The Ringer NFL Show - Top 10 WRs in the NFL, Plus Justin Jefferson Talks His Top WRs and the Vikings’ New Scheme

Episode Date: June 28, 2022

Kevin, Ben, and Steven list their top 10 receivers going into the 2022-23 NFL season. They follow by speaking with All-Pro WR Justin Jefferson to discuss his top WRs, his inspiration, and his excitement for the Vikings' new offensive scheme. 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

Joanna, do you ever wish you could definitively prove that you have the right opinions about movies? Uh, yeah, Neil, because I do have the right opinions about movies and television, right, Dave? No, because I'm more right about those things, and I demand trial by content. Oh, boy, what is trial by content? Each week, we'll take on a huge question. Each of us will bring a choice and combine with listener submissions and your votes, we will come to a decision. It's trial by content every Tuesday on Spotify, the ringer.com, wherever you're listening right now. Don't let Neil win.

Don't let Dave win. It is the Ringer NFL show. Part of the Ringer podcast network. I am Kevin Clark joined on a beautiful Tuesday afternoon by Ben. So like Ben. Hello. Going on, Kev. Stephen Ruiz is here. How's it going?

It's going great. So we're going to do top 10 receivers. At the end, we're going to have Justin Jefferson, who I think is on all of our lists. He's certainly on Justin Jefferson's list. To critique our list, to give some breakdowns at the top. Receivers in football this year, next year, all of that stuff. you also, I didn't explicitly ask him to rank himself, but then he ranked himself, as all the greats do.

Stephen, you were making it. So Darren Waller made a list also about top, tight ends, and ranked himself first. And you made the observation that you're a loser if you don't rank yourself first. Is that correct? Yes, under any circumstance. I don't care if you're like, I don't know,

Brandon Cooks. He should think he's the best. This is the exact correct thing. The number six overall pick in the NBA draft, Mathurin out of Arizona. It was selected by the Pacers. It was basically like, I'm excited to play LeBron,

see if you can hang with me. That is the exact correct opinion to have of yourself at any given time. The thing about most professional athletes is, like the vast majority, unless they grew up in a really extreme situation, is they were the best player

they'd ever seen for like 17 years at minimum most of the time. maybe like AAU circuit changes it a little bit, especially if you grew up in a place where A, there's not a lot of professional athletes, or there's not a different country. If you're in basketball, like you really just don't see anybody like yourself for a while.

So they're like, oh, cool, I'm the greatest in the world. And then it goes, you know? Like, if you grew up in Miami or Los Angeles and your football player, it's different. But you should be ranking yourself number one at all times. Yeah, that's it. I'm the number one NFL writer in the world.

How about that? You about that, chumps? Yeah. You can only do that if you're on a pod with a bunch of NFL receivers who are ranking NFL media members. You can't do that. We can actually fact-check you. We can actually fact-check you.

We can't, like, Justin Jefferson knows ball. We know sports writing. So Ben and I would obviously, you know, put you in their place. You guys don't know. Penn. All right. So, speaking of receiver news, nice little peg.

Terry McCorn has signed an extension with the, but do I have to say the commander's Can I just say the football team? Come on. Sure. Three year extension worth up to $71 million, includes $28 million signing bonus,

which I believe, puts him in the top five of highest paid wide receivers. The bonus is the largest signing bonus ever given to a wide receiver. This ends a little bit of contract drama. It wasn't anything significant, but we saw it a little bit this summer.

Maybe this could have dragged on a little bit, but I think everybody kind of expected this. Ben Solac, Terry McLaurin, top five. paid wide receivers seem fair to you? It's a little much. It's not like Washington's lining up to pay anybody else in their offense. This isn't the ramps, okay? This is like the ramp, oh, how are we going to pay these guys?

Yeah. It's a little bit like, oh, that's a lot of money. And then you look at the rest of Washington's offensive cap sheet, especially with Brandon's shirt front of the building, and you go, oh, okay, who cares? We're chilling. We got money on the side of the ball. Defensively, obviously, they have some big contracts,

I think are coming down the mountain and are currently on that side of the football, and that was supposed to win games for them. McClure has just been such an amazing return on a third-round pick and is really the only linchpin on that offense right now. It's understandable why they decided to give them a big contract. With that said, we cannot just, wow, Christian Kirk, how nice, this contract. 76% of this is guaranteed signing for reports. That's a lot.

28 million on the signing bonus. You said it's the biggest number. That's a lot. This is not just a big contract. This is a very, very, very guaranteed contract, which, all right you had to make him happy he was clearly upset

with how things would go and I get it but this is really a step above just like oh Christian Kirk is kind of ballooning the market this is a ton of guaranteed money for a guy who we don't I don't think we're going to really rank him

when we get to the rankings here I he's not on my list I already saw Stevens list what a competitive advantage for me that I already saw Stevens list before I got to make my own I'm very worried now because I'm going to be the subject

with a surprise I threw some curveballs out of him. I switched up, switched up some things. Oh, not a lot. Not a lot, not a lot.

Whoa, it's like when a team doesn't show anything in the preseason. It's like the magic, you know, going to covert for the number one overall pick. Yeah, that's what I did. You went very vanilla on your list when we discussed it with Justin last week.

Counterpoint to that. If you're Big Terry, F1, as they call because of the McLaren nickname, if you're Terry, you don't want to, stay in Washington necessarily. Like crappy quarterback, crappy franchise.

Like this was a bonus almost to just end the drama because if I'm Terry, I would not take market rate to play for that team. Yeah. Yeah, I think it's just the cost of doing business when you're that type of organization in that spot.

I'm really happy for the social team. It's been a while since they could just tweet out a good one. Yeah. Finally. They finally gone. They're like, this one's easy.

This one's easy. It's going to take none of our training. Who signed off on this since Daniel Snyder's out of the country on a boat and can't respond to the case? Yeah, exactly. Snyder signed off on the deal. He can't get subpoenaed. We can't find him for that.

But we can find him to sign Terry McCoran. I will say that in terms of Terry staying in Washington, we need to see the structure. But generally, the more guaranteed money there is, the more money the team has paid up front, the easier it is to trade the contract later, as opposed to when you have a lot of base salary money, non-guaranteed money, that's money that the acquiring team would be on the hook for in the event of the trade.

So this does, structurally maybe, we got to wait and see, but it does sound like this would be a position where if Terry gets to the penultimate year or the final year of this deal, is in a position where he is a very cheap trade acquisition on the salary cap, not necessarily in trade return, for an acquiring team,

which, you know, just kind of calling a very long shot there, but there's ways for Terry to still get out of Washington. Is the Bradley Beale? of receivers. Just get the bag and worry about winning.

Worry about leaving Washington later. Shout out to even Ruiis. How there you guys? No. That's a good analogy and I stand by at Ruiz.

Are you actually a Wizards fan? Yeah. I go to like 15 games a year. Kevin, is your first one seeing him in the wild, seeing one in the wild? No, you have Joe House.

Yeah, Joe House. Ah, right, yeah. I was going to go to a Wizards Magic game a couple years ago when I was in D.C. incidentally, and then Antonio Brown got traded. So, who knows,

what my life would have turned out. I'm anti-Beele, by the way. Good ridens. Good riddins. Get him out. Really? Yeah. They would have beat the Celtics a couple years ago in the playoffs when they went to game seven if Bradley Beal could make crunch time buckets.

Yeah. Got to build around Chris Staps. Is he still there? What are you talking about? Would they have even been in position to win if not for Bradley Beal? Yeah, he wasn't that good in that series. It was John Wall. Yeah, but you're only

John Wall's not there anymore. Only fans of good teams get to say our star wasn't that good in that playoff series. He's a losing player. He's a losing player. This is unbelievable. This is unbelievable. All right.

Let's move on before we, this becomes a Bradley Biel podcast. We have like a hundred other podcasts at this company where you could just sound offer on the Bradley Biel take and we should get booked on one. All right. That'd be great. Sounds good. Sounds good.

All right. Well, staff will, we'll get the ball rolling after this. We got to get. Bradley B.O. is a losing player take out into the broader public NBA sphere. All right, we're doing top 10 receivers. Why don't we just start with number 10, Ben Solac? You want them in a junks or just go 10? Let's go 10 through 7.

Okay. I felt really good about my first eight. The last two are the tough ones for me. You tried to rank 17 players earlier today. Yes. I mean, I did rank 17 players in the process of figuring the same. all out. But for me, 10 is DeAndre Hopkins, 9,

Jamar Chase, 8, Mike Evans, and then 7, which is the next tier up for me. Those three are in kind of the third tier, is Gibo Samuel. That's my 10th or 7. Hopkins just kind of gets a little bit of like Yeah. Yeah, we, there's been injury. They've been figuring and stuff out on that offense.

We know him to be a potentially elite receiver as far as like two years ago, and he deserves the benefit of the doubt there. I had Chase at 9. I struggled with Jamar Chase. We talked a lot about Jamar Chase during the season. I went back and I looked through the numbers, and they're still just staggering in terms of how well over expectation he played, how well yards after catchover expectation, deep catching percentage across the middle of the season. There is stuff there that he can remain one of the best receivers in the league,

and all of that will still regress because it's just astronomical in terms of how he produced above expectation relative to his opportunity. And there's so many good things going for him in terms of continuing to get looks, playing for Joe Burrow and having such a good rookie season, building momentum. All of this is true, but for his body type and for his play style, this was outlier production. And if he does it two years in a row and three years in a row, I'm very happy to call him unique. I'm very happy to call him best of the best. I'm not there yet. To me, I expect a step back in production, step back in dominance, even if the film remains quite good.

So Chase sticks in Tier 3 for me. Mike Evans, eight consecutive seasons. with a thousand receiving yards. He also is not the same receiver he was. Like when it was James, he was an outside skyscraper, outside of the numbers, downfield guy. And then Tom Brady comes to town and he just all of a sudden has to become like a timing receiver.

He's running out of the slot a lot more. The fact that he's still consistently producing is absurd. I felt very strongly about getting Mike Evans into a pole position in this group. He's an incredible player. And then freaking Debo is amazing even as a receiver. I'm sure there'll be Debo debates further down the line. But those are my bottom four. There will be a Debo debate,

but I want to not get to that right now. I do not have Hopkins on the list for two reasons. Number one, play 10 games last year, under 600 yards, obviously banged up. This year he's suspended. I just don't, if we're talking about value in 2022, like being suspended to start the season is just, I'm sorry, like, that's not a top 10 player to me.

I'm like from talent, like if we're doing the whole start a franchise thing, yeah, like I'd love to have John Hopkins on my team for one year in a vacuum. But like, we're just doing a list for, 2022 and so Hopkins is is in the Solac zone of like my next eight guys off of the top 10. It's a very convenient zone. It's a handy zone. It's a very convenient zone. Also

you don't, because you don't actually list them, you can just name as many people as you want in that zone. It doesn't matter. It's not like you're, they're all 11. Yeah, exactly. It's like the Bruce Ariens thing about how he talks about how his favorite quarterbacks, he always says my top three favorite quarterbacks. He names two and then he leaves the

third anonymous because you wants everybody to think it's them. You think Blaine Gabbard is like I'm number three. He's talking about me. He's talking about me, bro. He's talking about me.

He might be. I mean, he might be. I don't know. So, you think Tom Brady's on that list? Nah. Yeah. All right.

So I actually, this lifetime achievement award, he's still a solid player. His role changed last year. Played more in the slot than any other season. I'm going to put Keenan Allen there, number 10.

Julian Edelman, Julian Edelman put him at three yesterday on a show he was on and I everybody got really mad Keenan Allen is still a very very valuable player and kind of what we were talking about all year like we can't

qualify the entire charge's offense with the phrase Joe Lombardi and not qualify the the people within it outside of Justin Herbert so still a quality player I'm throwing it in there it was interesting because Kenan at 3 is a very I know ball take where you like really want to

prove you know ball and it's a little bit too much well too much I know ball from my wow that's how I went on the 2016 right that's what I'm saying is it's like oh you know what people who know ball do they put Keenan Allen on the top five it's like we see through this one now Julian we know it's just two slamp boys you know sticking together

where do you have Michael Thomas where do you have Mike well it's funny because I have I did not see I don't think Julian Edelman ranked Michael Thomas we should get Julian Allen to rank his top his top of like top 10 receiver and to see how it goes. I think Dylan Elbin knows more than us. And I appreciate him getting the debate started.

Keenan Allen quote tweeted Julian Edelman's take and said something about how everybody's salty. So that's how you know it's a good take. By the way, Mike Thomas in the last five seasons has the most 10 reception 100-yard game. Because Keenan Allen is 9th. Devonthe is 14th, Antonio Brown's 10th, Hopkins is 10. And Keenan was 9. Excuse me. So fifth overall.

Anyway, just thought that was interesting. AJ Brown, Stefan Diggs, Mike Evans. Ruiz, you do not have Debo Samuel on your list. Is that correct? I do not.

Okay, so do your guys and then Ben and Ruiz yell at each other. All right, number 10 is Calvin Ridley. I'll explain that one later. I forgot about this. I forgot about this. I now know where

Jimo Samuel should be. What's wrong with Calvin He's a tough cover. He's not in the league. He's a very good receiver. He's not as good as Devo. This is the top 10. He's going to end up at that pool at Harrah's or whatever it's called.

That's where he's going to be watching this season. I don't know. I just think the separation he creates, the spread between him and the corner just makes things easier on the quarterback. Like when you're throwing to Calvin Ridley, it's a lock that you're going to get a completion. He can win all over the field over the coverage, under the coverage, either one. Either one you want. Yeah.

Against the spread? Against the spread? Betting the total. Yeah. What on earth? The Vig? Things of that nature. I just wanted to make betting puns.

And I appreciate Kevin acting surprise. He's the one that told me to put him on my list so we can make. No, you sent me the list. You sent me the list and you said, what do you think about Ridley and Hopkins? And I was like, if you think they're the best, fine. And then you had Debo and CD off the list. And I was like, I, you know, I prefer those guys. If it's me, I like guys.

Availability is the best ability. And typically, I like the guys who don't get suspended for a year for betting on games. Right. But even if we take the suspension completely out of it and look at on-field performance, I think that Calvin Ridley is a wonderful player. I think that he is a tough cover. I think he's a separator against press man. I think he wins against Offman.

I think he finds spaces between zones. I think he's great. I also think that's true of Terry McLaurin and Tyler Lockett and Keenan Allen and Chris Godwin and a lot of players. To me, I struggle to find something in Ridley that is paramount, that is 90th, 95th percentile that really places him in an elite tier or a just sub-elite tier, which is where we got to be and we're doing top 10 receivers. Because there are 20, 25 guys who just in the league are awesome, who just can go off for 150 yards right now. It is a passing league. Whereas with a player like Debo Samuel, who you don't have ranked, there is such a unique ability here.

There is a foundational keystone, cornerstone ability in Debo Samuel, around which in a table, entire passing game is predicated. San Francisco's passing offense does not work without Devo Sanville the building. And yet, on obvious passing downs, he is not the same threat as any of those guys you just named. He does not have the same level of production. His numbers are padded by plays that I think where he's predetermined as the recipient of the pass. The jet suites beyond the line count as passes.

I think that inflates his yards per route run, which I believe you can use to argue that he's better than other receivers. Steven's saying this because I sent Debo's Yards for Rout Run in a group chat three hours ago. And he sat there quietly and didn't say anything knowing he was going to argue to be Divo later. I save it for the pod. I save it for the pod. That's reprehensible. That's bad tastemanship.

Anyway, I just wanted to make betting puns. They were good puns. I'm glad. I had a whole paragraph and you guys stepped all over it. I'm going to send it to you guys later. I'm glad. No, give it. Give the paragraph.

I'm serious. Give the paragraph. No, I already read off like three of the random line. I ruined it. I ruined it. I'll tweet it out later. I'll tweet it out later. I'm glad.

Yeah. I am glad that Ridley got a mention because I think for his on-field playing, he deserves it. Really good football player. I just, to me, I don't even think about him on a Devo tier. Just because of the skill set the depot brings you is sing to it. I would agree with that, but I don't think it's as valuable as the skill set Ridley has on obvious passing counts. And I think that's a big down in this league. I think it's

the down in this league. And I don't know. I don't think Debo's quite that player. I Debo at six. Debo Samuel, 2021, targets in the intermediate area of the field. 8.5 yards after catch per reception, which was fourth in the league. Yards per route run, first,

15.38. So yes, the underneath stuff is awesome. You also know who's probably one of the two best intermediate receivers in the NFL right now? Medevo Samo. Is that because he plays for Kyle Shanahan? Chicken and egg, baby. You are where you are, all right?

Calvin really could have been playing for Arndes to spit this year and getting all that boon, but guess what he's doing? I can't wait. Hold up. I can't believe Ben is slandering a fellow D-Gen right now. True, actually, yeah. He's after my own heart. All right, a couple things.

Number one, I think that we get in, like the Kyle Shanahan question is also going to be the Devante Adams Aaron Rogers question. It's also going to be the Cooper Cup Matthew Stafford, Sean McBay question. It's really hard. And when I looked at my list, I felt it was a little bit unfair to just rank the guys in the best situations as being the best receivers. Like, we don't know, like, Alan Robinson might be on our list next year when we see the situation that he's put in.

I'll eat my hat if Alan Robinson ends up on this list next year. Okay. I'm just giving you an example. Terry McLaren is in an extremely unfair situation where he never. I agree. It's a mixture of bad coaching, bad quarterback, whatever. Calvin Redley would have had an unbelievable chance to prove that he is a transcendent receiver had he not been suspended for the entire year.

Okay, so do you rank Metcalf? Because Metcalf was the toughest guy for me to figure out on this list. Because when we talk about skill set, matching play calling theory, matching quarterback, it does not get neither than what D.K. Metcalf was for the Seattle Seahawks with Russell Wilson over the last couple of years. However, we saw the limit to that. We saw the volatility of that, right? There are always those games where the Seahawks scored 19 points,

and Metcalf has 10 targets, four catches, 62 yards. You know what I'm saying? Like they tried to funnel all this downfields up and just couldn't connect. And then you also have a Tyler Lockett on that same team. Guess what? It's also really, really effective downfield because it turns out 90% of good downfield receiving production is just good downfield quarterback play. And so Medcalf, to me, is the figurehead for that,

argument where how do we parse what the scheme is asking you to do, what the quarterback is asking you to do, and then particularly in Metcalf's case, what are you just good at? Because Metcalf is a very fine, acceptable receiver and a lot of facets, except for one, downfield vertical in which he is just a dominant physical force. Yeah, I don't have him in my top 10, but I think if you make the Debo argument that he has this singular skill set, I think you can make the same type of argument with DK. So is he on your list? So, no, he's not. He's 12.

And that's why... He's 12. He's tied for 12 with 10 other people. I really struggle. Exactly. That's the thing is now all of a sudden we're talking about, okay, in terms of guys with singular skill sets, in terms of guys who are specific fits for specific offenses, what matters to us the most? In the way the league is currently moving offensively, if I had to choose between extremely good yards after catch guy who can create after the catch on downfield targets, on intermediate targets, not just on screens. Not just on quick throws, but on throws across the middle of the field. Choose between that prototype, that player, and downfield skyscraper, vertical outside the numbers receiver

who can win catches in the air, who can survive hits from safety, who can track the football. I'm probably choosing the first prototype because of where the league is going. But that's been, we're really parsing hairs there in terms of what you would want your offense to be. That brings up somebody like Debo, brings up somebody like AJ Brown, brings up even a Jamar Chase, who similar target distribution to D.K. Metcalfe,

much better trading out after the catch than D.K. Meckham was. I'll say this for the Cooper Cup section because I think there's going to be some disagreement there. But I don't necessarily agree with you that where the league is going, that that's more important than some guy that you could isolate on the backside of trips and force the defense to account for that. I think D.K. is that. It's a very warranted argument. Yeah, it's really hard to figure out.

But did I go over the rest of my... No. Okay, I got Hopkins at 9. His numbers were down even before the injury, but efficiency-wise, they were way up. He was second and EPA per target. He was first in success rate. So, I mean, I think we're sleeping on Hopkins just because we didn't see him last year. We're not going to see him for the first half of this year.

But I think when he's going well, when he's playing 17 games per season, he's a top five receiver, I think. The rest of my list, I think I have Chase at 8, and then I have AJ Brown at 7. that the rest of that tracks. The Hopkins thing, I guess, again, it's just a difference of how we view that his season last year and his season this year and kind of what the tiebreakers, I guess, within that solar axon. Six through, what two, six through four, Ben?

All right. So, yeah, so Devo was the bottom of tier two for me. Six through four, all in tier two for me. That's Stefan Biggs at six, Justin Jefferson at five, and then AJ Brown at four. three unbelievable receivers coming off a little bit of a down year for Stefan Diggs second year with Josh Allen he was second in yards per outrun in 2019, sixth in yards per route run in 2020 and then went down to 22nd, 1.91. Oh no, this guy's falling. I think Diggs caught some bad

breaks. I think Diggs dropped two passes he should have caught, got tackled in two near breakways that he could have broken away and all of a sudden it looks like he's taking a step back. I'm very the competent he bounces back. But it did make him tough to rank him over to guy like Justin Jefferson, who replaced him in Minnesota, unbelievable downfield receiver. He is the pinnacle of this Calvin Ridley grouping of receivers we're talking about, where there's just simply nothing you can't handle. There's very few coverage, there's very few cover men that I would be like,

ah, Justin Jefferson, they got him set up, you know what I mean? And offensively, because the way Minnesota plays condensed sets and runs the football, it's tough as well to like get cones on it. It's tough as well to get double teams on him. And we've seen B to Jefferson's benefit over the course the last two years. Jefferson also is a question mark of like quarterback-wise, there's a chance, you know, instead of a top five receiver, he could be a top three receiver if things are a little bit different for him.

But he does have the most receiving yards of any receiver in their first two seasons. So it's probably fair. I came into this expecting to rank AJ Brown lower than I ended up with him at he is. Go birds. Yeah. And like, go birds, but also, holy smoke. he's good. I did not have an appreciation for just how effective he'd been.

Only two receivers have been top 10 in yards per route run over the last three years. It's Devonte Adams and AJ Brown. Eighth third and third over the last three seasons. The most effective receiver creating after the catch consistently over the last two years, not named Debo Samuel. Nate Tice tweeted out a couple hours ago that in terms of first downs per route run, he's second to league behind Devante Adams. I mean, the ability to create explosive.

and create first downs over the middle of the field, extremely valuable skill in the modern NFL, and I don't think anybody does it better than A.G. Brown. The asterisk for Brown is availability. He takes a lot of hits, and a lot of hits comes a lot of nagging injury. Nag injury can come both fluctuations in play and also fluctuations in availability. So if Brown is able to hold together and lace together 16 game seasons,

17 game seasons, excuse me, then I think he's going to be clearly, like, it's going to be Adams, Cup, Hill and AJ Brown as like the four best receivers in the league. I think that's where it belongs but I don't think we're going to get those 17 games seasons out of Brown and that's always going to leave him, I think, a step below the other guys. Two things. Number one, however worried you are about

availability on this list for players, Ruiz has completely like expanded the definition of how we're viewing that. So don't feel weird if you're knocking guys for that. Can you give me a minute on how AJ Brown is going to change his Eagles offense? Yeah. So look at Jalen Hertz passing distribution where he threw the ball last year. And there's just a big blue spot, a big cold area in the heat map right in that middle of the field. There are a lot of reasons why that area of the field wasn't good for the Eagles passing game.

A lot of it had to do with what Jaylen Hertz was comfortable throwing. He doesn't like to throw over the middle of the field. He doesn't have the anticipation necessary to throw over the middle of the field. But the Eagles also just didn't have a target that really worked that area well. They had Dallas Goddard, but Goddard plays in line for them a lot. So you can't really get him on inbring. rakers into the middle of the field when he's already lining up in the core of the formation. Other than that, they had 170 pounds of Devante Smith, 175 pounds of Quetz Watkins,

190 pounds of I hate contact Jalen Rager. They had nobody at receiver who could work this area of the field that just requires you to be big, physical, wing, he has to catch and take hits. Like, Devante is very impressive on that scale for his size, but it's still not the do you want in that area. So the Eagles went and got that target. There was nobody better between the hashes 10 to 19 than AJ Brown. What he allows them to do is, A, throw the ball to that area more, potentially get better passing distributions.

Hertz plays more in rhythm. The passing game is better. But far more importantly, B, figure out if Hertz is the guy. They got to start thinking about contract extension or moving on about Jaylon Hertz in the 2023 offseason. That is happening next offseason. They really are going to have to make a decision at that point. If they can't get the middle of the field working and access the entire field, in the passing game, all distributions, full field reads,

with J.L. Hertz is never going to do it. If A.J. Brown doesn't solve it. It ain't going to get solved. And now you know that you need to move on and find somebody who can just throw the ball a little bit better. So he helps the offense short term, but really it's the long-term implications of solving this Jalen Hertz contract extension or not conundrum that really, I think, benefits the Eagles long-term. That's all good points. I'm in on AJ Brown. Thanks, Kev. Yeah, great. I'm expecting big things. All right. I'm going to do, I'll do my six before.

Debo, I already said, Jamar Chase, and Tyrico is my number four. So. Oh, okay. Yeah. I mean, it's honestly, the top is interchangeable. It gets to what you said. What did you say? What did you say that there's eight elite receivers and then like, like, yeah.

What, 10 guys? Yeah. I have like seven in my first two tiers. And to me, like, when we talk about elite, I always like get personikity about this. But elite to me is like top 10%. Really? it's like top 5%. If I'm going to call you elite,

you better be up there. For me, if there are 32 teams starting three receivers, we've got about 90 starting receivers in the league, there should be like 7, 8, 9 elite guys. For me, like 7, 8, that's the cutoff.

And everybody else, you're very good, but you're not in the elite tiers. That's, that's like 10%, Penn. Yeah. I think you're math.

I think you're math. No, I'm saying, I'm saying like 10% like works as like a nice, you know, upper echelon. Really, it probably should be less, but like there's 32 starting quarterbacks.

So if we're doing like elite, is the top 5%. That means you get one and a half starting quarterback. You pick who it is. You know what I mean? Like that, that gets tough.

I think it's different in that there aren't a lot of really, really, really, really good quarterbacks who aren't elite. There's not a lot of them. And there are with wide receivers.

And a lot of that is, and this is something that I've been right about for five years about just like the development of the position, the seven on seven leagues, all those things that have the rules, the athletes that play the position now, just a little different.

And because of this, you have, a kind of a lot of six two guys who move like they would be the fastest people in the entire decade of the 90s like there's there's like 50 of those guys

and so the difference between an A level receiver and a B level receiver I think has never been the gap has never been smaller but I also think that there's other positions where that's not as true so I almost believe that having an elite receiver although extremely important and we've had this positional value debate all all spring

in all summer, you can find B-plus guys pretty easily now for kind of cheap, Stephen. Yeah, I mean, I totally agree with that. I had trouble making this list because of that. And I know I'm going to get in trouble for my number five guy. So let's just get this out of the way. Okay. I went six Mike Evans, five recent guest on the pod, Super Cup. I haven't met five.

And then Stefan Diggs at four. And then, can I add in my third just because I think those three are interchangeable? Uh-huh. Tyreek Hill. I would put Hill, digs, and cup on the same plane. They're hard to compare

just because they play different positions. They play, they have different approaches to the position. So it's hard for me to compare them. Either one could be three,

either one could be five. I think they're all elite receivers. I think that's where the cutoff is. So I did not have Cooper Cup at five. No, you did not. I think you're wrong about this.

So, Ben, let me, let me start this. So first things first is last year he led the NFL Cup in receptions, touchdowns, receiving yards. He had the best, I was trying to find it. PFF doesn't actually sort by this, but I think he had the best run blocking grade of any wide receiver by quite a bit,

by about, I don't even know how you would call it, but like 20 points maybe. Nelson Aguilar was in that mix, Adam Thielen, Jalen Waddle, or over 60, but he was in the 80s, and I think he was the only receiver like that. As far as someone who does his job

as well as they possibly could in football, I don't know how you could have many people ahead of Cooper Cup in any position, as far as what he's asked to do and what he does. And I don't, I'm sure you'll have arguments for it. And again, it goes back to, yeah, it's a nice luxury with Sean

McVeigh and Matthew Stafford and all that talent around him, the offensive line. Like, he is in as good a situation as, as there is, but it's also a chicken and egg thing. A lot of that offense runs because of the things Cooper Cup can do. And I think you'd have a tough time replacing Cooper Cup in that offense. Yeah, so I went into this exercise, not like trying to find a way to not cup down, but like I just said to myself very much what you said.

Like, all right, Matt Stafford and Sean McVeigh, some receiver was going to be good. I put Joe, Joe Smoh there. He's going to have better season than he did. Like, this is awesome. So there's got to be like, you know, Cup was really good, but there's going to be receivers that are better than him. And then I watched film. And honestly, I was planning on watching more film than other receivers.

I just ended up watching a lot of Cups Ram's offense because I was like, man, holy smokes, he's good. He's just, and whenever we do these lists, like Kevin, you always talk about like, availability, you know, building a team for the 2022 season, you know, what, what's, you know, what recent production? I'm always, like, I always just try to get, like, who's the most talented? Who's the best? Like, I try to, like, keep it abstract and just like, watch.

him and like figure out who's the best and be honest to that. And Cubs just so wicked good. He's just doggone good ball player. And while somebody being a nine out of ten in every facet is not exciting, especially relative to like a Devante Adams who's just the most clinical, the most cerebral,

the most intelligent receiver in the league. Tarreek Hill is just the most explosive, the best accelerator, the most downfield receiver in the league. Cubs just good. He's very good. He's a lead receiver. Right. And having him like five relative to like I have them at two.

Like it doesn't, that doesn't bother me because right at this point we are parsing hairs. But I have, I have Jamar Chase at nine. I think that's lower than a lot of people would have them. And it's because like, you know, receiving yards over expectation, really high,

yakov expectation, really high. I think that's going to regress. Cup also really high receiving yards over expectation, really high Yakov expectation. I, for whatever reason, watch Cup, watch Chase and I am more confident in Cup keeping those numbers

that out of sky. high level. He is unbelievably polished. He's unbelievably detailed. He's explosive. He's physical. He is, he is technical. He is all that in a bag of chips. And so yeah, Cooper Cup at 2, Cooper Cup at 5, just so long as we're acknowledging that while there was a Matt Stafford Boone and there is a Sean McVebomb, Cooper Cup's also just an elite receiver in his own right. I'm fine with it. No, I agree that he is. Here's my argument. I don't think he is the type of receiver you could just line up on one side of the field and ask you to go get open. And he's, maybe he is that player, but the Rams have never used him like that.

These are players that have more ISO targets than him. DJ Moore, Deante Johnson, Stefan Diggs, Justin Jefferson, Jamar Chase, Mike Evans, McLaren, Devante, D.K., Cooks. These are all like elite receivers. They're at the top of the league in that. And Cooper Cup is all the way down in the 40s. He's below Tyler Higbee on the Rams. He's below Van Jefferson. To me, to me like that's always been a function of the way the Rams work, number one.

number two, they got Odell for that reason, right? Like, in weeks 11, in weeks 11. Right, but they didn't want to put Cup there because of how good he is where he is. And so they add an Odell and now it's Alan Robinson to let somebody else play the backside X because they're so good at opening guys up on the front side anyway. And Cub is a huge part of that. Right, I agree with that. But I do think it makes his job easier.

He's not playing on the line of scrimmage. He's not dealing with a lot of press coverage, at least in comparison to the elite receivers that we also have highly ranked. They're getting targets on late downs. He's getting the bulk of his targets. The bulk of his EPA, the bulk of his production has came on downs with a dropback probability under 70. You look at Justin Jefferson, the bulk of his production came on dropbacks with a dropback probability over 70. He's doing his work when the defense knows that they're passing. Super Cup isn't necessarily doing that.

I'm so upset. Do you think of Justin Jefferson, do you think of Jeff got put in Cups role? We're about to find out. Yeah. Wait. I don't think you well. Ben, we have some confirmation.

Oh, is this in the interview? We're trending towards that direction in the next segment. Trust me, we're not, we didn't bring it up. Somebody else did. I have two things to say very quickly. Number one, and Ben, I want you to finish your point. Number one, I'm upset that actually we didn't have Cooper Cup sit in this instead of Justin and flip it because I want Ruiz to go at Cooper Cup and tell him he sucks.

Just to see how it goes. I just called him a couple. that he can't be an ex-receiver, whatever a metric Stephen Ruiz is using. I have something to say, which is this is the minimum of 80 attempts. These are the highest passer ratings from quarterback and receiver last year. Okay. Number four is Tom Brady, Mike Evans.

The three is Aaron Rogers, Devante Adams. You're going to be blown away by number two. Dak Prescott Dalton Schultz. Number one is Matthew Stafford and Cooper Cup. What to all of the... these have in common, start through an elite quarterback, okay, and taking advantage

of what you have. And I don't think we need to qualify it at all of the best receivers in football that we consider the best receiver of football, have an elite quarterback, with the exception of, I guess, Dalton, Charlott's, we didn't show him enough respect in the entire on an episode. But he's in this genre of taking an elite quarterback,

maximizes what he can do, but also maximizing better than anybody else in football, the duo and the chemistry, and And, you know, just maximizing a partnership that I think is pretty special. And nobody statistically is better at maximizing elite quarterback than Cooper Cup in 2021. But I don't think it changes the fact that his job is easier than the jobs of the other elite receivers we're talking about. He doesn't get pressed often.

He doesn't get pressed like these guys do. He gets more targets against base defenses. He's running overrouts. if I'm not mistaken, Stefan Diggs had the most press snaps last year. And so maybe he should be like number two. Well, he's number three or number four. I put Tyree Kill over him because Tyree says Tyree.

Whenever, yeah, whenever we do these rankings, whenever I do him with Stephen, we always end up in one of these spots where it's like that doesn't tell me anything about Cooper Cup. That tells me something about Sean McVeigh and about the other four years. Well, I'm sorry he makes life easier for everybody.

Yeah. Like, to me, I can't knock. I can't knock up for the fact that his coordinator helps me. You know what I'm saying? And I say this, not to say like that's the right way to look at it, but I'm always so appreciative of doing these with Stephen because Stephen focuses so intensely on the premieres of the position, on the most difficult ask on the most difficult contexts. And I don't do that.

And oftentimes the truth is somewhere in the middle, or you know, we're right on one player and then I'm right on the other player. For me, I just, I don't think that I could take, Tire to Kill or Justin Jefferson, even like A.J. Brown, who kind of like also plays like a bit of a bigger slot role and put them in the cup role in the in the Rams offense with Matt Stafford and expect the offense to be as good.

And even though that role isn't the titular split end X on the line of scrimmage, win on the one-on-one, win on the backside role, it's still a hugely valuable role to the way the Ramslay offense. And Cup fits it and fills it and rocks it, better than I think anybody else in the league would. And that is a testament to his ability. Right, but you could say the inverse of that.

If we put him in Justin Jefferson's role with the Vikings, I don't think he puts up Justin Jefferson's numbers. I don't even think it's close. Right. I agree. But I'd say that the street's got to go both ways then. I don't think it goes both ways. I think Jefferson in the same role with the same usage.

I don't think Justin Jefferson would have a problem running a deep over route when he's not getting collisioned out to line of scrimmage like Cooper Cup is. Like that's most of his production. If you break it down on early downs versus late downs, that's where he's getting most of his production. I think it's partly scheme. Works well. I agree.

Now put him in another offense. Put him in Dallas's offense and see how that works. He'd be good at Dallas's offense. He would be good. I know. I said he's an elite receiver. We wouldn't be talking about him having the greatest receiver season of all time. So we all agree Devante Adams is number one, right?

Yes. He had 163 catchable targets. Good quarterback. That led the NFL by 26 targets. It's not a big. He also led the league in yards by 300. Okay. So, like, what, I can't apologize for taking advantage of the change.

He's good. I'm on with Kevin Clark. Line up outside. Line up outside, Slop boy. 28th in yards per outrun when he's lined up outside. 28. So he's done it. He's just not very efficient.

Oh, good. And so he doesn't do it. Like, everybody's got limitations. He's not the perfect player. He's not LeBron. Yeah, but everyone else on this list can do everything. They can line up in the slot. They can line up outside.

They could run deep routes. They could run short routes. We're talking about the elite of the elite. This is so nerdy to say, and it really doesn't matter. But I really don't think some of the other guys run short routes as well as Cup does. Yeah. Now, as a short route only worth six yards? Yes, I understand that.

But in terms of like talent, in terms of how good a receiver is at his job and what he's asked to do. Cup really runs a doggong curl route, brother. Hunter Redfin is really good at what he does, too. That's what I was going to say. No, what, Renfro is good. But what I want to say is that, so like, I agree with you, if you put all, how many guys, I probably say this 17 guys or something like that who are all on our top 10 list, like if you just combine it, 17 different players.

And I think you're overstating the amount of guys who would have more production and be more influential in the Cooper Cup role. No, I'm not. I'm saying it's three because I haven't had, no, I'm saying it's four because I haven't had five. You're saying Devante Adams in the Cooper Cup role would have those numbers. I think you'd be just fine. Adams, Adams in any role at any time would have anybody else. Yes, yes.

They would figure it out. It would be a different type. I mean, they're just such different players. It's just a different. It's a different hypothetical. I'm saying that we're, I'm saying that he took advantage of the role he's in, which I don't think is an inherently bad thing.

Like, I don't, I didn't, I didn't sit out to do a bunch of hypotheticals about who could do what roles. Like, it's not like the Twitter meme about how like, this, this actor could do this,

but couldn't do this. Like, it's, I don't necessarily care about that. But I feel like those attributes, those skills have always been associated with number one receivers, the type of receivers that get paid. I think that's for a reason. I think coaches covet those players for a reason.

I do agree. Like for McVeigh's offense, he's perfect. He's completely perfect. But what about for the other 31 teams? I think Stefan Diggs is a better fit for the other 31 teams. You have the 31 teams suck a coordinating offense. Get him, Ben. All right.

Did not expect to be the Cooper Cup guy on this spot, but is how it goes. Has everybody done 6-3-4? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. All right. So let's do 3-2-1, Benz-Elock. Yeah.

So Hill can make three, top of two, could have been bottom of tier one. Just had to draw a line somewhere. I have cup at two. And I have Devante Adams at one. Hill is a really interesting placement to me right now. I know that a couple years ago, Stephen's thing was that Tyree Hill is the best receiver in the league. And this was kind of like during like prime, like, down-tramp. Hopkins era.

And a lot of it was like the downfield stuff and like how much the explosive play mattered. I think that we are going to see Tyrodex downfield efficacy tail off a little bit over the coming years and gets a little bit older. I think that the acceleration off of the line of scrimmage, the instantaneous zero to 60 is going to start a tail off due to some of the hamstring injuries. So I'm really, I haven't three. He's an incredible talent. I'm very curious to see where he is in one or two years.

He, to me, projects the sort of player whose tail off is rather steep. does not like contact. And if he's not running away from guys, I'm not sure how that plays. Cup at 2, talked about Cup bad nauseam, Devante Adams at 1. I,

if the Green Bay Packers are bad this year, and Rogers falls off, and it's 100% because Devante Adams is gone, I will be surprised, but I will also feel vindicated, because I think he might be that important to every facet, running game, other receivers targets,

the quick game, the RPO game, the audibles. Red zone. Everything the Packers did was predicated on the idea that Devote Adams was just better than the other guys. It was so cool to see how singularly what a pillar he was to that offensive approach. I think they'll be fine. I think Fleur's good at his job and Roger's good at his job.

And the back field's good and the line's good. But man, oh man, there's a way that Devante leaves and that whole thing just crumbles to pieces. Conversely, Derek Carr, baby, if he figures it out the way Rogers did, It's like, I'll just throw it to this guy literally whenever I want. There's a way this gets really cool for Las Vegas really quick as well. Devante is a nucleus. He truly is the core of a passing him in the way, in the way which I think none of these other receivers are.

Love Devonty Adams. No more fun watching the league than Devonte. What are the chances you think, percentage chances, that in Las Vegas after next year, Devante Adams is still be number one? 65. 65. And what would it have been if he'd stay in green?

back. Oh, like, 80, 85. Okay. I just wanted to see how much you, you think that changes the calculus, yes, Stephen? I would agree. I just, the only reason I think his floor is a little lower is just because we haven't seen him without Rogers. Right. Yeah. No, I mean,

that's, but also Rogers is a better quarterbacking to our car by a good amount. But car can still sling it. I think the floor is quite high. But I do think, I do think Devante has more protection than he's ever had around him and I think that can make him even more efficient. I don't volume, he's not going to match the volume he had in Green Bay, but efficiency-wise,

I think he could even take another step. Yes. Also, Josh Daniels is a really good offensive coach and we'll have, we'll have stuff for him. It's not like he's going to play for whomever. Some bad offensive coordinator. It's not like he's going into a wasteland here. All right. So, Stephen, three, two, one. I went Tyreek three, Justin Jefferson, two, and then Devante won for all the reasons that Ben laid out just wins all over the field. Any way you split the field up, he's dominating in every split.

He's the only player who finished in the top 10 in all these splits in terms of total EPA. Targets from the slot, targets lined out wide, perimeter throws, throws to the middle of the field, under 10 air yards, over 10 air yards. Literally every single level of the field, he can do it all. He lines up everywhere. He beats any type of coverage you throw at him. He, like Ben said, he was everything to that passing game. ran the go routes against man coverage.

He ran the slants from the slot. He ran the bubble screens. He's just the perfect receiver. And honestly, there was like a time early in his career where I think he got a lot of crap for not being like a great separator. And he just got better. He got better every year until he got to this point. And I don't see it tailing off anytime soon. I had Justin Jefferson three, Cooper Cup to Don'teathe Adams won.

so it's unanimous Devante Adams is the best super football and Cooper Cup is excited about that is fit Cooper Cup is I love how both me and Ben at the beginning were like these are interchangeable like I could see yeah yeah yeah

I could see about five and then we just yelled at each other for the next five because it's not about the yelling and the disagreeing which is about the conversation right like I don't know I always as you guys very well know because you exist with me in the group chat beforehand I stress about these tremendously because I feel bad for getting it wrong.

But then it's real, like, what matters not is, the rankings don't matter nearly as much as like talking about receivers in full ways. Like, I don't know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I would say Ruiz protected himself from getting some of it wrong because none of his guys are going to play this year. Oh, my man. Just stunned by the Calvin originally inclusion.

Even though he encouraged it. I will, I will leak the text. Go to tape, bro. Get, I, please do. You sent me a list with two. like options if I if we had to disqualify Hopkins and Ridley and I said you don't need to do that just you know be who you are know thyself and Ruiz knows thyself um all right anything else guys Stephen it was still scummy you let me build an argument off Debo samuels A dot knew I was going to say

it and then brought up the fact that a dot doesn't matter for Debo immediately I do not respect that I'm sorry I was sitting on it I was sitting on it by the way okay slack transcript it's really funny to keep him in. So let's keep him in. That's Kevin Clark at 11.50 a.m. on Thursday, June 23rd. I just said that you asked

me to keep him in and I said yes. It has nothing to do. That does not dispute my account at all. So much how the sausage is made for the listeners today. Here's the actual thing. I don't know. H.M.

honorable mention C. Lamb and Debo Samuel. I don't know whether to include Ridley and Hopkins, so I added two extras, so here's my list. And I said, Calvin in all caps. Yes. I said, let's keep him in. He said, it's really funny to keep him in, so let's keep him in. When did I ask Kevin?

This is content, baby. And then I said, and then you said you wanted to ask, you wanted to run that past Justin Jefferson with a bunch of betting puns. That's true. We didn't do that. We didn't do that. what a time what a what a journey this has been is justin jefferson after this now like is this the first half

of this podcast good luck justin uh all right boys this is fun we'll see next week what are we doing next week do you do front seven guys not no we can't do all front seven this too much i mean we can't just go we can't just go different layers of we don't have that much time those training camp two quarterbacks are we ready for quarterbacks i don't know if i'm emotionally Corner. Corner. I know. Oh, cornerbacks. What would do DBs? Yeah. All right.

We could do, we could do coaches. That's the one I've been waiting for. Steven's always got some coaches, takes and fire off. Wide receiver coaches. Really get Stephen work. Assisted defensive back coaches. You know what? You know what? Let's do coaches. All right. Let's do coaches.

All right. We'll see next week for coaches. Here's Justin. All right. Justin, Jeffrey. First and NFL star, two-time, second team, all-pro, two-time pro-bowler, all-rooky team in 2020. Welcome to the ring NFL show. You're here with Madden. What's going on, Justin? Yeah, we're shooting today in L.A. This is a dream of mine to be, you know, a part of Madden and to, you know, deal with the game on a serious note.

Definitely dream all my life to, you know, just be a part of the game, be a big feature in the game. So I'm definitely excited to be here today. What's your overall? What did they got to? He was 90 last year. Somewhere in the 90s. You know, I'm fine. I'm fine as long as it was in the 90.

Now you've got to go for 90. You got to demand 99. You can't settle that. I think after this upcoming year, I can demand it. So I agree. Gotcha. So I think you're one of the most creative route runners in NFL, like at the line of scrimmage or even during the routes.

And I'm wondering like some of the, I don't know what's called, flare you kind of add to your routes. Is that like premeditated? Do you think, like, oh, in the middle of the route, I'm going to do this? Or is it more like a feel thing, like you're just reacting to DPs? I think it's more of a field thing, just going off of reacting. You know, once you have something in mind trying to go up to the line, sometimes it might not work, you know, or you can get stuck and trying to do something

and it doesn't turn out the way you want it to. So always got to have a clear mind going up to the line of scrimmage. And it's really just trying to be my man, whatever move that I can put together. or, you know, if it's just a quick twitch or if it's just going straight off the ball. It's just, you know, just trying to beat my man in front of me. I don't know if you remember this play, but you had a catch against the Browns. It was, like, near their sideline, whereas you were, like, kind of fell out of bounds.

Do you remember that? And then, like, during the route, you did, like, you hopped on your left foot twice during the stem of the route and, like, blew by the guy. Like, is that, like, something you came up with beforehand? Is that, like, a move that you worked on, or is that just something you just felt? I just felt. I can't really explain how I really, just come up with different stuff.

It's really just putting different moves together to make them look differently. And I don't know, really just trying to get open, trying to get the... It works. It works. Hey, Justin, so we're doing this week on this show, the top 10 receivers. And obviously, it is a bit of a conflict for you

because you're on the list in the top 10 of the NFL. And I'm curious, before we get into sort of nitty-gritty and how you feel about the top receivers in the NFL, How far do you think you are off of being the best receiver in football? Is that a goal you have? Do you think you're there now? And how do you sort of perceive that the very tippy top of receivers right now, Justin? I honestly think I am, you know, one of the tops.

I mean, it's kind of, you know, hard to just put me at the top, especially with all of the things, you know, other players have been doing before I even got into the league. Definitely, I feel like I'm one of the tops. you know, especially after this season coming up, I feel like I'll be the number one receiving. So, I mean, it is all good. Everybody's going to have their own, you know, opinions and own ways to put the line up together for the top 10.

But, you know, I feel like I know where I stand at. And as long as I know and, you know, I know that to keep pushing and to reach that number one spot, then it's all great. I'm just glad because we all have our lists on it. It's for the 2022 season, so I'm just glad we got you on record that you are going to be number one on your own list. That's important. Who else is in that mix for you? Obviously, we have Cooper Cup, Devante Adams.

I mean, obviously, Jamar Chase is coming up. Tyree Kill is always doing it. Stefan Diggs, Mike Evans, DeAndre Hopkins, you know, obviously is going to miss part of this season. But who's in the mix for you at kind of your peers at the top there, Justin? I mean, sure, you pretty much just said the majority of them. I mean, all of those guys has been doing a crazy crazy career

into the league Jamar coming straight from from Collywell and I've been really playing to, you know, killing the league. So all of those guys can be put anywhere on that on that list. There is no correct list, you know, so

I mean, everybody should get their credit for just being a top playmaking receiver and, you know, you never can really be right on those top ten receipts. Our lists are right. Our list are right. Can you take me through what impresses you about Devante, first of all? Devante is just his ability to get off the line of

scrimmage, his ability to make everything look the same and be twitchy and still make it look different somehow. I mean, his raw running is crazy, his ability to catch the ball, no matter where it's put, you know, his catch framing is very, very wide. So I loved him as a player. I always watched him and, you know, grew up on him, you know, watching different film and stuff on him. I definitely was a, I watched him a lot. Are there any other guys that you watched growing up?

Because you are like a unique, unique type of receiver. Shoot Keenan Allen. I was a big fan of Kenan, Bronte Adams, Odell, who else, she had Randy. I was a big fan for Andy as a kid. I mean, those really, those four was really mixed into my game, really just getting different picks of everybody. But I really didn't just focus on, you know,

just, you know, a few different players. I'm picking stuff from everybody. You know, I'm a person that like to learn, like to, you know, find new ways to better myself, better my game. So if I like a move that I've seen, you know, a little kid do, you know what I'm saying, that I feel like I'll be, you know, better at doing or is a good move for me. Then, you know, I'm going to add it towards my game. But I just like to learn and like to, you know, add different stuff towards my game.

When you're talking about that education process, you know, in 2022, there's never been more information for an athlete, right? Like you can just, there's so many websites can go on YouTube, whatever. Remember talking to Von Miller a couple years ago. saying one of the things he likes to do and even know it would help him, is he like listening to the great skit interview just to hear how they process the game, right? And I'm curious when you have all of that stuff at your fingertips, like it's not just you're sitting around watching Devante Adams tape or watching Odell tape.

It's just everything. Maybe it's even a, look at their Instagram, whatever it is. When you're doing a deep dive on a guy, like how do you learn about who a guy is and what to emulate from him, Justin? I mean, well, first, you know, you would like to imitate some. somebody that has a, well, that is being a good role model, you know what I'm saying? That's doing stuff for the community, doing stuff for the league, doing stuff, you know, that he doesn't have to do, but he's still doing it.

So, you know, all of those guys, our name has great characteristics, you know. I mean, just looking after Devonty Adams and seeing the stuff. He's doing, Keenan Allen does so much for his side. I mean, just learning all of those different ways that people, you know, learn, how do they, you know, care of theirself? And then, you know, that allows me to come into the league and knowing how to represent myself, knowing how to care myself and knowing how to be a professional, just coming in and learning and, you know, just being able to be a coach of a player. Two quick guys for analysis. First of all, what impressed you last year about Cooper Cup where he basically,

broke every record, one offensive player of the year. When you watch him, what do you say? He's creative. He's able to create space and get the ball. I mean, just his whole year last year was just unbelievable. Him putting up so many numbers and pretty much getting like 10 plus catches a game, being wide open. He had a fantastic season.

Nobody can't take that away from him. You know, and topping the season off, winning the Super Bowl. So he definitely had an unbelievable season. I mean, he's definitely, you know, ranked his name up even higher than it was before. So, yeah, he's, he killed it. And Tyree kill?

Tarreek is Tyree. Tarreek is the fast guy in the league. You know, he's always, be a threat no matter where he goes. You know, he's the, he's the fast. He's the cheetah. So, you know, no matter where you put him on the field, he's always going to be a threat. He always going to be, you know, double team or looked at.

So he's going to do whatever he has to do soon at the ball, touch the 10. Yeah, so speaking of Cooper Cup, that's the offense. You're kind of going into this season. Now that you've gotten the playbook, you've done through OTAs and stuff, do you have a sense of how your usage is going to change compared to last year or the first two years? Very. I mean, pretty much where,

Cooper Cup was at, that's pretty much where I'm at. But, I mean, my ability to move in different positions is going to be more. You know, I'm able to go in outside. You don't really see Cooper Cup lining outside as many times as I would, you know, or me lying in the backfield, me just lining up in different positions to get the ball. We all know, you know, there's going to be some cloud coverage, some double team coverage. So Coach K.O. just, you know, putting me in different positions to get the ball. if it's just a screen or if it's a quick throw,

you know, just trying to get that momentum going throughout the game. And we all love the offense so far. You know, we are killing it. We all, you know, just seeming to pick it up as easy. So just can't wait to the season start. Is it more blocking? It seems like the Rams really had the receivers blocking. You seem to be like, enjoy the competitiveness of blocking.

So are you looking forward to that if there is more blocking? I mean, I feel like it wouldn't be. any more blocking than we did before, you know, before we was the run first offense. You know, now I feel like we're more on the passing first offense. You know what I'm saying? So I feel

like if anything, Dalvin would be catching a ball more than us blocking more. But either way it goes, you know, we still have love for Dalvin, too, to get the ball and do what you do. He's still a fantastic player. He's still one of the best playmakers in the game also. So

being able to pass the ball and being able to run. It's going to do a lot of things for us. How much do you think the change in offense is going to accentuate your abilities, just in the sense that last year, as you said, it was more run first. Now it's going to be more, you know, Kevin O'Connell, former quarterback understands the McVeigh system. How much of that plays into what you feel the leap you're going to take in 2022 is? Yeah, I feel like if I can, you know, have those many catches, those many yards

but run first and, you know, how many can I get off of a pass first? You know, and put it in different positions to get the ball, me and put in

way more different positions that I did before. I mean, just seeing what Cooper Cup did last year, I mean, that gives me so much hope, give me so much

excitement to see what I can be able to do in the same position that he was, him being so close to reaching the record, you know, him getting a three crown,

you know, all of those things that he accomplished is up in the air for me right now. So we just got to buy into the system, learn the plays. And we all have the confidence that Kio is going to distribute the ball to different people throughout the offense. And I feel like we're going to have a whole different team, honestly. Yeah. So going on the other side of the ball, who we've already talked about the best receivers, who are the best corners that you've gone up, whether it's the last two years,

are even back in the SEC because we know there's talented corners there too. Yeah, I mean, Jaylor-Ramsey, of course, is top of year cornerback. His ability to be long and to be, you know, fast and to be aggressive. I mean, that's definitely one of the three things that, you know, is so difficult to get by him. And he's also a smart play also. You know, he knows, you know, when some things are coming or, you know, when some in-breaking or outbreak and routes are coming, So yeah, it's definitely difficult to go against him, you know, how long and how tall he is.

Marshawn Latimore is also a difficult corner to go up against. He's twitchy, he's fast, can't really, you know, beat him off the ball too much. So it's all technical. You know, you just got to be more technical when you go up against those type of guys. You just got to know every step counts, you know, every, you know, speed cut, every, you know, yard. Every inch really counts. So, yeah, it's definitely going against those guys. But, you know, I love it because of the competition.

I love because of the exposure. And I know, you know, the whole world is watching that matchup. Speaking of, I watched the Jailen Ramsey game yesterday. And if Kirk would have thrown you the ball on the couple, I think you would have a much bigger game. You had one in the end zone where you really beat them. And you had another one. I like that one.

I wish you would have had that. I saw you were mad even though y'all scored a touchdown. You were mad about it. But you also had one where you, it was almost the same play as Chase's big, big catch against them in the Super Bowl where you ran down the sideline. You had a step on him and Kirk through the other side of the ball. I'm just wondering, do you think you won that matchup? I mean, it's kind of hard not to say I didn't win it.

I still finished the game with 100 plus yards. I'll say you won it. I'll say it for you. You won. Thank you. Thank you. We did it. I mean, there's always, I mean, there's always, you know, if it's and the bust about it. You know, if I would have got the ball on that, that play, like you said, in the end zone,

then, you know, people would have looked at it differently. So, I mean, it's just all about the players that are left on the field, opportunities that are up for me to get. Sometimes they're there, sometimes they're not. At the end of the day, is all what people see on the TV. You know, a lot of people, you know, us as coaches, us as players,

we watch film, we see the hole, we see the bird eye. You know, we see everything that's on the field. TV only sees where the ball is going. So, I mean, it is what it is. I feel like I did a pretty good job going against him as my first time, saying he's been in the league for plenty of years. Only was my second. So, I mean, I feel like I did a good job.

Justin Jefferson, Madden is out August 19th. Anything else we need to know? Yes, that is the best game ever. Madden 23. I'm excited for it. Just like you said, August 19th, I'm ready for it. We're about to film out today. I'm excited.

I wish y'all can see the setup that I'm looking at. I'm excited. Awesome, man. Thanks for joining us. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Thank you to Ben Solak, Stephen Ruiz, and Justin Jefferson for the help.

We will be back, as discussed, with top 10 coaches in the middle of next week. This has been the Ringranfell Show, the podcast Network. Thank you, to Stefan Anderson, for his help with additional productions provision by Arjuna, Rampe the Fall. See you next week.