The Ringer NFL Show - The Top 10 GMs in 2022

Episode Date: June 15, 2022

Kevin, Ben, and Steven create their list of the top 10 general managers in the NFL going into the 2022-23 season. Host: Kevin Clark, Ben Solak, and Steven Ruiz Associate Producer: Stefan Anderson Additional Production Supervision: Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Bill Simmons. We're not just reacting to the NBA playoffs on my podcast. We're also doing it on the Ringer NBA show and the Mismatch podcast. They are coming after some of these NBA playoff games. Check it out, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday nights on the Ringer Podcast Network. It is the Ringer NFL show, part of the Ringer Podcast Network. I am Kevin Clark joined on a wonderful Wednesday afternoon by Ben Solack. Hello, Ben.

Kevin, what's good, baby? Thanks for asking my Cooper Cup question. How can you not? And we're joined by the man who asked the Cooper Cup question. Stephen Rory, Stephen, hello. That's right. It's my question, actually. I thought of the question.

I asked it. Cooper, as far as Cooper, Texas. Cooper, Texas afterwards, it was like, Steven, great question. Yeah, yeah, yeah. In the group chat of those who know all. Yeah, yeah. Ben is in Phoenix for something,

not doing well with the heat, from what I understand. Nobody does well with this heat. Everybody who claims this heat is acceptable is lying to you. It's a dry heat. Yeah. the numbers are the triple digits. Well, that's wrong. Stephen and I were getting heated over

who was the second best player in 2009 Magic before we started recording. That's not something I want to relitigate. All I know is, is that, you know, I didn't see you there. I was there. I was watching the tape. I was taking notes.

Didn't see you or stuff there. That's all. All right. Death's our producer, not Steph Curry. Steph Curry may have been there. What's another pod? Yeah. I still think it's heated.

but I'll concede you. You are a magic noer, a ball noir. A magic ball noir. All right, we're doing top 10 GMs today, something we've been trying to do. Start the top 10s. So that's what we're going to do. Barring news for the next few weeks,

top 10 GMs, top 10 coaches, top 10. I guess we're going to do pass catchers as one throw tight ends there and we'll get a little position of value debate. You know, all defenders, all the positions that you need. to win in modern football. This was an interesting exercise, guys. I did something that I don't regret doing, but it muddied the waters,

which is I sent my list to four or five people inside the game, and I said, what do you think about this list? Like, bully me. Bully me into changing my list with logic, just to see what the vibe was around the league. And it was interesting to me, and this is one of the reasons I didn't define it for you guys what a top GM was, is that everybody I sent it to said,

well, what are the parameters here? And I said, well, what are your parameters? And they said a variety of things. One person said, it's just the roster, right? Like, in golf, there's an old saying, golf is what the ball does, right? Like, nothing matters in your swing or your setup, whatever. Only thing that matters when the ball is in the air, that's golf, right?

And so this person's point on those lines is, like, you're showing your work if you're a GM, and it's just the 53 guys in the roster. Nothing else matters. I guess if you want to put in draft capital or whatever, that's fine, but like, that's it. You've shown your work, it's there, it's on the paper. That's their best piece, right?

Or lack their own. Another GM, another executive made the point, and I thought it was interesting, only judge or put 80% of your eggs in the first round picks basket because everything else is a combination of luck, availability, you know, whatever. that a GM should mostly be judged

in the first round there. So it's really interesting to gauge what around the league people thought of as being a good GM. Ben and Stephen, I'm curious before we get to our list, how you guys define it. Yeah, so the thing I always talk about when I talk about general managers is building

to win in the future. To me, a head coach and a general manager exist in a place of tension. They're moving towards the same thing, but they're doing it at a different speed. They're kind of one is pulling towards the future. That's a general manager. The other is pulling towards the present.

That's the head coach. And we're seeing head coaches now get a little bit more influence in front office decisions as head coaches kind of become a little bit more of like football celebrities and big recruiters. And we're also seeing general managers become a little bit more flexible in their timeline of things, right? Like a general manager is always building for the future. But sometimes it becomes clear that the future is not going to offer any better chance of winning the Super Bowl than right now is. So we might as well sell out for right now. And so there are lines that get colored outside of here, but that's the general construction for me.

And so when I think of drafting for the future, I think I look for investment in premium positions. I care about general managers drafting at the right positions in the right ways. I care about cap health and flexibility. How good are you at retaining free agents, bringing in free agents, moving money around when it's time to move money around? And then, of course, I care about draft success. Draft success is affected by a lot of things. And so like, and I'm looking at names on my list right now where I'm like, two years ago, I would not have put this person top ten because they had a bad run on drafts.

Now they're top tenings. They had a good run on drafts, good run on free agency. So I don't want to overvalue that because that waxes and wanes. And we don't want to overreact to any one thing. But you do have to, especially with these guys who have been around for a decade plus, you have draft well. You have to bring good players into the building. And if you can't do that, it's tough to put you in my top ten.

Just quickly, the way I tried to view it was the performance over a rolling three-year period that includes what I think is going to happen to the 2020 season. that makes sense? So like the last two years plus the way that they've set it up for this year. And maybe like a dash of 20, 3 and 4. Yeah. I definitely looked at a bit of a longer scope because I'm a big like,

you got to be doing this consistently for me to really like buy into it and like put my weight behind you guy. But there's also like there's names on here that are that are guys that I think are on the rise too. You know what I'm saying? You got to find a balance there. I think that for me, my, my problem is if you just do it over like a decade,

like would John Schneider still be on this list? If you put the scope really long or like even, you know, you just think about guys. You waited. Yeah, you waited for sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Stephen, what were you going to say? I definitely had some recency bias when I was putting together in my list.

I tried to balance it like Ben said. And I would probably like lean towards that first person inside NFL where I think just your final product, your 53-man roster is really what you should base this off of. I don't, I think you kind of get into trouble when you analyze these guys based on the right way to build a team because I think there's one thing that NFL history has proven is that there is no one right way to build a team. I think a lot of people criticize the Rams approach and then they won a Super Bowl and all of a sudden now that seems like a smart approach. So I do think that's the best way to look at.

Like what, how consistently are you putting out good 53 man rosters? And that's pretty much how I put together. Yeah, I strongly agree with what Stephen said because, I found it so easy to lump guys into groups based off of how they GM, and then I found it extremely hard to rank them. Right. And like the Rams are a perfect example where it's like, right, less is the best in this family of like, hey,

what if we just did whatever we wanted to forever? Where does that put him amongst the other general managers? I don't freaking know. But I can fit him in that group. You know what I mean? I can get him in that cluster. I can understand what he means there. And so type versus, like,

figuring out who they are versus figuring out how impactful that is in the league, really difficult discussion. Yeah, but I part of this for me, especially when weighing less need, I don't want to get into the less neat thing. I'm sure he's on all of our list. He just won the Super Bowl.

But part of it for me is like divorcing myself from how I think a team should be run and then like the results on the page, right? Like I don't, if I were running a team or if I was giving a take on a team, how it should be run, it would not be like less neat. But guess what?

Less needs running up the score and keeps building a really good roster every single year, even though there have been some, what I would call strategy misnesty steps over the last decade he's been in GM. So that's been part of it for me. It's like, okay, this isn't really how I would do it if I was controlling it in freaking

Madden, but like that doesn't matter like scoreboard, you know? All right, let's get to the list. Let's do it in, um, let's do it in chunks here. So let's do our first three each 10 through eight. I will start with you, Stephen Ruiz. All right. Let me put out one thing. I've made my list based on if I was starting a team from scratch day one,

who I want to be my chance. So my number one pick, and this is not... Number one or number 10. Number 10. Oh, we're going number 10. Yeah. Oh, number 10. I'm going Bill Belichick. Let's go with the big guy first. Let's get him out of the way. I'm going Bill Belichick. I'm not sure if he's

in either of your guys his top 10, but... He's 10th for me. All right, so he's 10th. What is he for you, Ben? I don't have him in. And I know this was a big debate on last year's show. But it's just... Well, let's stop right there. Last year, he was not on Nora or Eyes list, and he was Danny Kelly's number one.

Yes. And it's just divorcing Belichick from the head coach, from Belichick, the general manager, is tough. But to me, Belichick, like, I'm looking at the bottom of the list I made, because I did a couple names below 10, and yeah, like, he's right there. He's like 12, 13.

But for me, I would like for him to be better at drafting football players. That would be personally, for me, great. And the fact that he can coach around it is incredible, but also he did write some of those he did create some of those uphill ballots that he had to climb. So the Belichick discussion's been long made.

But amazing head coach, fine, gentleman. I agree with most of what you said. I just don't think we could say fine general manager because he is putting these rosters together and the team is never bad. Like even their worst year, and this was a year where Belichick himself said, like we basically blew it up

and we knew we were going to be bad this year. we knew we weren't going to have cap space. We were pushing it forward until next year. And they still won like eight games with Cam Newton's like shoulder falling off at quarterback. And no talent in a bunch of opt-outs. I think he deserves credit for that. Even if he's not going to have this team winning Super Bowls like he was when he had Tom Brady, I still think the ability to put a good roster out on the field.

He still hasn't. Belichick still has it in that regard. Right. But when the players that play well in New England leave and play worse, to me that tells me he's not putting a good roster together. He's really good at coaching football players. That is a good point, but I think it's impossible to separate Bill Belichick,

the coach from Bill Belichick, the GM, because Bill Belichick, the GM, is feeding the players that Bill Belichick, the coach needs to run a system that he wants to run. That's a good point, Stephen. It's part of my calculus. For me, I think that it's not even about the drafts for me. It's about the way he runs the roster

and getting all the pieces to fit and knowing when to move on from guys, he's done really well. Steven, I'm sorry, Ben, you just mentioned when guys that he moves on from

goes and plays worse. That's a good thing. Like, he seems to know exactly when to move off from guys and save it, you know, you understand.

And one of the things when Lombardi and I used to talk on podcasts, he was really good at explaining like Bill understood the locker room and how finances work and,

oh, we shouldn't actually sign this guy yet to an extension because then that would unsettle the cornerbacks, whatever it is. No one understands how to take the temperature of a roster better. And for me, I understand he's lacked some high-end draft hits over the past, I don't know, frankly, decade.

But on the other end, he just knows how to get the best 53 all the time. And sometimes that's overdrafting a special team's player. Sometimes that's overpaying for a guy and saying, hey, we're going to go out and get two tight ends this year and figure it out from there. But like, the overall strategy is still among the best. And that's why I think it merits inclusion, even if it's the last spot in our top 10. Right.

This is definitely like a lifetime achievement award for me. I do think Ben's criticisms are completely valid. And I like the drafting thing is a big thing to get out. And maybe just stop letting him draft receivers and players from like Stanford. The drafting thing is a big thing. Yeah. The drafting thing is a big thing to get over. We say of the man who paid $120 million to Kendrick Bourne,

Nelson Aguil, Hunter Henry, and John New Smith last year. Yeah, but right in the, those checks was very hard because he has eight Super Bowl rings on his finger. Yeah, it makes the hand a little heavy. All right, nine? Am I going?

Yeah, we're doing it in chunks. Okay, I'm going out Brian Good at Cucks. I think he's going to be higher on your guys' list. I think he's a little overrated because he inherited Aaron Rogers. You need a better track record than two years and one of the best offensive coaches in the league and Aaron Rogers kind of carrying the team. I know the defense on paper looks a lot better.

And he's done a lot to rebuild that part of the roster, but I still need to see it work before I give him credit for that. And I think that's really, like, what else do you give him credit for? Eight? I want to do the Good and Coons thing on our IQ. The problem is we can't just start arguing with Stephen all the time. Otherwise, we're not going to ever get to our lists. That is my entire content plan on my career and is going to swimming away so far.

Okay, number eight, I'm going Chris Ballard, who I think has lost a little bit of the luster. and I think he has been. He was Nora's number one last year. Exactly. I think he got a lot of criticism for the quarterback thing. I think Ben has written articles about it, and I thought those were totally justifiable. But it's hard to find a quarterback,

and he has done a really good job of building a roster around the quarterback position where you always know the team's going to be good, even if the quarterback is a disaster. And I think Carson Wentz was like a mini disaster last year, and they still almost made. the playoffs and should have if they would have beat the Jaguars in Week 18. Who is the Colts wide receiver two?

Paris Campbell. And that is the thing about building a great roster around a quarterback. I'm not sure they did. Chris Bowler is not on my list, and that was a guy that a lot of the people I sent the list to in the league were just like, you're wrong. That's incorrect. Who was their number two receiver last year? And they won, they almost made the playoffs with a bottom five quarterback. Right.

A guy that was actively trying them to lose games. Your ranking of Carson went aside, because he was not a bottom five quarterback in the league. They did take Alec Pearson the second round. Yes, and that's the thing is, right? It's like, all right, Alec Pearson. And even like the whole Michael Pittman, wide receiver one thing,

I'm not sure Pittman is that good. I think Pittman can be a wide receiver one, but I think if he is a wide receiver one, you'd like for somebody better to be a wide receiver one. So, yeah, they've built, they've done a great job drafting players. Ballard hits a lot, and that is fundamentally a general manager's job. However, if you are asking me where I want my premium positions, where I want my star players, I am not picking running back guard and offball linebacker until we get quite down the list.

They are still trying to figure out pass rush. They're still trying to figure out corner. They're still trying to figure out wide receiver. And when you look at elite teams in the league, they have pass rush, corner, and wide receiver figured, let alone quarterback, I wish they have had such turmoil. So while I give Ballard credit for the eye for talent, I do think that he tread water for a little bit too long. Now he's paying Quentin Nelson.

Now he's paying Darius Leonard no longer has the advantage of those contracts and his roster is not built through premium positions. That is tough for me to hang my hat on. Matt Ryan, hopefully cares all ills. Ben can't take over Indy and cut Quentin Nelson. Listen, the nerds are telling me that guards aren't worth it. So there you go. My thing is like when could he have gotten this quarterback?

that he didn't get. When could he have gotten these cornerbacks that he didn't get? Like he's acquiring good players for prices that I don't think are overpriced. Like I don't think even if you don't want to take a guard with the top 10 pick, I don't think that was a bad pick. Even if you don't want to train a first round pick for defensive tackle into Forrest Buckner, that transformed their defensive line to a certain extent and allow them to play. It did, but like DeNico Autry is good in Tennessee right now.

Extend Dekyll Autry, keep that pick. Draft J.C. Horn. Draft Patrick Sardt. Is that the right? He wanted to get him for four games? I mean, I don't know. It's just, I don't know. I think Bill that he puts out good rosters.

I think you can quibble with like how he goes about it and whether they should have taken a bigger shot at quarterback. And I think that's, you know, a legitimate argument. But good roster every year he's been there. I, I, he, if Andrew Luck doesn't retire, we're talking about, we're talking about him in totally different terms. If only is unjust for candies and nuts, baby, build me a winning team. he has the Andrew Luck thing is such a huge

butterfly effect I think you just have to put it in a separate category there's also no guarantee Andrew Luck retired for a reason he was he was going to have to rehab an injury

and he didn't want to climb that mountain again so like I think there's like a version of like what if Andrew Luck was totally healthy throughout his career in which case

he may have actually just saved Ryan Grigson's job I'm going to tell you something Grigsen tried his damnedest to ruin even a healthy Andrew Luck but I'm just saying that if there's an alternate timeline

here just be, you know, having to reluctantly rank Ryan Griggs and ninth on this list because Andrew Luck just drag him to the AFC title game again. Yeah, when did it ballot take the job? 2017? Yeah, the Colts have won one playoff game since 2017. It's a good roster, but it

wasn't that roster. It was a great win. Ben, first three, 10 to 8. So yeah, I have ballot at 11. My 10 is John Robinson, is the general manager for the Titans. I like the way that Yeah, exactly. I like the way that the Titans build their team. We talk about a holistic team building philosophy. They believe in size.

They believe in strength. They believe in power. It runs from the general manager to the head coach, down through the positional coaches and the coordinators. They, they, unlike the Colts, win the games, right? Even if the roster doesn't look the same, they're the ones who are coming out of that division. They're the ones who are winning games in the playoffs. Not that many, but certainly more than the Colts. Robinson also, I like, they won three. Robinson also, I like the way he's managed to the cap relative to his team's timeline. I don't think any of us think Ryan Tannahill is like, he can carry us all the way. And they gave him that extension to see if they could get that out of him,

see if they could hit on, you know, Derek Henry rookie contract and AJ Brown rookie contract and whatever. I think they know that Tanyhill kind of gives them a little bit of a lower ceiling than they'd like. And accordingly, they're not doing massive restructures. They let A.J. Brown get traded away instead of giving that extension. They're kind of on a two-year timeline right now. Henry's deal is up at the end of the 2023 season.

Tanyhill deals up at the end of the 2023 season. LeWan's deal is up. Jeffrey Simmons deal is up. They are nicely positioned to either go all in if they like hit on Malik Willis, for example, or hit a soft rebuild in a couple years. And to me, that's very responsible team building. So I like Robinson

for that reason. I don't love the whole like, let's just draft humongous risks all the time. But I understand swinging for the fences when you have a quarterback like Dan Hill. He's my 10. Howie Roseman is my 9. Roseman could be earlier if he did not piss everybody off.

And that's the thing we don't talk about enough with general managers. But like, Roseman gets a bad rap at times in the building in terms of how he works with the people there. Roseman gets a bad rap with free agents at times because of the way that he does contracts. Like,

Roseman is a little bit of a polarizing figure in the league, which does make it hard to do business. But he's an extremely good trader. He is a improving drafter in that I think he's kind of learning what he can and he can't do. He does have a good understanding of positional value, even if it is probably a little bit jumping the shark, a little bit too top-heavy where he just simply like won't add safeties,

won't add linebackers, and that's continuing to be a debilitating problem for the Eagles. So Roseman could be higher because I think he has the right framework for team building. It's just there's enough stuff that we've seen from Howie now in terms of how he wants to build the team and how he wants to do business that I think keeps him a little bit lower. Eight for me is Jason Light. And this is the this is the, the recency bias guy. Jason Light pre-2018 draft. maybe one of the worst

Remember we took a Guayo? Yes. Trade it up for him. Trade it up for him. And then drafted a kicker two years later. And then drafted Matt Gay in the fifth round, yes. And that Matt Gaye pick was in 2019, but man, oh man, when you turn around.

And that 2017 draft was okay. He had O.J. Howard in the first round, which is not great. But Justin Evans and Chris Godwin in second and the third round. And then 2018, Vita Vaya, Carlton Davis, Alex Cabo, Whitehead. had 2019, Devin White, Sean Murphy Bunting, Jamel D. Mike Edwards, 2020, Tristan Works, Anthony Winfield,

Antoine Winfield, excuse me, talk about just hitting. And at the exact right moment, too, when they got Brady. So he's a guy who really benefits from his performance over the last couple of years. Right now he's one of the top 10 general managers in the league. We'll see if he runs cold. Okay.

So a couple of things about that. Stephen, is John Robinson on your list? No. It's because, I mean, this continues a theme of just not respecting the Titans. John Robinson I made it It was a better team last year Ben the Colts or the Titans

If they played on neutral field Who would you pick? The Titans because they won twice Okay let's We could go back to the Friday show picks And see how to how true Yeah yeah yeah We'll see how that is then

The Colts are a better team And they've been a better team For the last two years But continue Cool Stephen is doing Stephen is just doing The June on paper rankings here

All right So for a guy who watch his film. He certainly missed two games. What was that? Oh, what do you mean? The two games, the Titans beat the Colton. Oh, yeah. That was Wence. That was Wendt. Okay, one of the games was literally Wens.

One game was Wens. He threw a left-handed pass in the end zone in overtime or something like that. So he's not, Robin's not on my list, but he's on the cusp. He's with a group. And kind of what, this happened last year, too, guys, where it was easy to cut down to like 12 guys and then a nightmare to get down to 10

and then an extreme nightmare to rank like 6 through 1 or like 5 through 1. So that's, it's just a hard exercise. Coaching is a little bit easier, I think. Mickey Loomis is my number 11. I'm just going to give him a shout out for continually just creating a good roster. And it's kind of the cousin of the less need thing

where we don't maybe like the methods and us dork sit there and say, what about roster flexibility? And it's like, well, you know what? They're pretty competitive every year. And they make the playoffs in years that they shouldn't. And I think that some of the, like the name Drew Breeze, I think, sort of attributed some things to him that were more attributable to the front office

and the roster and Jeff Ireland and some of that drafting. So just a little bit on Mickey Loomis because he does a nice job. Bellichax is to my number 10. Number nine, this might be controversial, but I'm just going to let it rip. The tandem of Jerry Jones and Will McClay, who. FYI drafted a perhaps generational defender last year in Michael Parsons. Generally, listen, if you're going by the first executive, what they told me, just look at the roster and go from there.

That's the piece of working to look at. Jerry Jones and Will McLeigh have done a very nice job. And I group them together because, I mean, this is sort of other teams like this where I'm not really sure who does what. A couple more people on this list, in fact, will be in a little. a tandem, but I just, I'm sorry that that's a good roster, it should compete. They've been undone by Mike McCarthy, but this is

not a did you hire Mike McCarthy list. They're not, they wouldn't win that competition in not hiring Mike McCarthy. But if you're just looking at rosters, the fact they made the playoffs to spite by McCarthy is interesting to me. The fact they lost, probably because of Mike McCarthy,

is interesting to me. And in a weird way, that lends itself to ranking Jerry Jones on this list. Number eight is Howie, same as you, been where I rank him at the bottom of this top 10. I just think he just manages the draft well. He manages his assets well. I don't necessarily know where the bad reputation came from because there's a lot of guys

who have bad reputations within the league, but it just never leaves the league, including people that I think everybody thinks has a 100% approval rating. They do not inside the league. I don't, I just think that maybe the Howie stuff, maybe it stems from the power struggles with Chip and how much got out about that. And, you know, we talk about it. On the Formula One pod, we were talking, I was talking to a guest last week about Ferrari. There's always these internal, uh, stories that come out about Ferrari.

They're just like crazy anecdotes. Kind of like, remember the Brown story a couple years ago where they're like putting porn on the wall and stuff? You like that whole thing. Um, but there's not even a little bit, but I'll pretend. I mean, it was a Seth Wickersham story. You should, you should read it. It was incredible. I'm not going to Google it, actually.

I'm going to be more careful Googling that story. Well, just Google Seth Wiggarsham, Cleveland Browns and you'll get there. You don't have to Google it porn on the wall. giggle. Don't Google Seth, Wickersham bored or something. Don't do that. Don't do it. But

sometimes there's just these teams where the reason that there's a lot of crazy stories about them is there's a demand for crazy stories about them, right? And then people start digging and then they get there and Ferrari has not done anything quite like that. But there's always like, oh, Ferrari, you're always so screwed up. And I kind of think with the Cowboys and

the Eagles, the media attention on it is such that the supply or the demand, for like inside the building anecdotes creates a supply. And I sometimes think... That's fair. That's very fair. I like that. I sometimes think that

coaches or GMs in huge markets like that oftentimes have more anecdotes like that about them about the reputation or whatever. And then there's guys in small markets who can get away with murder and it's treated completely differently. So that's my take on it. Stephen, let's do seven through four.

Oh, yes. I want to ask. Yeah, Stephen, do you have the Cowboys on or no? No, I don't. But if you would have asked me two years ago, they would have been a top 10 team easily. I think I don't like how they handled, like, the Dak Prescott contract situation.

I think they really played themselves and then the CQL Elliott contract situation. And I do think you can count hiring Mike McCarthy against the GM, because that's what, I mean, that's what Jerry Jones does. Why can't we hold that against them? Yeah, I guess that's a different function, right? Like that's not that that's more of the administrative part of it.

Yeah. Yeah. I will say, yeah. So I also don't have them. And the Z contract was a part of that. The linebacker contracts that they went through before they even got. Mike Horsons were bad. The Cowboys being as big as they are at paying homegrown talent, I think can be an issue for them,

especially because then it leads to like Leo Collins leaving. And it's like there was no need for that. Like this was a good pick. This is the sort of guy you want on a second contract. So I think they do a lot of good work drafting. And then after drafting, I think that they can get some. tunnel vision at times. But honestly, the reason I wanted to bring it up is because Kevin, I found her case very

compelling. Like if we, I think I got, I can get blinded by like the transactional utility of some of those choices. When you just look at the roster and the draft history, Cowboys certainly have a good push for top 10. So I probably underrated them in that regard. What can I say? Stephen, seven through four.

All right. Number seven, I'm going with Duke Tobin. I think he's, I think the Bengals, their front office is kind of like collective, but I'm going with Duke Tobin as like a figure. your head. And I think they've been good for a very, very long time. We've talked so long about how the Bengals owners are cheap. They don't want to spend on free agents. That's changed the last couple of years. But like during the Andy Dalton there, they consistently had one of the best rosters every single year around the quarterback position. And then you kind of had this little rebuild,

what was it, like a span of like three or four years. And then all of a sudden, the roster is loaded again. I mean, it's not loaded where they're going to be a Super Bowl contender every year. But there are a lot have good pieces on that roster and you can kind of see it coming together year by year. They would add like a group of players to it. And then now we have this finished product that made the Super Bowl. I don't know if they're that good, but that's a good roster. He does good work. And that's two rosters now that he's built.

Yeah, I strongly agree on Tovin. I'm glad you had him there because I'll have him there as well and just, yeah, I don't know if we're grading on a curve, but it feels like the size of the Bengals personnel department should be a curve that pushes Duke Tobin up a little bit in that regard. And yeah, I think when we talk about like good general managing, being able to just transition from franchise quarterback to franchise quarterback without having a hiccup

is about as good as general managing gets. And the Bengals just did that very quietly, very seamlessly, kudos to them. So lack at minute 30 of a mid-June podcast who tried to sneak in Andy Dalton as franchise quarterback. You know what I mean. A player they conceived of as a franchise quarterback to the next player they can see

as a franchise quarterback. He thinks Ruiz and I are just sleeping our sleepwalking through the office season. He's trying to get away with this. I try to give him credit around to Andy Dalton if you heard. You don't know what I meant. All right. I also by the way

have Duke Tobin at seven, my excuse me, my fifth spot in this group. All right. Number six, I have Brett Beach. And number five, I have Howie. I didn't take off for the

reported, you know, the character concerns, if you will, around Howie. I think he's, like you guys said, like you guys covered. I think he's just a smart GM. He does the smart thing most of the time. And that's more than we could say about a lot of GMs. And then Brett Veach,

where do you guys have Brett Beach? I'm very interested in the Brett Beech question. I have Breitge Fifth. Okay, so you have them around where I have them lowest. I thought I would have them like close to highs besides Kevin. but just his ability to attack certain problems the last couple of off seasons has really like convinced me. I was kind of skeptical about him just because he didn't inherit Mahomes.

I know he was part of the front office that drafted him. He's a big part of it. And but I mean, I think he deserves credit, especially last year turning around the team with that Melvin Ingram trade at the deadline, kind of helping the defense. He figures, he solves problems. And that's what you want with a GM who's been. gifted with this great roster, with a great coach. He hasn't held them back at all. And he's supplemented what he got when he took over the job.

Who's fourth for you? Less neat. I want to get everybody in and then we're going to start arguing about this. Ben, seven through four for you. All right. Seven through four for me. Seven, Duke Tobin. Six, Tom Telesco.

Five, Brett Beach. Four, Brian Goopens. and the one that I don't know if I'm banging the table for him or not, but Tom Colesco's doggone good at his job, baby. Really, really good GM. I have him at 11. Bad take. And I wanted him in the top of time.

I think that's a terrible take. Steven, that's a bad take, brother. Why is that? Steven, imagine knowing ball. You can never. So like I'm going to start a separate Zoom. We're going to talk about ball. Okay, so I don't know who it was who told Kevin,

just look at first round picks. But Tom Telesco became the Chargers General Manager in 2013. Here's their first round picks. DJ Fluker, Jason Barrett, Melvin Gordon, Joey Bosa,

Mike Williams, Darwin James, Jerry Tillerie. Justin Herbert. What was that last one? No, no, no, I'm sorry. No, no, it's fine. Justin Herbert,

Rashon Slater, and now Zion Johnson. So even if we say Jerry Tillery with Crystal Clarity, that's like seven for eight in the first round, brother. That is nuts production at the top. And he doesn't trade back. He just sit there hits.

I totally agree. I thought I was going to be like high on Tom Tolest. I was high for so many years. I didn't know I fell behind him. Like not. I didn't, I didn't realize. He's number seven for me. We talk about playoff wins, though.

We talk about Chris Ballard having one playoff win. How many years did you go back to the start of Tom Toledo? Yeah, listen. Listen. They're in the Jerry Jones. The Chargers are in the Cowboys zone of, their roster management is good and they just keep hiring bad coaches.

Oh. Well, no, I just mean like, I don't mean Brandon Staley. Brandon Staley might be the one to change that. I'm just saying that the roster was clearly sound. Anthony Linn couldn't get them there. I'm not saying Brandon's still as a good coach. Bad coach.

I picked them to make the Super Bowl this year. I'm just saying like the talent has not been the problem over the past decade. Yeah, I, I, um, I, your point is very well taken, Steven. Like I said, I grouped these guys first by like, general vibe.

and Tom Tesco, Chris Ballard, and John Robinson are all in a group in the heading reads, please, dear God, win something. Because they're clearly doing the job well. Mike McCoy. Mike McCoy was the coach. Ken Winsendt, baby. Dude, Mike McCoy wasn't. He won them a playoff game.

Mike McCoy was out of the league, just randomly out of the league for three years. And now he's QB coach in Jacksonville, coaching up Trevor Lawrence. Right, yeah. Just randomly at, how hard is it to go from head coach to coordinator to coordinators just out of the league in three steps. Okay. Mike McCoy won a playoff game as an offense coordinator with Tim Tebow as his

quarterback. He won a playoff game with the Chargers. The Chargers famously have terrible luck and never win playoff games. Maybe Mike McCoy's got a bad rap. Whose fault is the luck thing? We can't just sit here and just ascribe qualities of people and then be like, well, Chargers is just bad luck. Tough one.

Tough one for our guys. Dean Spanos is. It is Dean Spanos's thing. Where did you have less Need, Stephen? Fourth. Okay. I had him a little higher. And I want to get into the particulars of a Ben.

Where do you have less need? I have less at free. Okay. And I think fundamentally it boils back down to the point you made. Less is very good at his job. But when it came to parsing the, splitting the hairs of the top guys, if I were building a team, I would not have the gumption to build it the way Lesneed did. Right?

And that, like, that, that scares me a little bit. It turns me off about it a little bit. It feels a little bit more fragile. And accordingly, like, that's, you know, Cupp himself made this point. You know, that Bengals game goes a little differently, third and one jet sweep. And the Rams don't win a Super Bowl.

And we're talking about this all a little bit differently, right? And so less won the Super Bowl, less built the team in a very, very, very good way. It's very impressive what they've done. But also, to me, it's a little bit more of, like, a hyper-fragile build than the guys who I have above him, which, you know, at number two, Eric DeFaosa and number one, Brandon Bean.

The reason why I have less below you guys at number four, and the reason why that I have him this high, actually, is because I think he realized about halfway through that he wasn't very good at using those first round picks and utilizing that. The RG3 trade informed a lot of it, I think. And then the RG3, yeah, the trade for Derek Gough, which I think that probably was a, like, a seminal moment for him in his career. And I think he changed.

and I agree with Ben, like, I don't know if you can replicate, but he did. And I think you have to factor in how much Sean McVeigh has mattered to the Rams turnaround and, like, kind of establishing a culture there. Sure. This is also a guy that, like, did he hire Jeff Fisher?

Like, those are two very different. No, I think Fisher may have been hired first, actually. They were hired in the same year. Oh, yeah, that's what it was. So, yeah, that's why I tended, like, veers some credit away from him just because I think Sean McVeigh, Bay has been so pivotal and it's like

he's really the face of that franchise I would say more so than the GM but I give him a lot of credit for you know recognizing his weakness and kind of acting on him figuring out a strategy that allowed him to build a great team with first round caliber

talent without actually having to make the picks himself. I agree with that. I also think that Sneed there's a bit of I don't know I the survivor bias is not what you would call this but there's a bunch of GMs who have given an extra

three years probably could have done much better. Like Jason Light, I would put in his bucket too. Where there's a scenario where Jason Light gets fired after four bad drafts and all of a sudden he is, you know, pro-personal guy in Arizona or something, right?

Les doesn't get to be on this list without Sean McVeigh. I very much agree with that idea. And I would also say that Jason light doesn't get to be on this list without Tom Brady. Right. Who got to shine a light on the hits, the Chris Godwin. the Tristan Wharfs. Like without that,

we're going, oh, hey, man, the bucks are pretty, you know, frisky, but they've got whoever their quarterback would be.

I don't know who their alternate timeline quarterback would be. Wouldn't be Blaine Gabbard. And the timing of this all, right, and the timing of this all matters so much. Like the Rams hit on cup in the perfect window

to then get the quarterback and go. Think about the Titans where Robinson was, hit on A. A.J. Brown, there with Ryan Tannahill. And it's good, but it's not good enough. You know what I'm saying?

So the window of that is always really important as well. Okay. So my 7th through for Telesco, Jason Light 6, Duke Tobin, 5th, agree with all of what you said. Brian Gooden Kunst is fourth for me. Okay. There's someone you said that's not on my list, that you have really high, Ben.

Eric Tacosta. Yeah, it's Eric Tacosta. You know on your list? I don't, I don't, he's in, he's one of the best, he's in the Mickey Loomisone for me. He was really high for me last year, but I have been hugely impressed with the Lamar Jackson era. I've been hugely impressed with the roster that they've built.

But I think that he is just not, right now, if we're going kind of the rolling three years, I don't know what the future is with the Lamar contract. They have not, they didn't crush it last. They didn't have so much team success last year that I throw them in this pile. It's a, for me, Eric Dacosta is just a, is a rich man's version of Chris Ballard, where he's winning more than Chris

Bauer, obviously. He's drafted an MVP all that, even though Ozzy Newsom was still there. He was in the front office, kind of a a Brad Beach thing. But for me, the process is sound, the decision making is sound, the players are good, but he has not had as much success as some of these other teams. I don't think he's going to have as much success as some of the guys who are ahead of him on this list. Where do you have them?

I have number one. Okay. Yeah, boy. Just talk me through that. You just talk yourself through it by explaining he's, yeah, he's Chris Ballad. And Chris Ballard did all the things that we criticized Chris Ballard for not. Like, yeah, he's Chris Ballad if he found an MVP quarterback. Like, oh, that's like the best GM in the NFL.

But Ozzy Newsom was the GM then. I do agree. But Eric DeKazzo was such a big part of that front office for a long time that I think it's not unfair to kind of conflate their later. success together. But I think Ozzie Newsom deserves all the credit for that first Ravens Super Bowl and building the Ravens up through the odds, the early odds. But

2011 on 2010 on, I think Eric DeKosso has his fingerprints all over that roster. And the Ravens are good every year. You brought up team success last year. They were the most injured team ever and probably should have made the playoffs. Worst injury luck in history. And probably should have made the playoffs.

It's interesting because I think part of this it was interesting, I was looking at other people's list. I think Greg Rosenthal has to cost it like 15th or something. Yeah, he was 14th. Yeah, even worse than me. I've got him probably like 12, something like that.

I think part of this, even, part of our disagreement, why he would be, he'd be much higher on my list if my list was who I would hire if I was an owner tomorrow. If I was the Walton family that has bought this Broncos team, and I'm looking at candidates, I'd much rather have Eric Takasta than Duke Tobin.

I'd much rather have Eric Acosta than Jason light. I'd rather have Eric Acosta more than Jerry Jones. But what I'm saying is that I'm looking at this and saying, who built the best rosters, who's built the teams they're going to win now? The job that Eric Acosta did, and

Ozzy Newsom, building around Lamar Jackson is one of the best team building jobs I've ever seen. Like, I'm not saying of the decade, I'm saying in modern football, like since the merger to, it was interesting because I should have saying to all the time, but there was a nugget from Albert Breerreelry.

said, listen, the Patriots knew that Lamar Jackson was going to be really intriguing prospect and could be good, but they knew they had to change everything in order for him to be successful, right? And guess what? It's what the Ravens did. They changed everything. And they produced an MVP. And they produced a team that's going to be successful going forward. And so if I'm going by my parameters, which is the last two years plus the year going forward and maybe a dash of 2024, DeCosta is a good GM, not a great GM. I think it is, I very much agree that I would like for more playoff success to really put my chest into DeCosta. When I sat down Sneed versus DeCosta versus Bean, the thing that kept DeCosta out of one and put him at two spot for me below Bean was the playoff success.

With that said, he made the playoffs in the two years in which Lamar was fully healthy, which included Elamar's MVP season. Right. So like sometimes playoff games are coin flips, right? We don't have that many years. But that was the big difference for me. Both Bean and DeCosta did a unbelievable job building around precisely who their quarterback was. Both have done a tremendous job maximizing the strengths, masking the weaknesses. Both have done an excellent job fulfilling the needs of their defensive coordinator with with certain body types, with certain roles.

And the Ravens especially have been impressed by their willingness to move on from players. Matt Judin, in order to let a younger guy step in and keep money, keep the cap healthy. Right now, I would say the Ravens have a healthier cap than the bills, and that's to their advantage as they and the bills both look down the barrel of these huge second-contract quarterbacks. DeCosta also maintaining a lot of the habits of the Ozzy Newsom era, we're always going to draft linemen. We're just never going to stop drafting linemen. We are always going to gamble on polarized athletes, right? If you are like big and long, we don't really care about your agility.

We're just going to get you in the building and see if we can make you big, a long field will roll and be good. The Calais Campbell trade, the Marcus Peter's trade, taking advantage of a weak veteran trade market. Like, all of the stuff that, like, other GMs kind of hang their hats on, it feels like DeCosta can hang his hound every single one of them. It feels like he's versatile in that regard. To me, yeah, it would have been another three years of DeCosta.

It would be nice to be at, like, a championship game appearance for Lamar to really put our chest into it. Sure. I think we're going to get there. I feel comfortable and confident putting DeCosta in this. spot and saying over the next three years the Ravens are going to be one of the most successful, consistent, don't have to even worry about it.

We are going to be a good football team, and it's because of how well they build the roster. Okay, so a couple things. Number one, I think there's probably people accusing me of recency bias, and the answer is yes, extremely, because this is a yearly list and kind of what we alluded to earlier, like if you're just doing career achievement awards,

Bill Belichick's number two, John Schneider's has found his way on this list, like all sorts of people, right? And that's why I like to make this list every year. But then beyond that, part of my dinging

of DeCasta is me fighting my own worst instincts that I alluded to earlier in this podcast, which is, I love the fact they got Marcus Peters for nothing. I love the fact that they had a second kicker and they turned him into a draft pick from the Vikings and then that guy

didn't even make the Vikings, right? That to me is like, oh, you found value everywhere, right? I love that. but it's kind of what we're, it's like the opposite of a less need thing where every time I look at a less need move, I say, what the hell are you doing? And then they won the Super Bowl, right? And so that, that's me saying like, okay, sometimes things are thought out, but then other people are having more success. So what are you doing? So that's why I made the Bowerd comparison where it's, if I'm just sitting here in my Brooklyn apartment and saying like, these were, this is not a wise decisions ranking. This is not a well thought out decisions ranking. This is about building a team. And right now, the guys, Brandon Bean, less need, Brett Beach, Brian Guttencunz, those teams are more relevant to the NFL right now than the Baltimore Ravens. I will say real quick, Ravens and the Rams played week 17. Rams needed to win to secure the division.

Tyler Huntley was starting. Game ended 20 to 19. Rams win. Baby, that Ravens roster against that Rams roster was about as tight as it gets. And then what happened? The Rams won the Super Bowl as a four-seat. Kevin. Not like they were like one seed

walking over people. Wait, have you contacted the ramps to tell them about this? Can we rewind a second? I need to know where the Brian Gouda comes hype comes from. Could you have?

Can you guys explain the hype because you guys have them highly rated? Ben, you want to take this one? I'll piggyback on it. Yeah, let me just pull up Packless draft history

really quickly so I can make sure I reference all of the really good early picks. Get them. Get them. Yeah. Because draft performance is very sustainable and very predictive. Remember when we all made fun of for Sean Gary? What is there?

I, dude, everything else when it comes to building the roster? Every single year, this top 10 GM podcast, every year this top 10 GM podcast just devolves into like total insanity. Because it's such a hard ranking to do that eventually gets a minute 50. And you're like, it's just drafting. That's all there is.

There's nothing else. Get good players. We're done. Then we'll rank some. That guy at the next. And it's like, actually, we should. shouldn't look at Bill Belichick's draft picks. Yeah, right, exactly.

Let's hear the draft picks. Are you going to cough over Jordan Love? Are you going to keep that one? Are you going to actually say it? So, first round picks since 2014 for the Packers. Well, wait, when did Goode can get hired? 2016? That's a big question.

No, it's later than that. I can't remember when Gook got hired. He's been the GM for like three years, hasn't he? He was hired in 2018. 2018. 2018. 2018. Okay.

January, 2014. Jire Alex. Alexander. Rashon Gary, Rishon Gary, Darnel Savage, also throw Elton Jenkins in there as a top 50 pick.

Jordan Love in 2020, which was the love pick good? No. Do the Packers still go to multiple NFC championship games afterward? Yes. So this team burned a first round on a guy and doesn't play.

This team burned a first rounder on a guy who doesn't play and yet still have a good enough roster to consistently make it. And yes, he inherited Aaron Rogers, but we can't fault general managers for inheriting good players.

It's like, oh, Brian Goodgood's is bad because Aaron Rogers was good before he's there. We're not faulting him. We're adding that context, that very important context, Eric Takosta inherited Lamar Jackson, and he's number one for you. He was a big part of... That inheritance is a little bit different.

Brian Goodman. He's been in Green Bay forever. Yes. That's why I stopped saying in his sentence. 2021, Eric Stokes. Josh Myers, as well as their second round pick, is going to start for them on the line. It was good last year.

He's the second round pick in 2020. He's a starter. He's a good player for him. He's not a starter. And then this past year, Quay Walker, Devonteau Wyatt. We'll see where that comes out. Brian Goonk is four for me. And I wish he handled receiver differently.

And obviously, the Jordan left pick is an issue. Other than that, the Packers had Mike McCarthy, moved on from McCarthy, made tectonic shifts in terms of their offense and how they rely on Rogers, how they get into their passing game, right? The way all of that changed, they had a, a big veteran departure at that time as well in terms of players and regularly reloaded with young players successfully. They made great free agency signings in the time.

You talk about the Smith brothers who they brought in on defense. And then they've also done a good job developing diamonds in the rock, right? They continue to bring in low drafted players, right? You talk about the Robert Tunians of the world. You talk about Rasul Douglas on the free agency market. Talk about Devondra Campbell in the free agency market and get those players in the roles in which they succeed. Yeah, Al-Mazar.

They handle their business extremely well in all fast. of the position. Losing Devote Adams sucks. Jordan Love was a wasted pick. They have some big black marks on an otherwise spotless and stellar roster. So he's four for me for that reason. But still,

I think the body of work tells you he's a really, really, really good general manager who let's not, let's call a spade is dealing with an extremely mercurial and difficult to manage star player very, very well. I'm coming at you, Stephen. Okay, let's go.

Because if you wanted, so Eric Acosta was hired after, he inherited the reins after the 2018 draft. Okay. Here are Eric Dacosta's first-round draft picks. Marquis Brown, 2019. Patrick Queen, 2020. Rashad Bateman, 2021.

Is there anything that suggests to you that that's the best GM in football? No, but I'm not judging him based off with three picks in the 20s. Three first-round picks. I think that's very foolish to do. But I mean, one thing... Wasn't Odafei Allway a first-round pick?

he also flipped Brown for a first round pick. Rashop Bateman was, I mean, we don't know if Rashop Bateman, what Rashop Bateman's going to be. I think he's pretty good. I think he's pretty good.

I'm just saying that we're doing small sample size theater here. And I think in that, in the last four years, Brian Gutenkins has been better at his job and has his team more relevant than Eric Takasas has done. Okay, let me ask one question. Who has a better quarterback?

The Packers are the ratings. This isn't like a, Packers. The Packers. The answer is obviously. Who do you think is going to be a better team next year? The Packers are a race. Packers.

Oh, well, I was expecting a different answer. But you guys are both wrong. The Ravens are going to be better. That's our fundamental disagreement. That would make sense. That's our fundamental disagreement then. It's because we're projecting into 2022. I think the Packers are a Super Bowl team.

And I don't think the Ravens are a Super Bowl team. That's our fundamental disagreement here. I think they're both super bowl team. I think the Packers are better. Yeah. We've got a flip. I've got my Super Bowl teams wrong. Yeah.

Should I go back and check the math? Yeah. Go back and watch the tape. No, obviously, look, we all approach us from like a different perspective. So obviously our list are going to be different, but you're wrong. Okay, wait. I don't think we went through all of our three. So I had Vech, Les Need Brandon B.

Steve, what did you have? I have Lumis third, being second, the past first. So you guys both have Lumis ranked. I don't have Lumis ranked. No, no, no, no. I had Lumis. He had him 11th. which is a fake ranking.

You also try to pass in an 11 ranking because we're cowards. Yes. And the thing is this. I kind of agree with Stephen in a sense that if I ranked Loomis, he would have been like two. But it's, you know what I mean? It's like either like what he's doing is acceptable, in which case he's one of the best general managers in the league,

or what he's doing is unacceptable, in which case he's the worst. What just happened to a morality? What the world just happened to this list? that if Mickey Loom is qualified for this list because of his reckless behavior he's off the list but if he was on the list he'd be two right you let them off to like shame him it's like when a coach

bench is a quarterback for like two quarters like in college that's what you did no this is like when you hear those stories about like a team can't sign Cam Newton because players might want him to start or something I can't have Mickey Loomis on this list because he might be number two know what it was. I think that

I think that Mickey Loomis' 2017 draft was just so incredibly good and and will, you know, it was defining for the Saints, we'll be defining for the Saints forever. Beyond that, I don't think he's drafted super well recently. And while I was okay with

the way he managed the team when they were hitting the Breeze, Peyton Window, I firmly believe that the opportunity for some honest self-reflection and rebuilding was this past off season and instead they decided to give to Ron Matthew a bunch of money. And to me, that is irresponsible, especially with the way that, like, Eric McCoy looked coming back from injury, especially with the way that, like,

Zach Bond looks and the way that Sese looks. Like, they are not hitting the way they were hitting previously. And I think the Saints, like, that's why I say acceptable versus unacceptable. Like, I think it was justifiable to be as aggressive of a team builder as they were a couple years ago. I do not think it is, it is justifiable now. I think it's irresponsible. Ruiz, make your

LUM case. I want a GM that is going to capitalize on a moment. There are far too many GMs that don't like Chris Ballard. That's one of the reasons why you guys have a low on your list. How do you have it low on your list? But you don't have Loomis higher. I think he's a guy that

isn't constrained by the salary cap. I think too many teams get constrained by the salary cap and they want to hold on to their picks because that's what you're supposed to do. And I just think he's a guy that's going to build, put the best team on the field no matter what it takes. And that's a guy that I want leading my front office. I want a gamer at GM

and he's a gamer. That question Steven asked is the fundamental question of all of our disagreements. It seems like how do you not have Ballard low and not have bloom as high? Because I believe in the middle ground and Stephen believes exclusively in polls. It's either one, like Stephen is a black or white guy and I am a shades of gray guy.

That's right. Carson Wentz is the worst quarterback in that. There it is, me. All right. Yeah, I have Beach Sneed Bean. Who's your number one bet? Brandon Bean.

If you told me in 2018 that a general manager built an AFC contender with Josh Allen at the quarterback, I would say, all right, that's the best GM in the league, and then I would do no more thinking. And I think that that's borne out when you look at the results and when you look at the draft picks

and you look at the philosophy, Brandon Bean, just doggone good at his job. I do have a question about B. And this is the reason why I had him in number two instead of number one, because I do think like the bills are the best bill team. Should we factor in that Sean McDermott is the one that hired him

and the one that kind of led the charge for him to be hired? And does Sean McDermott deserve more credit for this bill's machine that's been? What if Sean McDermott wanted him to be hired because he's so good at his job? Yeah. What if Sean McDermott was like, he's the best general manager

Okay, but what if Brandon Bean takes over a team that's not coached by Sean McDermott. It doesn't look the same. Maybe, but can you ding Sean McDermott for trading Patrick Mahomes the year before? I feel like, yes, we probably should ding that, yes. If we're going to give them all this personnel power, I do think he has personnel power. I'm just saying, like, Brandon Bean came in, made one of the best draft picks the last decade in Josh Allen.

In every step of the way, I wrote a piece a couple of months ago talking to Bean and Josh Allen and McDermin about kind of lessons teams can learn. and everybody said every step was perfect, including Josh Allen. And they were a half a second away from getting to the AFC title game. I think they're probably pretty pissed off about that. But they reached the mountaintop, the AFC mountaintop pretty quickly. And I think that at some point they're going to break through, win a Super Bowl, when the AFC, all of that stuff.

And the fact that they were able to do it this quickly with the quarterback who was this billified in the media and the scouting community, whatever you want to call it, I just I have all the respect the role for Brandon Bean It's kind of funny that Bean was like Working under Dave Gettlement And then became the best The best GM in NFL

Gellman Gettlement innocent is that what you're saying Say yeah No no but Dave Gettlement is the best GM in Bantish history Which is not even close Did you see the Robbie Anderson quote I sent to you guys right before

Yeah you texted it to us Well no I don't I just, that's kind of, it's show business, Ben. I guess. I'm not bad. My bad. The listener needs to know.

That's on me. Robbie Anderson said it is what it, it will be what it is if Carolina trades for Baker Mayfield. Asked if he's had any negative experiences with Baker. Anderson replied, I don't know, buddy. You feel me?

Wait, no, no, no, no. No, you're reading that book. He's saying, I don't know buddy. He's saying, I don't know him. Buddy is a pronoun. It's him. That's even worse. No, it's even funnier.

Yeah. I have, it's like me. It's like me tweeting about like tweeting Baker Jones. I've never met him, but I really don't want to play with him. That's amazing. I have never heard such pure distilled nihilism from an NFL player such as it'll be what it is.

If we make this trade. But also, I don't know buddy. Robbie Anderson, get him out of Carolina ASAP. Oh, old buddy in Cleveland, not coming. Robbie Anderson's buddy. Oh, my God.

Do you think if Robbie Anderson somehow missed the news that they traded for Baker, that he would eat, how long would it take him to notice that Baker Mayfield was the Panthers quarterback? Like, we're talking to October. All right. This has been the Ringarana Fellowship on a podcast now.

We'll be back next week with a fresh top 10. We're not going to do coaches next week. The world needs to return to its normal temperatures for a while. What do you want to do pass catchers next week? Skill guys. Should we just skill guys? I need to be on that coaches podcast.

I'm demanding that I'd be on it because I got some takes to get off. We might just do the four, the core four for coaches. Just make it a marathon pod. Core four coaches podcast. Let's go all 32. Let's rank all 32. Let's do skill guys next week. And if you want to rank a running back, go ahead.

You want to put Jonathan Taylor fourth, let the world burn. Thank you, too, Stefan Anderson's production, help with additional production supervision by Arjuna Ramtapal. See you next week.