The Ringer NFL Show - Senior Bowl Scouting, The Ringer Draft Guide, and Getting Excited For the Super Bowl | The Ringer NFL Show

Episode Date: January 23, 2020

Danny Kelly calls in from Mobile, Alabama to give us his scouting report on the top seniors in college football after spending the week at the Senior Bowl (0:50) Then, we list the 10 reasons why we’re excited for the Super Bowl, kicking it off with the most fascinating coaching matchup in years (20:00). Hosts: Robert Mays and Kevin Clark Guests: Danny Kelly Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Liz Kelly and welcome to the Ringer Podcast Network. This Wednesday on the site, we are releasing our 2020 NFL draft guide, where you can find all things draft related leading up to the first round on April 23rd, including scouting reports on each prospect by Danny Kelly and much more. We'll be updating it regularly with new analysis that takes all the latest developments into account. You can check that out on Wednesday on the ringer.com. It's in the Ringer NFL show. I'm Robert Mays, joined as always by Kevin Clark.

We have a special show today. Kevin and I are going to talk about the reasons that we are very excited for this year's Super Bowl. But before that, we have a special guest. I am very excited. Danny Kelly is here, ladies and gentlemen. Just grind in senior bowl practice tape. Draft God. The draft guide is out.

Yeah. Top 32 is out this week. So I've got full scouting reports on all my top 32 players at this point. And yeah, it was a lot of fun, worked on it for the last, like probably about six weeks. weeks or so, so check that out. Can we quickly get you to detail your Chase Young over Joe Burrow take? I love it. I support it.

I don't even, I haven't looked into it to make my own decision, but I support the take. Give it to us. I don't really look at it as a take so much as it's just, it's, those are one A and one B, honestly. And I just have Young at number one because he is just absolutely dominant. And I think there's, there's at least enough question marks with Joe Burrow, not, not huge question marks, but like arm strength is, is not, he's not like an elite arm strength guy. And then obviously he took a huge, huge jump in a spread offense this year.

So potentially, you know, the fit will be important for him. I think Chase Young, and this is like me really like nitpicking. And because I love bro too, but Chase Young, I mean, it was just dominant from like pretty much starts finish. All his tape was just really, really dominant. People get on him about not having a sack in the last couple of games. games, but he was still really disruptive in those games, too. So I don't know. I just think Chase Young is going to be an instant impact guy.

I really love Bro, too. It's not an indictment that he's not number one. I don't know. It's one of those things. You have to pick number one. So I like the- So you got Burrow as a bust. It's fine.

Okay. My understanding is a lot of people that pay attention to the draft and pick college football people. Even when Burrow was doing what he was doing, I think the consensus was that Chase Young was the best player in college football regardless of position. Joe Burrow is going to be the number one pick in the draft. Joe Burrow should have won the Heisman.

He just had the greatest college quarterback season of all time. But Chase Young is the best player in college football. You can just drop him into any team and he's going to start wrecking shit right away. Yeah, it reminds me a little bit of the 2016 draft where it was Wenzhen Gough. And that had to be the top two because they were quarterbacks. But then Joey Bosa was there. Jalen Ramsey was there. Even Zeke Elliott, you know, who was a very good college player.

Those guys were there. And everyone kind of agreed that it was some combination of rammed. James, Bosa, who were the best player in the draft and not Wenzhen golf, but nature of the

quarterback position, here we go. The difference is the Joe Burrow is, I think, is considered a much better prospect than either of those two players.

I'm just talking about from a value proposition. All right, TK, let's get into the actual senior bowl. You were on the ground in Mobile. The practices are really

the biggest part of that week, just watching guys an individual going against what is the best senior competition typically in all of college football. So you kind of have a, it's an even playing feel.

There's a normalized, factor to kind of really evaluate these guys. So when you were going into this week and you're kind of thinking about, all right, this is what I'm going to be watching, what were the two or three things you really wanted to focus on down there? So I think one of the big things at Senior Bowl practice and I think people get excited about it for a good reason is the one-on-ones with receivers and corners. And obviously, you know, cornerbacks kind of have a disadvantage in this situation because

they're just on an island with these guys. And so I think there's a certain advantage for the receivers, but it's just really fun to kind to see these guys run their routes, see how they can catch, see how they compete because, I mean, there's some really, really good battles happening. So the number one thing to me was watching the receivers versus the corners, the one-on-ones. That was probably the most fun part of practice. There's some one-on-one and offensive line versus defensive line drills that are really fun. Maze, you probably absolutely just love that. Get out of here. So those are super fun. So those, I think those are really the two most that stand out. I mean, you're not

going to the practice to watch special teams and installs and stretching stuff like that, which is a lot of it, honestly. So that's kind of not super helpful in terms of learning who these guys are. But I think the one-on-ones, and obviously when they do some scrimaging, it's just really fun to watch. But yeah, the one-on-ones for D-Line-O-line and receiver and corner are the best part. I think it was Vic Vanjo who said this a couple weeks ago or months ago where he said that if you just saw receivers versus defensive backs in one-on-ones, you would never call man-cover ever again because the receivers have such an advantage.

Is there any defensive back who is kind of turning the tide and bawling out despite the one-on-one unfairness nature? Yeah, so Troy Pride of Notre Dame has been getting a lot of buzz this week and for good reason. I mean, he's had some incredible reps. Like, I mean, you said it's,

the corners have such a disadvantage. And there was a couple reps where Pride was literally running the route for the receiver. like turning his head, going to the sideline, looking back, he's running the actual receiver route. So he was a guy to me that I think has really, really boosted his stock this week. He's 5-11, like 195-ish. He's a well-built guy, really athletic.

So I think he's probably, you know, the guy that stood out the most to me, just based on he had some really dominant reps. And it's hard to do that, obviously. So, yeah, he was probably one of the biggest risers, I think, this one. week. Yeah, when I was talking, I've written a lot about receivers recently. When I was talking to people for that receiver's release piece that I did, I think the Chargers wide receivers coach told me the corner or the wide receivers should win a one-on-one every single time because guys are playing to their help. That's exactly what corners are taught to do. You're supposed to force guys

to wherever your help is. And when there's no help, that's almost impossible. So when that guy, if he's doing that in those one-on-one drills, that's really damn impressive. D.K., going into the week, what were kind of the biggest questions you had player-wise? Like, what did you want to see from certain guys? I was like, all right, I need this thing answered to me by the time I leave Mobile to have a better sense of this dude individually. Yeah, so the receivers group in this senior bowl is made up of a lot of really big, like, long receivers. And a lot of times, in Mays, we've talked about this in the past, a lot of times those receivers are good, but they can't separate. You know, you like their skill set, but then they get to the NFL and they just can't separate or whatever.

So I was really looking forward to seeing some of these guys run routes. And there's a number of guys that I think have really, really stood out in these two practices and these three practices. Antonio Gandy Golden from Liberty, which is he's kind of a sleeper at this point. But I think he's going to rise. Denzel Mims from Baylor. Michael Pittman from USC, who is potentially a top 50 guy. Juan Jennings from Tennessee and Van Jefferson from Florida has had a really, really good week in terms of his route running and everything. I think Gandy Golden to me has been one of the most impressive players.

He's, you know, he's like 6'3 foot 3, over 210 pounds. So he's obviously of the more possession receiver style, but he's actually gotten deep a couple times in one-on-ones and looked really good. He had one drop that was a little bit frustrating. But overall, he's played really, really good. Denzel Mims has been pretty dominant. His body control at the catch point is kind of what stands out to me. he's really raw and route running style,

but just his ability to kind of separate late has been really fun to watch. And then like I said, Jefferson has, I think, been one of the stars. He's kind of, he reminds me a little bit of Terry McLaren from last year. He's not as fast as McLaren, but the way that he's rising

and the way in his, I guess, profile as a prospect is similar in the sense that Jefferson's a little older. His production wasn't eye-popping at Florida. And that was partly related to, like, quarterback playing all that. So he's an older prospect, which was the same deal. A lot of people knocked McLawn for that. But his route running has just been really, really good this week.

And so I think he's probably on the rise too. It's probably an interesting position because a lot of the time, especially in college, those guys separate themselves early because the athletes just tend to win out. I mean, this is supposed to be one of the best receiver classes of the last couple decades. And almost all of those guys that lend to that opinion are underclassmen. because it's just a position where guys pop early because it's mostly about athleticism. So I'm sure there's a lot of questions and skepticism about the crop that gets to the

senior bowl eventually because it's like, okay, why didn't these guys show out a little bit earlier? Is it one year production? Is it this? Is it that? And that probably isn't true for the other positions as much as it is for that. Yeah. I mean, like the term that gets thrown out a lot in fantasy, you know, areas is breakout age.

And a lot of, a lot of, you know, the top receivers in the, the NFL have a really low break at age like 18 or 19 years old where they're having over 20% of their teams receiving ours and that's a huge huge deal because obviously if you're a 24 year old going against 18 and 19 year olds you're going to have a certain advantage in terms of you're just your development and like your physical like attributes and all that so um people tend to discount guys who are a little older um being able to compete at that level that said you know you see like mcglorin this year it you know he was an older he was an old prospect, but he's still been really, really good.

And there's extenuating circumstances for kind of why he never, like, why he broke out a little later, why he entered the NFL a little later. So I don't think you can completely discount all that stuff. And these guys, I think this week has shown me that, you know, obviously this receiver class is very good at the top, but there's a ton of depth in this class. Like, there's probably, you could have like, I don't even know, like 20 guys in the top 100 at the receiver position that you could potentially see going in the top 100. That's how deep this class is.

I don't know if that's going to happen, but there's a lot of guys in here that have the talent to go play in the NFL. And so I think this class is definitely going to be, I think, defined by this really, really deep receiver class. Dan, it's not a surprise that Joe Burrough skipped. There's nothing for him to prove. Are there quarterbacks who are making the leap here, Justin Herbert doing it? Is he too tall as Mays?

likes to say what is... He's too tall. Who at the court of our position is making a run this week? So there's two guys that have really stood out at the Senior Bowl this week, and that's Justin Herbert from Oregon, who is 6 foot 6.

Mays, that might be a deal breaker for you. Off my board. He has actually been impressive, though. I mean, in terms of, you know, they're... He's a very interesting prospect because he's had some buzz, had some hype for basically his whole college career.

He didn't really make a big leap this season. that a lot of people were hoping from him. He's sort of inconsistent. That said, he's got a big arm. You know, he's obviously very athletic. So there's, like, he's an absolute, like, really good tools guy, which is always a little bit of a red flag, you know, because you don't want a guy who can't read a defense or make

decisions. I hate that. Yeah. Every time we've talked about that, every time that's been the selling point for a guy, when is the last time that has worked out? Toolsy quarterback prospect. It's, it goes bottom up every single time. So, and.

I'll just say this because I'm trying to keep an open mind with both him and Jordan Love is the other guy from Utah State is the other guy that's standing out this week at the quarterback position. You call it a Yolo Marcus Mariotta. Yeah. Dude, okay, so he's a really fun player to watch, athletic. He's got a really, really good arm. You know, he can throw on the run. He's, you know, he's really good in the pocket in terms of like strafing and finding room to kind of make a throw. That said, he's got like that Josh Allen thing where he just.

will absolutely chuck it into coverage and not care at all what's happening downfield type of thing. So he needs to really clean that up and be more disciplined. But what I've seen from Daniel Jones this year and Josh Allen this year in terms of outdoing my expectations,

out playing what I think that they could have been. I'm not saying that they're going to be elite quarterbacks, but Daniel Jones was a lot better than I thought he would be. And so I'm trying to keep an open mind with a lot of these guys that are quote, toolsy because I think that's exactly what Daniel Jones was. His stats his final year of college were very unimpressive. And, you know, there was just,

it was a huge, huge red flag to look at him and say, like, he's a top 10 pick. But he was, obviously the fumbles are a major, major issue. He didn't have that tool, holding onto the ball. Yeah. But, I mean, if you look at the jump that Josh Allen made from his rookie year to his sophomore year or whatever, I think that's, you know, hopefully something that the Giants can build on with Daniel Jones.

But long story short is I'm keeping an open mind with these guys. I do like the tools. I do like certain aspects. I actually liked Herbert's tape more than I thought I would kind of going in because, you know, he has a little bit of a lot. I think the sort of overwhelming rep is he's overrated. And so I kind of went in expecting to not like his tape. And I liked it a lot, actually. And he's looked really good this week.

So I'm keeping an open mind with him. I think he's the type of guy who, you know, he's in the right system. You know, that's a huge caveat with every player. But like in the right system, Herbert, I think, could be a solid starter in the NFL. I'm mostly kidding about the tool stuff. I think I completely agree with you. I googled Tulsi quarterback. And I got Justin Herbert.

I got Drew Locke. Yeah. Paxton Lynch. And the fourth one is Jacoby-Berset. I think that it depends so much on situation. And even like Mahomes coming out, I just think that you need some sort of imagination with these guys. You see what they are now and you have to understand what you can do if you put them in the right

situation and kind of harness whatever those tools are. It's so difficult. I mean, we see the hit rate on this all the time. It's just you're really throwing darts when it comes to this position. So it all depends on what kind of stuff you want to bet on. And both of these guys seem like risks when it comes. to that, but who knows? Maybe somebody sees something in both of them. D.K., before we get out of here, I needed to ask you about Javan Kinlaw.

Because I just found out he was a person this week. And this is my favorite part of the draft process is finding out about dudes that I had no idea existed. He also left after two days of practice when he just shot up the draft board and was like, I've got a little injury, which it might be legitimate, but he knows, he's like George Costanza. He knows exactly when to leave. And he's done so. The dude, 6-6-3-10, is he just one of those people like Derek Henry where when he's around all these other guys, he just makes them look tiny. Like he's just a different sort of human. Yeah, for sure. He, I mean, he's just a freak athlete, obviously. You know, he's huge, really long

arms, really, like, muscled up, you know, like no bad weight or whatever, six foot six, over 300 pounds. I count, I comped him to shades of Chris Jones. I love that. Like, the way that he moves around. you know, he's obviously got to make sure he's not, you know, getting too upright when he rushes and things like that. Things that you see with 6'5 defensive linemen on the interior, you know, that's kind of what he has to deal with. But he's a really, really good athlete. You know, he's one of those players where you just turn on the tape and you're like, oh, yeah, this guy's really good. You know, like immediately you kind of see why people are so high on him. And he's pretty unique in terms of in this, in the senior.

Bowl in this class in the senior class or whatever like he's pretty much far in a way I think the top player at the senior bowl like Kevin said he did leave after tweaking I can't remember what the issue was he tweaked something tendinitis I think is what I saw his knee yeah yeah yeah so he's done for the week but at the same time I mean he I think he did enough to prove that you know the hype was warranted and he's looking like a top 15 player at this point so he was fun to watch I think the we see this all the time in the NFL when there are players of your prototype that have succeeded recently, it always helps your cause.

I think that if George Kittle hadn't done what he did, I don't know if two Iowa tight ends go in the first round, especially one going in the top 10. And I think with guys like Eric Armstead succeeding so well this year, what DeForest Buckner has done, Chris Jones, the fact that those three guys are playing in the Super Bowl and you have similar body types to what Kinlaw is going to bring, that's just human nature.

When you see guys succeed and then you see guys that look like them, it makes way more sense and you feel way better about pulling the trigger on somebody like that. So I wouldn't be surprised at all if you think of him that way if a team was willing to take him up in that range. Yeah, absolutely. I think I had him at number nine on my big board and he's just, he's just so impressive. And with that length and that size, there's so many different things a defensive line coach can do with him in terms of moving and around. I mean, we've seen that with Chris Jones. Like he moves all around.

He can kind of rush off the edge if they want him in certain situations. He can play on the nose. I think he had a couple blocked kicks in his college career. So he's just one of those guys that can kind of make impacts in different ways with his length and strength and athleticism. Is he going to move up on your board after the next update? He may. You can put him above Joe Burrow.

I got him pretty high already, I feel like. I don't know if he's like a top five guy, but he's definitely in my mind, at least a top 15 guy in terms of where he's going to end up going. I got him at number nine, I believe. Got it. All righty. D.K., enjoy the.

the rest of your time in beautiful Mobile, Alabama. We really appreciate you coming on. Of course, guys. It's warming up here, so things are on the uptick. There it is. All right, buddy. Thank you. All right. Thanks, guys. Before we move on, let's take a quick break. Fandul's sportsbook can't legally say the name of the football game coming up. But let's just say it's a big game, a gargantuan game. You might even say the game is superb. But while Fandu can't legally say the name, you can legally bet on that game as long as you're in Indiana, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, or West Virginia. And to make the game, Even bigger, Fandual Sportsbook is letting all new users place their first bet risk-free.

That means you can place any bet and get up to $500 back and site credit if you don't win. You can use your risk-free bet on any big game bet you want, including spreads, money lines, teasers, and even same game parlayes. And of course, Fanduels also got a great selection of big game props. Considering it's risk-free, I'd be looking at some of those props because there are a few things more fun to me than Super Bowl props, whether it's MVP, who's going to score first, All of those things just make the game so much more enjoyable, no matter how you're watching it. To claim your risk-free first bet, just download the Fandul Sportsbook app from the iOS app store or visit fandul.com slash Android. And be sure to use promo code Ringer NFL so they know we sent you. That's promo code Ringer NFL, R-I-N-G-E-R-N-FL to get your first bet risk-free on Fand-DulSportsbook.

21 and over, President of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, or Indiana. Site credit is non-withdrawable and expires $14. days after receipt. Terms and restrictions apply. Gambling problem, call 1-800 gambler or in West Virginia visit www. www.1-800 gambler.net or in Indiana, call 1-800-9 with it. All right, Kevin, we really appreciate Danny coming on, but as much as we love draft talk in mid-January, the Super Bowl is next weekend. So we are going to talk about some of the reasons that we are excited about a very exciting Super Bowl. Why don't you start us off? So I think there's a lot

of wrinkles here, and I think that that happens when there's two really good teams, and I actually made a pick on Instagram Live yesterday, and I deeply regretted committing to anything, because these are two just great teams, and I think Meena Combs put it best

where basically you're going to talk yourself into both teams winning about 10 times, okay? I think the coaching matchup is the most fascinating part. I think it's I think that there's a lot of ways to look at these two teams. You know, there's a reason that the Niners were able to win with Jim and Grapplow throwing eight times.

And there's a reason that the chiefs were able to win with Patrick Mahomes, you know, taking over the game and being the leading rusher and throwing as many times as he did. So I think that is a fast, there's some philosophical differences here. But I think that the through line here is they're both really smart coaches. They're both two of maybe the two best play callers in football. they approach things differently. Andy Reid has innovated a million times.

He's reinvented himself a handful of times over the years. Modern football has kind of caught up with Andy Reid instead of vice versa. And I am incredibly, you know, we've had the debate we had it on Sunday about which play caller is better. And I think that in the Super Bowl, with these two talented, you know, one through 46 active player rosters here, I think we're going to be able to learn a lot more about offensive football. And a lot more about these coaches and how they use their quarterbacks and how they use their run game and their screen game or anything else. I mean, this is football nerd heaven. I cannot wait.

It's just one of those things where I can't wait to see what they're going to do. What are the approaches going to be? How is Shanahan going to try to scheme up those chunk plays that they've seemed to find every single week this year? Whether it's a screen, whether it's just really leaning on some wrinkles in the run game, getting those chunks down the field on play action wrinkles. I keep going back to that play against Green Bay in the regular season when they had Kiddle run the concept they've run a million times where they have a deep over coming right to the left and then Kiddle was supposed to run that deep flag to the corner on the left side. And instead of doing that, he bent it back inside. And I talked to a lot of guys on the Niners last week about that play. And that's just Shanahan distilled it to his essence where you have all these ways to dress it up.

Like, Kiddle doesn't even normally run that. They run that with Debo Samuel a lot. of the time because it's a vertical route. So you have that aspect of it where it's surprising. And then you have the wrinkle off of it where he does the opposite of what you're expecting him to do. And it's just, that's Shanahan. And that's what this offense is where outside of all the moving parts of which there

are a ton, they use motion more than any other team in the league, you have these tiny adjustments designed to completely take advantage of the way you're going to play them because you need to be ready for this stuff. So just how he ends up attacking Kansas City with the, those sorts of ideas. I can't wait to watch it. And I can't wait to watch however the chiefs are going to defend, or excuse me, however the Niners are going to defend Patrick Mahomes.

Yep. This is a team that has played more cover three than any other team in the league this year, I think outside of maybe the Chargers. I think they're one, two, a ton of zone coverage. But I'm doing something tomorrow about the 10 best quarterback receiver duos of the last, of this century so far. And into having a lot of these conversation, it's been so interesting because one of the through lines with it has been it's hard to game plan offensively when you have a guy like Mahomes

because teams don't do what they often do. So if you are studying all these games of, oh, they run a lot of man or they run a lot of this, a lot of the time you're going to get something completely different. So are the Niners going to come into this game and say, yeah, we're a zone team. We love running cover three. That's who we are. But we need to do a little bit different and something a little bit different against a team that carves up zone left and right. I'm really curious to see if they zig where others might have zagged over the course of the season. Yeah, and I think that having a great defensive line is certainly going to help in this situation.

Yep. And I think that the interesting thing to me is how many mirror images, or not mirror images, but just slightly maybe like there are so many matchups on both sides of the ball that are intriguing, whether that's George Kittle against Travis Kelsey, who are what, the two best ends in football, Kittle being better. I think that you have two of the best defensive backs of the last few years with Tyrone Matthew and Richard Sherman. You just have so many little different things all over the field.

And I think that that's, that's going to be the most interesting thing. I think that you look at the D. Ford Frank Clark thing. Frank Clark obviously went off on D. Ford in his off-size penalty last year after the F. championship game. I mean, it's little, they're not, these are not going to be players who are facing each other. Obviously, D. Ford and Frank Clark will never see the field at the same time.

Richard Sherman to Ron Matthew, they don't even play at the same position, but they won't be in the field at the same time. It's just little, little superstars everywhere that I look forward to seeing. And I think that one of the things, when you look on the field, is that 49ers defensive line against Patrick Mahomes, what they're able to do to him. I think that there is every single time, it was funny, I was listening to the Chiefs pregame radio

before the AFC championship game and the analysts and a couple people they had on were just like, you know, you just got to sell out to stop Derek Henry. And someone I was with was like, you know, that's,

every team has said that for the past five weeks. And, you know, they did a better job with Derek Henry than most teams. But what I'm saying is that the idea that you're going to stop Patrick Mahomes

by hitting him or getting after him or swarming him or whatever. I mean, it'll work a little bit. but you only need Patrick Mahomes to to ball out three, four, or five times in order for him to really make a difference in this game, then open things up. And so I think we saw Patrick Mahomes at his pinnacle last week.

PFF said this is the most dominant run of any quarterback in the PFF era. Patrick Mahomes is really freaking good, and it's going to take a total team effort and not just we're going to hit him or when he gets free as a runner, we're going to put a lick on them. These are things that every team says. it's going to take every level of the defense. You're going to take a lot of superstars. That is the most intriguing matchup for me.

Patrick Mahomes against that really good Niners defense. I think it's beyond just the matchup and just the football exes and nose of it. When you think about Patrick Mahomes on this stage, that's one of the coolest parts of this game to me. We have the best player in the world on the biggest stage in the world. Patrick Mahomes in the Super Bowl,

I can't wait to watch it. I just can't wait to watch him with this spotlight on him and trying to win this team their first Super Bowl in how long? I mean, it's just unbelievable. Super Bowl 4. You wrote about this this week. It's just Patrick Mahomes

kind of taking this team out of the dark and into the light. I know they've been good for a while, but to get back here, it took this guy. And I can't wait to see if he can take them the final step. I will say it was actually

a lot of non-Chiefs fans who were offended by the idea that Patrick Mahomes delivered them to the Promise Land. They were like, well, they've been so good for 10 years. I understand that. They haven't been to a Super Bowl in five decades,

in 50 years. This isn't the Patriots here, okay? I'm not saying that they're the Browns or the Bengals, but what I am saying is literally they have not been to a Super Bowl in 50 years, and now Patrick Mahomes has taken them there. And there were some people who are like, well, Andy Reid is actually who got them there. Well, Andy Reid, I think Andy Reid is one of the greatest coaches of all time. But I'm sorry, he had chances to make the Super Bowl,

and he didn't with Alex Smith. And so I'm not, I don't know why people feel the need to argue with everything. but what I'm saying is that Patrick Mahomes and Andy Reid are in the Super Bowl for the first time in 50 years, and that is quite an accomplishment. They needed each other. Yeah, they needed each other. This is one of the greatest football marriages in the history of the sport. This is like, this is destiny, okay? This is football destiny, and they're there, and it's the first time at five decades.

Congratulations. I just don't understand why it has to be one or the other. I mean, they need, they're perfect for each other. They needed each other to get here. They needed each other to bring the franchise to this place. all of those things can be true. And that's not marginalizing the greatness of either one of them. Individually,

they would be fantastic. They have been. We've seen what Andy Reid has been without Patrick Mahomes. And the answer is one of the best tacticians in all of sports, in all of football history, but it's relied too much on the tactics. Alex Smith was the right guy to steer

this offense. But at a certain point, there's a cap on that. Because Alex Smith has a on him as a quarterback. That cap does not exist with Patrick Mahomes. His potential is literally limitless. And that's why this is so fun. And that's why I'm so excited to watch this because anything could happen.

He could literally do anything out of football field next Sunday. And there is something so intriguing and thrilling about that. The Chiefs had not won a game with the quarterback they drafted for 30 years until Patrick Mahomes did it in 2017 and Week 17. Playoff game. No. Oh. Oh, oh.

A game. A game. Interesting. Okay. Todd Blackwich. Yeah. Todd Blackwich was the last quarterback kid at Brody Croyle. They drafted him.

He went 0 in 10. Tough one for Brody Croy. So what I'm saying is that when we talk about ceilings, what the chiefs relied on for literally three decades was bringing in sturdy veterans or veterans with dealings or late career Joe Montana or maybe. mid-career Matt Castle, guys like that. And those guys, Trent Green, Alex Smith, those guys had ceilings. And what the chiefs have done now is removed the ceiling. So it's, again, they're not the Browns or not the Bengals. They've had some steady success, but they've not been to a Super Bowl

because they didn't have a Super Bowl-type elite quarterback. Patrick Mahomes is the best passer in football. I really like Alex Smith as a player. He served that offense very well. But he was not going to have a run where PFF said he was the best, they had the best quarterback run since they've started tracking things, okay? Patrick Mahomes is a little different. Yes, he delivered them to the Super Bowl.

I want to get into something else you said. The Richard Sherman, Tyron Matthew thing. I feel like they've been two of the better players in the NFL since they came into the NFL. But I also just think there's such great faces of the game. Both of them are just incredible personalities. I mean, you talk to those guys, the magnetism that each of them has and the way their teammates react to them. I think that's one of the coolest parts of this week.

Both extremely online. Extremely online. Both extremely online. But I just think that you talk to these guys to people about those guys and there's just something about them. And to see them kind of both lift up those units since they became a part of them, I think cannot be overstated. You know, Matthew, I've talked to so many people about this over the last couple years,

whether it's Arizona, whether it's Houston. He just has this presence about him. And I'm just excited to be around that all week. To hear those guys talk to, kind of have them be on full display and have that aura be on full display. I think people are going to definitely kind of, people that aren't familiar are going to develop a new appreciation for it,

especially with Tyron Matthew. Richard Sherman's been in the headlines for a very long time. This is the first time that Tyron Matthews came to this place. I agree with that. I strangely think that Richard Sherman, because he is talked about all the time, I think that his actual play was overlooked for a large portion of the season.

It was more like Richard Sherman is famous, and not Richard Sherman is bowling out. 46 pass a rating against the third best mark of his career. By far the fewest yards per reception of any time of his career, by about three and a half yards. He's really, really good. And PFF named him the cornerback of the decade.

He has taken some victory laps online, which we all support here. And I think that he, the game, I know, I think it's so stupid when people are like, well, a game is, college football is better when Notre Dame is good, like that kind of stuff. But the Super Bowl is more interesting

with Richard Sherman than without it. And I think the same thing for Tyrone Matthew. And I think that football is better when Tyrone Matthew was good. It's funny to me how differently they do it. Obviously, they play different positions. But even beyond that, Sherman shuts down that left side of the field.

That's what he does. He's fantastic in that deep third and he plays it in a way that no one has ever done it. And he is the linchpin of that defense. Matthew is everywhere. He's coming at you from 20 different spots. He's all over the field. You know, that play he made in the Chiefs game or in the Titans game where he's just

knifing into the backfield and jumping on Derek Henry's back at the goal line. Stuff like that. He's dropping Corey Davis for a two-yard loss because he recognizes the play. He's just a force that you can't put your thumb on. And Sherman's just over there shutting down an entire half of the field. It's very different, but no less impactful on either side. Yep. And then this is an incredibly intriguing super.

Super Bowl, not just from the on-field standpoint, but the just the way that these guys talk about the game is fascinating. And in a game where these guys talk to the media six times, it'll be really fascinating to see. Like, just from a, I remember, I don't know if you were there, but I remember the Seahawks Super Bowls, the two they were in, it was really fun to just sit at Richard Sherman's podium and just listen to him and talk about football. That's exactly what I'm getting at.

He talks about the game in a way a lot of people don't. He's very honest. He's very candid. You know, sometimes he gets in trouble, like with the Baker Mayfield thing. But generally, it's a net positive for the game that the Richard Sherman is back in this position. I'm also very excited for if the Chiefs win, whatever Travis Kelsey might do. When we talk about anything is on the table for Mahomes in the game, anything is possible for Travis Kelsey if the Chiefs win this game. I feel like the Kelsey Brothers celebrating Super Bowls is something we can all get behind.

So if the Chiefs do win this game, however he manages to show his exuberance afterward, whether it's in the parade, whether it's right after the game, I feel like it's going to be entertaining. I'm with you on that one. It'll be this is also, I mean, I think that on the other side, the Richard Sherman victory lap post Super Bowl would be fascinating as well. I someone, I wrote a piece last week about kind of what I just said about how he's, you know, he's still here, so to speak. and someone talked about his contract in it. And someone quote tweeted and talked about his contract. And then I just, I think I was doing something and I just checked my mentions.

And I just had like five straight Richard Sherman tweets at me. And I was like, uh-oh, this can't be good. But then I realized she was yelling at somebody else. And so it was totally fine. It was somebody brought up his contract. And then I happened to be tagged in it because I wrote the piece. That's a scary moment. Well, yeah, you're just like, oh, did I do something wrong?

And it's like, no, me just yelling at the contract people. All good. On a somewhat more granular level, you mentioned it, but I can't wait to watch Mitchell Schwartz play against the Niners Pass Rush, whether it's D. Ford, whether it's Nick Bosa. I mean, he is one of the best offensive linemen in the NFL. I think the best pass blocking right tackle in the NFL. He's such a technician.

He's so good at understanding little ticks of individual defensive linemen, getting them to do things they don't want to do. Watching him play against Watt in that game was amazing. I mean, he's flashing his hands a little bit early to make Watt commit. He has such refined plans for every single pass rush that he goes against. I'm so curious what those are going to look like if Ford and Bosa rotate into that spot. So just like that, I mean, there are big narrative kind of overarching things to be excited about with this game. But when you drill down a little bit further, every single individual matchup has something that's worth watching.

And it just really speaks to how good it is. Even like, even the GM part of it where both coaches have. final say on the roster, right? I don't know if that's if that's publicly true about Shanahan, but I know he has an immense amount of influence. Well, I mean, he picked Lynch. Right? Yes.

Yes. So that, I mean, in that regard, he is the power broker of football there, right? And obviously. He's making those choices on offense. I can tell you that much. And then we read is the same way. I mean, there's just, these teams are just slightly different from one another.

I mean, obviously there's huge differences. George Kittle is a very different player from Travis Kelsey. But you just start to look at the fact that these are just two really smart teams. And smart teams tend to do some of the same things. And I'm not saying that coaches should be GMs or whatever. But when you have a smart coach, you should trust him and give him more power, that kind of thing. Or you could just be the Texans and give more power to Bill O'Brien and let him fire the cap guy.

That's neither here nor there. But let's talk about that for two seconds, by the way. Because remember when we were having this discussion about Bill O'Brien taking all this power and all these Texans fans were getting pissed off? because like, excuse me, we have a front office. Yeah, like the assistant GM is still there. It's like, okay, how many of them are still there now? Just got fired for no reason. It's incredible.

I think that George Kittle and Debo Samuel, I think that it's, what's really interesting to me is we were talking a little bit offline about sort of lessons from this season, right? And one of the things that when I was talking to the Patriots and some of these teams that have done really well in past defense or defense in general, was that there's sort of some basic things that we all don't talk about enough

that have become more important. One of them is just having smart veterans who can tackle. That was one of the things that Patriots have been good at for a long time, particularly this year. And you start to think about Debo Sandville. And you start to think about George Kittle,

who break tackles at just an alarming rate, and the run game, which there's just a lot of power there, and there's a lot of running people over. And I think that's a matchup to, watch is the ability for the Kansas City Chiefs to swarm these guys and actually tackle them and not let them do what they've done to a lot of teams, which is get five, six, seven extra yards on a lot of place.

Well, I think you said something so interesting about the coaches having say and having influence on the roster because when I look at these two offenses, I see reflections of their coaches value systems. It is such an extension of who these coaches want to be. If you look at the Niners, I think you can argue about the prudency of some of the choices that the Niners made, whether it's how expensive the Use Check contract is, some of the deals they've handed out to running backs. But they know what they want. They know exactly what the pieces are and how they're going to fit into this offense. Chanahan knew that Kiddle was the perfect piece for him. He had him as the number one tight end on his board or close to it is what he said last week. Use Check, he completely understood what Use Check was going to be within this offense. The running place, as they've designed for Rahim Moster, who is essentially a kick returner playing running back, and that's what they do.

They pitch the ball straight back to him and let him return kicks as a running back. The way they're able to get Debo Samuel the ball in space, he has such a distilled understanding of every piece within the offense, and they've gone out and assembled a collection of those pieces, and it's just so cool to see it all coalesce and come together, and that's been possible in large part

because Garapolo stayed healthy. And I think on the other side, it's the same thing with the chiefs. Andy Reid wants the fastest dudes he could find, and he wants to put a ton of them on the field together and say, we're going to run you out of here. And that's what they are. They do such a good job of understanding how to stretch defenses vertically

and how to do it horizontally too. It's just a level of space and taking advantage of that space that's so rare among any offensive play callers and coaches. So those two things and those two visions, watching them come together like this has been one of the coolest parts of the seas. Yeah, and I remember there were people who thought that one of the theories going around was that the reason the Niners overpaid was because they knew they needed something like a really good fullback, and they said, let's go get them, and they didn't necessarily care about the cost.

And there are teams that are ruthless on the salary cap who make the Super Bowl almost every year, and they are doing the right thing. But then there's also a school of thought that is, if we think that this is the player that unlocks everything we do, then paying an extra $2 million a year is fine because he's going to create $15 million of value or something. I mean, the Niners are a smart organization. They understand analytics. They understand the cap. They understand. I mean, they've been doing some of that stuff longer than we've been talking about it, certainly. And I think that, you know, I remember Stan Van Gundy saying this about Richard Lewis. And it was that it was on the Zach Lowe podcast. And he said that everyone thinks that the Richard Lewis contract was an overpay. And it was. It was, you know, 100. and something million and Richard Lewis was was a very fine player but not a max player. But he was a max player in the context of they looked at this team and said we can get to a finals if we have Richard Lewis.

You would pay a lot of money for that. It's fine to pay that guy like that an extra $10 million to literally, because you know you can be a contender with him and you aren't a contender without him. And so am I saying that the fullback is the reason they're contending? No, but I'm saying that when you look at the team building structure and look at the fact that maybe they overpaid for a few guys, it's totally fine because they knew exactly where everything fits and smart teams do that.

Yeah, you can't look at Kyle Eusechek's contract and think, okay, this is what he makes relative to other fullbacks. You just can't think of it that way because that's not what he does. He's not a fullback. He's so many other things. He allows their offense to function. I mean, when Shanahan lost him in October, his comments afterward, he was despondent,

just because he knows what kind of stuff is on the table when Ushack is in the lineup and what stuff gets taken off when he's hurt. He landed up at tight end on their second play against the Packers last week. Just an inline tight end. He's essentially like a movable tight end. He's much more of an hback role than he is a typical fullback. And I think that it's really hard to understand the value of a player like that because he's just unlike anybody else in the NFL. Yep. I mean, this is, and he just goes to show exactly.

what you said, which is that Kyle Shanahan knows exactly what he wants, and this is his value system. And his value system is bullying people and beating the crap out of him. All right, buddy. You have anything else? No. I mean, I'm really excited about this. There's, there's so many threads we can go down. And the good news is we're going to have a lot of shows next week. And we're going to, we're going to be able to explore everything. I think the plan is we're probably going to be coming to you every single day next week. We're going to do our normal Thursday preview pod, but we'll be at tons of media availability. We'll be around guys all week. So we're going to come to you every single day next week. And I can't be, I couldn't be more excited about it.

I'm very much looking forward to a week in Miami, a week around these teams and a week of conversations about what is a fantastic football game. I'm with you. All right, bud. As always, guys, thank you so much for listening to the Ringer NFL show on the Ringer podcast network. Next time we talk to you, we'll be in Miami.