst case, weirdest case. Now we're going through the NFC. Same thing. We also get into some news at the top,

some new contracts, Jordan Brooks, just sign an extension with Miami Dolphins, linebacker there. And then Devante Wyatt, defensive tackle for Green Bay, former first round pick, also signed an extension. Kind of similar deals.

Interesting way to kind of look at the season and just like react to news in the moment. But then the big meat of the episode is looking at the NFC teams. Now, thank you again to our producer, Christopher Sutton. We went long on the early teams and had to speed through some of the back-end teams, but hopefully this is helpful.

Let's get to it. Before we get into the list for the NFC, there's a couple things I wanted to do now that we're catching back up and we're back on the pod. Some people said we might not have been able to do an NFC version. Some people thought we were maybe going to get cut off with just the AFC. I'm happy to see us back. Ruiz, I know you're happy to be back to kind of sure up the NFC. I know we're going to get to the Panthers today, at least.

Yeah, we're proving all the haters wrong. They said we could never do analysis on NFC. We have to see merchants only. You're staying, Deonte is still going to be the optimistic side. Ruiz is going to be the negative side. I'll present the weirdest case when it makes sense. But before we get into that, I did want to talk about two contract extensions

that happened over the last like 24 hours or so. The Green Bay Packers extended Devante White, I think it was three years, 57 million, former first round pick out of Georgia. And then the Miami Dolphins, who were an interesting case in the AFC, I think we all looked at them as like, they should be going for the number one overall pick.

but they just extended Jordan Brooks, who's coming off a first team all pro season, easily a career best season for Jordan Brooks. He's only 28 years old, and they pay him three years 51 million. What Brooks has done in the NFL versus what Wyatt has done in the NFL and Wyatt making more per year and more overall.

And then it's just like interesting to compare these contracts because they happen at the same time, but then even looking at the guaranteed, Jordan Brooks only gets 35 million guaranteed. Five other linebackers in the NFL signed contracts with more guarantees. even Sonny Stiles, the first round pick, top ten pick for the Washington commanders, his rookie contract has more guaranteed money than what Brooks is signing this new deal off of the best season. I know, Deontay, you tweeted something out saying they have other young linebackers and paying him maybe doesn't make sense.

But I feel like this contract for a guy that the league literally just said is one of the best, if not the best at the position, I feel like they're kind of getting a discount, no? I mean, you're getting a discount relative to the rest of the market. I think that really my hang up is just like, where does this change where either, the player or the franchise is stationed right now. And I think that the answer is no, right? It doesn't mean that it's wrong of Miami to go ahead and get a guy on a long-term extension below market rate. I think that this is a big win for them. But if I'm Jordan Brooks, and maybe this is part of the planet, like, hey, this contract probably gets torn up in a year or two anyways when this team is

really ready to make its full-on pivot, right? Because you're sitting at 100 and I don't know what million dollars in debt cap charges for this year alone. So this might just be one of those. Hey, we like you. your leader help kind of usher in these young guys and then, you know, next off season or by the trade deadline in the 2027 season, we will kind of send you on your merry way. I think it's a win for them. I am kind of hung up, I think, with Devonthe White, who has been a lot of, like, potential without delivering, right? Like, I've been very, I've had a hard time with him as a player, right? Because coming out of Georgia, I was a really big fan of him. I think everyone was, right? He was a consensus top five player or top 10 player in that draft? I mean, there were times where I was watching that Georgia defense, and I'm like, like, I know that Jordan Davis is like the huge guy, but I'm watching Fonte White and nobody can block this man when he's locked in. And you still see that in flashes. It just hasn't really delivered in terms of him being a full-time impact, you know, game wrecking force in the way that I think we expected. Both I think are good extensions for the teams. I just think I'm kind of hung up in both cases trying to figure out exactly where I want to place these players in these situations given the finances of the deals. How much do we think Miami? Because people had like the same.

questions they have about the Brooks extension that they had with the Malik Willis signing. It's like, oh, I thought you were supposed to be tanking, why are you spending, I think it was like, what, $20 million on a quarterback for the next couple of years? And I kind of brought this up on the AFC pod, but I do think this team is overly

sensitive to the tanking allegations. I think they want to be in the mix for that first overall pick, but they literally have a lawsuit against them alleging that they were going out of their way to tank and influencing their coach to tank and lose games and throw games. So I do think

that's part of it. I think perception for them really matters for the owner, Stephen Ross. But it's not just the owner. I think it's also the new coach, right? This is a defensive head coach, Jeff Hathley, hired over from Green Bay, right? They want to kind of build this team in the model of Green Bay. They brought over John Eric Sullivan, who's also from Green Bay.

It's like, yeah, on paper, the Dolphin should tank. Tell a new coach, a brand new coach. They won't do it, yeah. Who's gotten, his entire career has been built on winning. And then you're like, hey, your first year you actually have to be shit. It's like, no, We're going to resign. No one's going to do that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, and I think Jordan Brooks is a good fit for that new coaching staff. And I think they're going to be able to get the most out of him. Like Jordan Brooks, I think it's tough to get excited about him. Like when you watch Fred Warner, you could be like, okay, this guy is like an athletic freak and the best player on the field. But Jordan Brooks, like, you're not going to man him up on a tight end. Yeah, which I think the league kind of was really chasing after that type of prospect. I'm thinking of the Devin White draft pick where if you watch Devin White at LSU

is like this guy doesn't know how to play football but he's really fast and can move his hips. You watch Jordan Brooks play even now, even during his all-pro season and he's in man coverage. Like he doesn't look like a great football player. He's still droning a little bit for sure. Yeah, yeah. He's like they have him covering backs like hugging down on checkdowns.

They have them like green dogging. Like if they're in man coverage and the back stays in, he's going to blitz. They're not putting him on tight ends in man coverage. you watch and play zone coverage and it's like a totally different thing. Like he clearly has a good feel for zones and where to be and like what's going on behind him and front of them and how defenses are trying to put him into conflict. And then the guy can come downhill against the run, which I think is why he got drafted in the first round to begin with in Seattle. So I think he, I think this coaching staff is going to get the most out of him and we're going to think he's a good player.

But it is a question of timeline with him because he is 28 and linebackers, especially that style of linebacker kind of ages poorly. Well, I think the big thing for him What really worked in his favor is the fact the disease Al-Shayir really seemed to turn a corner and signed a similar deal in Houston, right? So if you're Jordan Brooks, I do think if you're having this conversation prior to the 2026 season,

a team I think will look at him and say, hey, you're a high-level two-down player because you can be a thumper, you will show up and kind of range between the tackles. You can go make plays in the backfield. You're a good blitzer. You're a relatively certain tackler. We can play a lot of soft zone coverage for you,

but we can't pay you. you know, top five linebacker money because on third down, there's a limitation to having you on the field. I think if you're Jordan Brooks, you look at a guy like Aziz and say, that was literally the profile on him, right, early in his career,

was 100% downhill guy. You think about Patrick Queen before Rokon Smith got to Baltimore. Same kind of story, right? And now I think that we've seen that those guys get paid if you can have a hot or highly productive year, right?

And I think that it just happened to be a strike where the iron's hot type of situation. I think for Jordan Brooks, I would have liked to have seen him get traded. I know the Dallas was in on him. I think if this deal was signed and he were a Dallas Cowboy, I would be talking about the Cowboys and what they might be able to turn into in 2026 in terms of the contention conversation. I know we'll get to them a little bit later in the show. But for me, it's evaluating the player and the contract alone. Again, I think I'm okay with it.

It's when you add in team context, timeline, where he's at in his career, and trying to project out what that's going to mean for both parties. I really kind of struggle to figure out what this is other than a placeholder so that way they can get to 2027 and then start wiping the slate clean. I think it's a move for Hathley, right? Like, Hathley is like, I want this guy. He's the green dot last year. He's an all pro. Like, I need, and like you mentioned Al Shaiyer, he's the green dot in that defense.

Green dot being like the guy who gets the plays from the defensive play caller. You know, in Houston, you have a defensive mindy head coach. And in Miami, obviously, you have Jeff Hathley now. Like, I do think it's important when you're like, hey, like a lot of how people are going to judge me in my first season here is how good is this defense. Right? And how much better is it than last year? Losing my first team all pro linebacker, the guy who got the play for me,

or from this team last year, for what, $35 million guaranteed? I don't even have to pay him. Top five. Now, like, in the grand scheme, if Brooks's goals as an NFL player are to win a championship, I don't think he's going to win it on this contract with Miami Dolphin sadly.

But, like, if his goals are to stay on this team, which, like, I mean, there are a lot of people coming back on the Miami defense, whatever. Like, I don't know. I think about, like, linebacker, and this might be, like, a very cold take, but also, like, kind of known. but of any position,

you are paying for leadership on that side of the ball more than any other position, right? Like, obviously, defensive end, you'd like to see them be like Miles Garrett types or whatever, but honestly,

the best thing you need from your defense event is to be Miles Garrett wrecking the quarterback, not necessarily being this leader in the huddle and managing the defense. Whereas, like, with linebacker, like, I think these Brooks, the Brooks is, the Alshayers

and even these other linebackers, you're not just paying for their ability to cover tight end or their ability, like, to tackle players in the run game. Like, you're paying for, honestly, like,

the gel of the defense. which I feel like we under-discuss when like we're hyper-focused on every individual contract in cap-space and and all that stuff as well. We probably spent too much time on interior defensive contracts to start this. And, you know, but we could jump to the NFC now. We're going to start with the NFC West. I thought it made sense for best case, worst case, weirdest case, to start with the San Francisco 49ers. Because weirdest case has to involve the electrical substation. Of course.

And I have electrical substation becomes a data center. 49ers players start to develop Benjamin Button disease. Over the course of the season, Mike Evans, Christian Kirk, Trent Williams, George Kittal, Christian McCaffrey, Kyle Ushach, Nick Bosa, even Kyle Shanahan. Everyone de-ages four to six years over the course of the season, lifting to the team into their athletic primes, right? Because one of the problems I think with the Niners is that they're all old as shit

and they're all going to get hurt by the substation. But if it becomes a data center and they get this Benjamin Button situation, now Purdy is going to be a baby by the playoffs, but is that a problem? Is that necessarily a problem? Kyle Shanahan can get 3,000 yards and 20 touchdowns of babies. A baby purdy. A baby pretty, I think that's right. Any baby.

Any baby. That's the baseline for baby. Baby party might be. I want to start with you. What's the best case for the Niners for Shanahan for this team? I think if you ask Shanahan, he'd say Super Bowl or bust. But is that still the case even so many years after we've seen them not be able to get over the hump? I feel like the Super Bowl window is kind of closed, right?

Like at least for this iteration of the team, and I think that doubling down on getting guys who are just who are old but proven isn't necessarily prying that window any further open than what it is right now. I think best case scenario is that Christian McCaffrey, after coming off of a 400-plus-touch season, sees the end of the season. It's still an offensive player of the year type of producer by the end of this year. And maybe you can spoil, you know, the dreams of one of your NFC West rivals.

Maybe you get to catch, you know, a Seattle or a Los Angeles in a division around, and you're able to sneak by them and you get to the conference championship game. I think that would be a rounding success for where this team is at. I think that there's a lot of reason to be optimistic about the 49ers in general, right? I think that last year was actually a perfect example

of all the tropes that we've always held with the Kyle Shanahan team, which is that like they can roll out of bed and be a top five offense. And I mean, that was legitimately the case all last year, right? Like, there were times where I was watching and I'm like, I genuinely don't know how these guys are open. This is not a very good receiving core.

The offensive line has definitely taken a step back. They don't control the line of scrimmage on early downs. And I have the ways that I feel about Brock Purdy. And for all the things that he can do for this offense, there are other ways in which he's limiting. And still, I mean, they're just marching up the field, drive after drive, putting points on the board. I think if you're able to replicate that,

and I think that a lot of that hinges on having a healthy McCaffrey, you can get to the playoffs, maybe win a playoff game, and be competitive enough for us to be talking about them legitimately in the NFC championship picture. I just don't see Super Bowl for a team like this, that has the holes that it does. Yeah, they're in that, that, like, spot where you have the Super Bowl expectations because the last couple years, and they've been in the Super Bowl twice during the Shanian era,

but the roster kind of ages you out of it. And then you start making these rastishes and it's based on the fact that you think that you should be in Super Bowl contention. I think this could be a weird season for the 49ers. And my worst-case scenario is kind of based from a fan's perspective, where, like, obviously the worst-case scenario is everyone gets hurt, and they win like six games or whatever and they miss the playoffs.

But I think the worst case scenario is maybe like Brock Purdy gets hurt and you bring Matt Jones in again and Mac Jones doesn't have the year he had last year filling in for Purdy and the offense actually struggles. The defense struggles under Rahim Morris and they miss the playoffs. And then ownership and the fan base,

which is already kind of weirdly against Shanahan in a way and kind of being like we should build around Purdy and maybe get another coach. Shanahan has proven that he can't win a championship. and that they end up making the rational decision to move on from Kyle Shady. And I think that's your worst case scenario. Because no matter how the season goes, I think there's a good chance that it ends poorly just because of the injury history.

If everyone stays healthy, they'll make the playoffs. I think they'll be a contender. If everyone gets hurt, it'll be more of the same that we've seen from their down years. But I think fans and ownership might be fed up with it now and might try to clean the slate and maybe build around this quarterback that they've invested a lot of money in. And I think that's just worst case scenario because as long as you have Kyle Shanahan,

I think you have a chance, like DeAndre said, at the top five offense. And if you have a top five offense or a top 10 offense, you have a really good shot at going on a run in the playoffs, provided the defense is good enough. And that's what we've seen with the 49ers, right? During the Shanahan era, whatever the defense is good,

they're Super Bowl contenders. Whenever the defense is bad, they're on the fringe of playoff contender. I'd argue that the worst case scenario is not one where Purdy or anyone gets hurt. because if someone or any of those guys get hurt, it's going to be easy to have the same offseason we have with the 49ers a lot of the time where it's like, yeah, these guys got hurt,

and that's why they weren't able to make it. They had the quarterback game against Philly, right, where you lose all those quarterbacks and even Kittle at the press conferences, like we would have won that game if we didn't, you know, all of our quarterbacks didn't get hurt or whatever. I think the worst case scenario is these guys stay generally healthy, including Purdy, including Mike Evans, Kirk, Trent Williams, who's like 35, 36-year-olds,

all these guys stay healthy. McCaffrey does another 400 touches, and they still don't make the Super Bowl for whatever reason. Yeah. Right? And I think it would be easier to blame Chanahan if, like, Purdy gets hurt and then he does come back. Because, like, I think if it's easy to blame Purdy for the struggles, like, if Purdy has a down year and you're like, oh, we're pouring all this money into him and he's not producing. I think it would be easy to kind of scapegoat him instead of Kyle.

But if, like, Purdy has a neutral year or doesn't play a full season, then I think it's easier to be like, all right, it's Kyle's problem and not Purdy. Let's see what Purdy can do with a different coach. And if we start, we just start fresh. Deante, I tell you, as the Niners owner, the price for Kyle Shanahan is four first-round picks, at least. Are you picking up the phone and how quickly are you, and which teams do you think? Because we don't talk enough about, like, coach trades, right?

John Gruden was traded a while back for two first-round picks and two second-round picks. Sean Payton, too, right? Sean Peyton was traded for a first round plus, right, or a handful more. Like, Shanahan is, if he's on the trade market after another disappointing season for whatever excuse we want to throw in their face,

like, that would be hot. I know I brought up on the previous pot, I brought up like, bro, maybe being traded or Lamar maybe being traded if things don't happen or as expected, because there's a lot of high expectations for both those teams and both those quarterbacks. I feel like Shanahan, like,

can the Niners realistically go through another offseason where they kind of try to like, you know, sticks and gum, Band-Aid solution this offense with older players that Shanahan kind of likes? Like, I almost feel like the... And like, we don't bring it up enough of the Trey Lance thing. It's like arguably one of the,

the biggest busts in NFL draft history, given what they gave up, right? Versus, like, just taking a guy number one overall, like DeMarcus Russell or Ryan Lee for whoever it was. Like, these people have made a lot of mistakes. The roster isn't a bad place and old for the reasons that, for the decisions that Lynch, John Lynch and Kyle Shanahan have made. I could see there being, if this season is disappointing

and there aren't easy injury excuses, I could see them being like, you know what, like, if this team is offering us four first round picks for Kyle Shanahan and some players or some cash, whatever, like, we might take it. I mean, four is strong. Four is strong. What about three? Wait, wait, let me ask this. Let me close this question.

Before you get to that, I think it would be much more analogous to a team like the Rams trading for Matthew Saford, where Jared Gough and another first round pick stands and it's two first round picks to get a guy like Kyle Schenheimen. Like a salary dump situation or even, like just like help the Niners completely reset with young talent because their roster is old and expensive. Like Fred Warner is the highest paid lineback in the NFL. I think Chris McAfrey is close to, if not the highest paid running back in the NFL.

Like they have high paid players at low value. They saw fucking Kyle. you check on this goddamn team. Like they, this is, no, this is fun. It's just so funny hearing you lay out the case, you and Stephen lay out the case for why there is fan exhaustion with someone like Kyle Shanahan. And I know that this comparison is not new.

I think that Stephen and I have talked about this specifically on this podcast before, but this sounds so much like the end of the AD Reed era in Philadelphia, right? Like you kind of miss your window to go contend for championships. You know you can still put together a top five offense. Your team is just getting older because you've, been whiffing in the draft, trying to, you know, replace aging production or guys who have left in free agency. And this is exactly where the 49ers are, where you're kind of clutching one to the wheel as tightly as possible. There's really no guarantee, like you were saying, Austin, that

even if they are healthy, that these guys are going to make a playoff run, you're still dealing with maybe the top two teams in the NFL in your division and a tough schedule, you know, throughout, right? So to me, I think it is entirely within the realm of possibility that even if all their guys make it through the season, that Mike Evans, who has dealt with. with hamstring injuries in the last two seasons and has had to miss time for them and is not as dynamic, a downfield threat shows up and it's just kind of like a regular big X

and not, you know, 2020, Mike Evans when he's still putting up 1,000 yards as he's approaching 30 and we were asking like, is it just going to be the rest of his career, right? Like, we might be on the other side of that now. There is no George Kittle for the foreseeable future and we don't know what version of George Kittle is going to be back when he's healthy.

And we're talking about a guy like Christian Kirk in the slot or maybe you give it off to John Stribling, and we know how Kyle Shanahan is with young receivers. So there's no guarantee that just because he's a big, strong, fast guy that is going to, you know, kind of click for him immediately. It could be, I don't think it's ever possible that they would have a bad or mediocre or league average offense. I just think that the band of outcomes that are good for them

is very strictly based on them being no worse than like the fourth best offense in the league. And like leading the league and explosive play rate, both on the ground and through the ground. the air. That is the only way I think that you could sell me on this team contending. So if the best case scenario for them is conference championship Super Bowl, and we're saying that almost any other outcome leads to the fans getting louder and louder about how this era needs a pivot or needs to end or they need to take a different approach to how they build their roster, I think I'm leaning more

towards the more pessimistic into this and it'll be where we kind of land with this team. And that's despite already seeing tweets that Deshaun Stribling, quote unquote, was multiple teams best receiver in the draft. I'm hearing that now. I guess that's true. I guess stribling now so many months removed was multiple teams favorite player in the in the draft, which I don't really understand how that happens and he falls to where he did. But this is where we are. I think it's also important to bring up this is like the hardest division in football. The Rams are the best team in the NFL on paper. If they stay healthy and Arodonnell comes back, like look out, look out. Seattle just won the Super Bowl. And then the Niners are right there. And

the Niners, according to Fandle, have the fifth lowest odds to win the Super Bowl. I'm not taking them at that price. Are you kidding? Are you kidding? Plus 1,500? This is the teams. Rams at plus 550, 5 to 1, Ravens at 11 to 1, tied with the bills. Seahawks are 12 to 1. And then it's the Niners at 15 to 1. There's that cluster of Niners, Chiefs, I think the Eagles are kind of in that mess. I'm not, I wouldn't touch those teams. I'm not a betting person, but I'm not touching those teams at the price. Like, I don't feel good about the value on that. I just don't see them as Super Bowl contenders. It's not purgatory for them. I think we'll get to other teams in the NFC that are genuinely stuck in a purgatory.

It's not necessarily purgatory for them because they can get hot enough to be a legitimate threat in the NFC. I mean, if you're just asking me to just evaluate rosters right now, you're not going to be able to sell me that San Francisco deserves to be in that conversation with Seattle or or Los Angeles.

And the more we talk about it, the more I think, like, if there is a breakup between Kyle Shanahan and the 49ers, I think it's going to be mutual. Like, I think both parties are going to look at the roster and what they've accomplished or haven't accomplished over the last couple years and be like, it's not going to work with this roster,

and it's going to be an awkward rebuild or like a significant rebuild, getting rid of all these expensive veterans, finding talent, accruing the draft capital to, you know, replenish the roster. So I think it would make sense that not only for Kyle,

because he can go to a team that's already built like maybe at Kansas City. No, I have that, I have, can I give you one? Yeah, yeah. I got two first round picks. I got two second round picks, and I got T. Higgins.

To the, what do you think? Bangles. is that Taylor's fired Burroughs there Shanahan's interested I'm starting to get interested I'm taking that I'm taking that deal

because you brought it the Trey Lance deal or the Trey Lance mistake I think that's proof of concept that you can win with Shanahan without that draft capital

because he made one of the biggest mistakes in the modern history of the NFL and they went to the Super Bowl and probably should have won the Super Bowl that year and I was

the question I was going to pose earlier is like Lamar, Burrow, Shanahan, you're building a franchise, I'm not sure I'm not taking Shanahan over those two quarterbacks. Definitely, especially now that they're 30. Like, we're not talking enough about how, like Lamar Jackson is not going, odds are going to play like he did in his 20s and his 30s.

Neither is Burrough, right? Like, that's just, now Burrough is less predicated on his athleticism, but still, like, his mobility matters. He takes too many sacks. I mean, if he becomes more of a statue. His history would tell you that he's not going to, his body is not going to stand up. Exactly.

I just turn 32, okay? It's not easy, pal. Like, you start turning 30, everything hurts all the time, and I'm not getting hit by NFL players. Like, these guys turn 30. Is your processing better, though, now? No, no. Are you getting through your progression? It's getting worse.

All right, let's get off the Niners and let's talk about these Rams. Favorite to win the Super Bowl. Literally, they're 5 to 1 and the next best team. Next lowest odds is 11 to 1. So everyone looks at this team on paper and says, this is the best team in the league. We've got Miles Garrett, maybe Erden Donald's coming back. Stafford is healthy. Like, it's hard to, you know, I don't even know how we need to spend that much time on best case here,

Deontae, but like, like obviously the best case is they win a Super Bowl and they're the best team in the league and they look like what everyone thinks they are. I think I want to start with you or ease instead. And like, how does this all, how do they, what is a realistic worst case? And don't just tell me injuries.

Like, injuries is obviously a worst case for every team. Yeah, I have two. I have the obvious one is Matthew Stafford in particular, it gets hurt. And then Ty Simpson doesn't play. Because I think if, if, because we've heard like there's competition for that second spot with him and Stets and Bennett,

if that happens and the whole thing was like, oh, it was an insurance policy and they really like Ty Simpson. And he's not the one that comes in a, plays, that will just fuel the fire that everyone has already talked about with Sean McVeigh possibly hating the pick. I don't really necessarily agree with that. But the non-injury one is that the offensive line isn't as strong and we don't get one of the most efficient run games of all time. And you put more plate on Matthew Stafford as a dropback passer. And he's exposed

to more hits. He doesn't need to be injured. But I do think if that happens, he's going to be a little banged up. And he's a 40-year-old quarterback. And 40-year-old quarterbacks tend not to do well with taking a lot of hits. So I think that's the only way and it lowers the ceiling on the offense but the floor for me is still like worst case scenario even if that happens is 10 and 7 and they make the playoffs and maybe win a game or two.

Do you have reason to think that the line will take a step back like when you mentioned like do you like I know they're returning a lot of the starters right? No, it was just historic like their run game was historically efficient and it's really hard to replicate that. How much of that too though is like him getting under center like them winding and I feel like they McVeigh is kind of ahead on this next personnel change as well

in terms of like under center running game Like him turning Kairn Williams into a 90% snaps player and getting efficiency is the offense. It's not it's not Kiron Williams, right? I would say the weird thing about the offensive line is that for as great as they were running the ball, Matthew Stafford took a decent amount of punishment in the pocket last year. Like they weren't as great in terms of pass protection as they were, you know, in 2021 when they actually finished the deal and won the Super Bowl. And they could just be in empty all the time and just let Matthew Stafford sit back there and dice defenses up in the passing game. They've kind of had to swing the other way, right?

And I think that a lot of that success is just because they've been defenses to their will in the run game. When you watch, it's really not, it's not like Philadelphia two years ago where they're just handed the ball to Sequin. You're just seeing defensive tackles just getting absolutely mauled off the ball, right? Like, it's not that type of deal. They're just very sound schematically, right? They have great blockers at wide receivers. The thing I wanted to bring up more so than the offensive line, maybe not more so, but just is something that maybe doesn't get discussed a bunch. is that this wide receiver room, it's pretty tenuous.

It's actually very tenuous, right? Like, I think it's easy to get lost in the touchdown count for Devante Adams. I think that we just kind of think about him as just like this known quantity at all times. I think on Jeremy Fowler's top 10 receivers list, he was still in the top 10, which I don't necessarily know that I would argue against that. I just don't know where that leaves us in terms of what. You just say it, Deontay, just say it. But like, the dude on less than 800 yards receiving last year,

Clearly was kind of bugged by some lower body kind of hamstring stuff. You know, as the season went on, he can still separate, but not vertically, right? You're not really getting much from him after the catch. And now you're talking about a wide receiver that's led by Pooka Nakula, who is another non-separator. Great contested catch guy, but not necessarily a separator. And I think it may be the biggest beneficiary in Sean McVeigh's career of the scheme, doing a lot of the heavy lifting to make the wide receiver as productive as he is.

And behind that, best of luck telling me, what the rest of this passing game is supposed to look like, right? Like they're one adjustment from a defense, and I'm not saying it's going to be simple, but they're an adjustment from defenses and how they want to handle this multiple set tight-in, multiple tight-in sets from this passing game not looking nearly as dynamic as it did last year, right?

Like, and as all these teams now, I'm sure, have spent the last four to five months studying very specifically how they want to defend 12 and 13 personnel. I just don't, I would not be so quick to assume that if this team is a contender, it's going to be because they're gangbusters on offense. I think that the pathway really for them is going to be defense gets a bunch of sacks, forces a bunch of turnovers.

You don't ask Matthew Stafford to do a lot in the regular season, and then you get to the playoffs and he just becomes the same third down guy. He was, you know, a half decade ago, you know, over the last couple of seasons while they've been making these playoff runs to just have it resulted in a championship. That's why I don't think it's like outlandish to think, like Austin said, like they didn't change personnel in the offense. on the offensive line.

But one adjustment, I don't think that's unrealistic. First of all, we saw it with the first iteration of the McVeigh Rams after they played the Patriots in the Super Bowl. They had those down years because defenses did adjust and they forced Jared Goff to be more of a dropback passer. Obviously, Matthew Stafford is more accomplished and more able to do that. But if he is older and taking hits, I think that's tough because we watched them against Seattle,

and they were the only team that really had Seattle's number, had Mike McDonald's number. But it was because Stafford was a super, in those games. Like he was doing no look passes. The MVP of the league. Yeah, he was a superhero all year long,

but in particular, in those games, like Seattle made it hard on. He was playing down here. Perfect. Yeah, it was like outside the numbers, no look passes,

and all that crazy stuff. And if he's not playing to that level, like those Seattle games get a lot harder. And if teams kind of learn from those Seattle games, not that they're going to be

able to replicate it one for one, but if they learn any lesson from that and you get kind of a blueprint like you did with the golf version of the Rams, and it gets tougher on offense. I think we could be talking in November about, like, hey, what's wrong with the Rams offense?

Yeah. Is McVeigh going to find answers? And like the tight end stuff, I think it was giving teams problems last year, but like DeAndre said, they had all offseason. I think they're going to treat those personnel groupings a little differently. They're going to see Ferguson come on the field

and be like, that's a wide receiver. That's not even a tag. Which they weren't really doing last year outside of Seattle. So I think that, I don't, like, They have such a high floor, but I think the offense, the floor is a little lower than we'd like to make it out. It's also, we use, what did you say, precarious, Deante? Like, I feel like it's fragile, right? Like, we say, like, well, Ruiz, don't do worst case with just injuries, but, like, Stafford is old and has had a backhand for a while.

They literally, like, ran it out like an airbus to, like, protect his back. Like, Devante Adams is getting older and is struggling with lower leg injuries. Those are, that's a problem. That's a reoccurring problem that would be foolish to say is not going to happen again next year. When you look at in Stafford's career, he played almost 800 dropbacks last year. Like to say he's going to play back-to-back seasons over 800 or 800 plus dropbacks. It's just not something he's done really ever in his career, let alone at this age. And then we haven't even brought up the fact, I tell you, week four, Pukunakua bit somebody.

You're going to be like, yeah, probably did. And he's probably going to be suspended for like four games or like started. Like Pooka to Koo, anything could happen with Pukkahua right now. And he'd be like, yeah, I guess that did happen, huh? And then maybe it's like problematic or whatever. Like, does it fuck up a game? I think he could have in-game moments of boneheadedness. I think he could have out-of-game moments of bone-headedness

that are hard to calculate in Super Bowl odds on paper with our lads. I think that the receiving core is fragile for more ways than one. Stafford is definitely fragile. And then if this offense isn't, you know, the cat's pajamas and people have caught up to it, then maybe there are, I think there's a realistic case for the defense, because I think this is the best defensive line in the NFL. Brain Fis, Puna Ford, Kobe Turner, Byron, Young, Miles Garrett. I'll take it.

Maybe the Aaron Donald. Then the secondary. I think it might be the best secondary in the NFL. They brought in the two Chiefs Corners, Jalen Watson, Trent McDuffey. They brought back Cam Curl and Cam Citchens and Quentin Lake. And they kept their D.C. This might be a better defense than an offense. We haven't been able to say that about McVeigh team ever.

That's interesting. You mentioned problematic, and this is kind of the last point I'd make on it. We've talked about wide receivers. We've talked about the age of Matthew Stafford. It's entirely possible that we're looking up in the first month of the season. and Matthew Stafford is being protected by Warren McClendon and David Quisenberry if the NFL decides to suspend Allerick Jackson.

Right? Like that is within the realm of possibility, right? Like, and if that's the case, I feel infinitely worse about what Matthew Stafford's health prospects are going to be throughout the year. Questonbury? Questonbury? Is your backup, rotation, swing tackle?

Like, what? Is he like 35? That's their next left tackle up. That's their next left tackle up, right? If Allerick Jackson has to miss any time. And I mean, he's been dealing with injuries on top of off-the-field stuff with the domestic violence allegations and lawsuits that have come up over the last few off-season. So, I mean, if the NFL does decide to swing a hammer on him or he does have to miss time for any reason,

I like this interior offensive line, but now you're genuinely going to be asking, you know, your Kyron Williams and Blake Quorums to go get you four to six yards on every carry because that's the only way to keep Matthew Stafford out of third and obvious past situations. I say this, and I still do expect this team basically to just run through the league outside. of it's two matchups against the Seahawks, but I would just not be, I don't know if I feel as certain today asking me about it, as I did when the news of the Miles Garrett trade was broken,

and I was first thinking about where this team was. Of course, we talked about, you know, if we wake up week four and, like, there's two, you know, two missing starters on the offensive line, this offensive line is not deep. If Questonbury is taking snap for this team, we are in trouble. Receiving side, what if I told you this week,

they're trotting out Jordan Whittington, Xavier Smith, and Kanata Mumfield. that's not any if Duvante Adams misses four weeks six weeks if Puka misses four weeks six weeks who has struggled with off-field stuff but also injuries like I think it's going to be tough year I think for the offense

if those things happen which I don't think are crazy to predict in a sick way I think Sean McVeigh would be excited if that was the case because he can get his blocking wide receivers on the bag the bag would get deep all right let's jump to the C-Ox Super Bowl winner do you want my weirdest case yeah I think that's where we should start with them okay Darnold is better under new offensive coordinator Brian Flurry.

Better. New career year. Three offense coordinators in three years and this time, Stam Donald's somehow better. Jackson Smith, the Jigba, and Rashid ranked first and sixth in receiving yards. Judarian Price, their new rookie first round picket running back, Notre Dame, is 90% of what Kenneth Walker was to the offense. Seahawks go up on a go for another run, but come up short. Why I feel like that's weirdest case is because I just cannot with my crystal ball and Deontay tell me if I'm wrong. assume that this offense will be better in 2026 and 2025.

I think the offense takes a step back because of Kubiak. I think the offense takes a step back because Kenneth Walker leaving. And I think it takes a step back because, you know, this is now going to be year three of the best we've ever seen from Darnel, right? I think teams have woken up. And I think there could be some shit your pants factor for Darnold in year three coming off a hangover where there might be two better teams in the division even. If San Francisco gets hot and what we've said about the Rams.

But what do you think, Deonti? I mean, your weirdest case was like my best case, truthfully. Yeah. Like, I don't know if, I don't know if I'd pick them to win another Super Bowl in the best case scenario, although I do expect him to be in the picture for it almost no matter what. But I think the best case scenario is that Brian Fleury comes in as a tight-in slash run-game guy sees their combination of tight-ins and A.J. Barner and Elijah Arroyo and says, oh, I know exactly what I want to do with this because we've done different versions of this all the time in San Francisco.

And they're very multiple. They're able to lean on the run game. like you said, maybe Sam Darnold playing in an offense that is built, maybe more to be in the vision of what Kyle Shanahan has tried to build in San Francisco, assuming that that's what Brian Fleury does as a play caller. And now you do get a bunch of hard downhill runs on early downs. And now I just get to be the play action guy. I get to be the bootleg guy.

I get to be the plant my back foot, and I'm just letting it fly to Rashid Shaheed. And Rashid Shaheed is leading the league in yards per route run because every time he touches the wall, it's some 35, 45-yard gain. I think that that is within the realm of possibility. It would be a best case, though. And also, I mean, we all know kind of what this defense is. Even with being on Pupp, right, like maybe that changes the way that they approach personnel a little bit.

They've obviously lost some defensive depth in the secondary that they're trying to replace with young guys and some, you know, kind of rotational pieces behind them. But their front seven is just absolute hell. Like, if there are people who are not like ball knowers but one, to know where to start in terms of all 22. You should watch the Seahawks defense from the end zone angle and just watch what they're doing in the front seven. Nobody else in the league is hitting the way that they are hitting in between the tackles, right? So, like that that part's fine.

That's a known commodity there. I do like their wider Cedar core. I do like their tight ends. I think the best case scenario really does just lean upon what they can get out of this secondary again with Mike McDonald. And then the biggest piece really is the combination of Sam Donald and Brian Fleury between play calling and how he plays in the pocket. because of that defensive line, I think their floor for defense is probably like top five still. Like they're the fifth ranked defense.

Yeah, there's like, there's no way you cannot lay out an entire, you cannot lay out a scenario where I'm going to believe they're going to be anywhere from like third or fourth in the league. They also added, they lost Boy A. Maffei, right? He's now with Cincinnati Bengals, which I think was a fine leave given the contract that he got in Cincinnati. They also lose Kobe Bryant,

who I think signed with the Bears, the safety, but they've been like working in Ty Okada and Josh Job, guys that are going to start in the secondary for a while now. Like, how Mike McDonald's that secondary last year, even with who's the tall corner that almost recently lost the game? Yeah, Tariq Wulin, like, he's been rotating

with Job and Wollin and these different guys for a while. Kobe Bryant played a shitload, and, like, I think losing him is a big piece. But, like, I don't think what they lost on defense between Maffei, Bryant, Wullen, is actually when I think they kept the guys they needed to keep. And I think this defense should be as good,

if not possibly better than it was last year, given just like Mike McDonald's still there. Like you said, the front seven is still there. But I don't know. Offensively, like, why it's the best case for you and maybe you're not buying it, why I feel like it is the weirdest case. Like, I can't buy Seattle being better on offense this year.

They lost Cookiak. If offensive coordinators matter, that matters. And they have to matter, right? They have to matter. They have to. So you lose, I mean, Sam Darnold is proof positive that they matter. Yes. That's a good point.

Kevin O'Connell, who people believe, I think, is a kingmaker as an offensive play caller and still are bullish on Minnesota largely because of him, Clint Kubiak, who's now the head coach of Las Vegas Raiders and leading them through their first, first overall pick, at quarterback since 2007, 2008. And now you have, with Darnold, I don't think the, like,

I think people are going to be like, JSN was like 47% of the target share last year. Like, people were going to be like, we can't, like, if we need to limit JSN, we need to, this run game is different. Zach Charbonate, who, you know, I think they'd hope would be healthy at the start of the season. I don't think will be.

It's going to be the rookie running back to Derryan price at the top. Like, I think there's going to be too much newness for the offense. And also the opposite of newness for defenses who are like, yeah, we saw this Seattle team make a run last year. and we know kind of how they got there. First is last year, them kind of like punching the league in the face a bit. No one expected Darnold. I mean, people were like,

Darnold was a downgrade over Gino Smith in the offseason. I think I even said that. Like, I think a lot of people felt that. But I think the offense and Kubiak specifically, Walker, specifically, JSN specifically, I think helped lifted it. You know, some of those guys are missing this year. I'll say, I think that their offense has become overrated from last year. Definitely.

Because of what happened not only in the playoffs and Darnold had like a very clean playoff after leading the league in turnovers, I think that gets overlooked a lot. It definitely gets lost. But if you had to guess where they ranked an EPA per play last year, what would you guess during the regular season? Fourth. What about you, Deontay?

I feel like I kind of know this answer, so I don't want to cheat it. They ranked 18th. They rank 18th. This wasn't like some consistent juggernaut. This was a team that relied on explosive runs and explosive plays in the past game. And you lose your offensive coordinator who proved to be very good. at drawing up explosive plays.

You can even go back to his time in New Orleans, especially early on with Derek Carr. If Flore is like a dud, they have a dud at offensive coordinator, then I could see this offense like just staying stagnant. And if there is any regression of the defense in that division, it gets tougher. So I do think the ceiling,

or the floor is a little lower than maybe people expect for the Super Bowl chance. I would still put it around like nine or ten wins, but I think there is a scenario here where we're asking questions about more questions about Sam Darnold's future there than we are like seeing his praises. Because it's a tricky contract situation.

Yeah. Because I think this is year two out of a three-year contract. Yep. Let's say it's another high turnover year and the offense takes a step back because of the coordinator change. I don't think that necessarily reflects on him as a player. Like he's worse than he was last year.

But it does make it easier to question like how much you're going to pay him. And if I'm Donald, I'm like, I won you a Super Bowl. I had a great first year. and the second year was more about what was around me rather than my own play, I would stand tall, be like, give me a market deal, and I don't know if Seattle's going to be willing to give them that.

Everybody's backs are up against the wall with quarterbacks who are similarly tiered or ranked to Sam Darnold, right? Because the asking price and out was going to be 55 plus, right? Like, Baker Mayfield gets to go to Tampa Bay and say, pay me more than the franchise tag because Daniel Jones just got that, and he hasn't done half of the shit that I've done in this league in terms of consistent passing production. And Sam Darno gets to walk in and drop a ring on the table

and ask for the same thing, right? So, you know, for a team like this, I do think that is, that I think strictly is a worst-case scenario for them because now you have to make a decision on what kind of Sam Darno you want to believe in for the next three to four years. And you're not just making that bet on Darnold. You're making that bet on Darno, probably somewhere between $52 to $56 million per year, which now gets you into the more cost-prohibit,

you know, kind of realm of roster building. And you're not doing that if, and you said like if Flurry's a dud. I think Flurry's a dud if he's average, right? Because two years from now, someone's going to be like, hey, I think we need something better because, you know, you need one of the six to eight best offensive playcalls in the league or else you're always going to be chasing a ceiling that you don't have. I feel like they're going to be questioning Flurry more than they're

questioning Darnold after this off season if the offense takes a step back. That's fair. But how do you pay them? How do you pay them? That's the question, I would say. Let's get to the carton and maybe you tag them. I don't know. Let's get to the Cardinals quickly and then take a break and we've got to get some more divisions. We probably need to move faster. Cardinals, I mean, they're in the hardest division in football.

They're a dormat. The news latest is Jacoby Brissette, who's under contract, has not shown up to camp yet because he wants a new deal because they want him to be the starter. My thing is, why the fuck are you going to pay him to probably win more games than Minchu? Why? Why would you pay Jacoby Brissette to come in and probably be better than Minchu? when I don't think there's a single person in Arizona that doesn't think this season's about losing. This season's about getting Archmanning, the season's about getting Julian San, Dante Moore, whoever. We need to, we're not winning with either Minchu or Bresset

in 2027, 2028. So I don't know. And I think that we mentioned the new coach thing with Hathley. Lefleur, when he took this job, I think knows. And they told him, they're like, yo, we don't really care about this year. We're going to be kind of rebuilding things or whatever. You need to make Marvin Harrison good. You need to make Michael Wilson good.

You need to make Trey McBride good. We need to see some of these skill players elevated, the offense line elevated. But the quarterback position, we're okay. I don't know. Like, is there what the best case and worst case, I think is the same, right? They need to lose a shitload of games next year. I don't, I don't know because the Cardinals have fired coaches after one year. So if I'm Mike LaFlor, I'm kind of, I'm, even if they're telling me, like, you're going to have some runway here.

You're going to be able to build it up. I'm like, I don't believe you. I've seen your grades in the NFLPA survey. I don't believe you. So I think he could be the one fighting for it. but why would you fight for Jacoby percent of all people? But just to get to my worst case scenario, I would just say that Mike LaFleur

proves to be on the lower end of the Shanahan-McVey coaching spectrum. He's like one of those guys. We've already seen him kind of struggle in New York, although I think that was more Zach Wilson than him. And if that happens, then I think the Cardinals think about moving on. But if he proves to be a good play caller and they do have some good pieces

where I think he's going to be able to show off some stuff, then anything else is great because, like you said, this season's about losing. I'm right there with you. The best case scenario is you lose, but Jeremiah Love looks better as a rookie than Ashty Genty did last year, right? What's the production is better, right?

I think that that's the best case scenario. It's going to be interesting to me with the Floor, and you kind of pointed it out, Stephen, right? You go back and you look at some of the data, and it's hard to parse how much of that is just how much of a dirt of talent there was in New York, plus you're dealing with Zach Wilson and a defensive-minded head coach,

but you look at the fact that, like, Michael Floor was pretty low in terms of rushing success rate, you know, compared to his Shanahan tree cohorts, the play action rate on early downs was pretty low compared to his cohorts from this coaching tree. And you didn't see any explosive play. Some of this is talent, right? A lot of this really is talent.

But since then, we don't really have any data point to go off of to say what he is as a play caller because he's been working for people who call plays instead, right? That's why I feel like they need to set goals for Lafleur. And I'm almost like just looking at their offense, like thinking about this is like Falcon's Light a little bit and that like they're investing a ton of first-round picks.

Like, can Marvin Harrison Jr. be Drake London at fucking least? I mean, the way we talked about this guy when he was getting drafted was like he was going to change the league, and he's not even better than like two of the receivers on his team. Like we... Well, aren't you concerned? Definitely. Whether you're a fantasy guy, fall in nowhere tight.

The issue to me is that like it's been, what, three years now of Marvin Harrison Jr. entering the year, probably having his role in the offense changed, right? They've tried to use him as a vertical field stretcher, as a rookie. That didn't really work. They tried to use them in between the numbers on hashes, you know, more of your big boy body up routes early last year.

That didn't work as well. It came back healthy and I think kind of started to iron some things out and I mean, their passing volume was just so high that I think the production kind of started to fix itself. And now you're going into this hyper specific timing based, whether you're a fast receiver or slow receiver, you've got to be at a certain spot.

You've got to have a very specific kind of skill set to separate, you know, or if you have to ask the scheme, to allow you to separate. We're really shrinking your role now and what you can do in terms of adding value to the offense. So yeah, I think you have to be successful with him.

Trey McBride needs to look like the best tight-in football again. Jeremiah Love needs to be one of the more explosive running backs in the league. And I think that for Michael Flore, maybe in all of this, I think, centers around this one point that I've been thinking about, which is that I think success for Michael Flore

looks like making this offensive line look passable in a way that it just has not down the stretches of the last two to three seasons. for as much as I like, you know, a Drew Pretz sing, for the much as I like what they were doing on offense, in spite of some of the struggles that they had with Kyle and Murray over the last two or three years, the one thing that you could set your clock to was it like,

basically by October, this offensive line was just not going to look viable anymore. They weren't going to be able to conventionally move the ball on the ground. They didn't get enough protection for their quarterbacks. I think if Michael Flore can take this scheme and apply it in a way that makes this offensive line look passable again, that I think alone will be a successful story for this season. and it probably is the catalyst to making some of the things we're talking about happen

in terms of offensive player production at running back and at wide receiver. True best case is they lose a ton of games, but Lafleur looks like he has it, and so does maybe Harrison, and so does love, and maybe Carson Beck gets a couple snaps and looks kind of good.

But I think we know the defense is going to be bad, and we also know that it's going to be hard for this offense to be good. It's not equipped to be good on the offensive line. There's so much newness and all that. All right, let's take a break and then get to the NFC North. Okay, we're going to start with the Packers.

I had two question marks for weirdest case. I could not come up with a weirdest case. I think this is another team similar to the Chargers and that I feel like they find funny ways to lose, even if on paper all the time, I feel like they should be good. Defensively, offensively, I feel like, you know, the Michael Parsons trade happened last offseason. Everyone's like, holy shit, is this the best defense in the league?

Lefleur is one of the best offensive minds. Love is one of the most maybe gifted quarterbacks in the league. They love their receivers. They don't have a word. Now I think we need to see some proof for the Packers. And I think that's a NFC championship win, at least in terms of like you'd feel really good about this season. But I think at minimum, Lefleur in this cast needs a divisional round win. Yeah, they just even hit expectations.

Just get to the NFC title game before you win one. Because I do think there's the built-in excuse of the Rams are a super team who are further along in their build. But I mean, I could, I feel like Accru's fans are kind of in the same. as 49ers fans where they're kind of getting tired. They haven't seen a Super Bowl yet. And then you start like glomming on to the weaknesses in a coach. Like I think last year a big thing was how conservative if he was. They ran the football too much.

They didn't pass the football enough. They went too slow at times. And I can see that being a real problem this year. If Michael Parsons isn't ready to play, when he comes back, he's not Michael Parsons, like capital M, capital P. Because that defense is bad around him. That front seven could be really,

bad around him. I think he's arguably like the most load-bearing piece in that division outside of the quarterbacks, obviously. It might be the most load-bearing defensive player in the league. Yes, yes. Yeah, like they need him to generate a pass rush. And if their defense stinks... But he's not going to play at week one, or will he? Right, no, no.

I don't... Yeah. I mean, we might not see him until November, right? Like, Green Bay has a history of being very conservative with recovery from... They have a set... They have, like, a set timeline that you have to hit. They try to get you at least 10 months, and I think the more often than not, they're really trying to shoot to get you a full year. of recovery, which means that we might not see him until Halloween, you know, next year,

or this year, I should say. Is this defense better under Jonathan Gannon than it was Hathley? That's possible. I don't know if I can visualize it because I don't know how different they are from a play-calling personality perspective. What's the proof that Jonathan Gannon is a good defensive coach by those? Has ever been a good defense of a playcaller? No, you took the words right out of my mouth.

Just because he runs like three high sometimes and does crazy cover. Like, it's like, oh, that would have been cool if it worked. but it never works. That's this style of defense. It sounds so unfair because we're talking about the fucking Super Bowl against Patrick Mahomes, which might be in what might have been the greatest offense of our lifetime. But, like, I just cannot escape the memory

of the second half of that Super Bowl. He had a sprained ankle, too, though. All he had a spring ankle. Or no, I'm sorry, sorry. I think it would have mattered. I think so defensively, I feel like I have... It was a literal march, you know, and I think that that's been the problem for him

as a play caller, not to cut you off. I think, for me, weirdest case, which I know was your deal, I think the weirdest case for me is that Michael Parsons comes back and the defense gets worse because some of the issues that they have are, because some of the issues that they have, I think, are just above things that Michael Parsons individually can fix. Their corners have been a problem, right? They've been gamblers and inconsistent in coverage,

and we have seen them have multiple breakdowns out on the perimeter. Stephen kind of laid out, you know, the predictability in terms of early down run. their inability to close a deal in these close games and high leverage situations. One of the other things that I remember going back and watching the wildcard round is that a bad bear's defense kind of outmuscled them for much of that game. And this is a team that has prided itself on having this revolving door of good offensive linemen and being able to develop guys. And we just saw, we have seen them play in these big games

and just get their heads caved in in between the tackles on both sides of the ball. And that comes back to what we were talking about with guys like Devonce Wyatt and the contract that he signed. I think that the Packers, for the most part, have done a smart job of building a roster that is both young, high potential, and sets a high enough floor for you to genuinely be in the playoff

to conference championship conversation. But now some of these bets have to pay off, right? Christian Watson has to be available. Tucker Kraft has to come back and look again the way he did for the first month of the season. I was like, oh, man, we might have another gronk on our hands because every time this guy touches the ball, two to three defenders are just bouncing off of his body

right out in the open field. It's got to look like that on offense again. And defensively, I think that they just got to find a way, even if it means that you're one of the worst teams in terms of success rate defensively to just not give up big plays, to find a way to load up the box and take away the run. And hope that when Michael Parsons gets back,

he can be the closer that you need and that that might be enough of a recipe where if you land on the right side of the bracket, maybe you can end up in the NFC championship game. My worry is that LaFleur is going to lean into the conservative tendencies and be like, all right, our defense isn't good. We got to protect our defense by controlling the ball and running the football again.

Whereas I think the best version of this team, assuming the defense is mediocre to bad, is let's outscore everyone. We have Jordan Love, a top 10 quarterback, crafts coming back. Watson, we paid him a bunch of money. We finally think we have our receiving course settled. I think they should be aiming to score 30 points a game.

They should be like the 2020 to 2022 bills. The goal is to get 35 on the board, and then whatever happens after that, at least we did our job. Yeah, and I don't know if that's going to happen. And I think if it doesn't happen, and Leflore runs the offense the way he did last year, which kind of lowers the ceiling,

I think Packers fans kind of have a right to complain about it, whereas I think 49ers fans would be insane to complain about Kyle Shannon. I think there's a, you know, last year something with the offensive line. They dealt with a lot of injuries specifically early in the season. I remember like Zach Tom, like trying to play through a ton of shit. And like they, they weren't, you have to hope that they're healthier. But, you know, Josh Jacobs is on, you know, their domestic violence allegations,

we don't know if he's going to be available for the start of the season. We don't know if the league is going to suspend him. And I think something I've loved about the receiving court, even though I don't really like any individual piece outside of Jaden Reed, is that they've had a ton of guys. And now Dobbs is gone. Dantavian Wicks is gone. And then Matthew Golden was this rookie.

sensation who if I think his last name was Smith, I don't even think the fancy community knows he's a football player. And then Jaden Reed is another person who gets hurt all the time. Yeah. So like, and Sky Moore's on the bench.

That's always a bad sign. And Kraft is coming off a major injury. Yeah. Like, I'm scared. I'm scared. I'm scared. If Tucker Kraft is not Rob Grankowski again,

which often ACL is hard to imagine, even though he's in his athletic prime and like, you know, medical advances are better. If one of these receivers miss his time and Sky Moore is taking snaps, I'm going to go ahead and wave because Josh Jacobs is going to be suspended

the offensive line we're hoping is fully healthy I think the offense has real concern and like Lefleur I think is as good of a problem solver as an offensive play caller as any coach in the league but at a certain point there's going to be maybe too many problems for this offense and not enough solutions like Kraft is a solution I think Jordan Love is a solution

after that there's a lot of problems I think for this offense either through availability or even just like actual play like I thought and I'm going to get this on record now I thought the Christian Watson contract was insane. And like, it's not because I don't think he's a good player. I think it's more likely that Christian Watson drops the pass that wins the game for the Green Bay Packers in the NFC Championship with a divisional round,

then it's likely that he's the hero. I think he could be the hero against a shitty team in the regular season and have 150 yards and two tugs. But in the playoffs, when he's one-on-one and he drops it, bring back this pod. Because I think that that's more likely, in my opinion, than him being some hero catching some big pass down the way. I think they have the widest range of realistic outcomes in this division. Like I have their floor at six wins.

But I could see everything working out. Yeah, I'm not ruling that out. This has been a very negative conversation. But I think it's because I think the Packers have had this like, you know, they brought in my compartment. Last year we were talking about them maybe being the best team in football. And then now we're like, are all like, are they even the, are, it wouldn't even be the third best team in the NFC West.

Like that, that to me feels like a big change from where we were. when they traded for Parsons last year. Let's go to the Bears. Speaking of wide range of outcomes. And, you know, all of last year, all of the regression is going to point at, like, they were, you know,

trailing in so many games. And, like, it's hard to be these comeback kings. And I think Craig Horlebeck on the Ringer Fantasy Football Show, I think is very fair to say, like, when you learn how to come back, that is experience that I do think matters. Now, I'm not saying it means every game you're trailing, you're now going to win, you know,

eight of those games or whatever. But I do think that kind of experience is going to translate in terms of, like, we're never down. But I'm interested in, in what your worst case is, Ruiz, for the Bears. Is there in this an unraveling completely between Ben Johnson and Caleb Williams, something that I don't think anyone is expecting? Or do you even think their worst case is not bad, and it's something else?

No, I kind of have that folded into my worst case. But I would say I kind of disagree on the wide range of outcomes. I think this team has a very narrow range of outcomes, because I don't think they were as good as they kind of showed last year. And I just don't see the floor being that low, just because I think Ben Johnson is such a good coach. I think they've made some additions to the secondary to attack specific problems, like giving up explosives.

And I trust the defensive coordinator. But my worst case scenario is that Dylan Thineman and Kobe Bryant, those additions don't fix the explosive play problem. And then the bears are in these past heavy scripts. And some of the issues that Ben Johnson was willing to overlook in year one for Caleb Williams, he's not willing to overlook it in year two. And I do think there is an outside chance of a fracture in that relationship, just because of those two personalities.

So I think that's worst case scenario. I don't think that's going to happen. But I could very much see a situation where next off season we're like, oh, what's the relationship between these two guys like? Because I think people were pushing that narrative before they ever played a football game together. Yeah, but then I think that that narrative kind of died after they started playing football games together, specifically in the second. But it's so easy to come back.

Because like the out-of-structured thing and everyone's like, oh, Ben Johnson's a stickler for the detail. So I think it would be easy to bring it back. I think that the offense is going to be better in 2026. I agree. I think I would be betting on that side more so than it's plateaued or regresses. What do you think, Deonti? I think the best case scenario to answer, I think this probably answers your question,

is that Caleb Williams plays like a first team all pro quarterback, right? Yeah. I don't want to put the MVP tag on them because it's just, I feel really lofty for a team that really wants to base itself off of dominating you on the ground. I think that we saw that even as they were getting hot last year, right, that it was really a lot more about, you know, Kyle Monagai and, you know, DeAndre Swift, in this offensive line,

which we thought was just slapped together at the time, actually coalescing into being one of the better run-blocking units in the league being paired with, you know, maybe the best run game designer that we have in the league right now and Ben Johnson. You know, it's funny, when Steven says the narrow band of outcomes, I thought about it the same way. I'm like, this is a 10-and-7 team.

It's just going to be a matter whether or not the 10-and-7 is complimentary or derogatory. Yeah, yeah. And I think the complimentary version of that is that all of the metrics that, you know, make us feel good about this team right now hold true. They continue to be one of the best teams in terms of success rate and explosive play rate in the run game. You start to see a little bit of improvement from Kayla Williams on early downs in terms of not having those inexplicable misses, you know, on speedouts or comebacks that will move the chains or keep you, you know, ahead of the chains on those early downs. And that maybe you're just not winning as many games because the defense doesn't force.

a ridiculous amount of turnovers anymore, right? And that because you're in a very competitive division, and I think that they have to play, I think that division is playing the NFC East right this year. I think you're going to see a lot of close games again, and maybe you just end up on the wrong side of, you know, some of your close game luck that you were on the right side of last season. And if you can just make the playoffs again with this unit,

with this team that I think still needs to pivot at a lot of different places. I don't think that moving on from DJ Moore to add draft capital, I don't think that just opening up opportunities for a Colston Loveland and, you know, a Luther burden is enough for this team to get to where it wants to get to ultimately, nor do I think that all of the, you know, money and draft capital spent on the defensive side of the ball. I don't think that any of that is enough to even out the play there either. I felt more like plugging holes than making the defense better. 100%.

I think that, and we just talked, we've talked about this, you know, with San Francisco, right? Like, you pay to paper over your draft misses. And this is a team that I think, you know, for the rest of the, you know, Caleb Williams' this rookie deal, all the money that they're supposed to have to be able to go spin on luxury items is actually going to be spent trying to patch over holes on this offensive line and with this defense. And I think that really the best case scenario is just going to be that Williams is so excellent that he makes it not matter for another season. I want to talk about the Vikings next.

So obviously it's the J.J. McCarthy, former first round pick. Only first round pick, I think, ever to not play a single snap his rookie season as a, as a, a quarterback. He got hurt in like the preseason. We didn't even see the injury, but apparently he was just like out the entire year. Then you enter year two. Kevin O'Connell's changing his entire footwork going into the season and not really thrilled about it. And you kind of see immediately that it's just not going to work out. And you get some Carson Wentz mixed in last year. And now, you know, Kyle Murray all of a sudden becomes available for the vet minimum. And it's, you know, they're saying this is going to be a competition all the way up to the start of the season. From people I've talked to who cover the team, you immediately see who the better quarterback is. It's Tyler Murray. And I think it's advantageous, right, for the Vikings to say, like, this is going to be a competition to the end. But I'd imagine that in closed rooms and even in these practices, it's going to feel like they're giving Murray more and more and more of the first dream reps as we get close to the season.

Because, like, even if you, if you're buying Kyler Murray, you want to buy him on the first half of the season, more so than the second half. Like, I like Murray before Grant Theft Auto comes out more than anybody. And I also think that, like, you know, throw the fucking video game stuff out of her second. It's like the injuries, right? he's a smaller quarterback that has battled injuries. He's going to be healthier before he plays the games than he is going to be,

you know, at the halfway point of the season. And I've been saying all year that like for fantasy football purposes and even for betting purposes, I want to kind of pump and dump the Vikings because I think the first half of the season could be so much better than the second half of the season because I think that's where Kyler's at his best. And maybe we're like, they're still shocking people with like what this offense looks like.

Right. But I think over the second half of season, either through Kyler injuries or Kyler regression and then maybe JJ has to play more than they thought or God forbid someone else gets hurt. I think it's going to be harder for this defense or for this team going into the playoffs to be like a red-hot team. I guess that doesn't help spell out best or worst case. But I kind of, I think they're more realistic thing is that they're hot in moments,

maybe specifically at the start of the season. And then towards the end, no one's like kind of buying them as a serious contender. What do you think, Ruiz? I think it's that 20-24 season, right? The one with Sam Darnold, I think followed a similar script. My worst-case scenario is that we'd never get a clear resolution to the McCarthy-Ky-Kyler thing, because I think that means Kyler is bad and not necessarily that JJ has taken some significant step forward, which I guess

is a possibility, but I think the Vikings, if Kyler does struggle in any way, I think the Vikings are going to go out of their way to kind of make this first round pick happen. And they're going to give them a longer leash and give them every chance to succeed. I think that's the only reason we're seeing this quote-unquote competition,

which I don't think is a competition because Kyler has become underrated, my mind. I don't think he's like a top 10 quarterback or even like on the fringes anymore, but he's in an above average quarterback who could do things and fill in some gaps that I don't think the Vikings have had recently. Like, he's had his best, like, in quick game to me.

Like, he's like a mini version of Aaron Rogers, later career Aaron Rogers. So it's not the biggest compliment. But I think Kevin O'Connell had his best run game last year. I think if he gets like a quick game situation going on and then you get the old version of Justin Jefferson back. I think there's a chance that this office could be very good, but there's always a timeline on it because of Kyler Murray's size in the injury history. I think we should open some space for the fact that like this offense might just be kind of like this zomified version of what Kevin O'Connell typically like to do with the offense versus him trying to shoehorn some of that stuff in to make it work with the Kyler Murray and how he likes to play stylistically, right?

Which I think does kind of feed into some of the things that you guys are saying in terms of your concerns long term for this season. Or if things do stagnate, maybe it is because Kyler has a hard time, you know, kind of finding. himself in this style of offense. I think that Kevin O'Connell has done an excellent job. I think we have enough proof now to say that he can be pretty malleable, right? So I'm not saying that I believe that it's going to be a stilted effort to try to build this offense in a way that both matches what O'Connell wants to do and what Murray is used to or most comfortable with. I'm just not so sure that it's going to be, even if Murray is clearly better than McCarthy, this plug and play, hey, we just dropped a more talented guy into our ecosystem and it's all good. I do think that schematically we

might have to kind of wrap our arms around, things looking a little bit different, a lot more gun. You know, I think that just a different application of all their 11 personnel stuff that we may have come used to over the last few years. But to me, the best case scenario is, it really is just going to be, Kyle Murray is healthy. He looks like that fringe MVP level quarterback that they had, you know, that we saw in Carolina at points, and that this team is just able to sneak into the wild card around. And I think if you can get Brian Flores and Kevin O'Connell into a playoff environment, that to me is good enough to just say, hey, no matter how this lands, you gave yourself your best shot at being successful. But this team is going through a pivot now, right? Like,

I felt like outside of Miami, this team was probably in the most dire straits financially with all the contracts that they had to sort out because they had to spend so much money on their defensive front seven, you know, two off seasons ago, trying to patch over some holes from misses in the draft. When Kwasia Dolfo Menso was running, was running the organization from a personnel perspective, they're still going to be dealing with that. And I think that we might see, we might really be testing the limits of

you can hand Brian Flores literally anything and get a Michelin, you know, star meal out of it. Things could get a little tricky, I think, with this front seven. That's true. That's true of KOC too, right, though? If Kyler struggles,

and then we saw him, like, J.J. McCarthy struggle. I think the floor is higher, though. The offense of talent is so much better. It is so much better. That is a good point. I do think the reputation of him as like a quarterback savior will be questioned. And I do think if the defense is better or is, you know, good again, like this should be Flores' last year as a D.C.

We say that every year, I guess. But one would think if he puts together another solid defense that he would get a head coaching opportunity somewhere. And if you're questioning KOC too at the same time, like, I don't know where this team goes from here, especially with the financial. I remember kind of previewing the Vikings going into last season. I think I've like dramatically underrated what Flores could do with this personnel. And it feels like, you know, outside of the first rounder Caleb Banks, who is dealing with his own injury stuff,

we don't know what availability he's going to have at the start of the season, whatever it's going to be. Like when you read this secondary, James Pierre, free agent brought over from Philly, Josh Mattelis at Safety, who they paid a lot a while back, Jay Ward at Free Safety, Isaiah Rogers is the other opposite corner, and then Byron Murphy in the slot.

I mean, that's one of the worst on-paper secondaries that you predict for a defense that could realistically finish like top six. Yeah. And like if Flores, like you're saying, delivers and this defense is like top six to eight. You know, I think the offensive line, you know, they battled tackle injuries last year,

but if like Brian O'Neill and Christian Derrissar are healthy and you have Addison, Jefferson, and they signed, I think, an underrated Joanne Jennings from San Francisco 49ers. You know, the former San Francisco 49ers, you're like him in the slot. I like both their, you know, they're tight,

I like T.J. Hawkinson a lot, but I think they can run multiple tight ends with Josh Oliver is that number two. Like, there's weapons here that work. It's going to be fascinating how they handle the, and Kyler McCarthy will kind of take so much of it, but, this would be wasting very good offensive personnel

if Kevin O'Connell, McCarthy, Murray aren't able to figure it out. Okay, Lions. I'm kind of in on the Lions, just letting you guys know. I think I'm buying, if there is a dip, I think I'm buying. And one of the stats that I'm kind of like parroting right now

in the first half of the season, weeks one through nine before Dan Campbell took over offensive play calling, you know, they were like, I think, average to not blow average in explosive play rate for passes and for runs. They went to like second in the league and explosive passes and explosive plays over the second half of the season. And, like, it wasn't that their offense was, like, overly that much more efficient play-to-play.

But, like, Dan was able to kind of get back into dialing up explosives and, you know, bringing petting in and assuming that the offensive line is not going to be as new as it was last year when they were stripping out all the starts. I know they're moving Penae Soule from right-tacko to left. But, like, honestly, I'm more bullish on this offensive line now than I was, at least last year. Yeah. When they were trying to get Frank Ragnow to come out of retirement, and then they found out he's, like, got to, like, torn everything. I don't know. I think I'm buying the offense. And then defensively,

I think we can all say out loud now that, like, Aaron Glenn wasn't driving this defense, and it's just like they need talent and they need health. But, like, outside of Hutch, like, where... And I know they just paid Campbell big money, and O'Lean McNeil's really good, but, like, you lose Tarion Arnold now. Like, I...

The defense I have questions about, I think offensively, though, I think I'm buying the dip. Ruiz, where am I wrong? I don't think you're wrong. I just think it's a house of cards on offense. Like, if they lose Jamir Gibbs, which is a running back. We don't want to just be like,

oh, you have to get injured. Of course, that's the worst case scenario. But like a running back, it's hard to rely on them for 17 games every year. If they lose him, I think that explosive element almost like, you've got to cut it in half. And if Jameson Williams isn't, you know,

doesn't take another step forward, like where does the explosive plays come from? I agree with you. Like, that was the difference between when they were going good and when they weren't going good last year, explosive plays. But I think it was talent dependent last year,

especially with Gibbs. Gibbs did so much for that offense. And like even the passing game, like you look at Jericho's numbers and you think this was like some high flying offense. But his like AD in some games was like three. And he was, you know, it was a lot of run after catch and scheming things up. So I do think like the margin for error is not that big with that. But I do think they obviously have a high four on offense.

So one of the best offensive lines in the league, I think. Mesa will at left tackle. Mahogany, say what you will. He was starting last year. Cade Mays at Center coming over from Carolina, a free agent addition. I think that's a huge upgrade over who had at Center. year. Yeah.

Tate Ratledge, second year player now. Blake Miller, first rounder at tackle out of Clemson. Then you go to the depth. Larry Borum, brought in free agency, has started games in this league. Juice Scruggs, brought over via trade from Houston, has started games in this league. Ben Barch, former starter for San Francisco and the Jags before that, that's three guys that have started games in the NFL that are on your bench. I think they understood how bad the offensive line was last year and specifically the lack of

depth. If I'm assuming that this offensive line is like one of the four best in the league because it can maintain injury all. this stuff. And, you know, I'm buying, I think Petting is a play collar and a lot of these weapons. Like, maybe the offense is enough to where, like, if this defense is shaky to even just like bad, this is still a team that if you go into the playoffs with them,

I don't know, could they win a couple? But then it comes back to like golf and like, if they go against a freaking Seattle defense, like, I don't know. Is it, can golf survive that? I do think what thing we've learned, like, the past couple of years where there's kind of been a rejuvenation for the running back position and like the question, do running backs matter and all that? Is you need a home run

hitter to take full advantage of a good offensive line. And we saw that with Sequin Barkley. The difference between the Eagles last year and the year before was Seekon was hitting home runs every game.

Offens line injuries, Jeff Stoutland got upset. That whole thing I think ruined that offensive line. And then that didn't happen the next year and the offense just totally changed. So I think as long as Gibbs is running well and playing well, I think this offense has a very high floor. If there's any regression with him,

especially in terms of home run hitting, that I think you run into problems. Damn, you're right, though. Because if Gibbs, like, you find out before the season that he's going to miss, like, six to eight weeks or something, or even, like, worse than that, you're like, man, I think I'm selling this entire offense. And you're not saying that about a running back

and maybe 31 other teams. That's interesting. Maybe Niners. But, okay, let's jump to the Eagles. You brought up to the Eagles. Deonti, kick us off. What's our best case for the chat GBT, Nick Siriani Eagles in 2020,

2006? I almost am buying the Eagles again, because if everyone's kind of catching up to the jokes, then it's like, oh, damn, I'm like maybe, I don't want to sell the Eagles if everyone's selling the Eagles in 2026, 2027, and like thinking Siriani's going to let go and this whole AI thing's not going to work. But like, I don't know. What's the best case?

Is this a Super Bowl team still? I think you kind of, I think that this roster still has to be considered a Super Bowl quality roster, even without AJ Brown, even without Jeff Stoutland. I think even with the disaster that was this team's approach to offense last year, I still think you have to look at this defense and say, if Tariq Willing can just keep his head on straight, you can make an argument that outside of Houston in Seattle and Los Angeles, this will be the fourth team, I think, in the conversation of

could be number one, you know, could be the number one defense in the league by season's end, right? They've checked off all their boxes there, even without, you know, an AJ Brown. I think you look at their wide receiver room relative to the rest of the league and say it's probably about league average, right? Like, this is just a different world for this offense because they've gotten, you know, so accustomed to not being league average, but being no worse than like the third or fourth receiving core in the NFL. And I think that this all kind of dovetails into my best case scenario, which is that the offensive line is healthy.

The wide receiver room is average enough. And that this team does what it does when it contends, which is his home runs in the run game, even before Sequin got there. One of the reasons why they were so efficient in the run game was because they were able to get these light boxes because they're always. spread out and you have the threat of Jalen hurts his legs and then that was able to manufacture guys like D'Andre Swift and Miles Sanders having these, you know, just wide open, you know, high yards before contact numbers. I think that if this offense schematically now can do what the talent used to, this could easily, I think, still be an 11-win team in the NFC championship picture. I think that just all of this kind of hinges on one guy and maybe this has always been the

case, you know, and I know that it inspires a lot of debate, you know, amongst both us as media folks and then obviously with fan bases. But this all comes back to just whether or not Jalen Hertz can actually maximize what's around him and not it be the other way around. Ruiz, are you predicting, give me your worst case, but I also need to hear where you're predicting Hertz finishes on your quarterback rankings at the end of the season. And if you would say it's more likely than not that Hertz is the problem at the end of the season

if things don't go where they want to in Philly. I mean, I think that's obvious. Isn't that obvious that if this offense isn't good? But I think the other scenario is that the offensive line doesn't bounce back from a down year last year, especially in the run game. Because that means Sean Mannion has to be a dude. He has to be a significant floor raiser, which is a lot of pressure for a guy who was playing football like, what, four years ago?

Yeah. We're not playing, but he was on a roster. But there's a lot of uncertainty there. but I think the other part of it is if this if like the bad vibes continue and Vic Fangio is like dude I don't want to do this anymore I won a Super Bowl a couple years ago I'm not going to become a head coach again I'm retiring I think like the whole thing falls down

because I think like that's been Stoutland and it's been Fangio I don't want to take too much credit away from Siriani but those have been like the pillars of this team as a championship contender I mean the yeah stiking what before The load bearing piece of this will still be here, which is the general manager, but I do think that from a coaching perspective, like you would definitely,

that I think would really kind of leave bear Nick Siriani in the, what exactly do you do here that adds about your conversation? But the other part is like, I've seen like some people suggest like you look at the Malik Willis stuff that the Packers did when he got in there and obviously Sean Mannion is coming from that

and they could run the similar stuff with Jalen Hertz. Jalen Hertz is in that type of runner. Jalen Hertz isn't an explosive runner like Malik Willis. Like Malik Willis probably runs like a 4-4. Jalen Hertz I think is better at like he gets downhill and gets those extra yards and falls forward more so than a guy that's going to beat an end around the corner. Like we saw whenever they run the zone read, it looks bad when it's a quarterback keeper. So I have some reservations there.

I don't think it's like beyond the realm of possibility that Jalen Hertz can take to like an under center offense and they can run an offense traditionally. They don't have to get in pistol. They don't have to run zone read. I think that's possible. But the more realistic situation for me, I think, is that the offense is fine. And I think it's still fairly clear to see that there are limitations with hurts. But maybe he's like averagely adjusted to what this man in offence is in year one.

And the offense is fine. I think the defense could be, like you said, Deontay, one of the best, if not the best in the NFL. And I think the edge group is like, you know, everyone talks about the corners, Cooper to Gene, Quinnion and Mitchell, like two of the best. But like the edge group, they traded for Jonathan Grenard, which I thought was a steel for Philly. they signed in Fray and see Arnold Debaketti former first or second round pick AJ Vanessa another former first or second round pick they still have Nolan Smith

the former Georgia defensive end who's now rotating in then Jalix Hunt like I don't think any like I think Grinard is obviously the best of that group but like the depth and rotation at that group I think is very strong the secondary is good McFanjo is one of the best in the league

I think the defense is going to carry them to the playoffs no matter what almost and I think the offense isn't going to bottom out now if the offense bottoms out they're moving on from Hertz and I think they trade for Joe Burrow in 2020 You get clear answers, though. That's why I think

they went to this style of offense, because this is the style offense that people like me and everyone else that criticized Jalen Hertz say he can't run. You're going to get a clear answer. We've put them in different styles of offenses now. And if they do regress back to that spread offense and they're in the gun all the time and they're running

RPO's and doing stuff like that, then we could positively say like Jalen Hertz was the main influence over that style of offense. I mean, they added a fullback. They added a fullback. right? They added Johnny Munt. They added Stone Smart. These are like blocking tight ends. They want to run. Last year they ran I think 60, 64 percent, 11 personnel was like maybe eighth highest, ninth highest in the league. I'd imagine that they want to get this fullback on

the field more. I'd imagine that they want to get some of these tight ends that they brought in more. Not Grant Calcuttaire again, but these other guys. They drafted Eli Stowers, who I think is going to see the field with Dallas Goddard. I think the more, I don't think they're going to have two receiver or three receivers on the field as much as they did last year. I think they're going to attack the middle of the field more. I think they're going to get under center more. I think they're going to try to have multiple tight ends more. And I think the more likely thing is like

because you have Sequan Barkley and like arguably like the best five starters along the offensive line, there's read this group. Jordan Milata, Lannon Dickerton, Cam Juergens, Tyler Steen and Lane Johnson. Like of all five those guys are healthy all year, which is a big if, that's one of the most talented front fives in the league. Like if Barkley and that front five

is working and Hertz is like, like you said, maybe not adjusting to it, but the offense still finds a way to stay afloat. I think it's more like the most likely outcome is that Hertz is on for another year. They are trying to figure out in year two. But like the bottom out, this offense is untenable. We have to completely change everything and not what Mannion wants. That's where, like I kind of said before, like, I think that's where they move on from Hertz and they trade for Joe Burrow. That's why you can't rule them out as Super Bowl contenders because like on

paper based on last year you think like it's not going to happen. But like you laid out the case. If all that is clicking, then they're going to be a top five offense with a top five defense and that's a formula for winning the Super Bowl. And I guess they're not trading for Joe borough because he only wants to run shot them shit anyway. Yeah, so it's bad to it. I don't want to belabor this, right, so we can kind of jump off of this and there's other teams that we need to get to. But I think that this is always why people get so hung up when you're having the

jail and Hertz conversation. And I'm trying to find the right way to articulate this where one of the issues is that a, play style gets judged just as much as talent does, right? Because it gives you the context that you need. And I think that with Jalen, the hang up has always just been that his play style actually puts a lot on the shoulders of the other play. players around him, right? Like, and it's just kind of endemic to the way that he approaches a position.

He does not want to take a lot of risks with the ball, right? So that shows up in the throws in the middle of the field. That shows up in how quickly or how long he's holding on to the ball, probably more aptly. It shows up in his pressure to sack, you know, rate, especially, you know, early in his career, even when things were going well in 2024, like it always felt like the second that the project broke down. He was either going to scramble and throw the ball away, you know,

step out of balance for a gain to zero yards or who was going to end up getting sacked. And then the other thing with that is, is like, then you have to kind of contextualize that with just the style of play that you're trying to build around him. And ultimately, that is why, Austin, you have to add a Johnny Munt,

why you have to, I think maybe lean on a Carson Steel to be a fullback. This is why I think you're going to see probably more 12 personnel, more under center, more 21 personnel, and less of that 11 wide open, spread out offense, let's run four verts on fourth down with the game on the line.

you know, type of approach. It's just going, that is the only way, I think, in this modern iteration of football, when defenses have reacted much better to the spread and have the personnel to handle it now, that if you have a quarterback that plays the way the Hertz does, the best thing you can do is try to take the ball out of his hands, condense the game,

and not ask him to have to work through as much. And that does make it thorny. That makes it almost more high variance than the way they were playing before, because this means that the few times that he is in these obvious passing situations, we are going to be judging him even harder, you know, because the volume is going to be low

and stakes are going to be higher on his passes, I think, this year. So we are going, I think, to walk away from 2026 with the very clear idea of where he stands in the quarterback hierarchy. I think we could argue that December 8th, we walked out of it with a clear idea when they played the Chargers and he threw four picks and he looked like complete shit against Jesse Minter's defense. I think that's when Eagles fans and national media in general are like,

whoa, there's no reason our quarterback should ever look this bad. And now it's getting louder. And I think that, you know, like, you brought up, like, well, his style of offense, like, it doesn't like, it actually puts a lot of the burden on the other players on the team and maybe even the play caller and blah, blah, blah. And then you try to, I imagine you try to bring it up to him and he's like, trust the process. Rent is due every day. And it's like, okay, Russell Wilson fucking, it's cool when we're winning.

But when we're not, I'm getting a little upset because I need you to be like real. And like, tell me, like, actually what we need to change rather than kind of like, you know, we're on to the next one or whatever the fuck it is, whatever the next, like, little thing is going to be. Can we talk giants? I want to talk Giants. I was going to go Cowboys next, but I want to go to Giants. Because I need you guys,

I need Deontes, I need you to tell me why I'm wrong. I could not be fading the Giants harder in 2020s. I'm not buying them at all. Like what is the actual best case for this? I guess it's like what we thought like, I think the immediate hours after they got Harbaugh. I think all of us were like,

holy shit, finally, an adult in the room, floor razor for a team that's come in, complete dog shit for a while. And like they need to be competitive. Like Hyfitz, Danny Hyphitz, a host of the Ringer Fantasy football show, long-time Giants fan. He always brings up, like, the last 10 years or so, every time he gets

to Thanksgiving, which the Giants play a lot on, like, they're out of playoff contention. Like, every time his family gets together to watch the Giants on this big TV, they're already loot, they've already out. And I think when they, when Harbaugh was higher, initially, high fits and other Giants fans are like, okay, we're not going to be dog shit by Thanksgiving, but I think you're going to have like maybe four or five wins by Thanksgiving and be maybe missing out on the playoffs. That, that's what I think ends up happening, at least in year one of the Harbaugh experience. I guess Deontay, tell me the best case, and is it

much better than that? I hope it is. I think the best case scenario is that Juju Smith-Schuster and O'Dell Beckham Jr. never have to log a snap because that means it. But like neighbors is healthy by the start of the season. I think that that is the best case scenario. And then with that, you're able to

craft a passable offense. I have a hard time wrapping my head around what this offense is supposed to look like. A mat-nay-he offense to begin with. then you're talking about this wide receiver core around a quarterback that does not work with the same level of dexterity, quickness, high levels of understanding of how defenses are trying to play you, the way that Nagu is used to with dealing with Patrick Mahomes for the last few years,

and the ways in which we've seen him struggle when he was dealing with a similar quarterback in Chicago in Ms. Chubisky is what we've seen in Jackson Dart, a guy who does want to kind of pat the ball in the paga, who does want to roll out, who does want to extend. There are ways in which this often sneezes it. But the guy that has done it, to the best of his ability, happens to be the greatest human being that has ever played quarterback before, in my opinion.

I just can't envision, unless these guys are perfectly healthy and you do get something out of the running game, which I still am kind of dubious about, unless it's going to be led by Jackson Dart, which I think kind of bumps up against some of the ways in which they're trying to preserve his body. I think any best case scenario is going to have to be separate

from the offense outside of neighbors getting healthy, and maybe it's just that the combination of Arval Reese, Brian Byr, Byrne, and all the guys they have in their front four or front seven overall are able to just wreak havoc and that ends up being the way in which they can play spoiler in the NFC East. Yeah, I mean, I'm not going to be any more optimistic. Obviously, my job was to come up with the most pessimistic take

and I think that's easy to do, just not only for the reasons that Yante just laid out, but even John Harbaugh, I don't think it's some guaranteed floor raiser. Baltimore was a poorly coached team last year. Ask their owner when he did that meeting, when he's, they were like, would Harbaugh have survived if they made that kick? And it was like another week.

He was done. They were done with it. It was too many penalties, blown coverages over the past couple of years. The special teams wasn't even good, which is supposed to be Harbaugh's thing. And like, go back to pre-Lamar. He was already on the hot seat. They get Lamar and Lamar kind of fixes everything. There's another lull because he doesn't want to move on from Greg Roman because he's friends with him.

Who's Greg Roman coaching for now? It's the Giants. Oh, the Giants. He's on the Giants. Cool, cool, cool, cool, cool. And then Mike McDonald comes in and turns that into a championship level defense. And once he leaves, that falls off immediately. Like, the Ravens being a good title contender of the last, I guess, going back to 2018,

has been based around Lamar, who's won two MVP's, and Mike McDonald, who's the best defensive coach in the NFL, and immediately won a Super Bowl once he got out of Baltimore and away from Harbaugh. So I don't think this is an improvement over the last coaching staff, or at least I need to see it first before I believe it. It's been a long time since I've been able to point to John Harbaugh and be like,

he is a great NFL head coach. I think would you rather have John Harbaugh or Jim Harbaugh it's not even close to Jim? Would you, would you like, I think thinking about Harbaugh and this coaching staff, you know, when they signed on the same day Juju Smith-Schuster,

Braxton Barrios, and Odo Beckham Jr., I said that might be a sell signal. You know, when you sign those three guys and Malik Nabil sounds like it's her And like, I think this receiving court could be really ugly to start the season. It's fitting because the last time Harbaal was good was 2017 as a head coach. I think the offense for, like, widely understood reasons with their receiving core and the concern around Malik neighbors, their former first round pick not being healthy at the start of the season, I think could be bad.

I think the offense, because it's legit brand new with, we're assembling a team. It's Greg Roman, Brian Callahan, and fucking Matt Nagy. Three guys that, like, if you said were attached to your offense in 2027, 2028, everyone would be like, I'm scared, I'm nervous, I don't think we can do it. And then that's commitment to his guys. He's bringing back Roman. He's bringing back his boys. Then you tell me, Isaiah likely got signed to this team to some big ass deal.

And Patrick Card's on this team. And it's like, I'm not like the smell of this. Bo is doing flips coming off the leg of the tree. I'm not liking the whiff I'm getting from this. And it sounds like a guy who's like going to die with his guys. And I think your one's going to be probably a mess. It's going to be a mess offensively. And like that's if we haven't talked about the talent.

of the actual players on this roster. I think the staff alone and the construction of the roster is like, it makes me bearish overall. And then like, what if DART has a sophomore slump like every other fucking quarterback

every year? What if, you know, I think the defense is the only thing that I think you can build the best case around. Like this front seven, Shelby Harris, DJ Reader,

Lucky Foto on the bench, Roy Robertson Harrison on the bench. And you have defense vans, Brian Burns, Abdul Carter, linebackers, Tremaine Edmins they bring in. They got over.

Like, this front seven should be insane. The defense should be top six, top eight in the league. offensively I could see this being dog shit and the blame pie just getting thrown Gray Roman gets a little taste Callahan gets a mix Dart for a week

Scatabo for a week Isaiah likely for a drop Like they're gonna be throwing this And it's not gonna be Harbaugh It's not gonna be Harbaugh Which it's an interesting situation With the whole Joe Shane of it all too Like you said you had him on Cuckwatch

I think Stephen like this is a weird leadership group It's a weird coaching staff It's an awkward roster And Harbaugh never built a team too I know they gave him, they're basically giving him full roster control, essentially. But he wasn't the guy building those Ravens teams. Like, Ravens had a friendly entrenched front office setup going back to like 1996 with Ozzy Newsom and then Eric DeCosta. Right.

They hired him like he is both John Harbaugh and Ozzy Newsom. If the Giants instead of Harbaugh hired Joe Brady, are you more excited for this offense? I'm still not. I'm more excited. What about Stefansky? What about Stefansky? No, this is not a good roster. Yeah.

This is not a good roster. And the bodies that they brought in. None of these guys. Yeah. Yeah. Like the bodies that they brought in weren't guys that you had to go shove Joe Shane into a locker to go get. True. I like Isaiah likely.

I actually think that in a lot of ways, him being able to break out as a tight-in one is a good look for him. But, God, I look at what else he's playing around. I don't know if this is the best situation for him. And if I'm a leak neighbors, man, like, there's nobody on this. roster that is going to draw any gravity away from me. So it's going to be a lot of cover two and quarters every week and me having to fight through two sets of eyes and two sets of hands to get my targets. Commanders, I have weirdest case.

Jaden Daniels plays as well as Gino Smith with the Raiders last year. Fully healthy for 17 games. Fans in media consensus completely fall off. And it's an RG3 situation all over again, not with the entries, but actually where you're like, but why I presented it as weirdest case, and I'll start with you, Deontay, and I know we've got to go quick, but like, I present as weird as case, because I think everyone is buying Jade and Daniels this year. I think everyone's like, yeah, it should be better

this year. Do you agree? I kind of do. I don't know the degree to which is going to impact winning because I just don't think he's surrounded by a lot of talent on the offensive side of the ball. Right, like my best case, my best case with the commanders really doesn't have much to do with the offense outside of Jade and Daniels being healthy. I think it's more so, my focus is more so on Durante Jones being, you know, kind of the first big branch off the Brian Floresh tree. That's a big hit, right? And like he's able to bring in that very attacking style of defense with all the money and draft resources spent to kind of fix this front seven, which has been getting bold over basically

every year the Dan Quinn has been there and actually getting some guys in who can help and the right kind of scheme. And they're able to, I guess, be a six and 11, seven and 10 team that plays good defense and has an exciting young quarterback. I'm not really thinking about the playoffs at all with this team. until they address the other side of the ball, though. I'm not so sure we're going to get a true bounceback season for Daniels, just because we have a new offensive coordinator,

and I think Cliff did a lot of good things for him for highlighting the strengths and kind of mitigating his weaknesses. And it's kind of similar to the conversation we had about Jalen Hertz, whether he's going to fit in David Blow's offense. So it's a wait-and-see situation for me. I think he's a talented quarterback, but I think we solved more accuracy problems last year than we probably expected after his first year.

So I think the worst-case scenario for them is that there's an awkward relationship between him and the new offensive coordinator and then Dan Quinn's defense does what Dan Quinn's defenses have done for the last decade. Always do.

I do think it's a wait. I think the roster construction, I think I would imagine how ownership is looking at this team in 2026 is that the offense is in wait and C mode. We don't know what David Blow is at all. We still need better weapons than fucking Traylin Burks for Jay Daniels

to ever be a Super Bowl player, like Super Bowl caliber threat. defensively, I think this roster was built like Dan Quinn's coaching for his job because they added like nine new starters. Tim Settle, O'Dafay-O-A, Leo Chenol, Sony-Sty-Siles, Sonny style, sorry, Caleb-on-Cha-Cross,

Amic-Robrinson, Amic-Robertson, Aminehu's going to get snaps. Like, they signed so many guys, and I think so much of it was like, Dan knows that if this defense sucks, he's done. And those are Dan-Quin guys. Those are Dan-Gwin guys, right? Like, you brought up Durante, I think it's,

sorry, yeah, Durante Jones, but like, Dan is Dian-D-Rondi-Jones, but like, Dan is dying with this defense if it dies. And I think that, I think when I saw how much they were attacking in free agency on defense, it's like, holy shit, I think he's got the call. Like that you need to make a play. Okay. Deontes, start his best case for Cowboys.

That Christian Parker is what we've been hearing that he's been since he was in Denver and he has an elite defensive play caller. And that in combination with another high level year from Dak Prescott gets this team, I guess, past the division around, right? Like, I don't want to be silly here and say that they're just automatically going to be an NFC championship level team, but I think that the roster with the coaching at its best can get you to the divisional round

or at least get you a shot maybe to make the final four in the tournament. The Cowboys are confidently, I'm happy you said that because for me, like, for me, like, I'm confidently my favorite team in this division and I think my favorite bet to win the NFC. I like the Cowboys a lot offensively with how much they're returning.

I think their offensive line is fantastic. And I think Schott and Humber proved a lot of people last year. What was the quote from Jerry Jones? to say Brian Chott and I'm here anymore. He's the head coach of the Cowboys, something like that. I feel like we made fun of him, but Shot Harmer kind of cooked.

And then D.C. side, like, did Jerry Jones win the Micah Parsons trade? It's a little too early to say that. It's a little too early, but I think it's something we could be writing in December. Can I give you a stat? Because I feel like they have so much room to grow on defense that even at Christian Parker is just average.

I think they're going to be so as much better team. They were 32nd and explosive plays allowed last year, based on rate. If you just take out, if you take out the explosive passes and you just focus on their runs, The explosive runs they came. They gave up an explosive run on 11% of the runs they defended.

That alone. That alone, like, and you add in passes, explosive passes for all other 31 teams. They still would rank below average. So if you could only run the football against the Cowboys, they would still have a below average explosive play allowed rate. It can't get worse than that. Adding Caleb Downs, I think the D-Winters trade with San Francisco was a steel. I think Winner is a great starter at linebacker.

I'm excited for the Cowboys in 2026. All right. Take a break. NFC South quickly and then we're blitzing out of here. I want to start with the Falcons. I think that I had weirdest case, whatever season they're actually about to have. Because I feel like this season is going to be a shit show of awkwardness. Everyone's talked about the Tuotunga Vailoa versus Michael Pennix thing. I think both will play this year, either due to injury or someone not playing well. And I think, correct me if I'm wrong, Ruiz. Their styles of play are like diametrically opposed.

Like I don't think that they fit in these same styles of offense. No, yeah, that makes sense. At least, at least maybe not scumatic, at least from an aggression standpoint. And that to me, I feel like, is why I feel like, I think Pennix wins this job. And it's something that they're more excited, Stefanski is more excited about. And then like, if they do get to this worst case scenario or Pennix has another injury, like to a playing is not going to be a fit for this offense. He was barely fit for the last offense he was in.

Like, I don't know. I think this is going to be a weird, bad season. for Atlanta despite all the talent. The common denominator between the two is they don't create out of structure. And then like you said, they're like polar opposites. So I feel like it will be easy to go back and forth because to fancy. He's like, oh, Tua didn't make this throw. And then, oh, Pennix missed this throw because he's not accurate.

And like, but I think the worst case scenario is Tua wins the job. And then he's like kind of good. He's like not good where like, oh, yeah, we're getting a built around him. But he's good enough where fans are like, maybe we should bring him back next year. And then you're like kicking the can down the road when replacing the quarterback. That's worst case scenario. And I think it's possible just because the offense of pieces are good, and I think Stephance is a good coach.

Best case scenarios that none of it matters, man. They're going to go nine and eight win this division. Yeah. That's really it. It's going to be very weird. It's going to be extremely awkward. We're going to see both quarterbacks. We might see three, right?

Neither are there two guys that are involved in this competition are, you know, beacons of health, you know, throughout an NFL season. And it's just not going to matter. They're going to fall backwards because they've got enough defensive talent and enough playmaking talent around our quarterback situation to be able to squeeze out, you know, in above 500 season. Yeah, you're probably right. Saints, are we, are we buying the, the shuck, are you

have shuck boys? Are we shuck, are you guys shuckers? Are you guys shucking it up next year? Or is there a sophomore slump? Deontay, you kick us on. Are we shuckled? Are you shuckling? What, shuckled? Like cuckold? Don't say that. Don't say shuckled. Oh, Jesus. Best case scenario for me is that, you know, Tyler Shuck takes another step forward. I think that adding someone like Jordan Tyson, who hopefully stays healthy, allows him to access more explosive passes. I think that might be the one thing from this offense that kind of left me wanting a bit is Shug actually showed that he was a little bit more proficient in the pocket than maybe

I thought he was on first impression. But they really weren't pushing the ball downfield a whole bunch. And maybe, you know, you get Kellynmore a year two. Can't call him a young quarterback, but second year quarterback gets more comfortable with the scheme, understands where the chances are that he can take. They added some speed this off season and he's able to push the ball downfield more. I wouldn't imagine them winning the NFC South because that would be the only pathway to make the playoffs for them. But I think they can hang around seven or eight wins again.

Yeah, I think Chuck was better than I expected last year, but there still are some red flags that are hard to get over. Downfield accuracy is one of them, but that could have been a sample size thing. And then evading pressure, like he had one of the higher pressure to sack rates. And that interior line has a chance to be bad. Like if Eric McCoy's injuries continue, I think that. interior line's going to be bad. I think their tackles are solid, but if he struggles to deal with that interior pressure, I think that can bring down the whole offense.

I think the defense will be good again, though. I worry a little bit with injuries at receiver, Tyson, their first round pick out of Arizona State, obviously that was one of the knocks on him coming out, and then Christopher Lava has battled injuries. It feels like he's getting in like a car accident on the field every single week. He gets hit so hard, I feel like, I think it would be shocking

to see him play 20 games on route to a deep playoff run or something like that. Defensively, I wanted to raise this, I know we're on time, but like, real quick. Odds, Deonte, that Brandon Staley has this defense, like top 10 in the league. Is there any chance of Staley kind of getting back

on track and grabbing the reins a little bit? I think there's a legit shot. Some of the stuff they were doing last year wasn't Mickey Mouse bullshit. They just played sound defense and got a decent, a better pass rush than I expected out of their front four. I think that it is possible that Staley maybe

never touches, you know, never gets to touch what it was in 2020 in Los Angeles, but I do think that he might just be an above-average defensive play caller, and if you continue to add talent around him, that'll make it happen. And this is talent that he never had in Los Angeles. That's exciting. All right, Panthers. Important news going into the Carolina thing. Obviously, you're a resident Panthers fan. I think there's like eight total

in the world. Ruiz is one of them. It's like a half of one, too. All pound, all of them pounding together. Yeah, the news is Taylor Moton will miss the start of the season. I think it was like blood clots. Yeah. That's their left tackle, or no, right tackle.

Right tackle. And then Icki Aquano, former first round pick who would be slated to start at left tackle, I think is still going through an injury. What I wrote down is they have Rashid Walker,

who they got for one year, 10 mil, who's been a four-year starter at left tackle for the Packers. And then they have Monroe Freeling, the Georgia Offets tackle. Like, for a team that's going into the season

without their two top tackles, Stephen, maybe the best backup plan ever with Rashid Walker and Monroe Freeling? Like, that would normally, I think, cripple some... I mean, the Saints?

You just mentioned, like, Tiles Fulwaga I'm blanking on his name now. Thanks. Oh, Kelvin Banks. Like, those guys go down, this team is done. Yeah. Carolina, surprisingly kind of prepared for maybe not having Moton or Ikey to start the season.

I'm overall, like, liking a bet on them, maybe plus 240, plus 250 to make the playoffs. I think that, like, the Panther stink is so loud that we really want, I mean, sometimes rooting against them and just think they're always a bad team. But I don't know. I feel like there's some pieces here that I like. No, I think they're going to be fine. Like, my floor, my absolute floor for them is five wins, which I think is. an improvement over the last couple years. But I think my concern is about the defense

and all the additions in the offseason if they don't move the needle significantly and this is a bad defense again, because I think people have high hopes because there is talent on paper. And then the offense, I think is going to be fine. Like, I think it's going to be within the same range as last year. But that could be worst case scenario

if they do somehow win this division again and the division stinks. And you still haven't had any answers on Bryce Young and you kind of have to pay them next offseason. I think that's worst case scenario for them. I think best case scenario is obviously Bryce Young takes a step forward and they can build around him. But I don't think Bryce Young falls flat on his face and they get a clear answer and they can move on

and start to look for their next quarterback is a bad outcome either. Yeah, I think best case scenario is just that Bryce Young is good enough to get them back into the playoffs. I think the good thing for them is that they actually don't have their backs against the wall, the same way that some of these other teams that kind of have these quarterbacks who are in between or coming towards the end of their contracts are at. I don't think that we've seen any play from Bryce Young that would merit him going in and asking for more than, I guess what Sam Donald got on this past deal in Seattle, right? And if you're telling me you're paying $100 million over three years or whatever the number was,

I think that you can live with that if that's your starting quarterback, assuming that they want to keep Bryce Young. And if not, I actually think this team is very well situated if it wanted to, to be able to make a pivot and go see if you can go spend on getting another veteran in to kind of play behind this run first and improving defense type of approach that they've had with Dave Canales. He was actually the 98th best player in the league last year, according to players. Thank you very much. I think some of that too,

from what I've heard, it sounds like Bryce is like a gamer. It sounds like he's that guy that like you feel like you want on your team even though he's shorter and maybe not what someone's like. This feels like code for not a very good football player. Yeah, yeah. I just know he does the little thing. I've heard like a lot about like off the field.

Like he does a lot of the little things right. Not in a corny way, but in a smart leadership kind of way. Like I mean, fuck it. This guy's been through as much adversity as anybody in the world. Like his, in the world?

He was drafted. Not in the world. Maybe in the NFL. Definitely not the world. Excuse me. But just thinking back to his rookie season, they trade up for the number one overall pick. Or they don't go on Stroud.

He looks like the shortest person that's ever played the position, looks like shit, gets benched. Andy Dalton gets in a car accident, so he gets this chance to play again. And now, like, he's the only reason he's playing this position

is because of that accident. Like, I think they were trying to give up on him. Like, literally given up on and now where he is now I do think it's like a crazy he's averaging 170 yards per game maybe not the haters said he could he ever though the most adversity in the world

goodness let's pull back on that last team Tampa Bay Box I have weirdest case PFF underscore Zach Robinson leads Baker Mayfield to an MVP season tell me why I'm wrong I feel like best case

worst case and weird case are all weird honestly like I don't know what to do with the bucks. And I was mentioning teams that are genuinely stuck in purgatory right now, the bucks feel like example number one for me, because I don't think there's anything they can do to make themselves contenders. And I actually think they have actually stocked themselves with just enough depth and above average quality play across the board,

and they're too deep, that they won't bottom out and be some three and 14 surprise, you know, surprise bad team. Best case scenario is that they just looked something closer to what they were two, three years ago when you could kind of book them to just dominate the NFC South because they do have depth and quality talent that the rest of the teams in the division just can't match up with.

They go into the playoffs as an 11 to 6 team and are cannon fodder for the Seahawks or Rams, but they can tell themselves that they had another successful season and you get to extend Baker Mayfield, hopefully for something less than like $52, $53 million per year, which feels like long odds now. Yeah, the problem with the extension is

like Baker Mayfield wants a longer contract. I think they would pay him $60 million a year, but I think he wants it over a long term. and they don't want to give it to him, and rightfully so, because this guy gets hurt, and his style, like he needs to play that style

to get the most out of him. He led the league in Scramble EPA last year. He's not a math changer as a quarterback, despite how much of a Maverick he plays like. Yeah, and that's the problem. It's an odd match between a style of play and actual production and impact on the field. Yeah, but my worst case scenario is a repeat of last year

and you get those high, highs, low, lows, but you haven't taken a meaningful step forward as a team. I think a best case scenario, and I view how they approach the offseason kind of similar to Washington and that you have a defensive mind and head coach that knows that the defense needs to be better. And they added a ton of bodies, right?

Maybe not starters, but bodies in Freedency. They also spent their first round pick and second round pick on the defense side of the ball. Guys that could be starters, Josiah Trotter at linebacker, and then Ruben Bain, who a lot of people I felt like thought was a steal at the position

that they got him in. But like, best case as Bowles is as good as, like, the top six to eight defense coordinator. Like, he needs to have a big season. Because when you look at the offensive playcalls that have left under his tenure, Liam Cohen, arguably one of the most coveted offensive players in the league now, Dave Canales, who's like making it look like Bryce Young didn't suffer so much adversity. And then like, I mean, if Zach Robinson, like, say this offense looks good and like everything's kind of clicking,

it's like if Zach Robinson makes this offense look good, he's going to be hired for a freaking head coaching job. And like next year, like the bull's conundrum of like, and it's not even necessarily his fault, but having to hire a new offensive play caller essentially every year. I mean, it's like an unwinnable place unless as a defensive play caller, which I don't think this is where Bulls has been, you are on the cutting edge, like Mike McDonald, like Jesse Mentor, etc. I think that there's, you know, Aaron Glenn is probably the most likely first coach

fired in the NFL this year. But, I mean, Bowls, if this defense stinks, I don't know. I think that's another name I'm thinking about. And if you're the Bucks, like it would make sense. So, like, maybe we get rid of Bulls and we let Robinson, do the interim thing and then maybe we hire if it looks good. And if it looks good and if it doesn't, we're hopefully maybe

maybe they're looking at quarterback. Who knows? Thanks to my guys, dude, Deonté Lee, Stephen Ruiz. This has been Austin Gale. Shout out to the producers. Connor Nevins or Juno Ramgapal. Chris for Sutton. This has been Austin Gail. Ringer NFL show. 21 plus and present in select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star

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