The Ringer NFL Show - Top 5 Players Going Into the 2021 Season, Plus Preseason Takeaways

Episode Date: August 23, 2021

Kevin is joined by Benjamin Solak and The Ringer’s newest staff writer, Steven Ruiz, to discuss the latest in the NFL news cycle (3:39) and Tua Tagovailoa’s improvement during the preseason (16:04). They then follow by listing their current Top 5 NFL players (35:29).  Host: Kevin Clark  Guests: Benjamin Solak and Steven Ruiz Associate Producer: Stefan Anderson Additional Production Supervision: Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Mike and Jesse talk about sports at the sports cards market and how to make money with this hobby on sports cards nonsense. They'll let you know who you should be buying and selling and give you the occasional fantasy football advice. Check out sports cards nonsense on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. It is the ringer NFL show, part of the ringer podcast network. I am Kevin Clark joined today by Benjamin Solac. Ben, how are you, buddy? Oh, everything is good. I'm the first intro now stepping up in the world. Well, Nora.

Nora is moving to an undisclosed northeastern city. There could be some turnpike talk. Long time listeners will remember that there was turnpike talk the first time when Julio Jones was traded and she was calling in from, I believe she was going from the Jersey Shore back to Boston and she had to get her takes off. So you might have something similar today. And we are joined by our new colleague, Stephen Ruiz.

Stephen, what's going on, buddy? When I first came into Zoom, I couldn't hear you guys. but I saw your mouth moving. I thought you guys were hazing me. I thought you guys were like giving me the silent treatment. We are not nearly as good of planners, nor smart enough to come up in such a bit. I would say,

we were just talking about when you're going to announce that you're joining the ringer, and the answer might be never. We might just go full Beyonce lemonade, just drop the podcast and we're off to the races. This is the first hire that I have not spoiled at the ringer in a long time. Because I don't, sometimes like with Warren,

this happened with Warren Sharp last year, almost this exact time last year where he was on the podcast. And I was like, our new colleague, and then like 10 days later, they dropped the press release. And I was like, oh, I guess I probably shouldn't have said that on the podcast. And the same thing was Steve Serruti as well. So you're here, but you can

officially announce it. It's your first day at the ringer. How does it feel? How's the new work laptop, buddy? I like it. It's the same laptop I had at my last job, so it's not much of a transition. Should I feel offended that you didn't feel the need to spoil me being hired? I tried. No,

I wanted to. I wanted to very badly. I have no when I know something I just want to tell the world about it and so I people like Ben Solac, people like Nora, people like Arjuna they made me keep it under wraps. So I desperately wanted to spoil the surprise but now here we are. Surprise

unspoiled and we are so excited to have both of you guys on. Nora and I are thrilled two of the best football writers in the world, not just young football writers although you are that as well. And everybody in the NFL staff is so, so excited that you're a part of it.

We did try, Stephen, to get you to replace Ben. Ben wasn't really working out. But that didn't fly. So we're going to have both you on the podcast today. All right. So Ben, you're doing fine. Don't listen to that last part. I didn't take it seriously.

I take very little on this podcast seriously. I don't think that's the best way to consume it. I think you should have taken it seriously. All right. We're moving on. Hey, open competition. It's training camp. We only have so many spots, guys.

We'll have some of my spots. Steven's Trevor Lawrence. We're going to do the special team's blocking drill between Ben and Stephen. All right. So here's what we're doing today. We're going to go through a couple bits of news. Then we're going to do one big nugget from week two of the preseason. Halfway through the preseason, guys, three weeks.

Nope. Isn't it 66%? Yeah. Well, now it's 50%. You go from 33% to 66% in a couple of days here. So yeah, we're blowing through it. And then we're going to do our top five players in the NFL, regardless of the position. I'm excited about that because I think that you guys,

all three of us view football differently. It will be really exciting to see where we land on that. Let's start with a couple of bits of news. Number one is this is coming out of New England just as we're recording. This is a statement from the New England Patriots. Cam Newton traveled to a club-approved medical appointment that required him to leave the New England area. He received daily COVID tests, which were all negative,

but due to a misunderstanding about the tests, conducted away from NFL facilities, he is subject to a five-day entry cadence process. He will not be able to practice until Thursday, August 26. He's already locked into a training camp quarterback battle with Mack Jones. Stephen Ruiz, is this a big deal? I think it is just because there is a QB competition, and any time you're away from practice,

it gives Mack Jones an opportunity to steal your thunder. I don't know if that's going to happen, but I just feel bad for Cam at this point. I mean, this is like... Steven's been saying I feel bad for... Cam at this point since 2015, baby. It's my whole brand. It's my whole brand, actually.

But yeah, like, you go back to, what year was it when he got, like, ran over by, he didn't get ran over by a truck, but he got flipped over on the road. Like, this guy can't catch a break, but he should have been vaccinated, so. I agree with all of that. Ben, how close is this competition right now? I think, right. I think it's,

Cam's always had the edge, has the edge less now than he's, did previously. A very funny thing that's occurred is during the preseason watching Mac go and kind of shred up some twos and some threes. And people are saying like, oh, this is so good. The patrons are doing everything they need to do to build an

offense around Mac Jones. It's play action and it's 12 personnel play action. It's hard sales and whatever. All of which, like, also works for Cam and it's good for Cam. But for Mac, we just feel like it's the things we just saw in Alabama. So it's good that they're calling the offense this way. When they

initially drafted Mac and a lot of the rhetoric was like, this is awesome because he's just like Brady. He couldn't run an offense like Brady did. He never ran that sort of offense at Alabama. And so there was this idea that he was going to be this three-step, quick game, always make you wrong, pre-snap quarterback that he simply never was at Alabama. They're not trying to make him that. They're trying to put him in offense similar to the Bama offense.

Cam's benefiting from it. Max's benefiting from it. So I think they're good either way. I still think right. Cam has an edge. I don't think missing games of practice will knock his stock down. like Stephen said, you've got now, I think they've joined practice with the Giants this week. And now Mack's got all those first team reps.

And the Giants secondary and half bad. So if you're doing well in practice there, you have preseason against the Giants. Like, this is an opportunity for Mack to make further gains because I think he is narrowing the gap. If there's anything we've learned from Giants practice, it's that Cam Newton is going to miss a huge brawl with the Giants. Yeah. That's the one thing he's going to miss out. He's going to be his reps and like a random brawl with the Giants defense. Okay.

All right. We'll move on quickly from that to move on to another bit of news. And this is from Vic Tafer at the Athletic. And this is... Kevin looks like a kid in a candy store right now. Kevin is so happy. This is perfect. So there's a couple of nuggets in the story from Vic Tafer over there at the

that buddy. That's a great job covering the writers. First of all, I didn't know this. Maybe this was out there beforehand. Did we know that John Gruden cried for three days after trading Colomac? Wait, wait, that's part of this report? Yeah. Yeah, it's in the lead.

It should be in the lead. Gruden himself said that he cried for three days after trading the former NFL defensive player of the year. Okay, now what does that mean? Yeah. Like he was crying all day, every day or like just like once a day? Just a couple of tears. There's not a lot of wiggle room in this report.

It says he cried for three days. He didn't say parts of three days. It sounds like it was a 72-hour thing. Do you think it prevented him from, like, doing his John Gruden grinding film? Or do you think he was in the film room crying, like, while watching Derek Carr? I was barely held open.

Crying in the club, watching just third downs for Derek Carr. Yeah, I don't know. That sentence leads to more questions and answers from me, but I'm glad it exists. So he uses that as a segue to report that before the Raiders got Yanukkah Kankai, they made a call to the Chicago Bears asking if they'd be interested in trading Colomac.

Now, this was at the time the bears were having major salary gap issues. Obviously, they had to release Kyle Fuller. They had to restructure a bunch of deals. And so the Raiders were trying to buy a low on Colomac. Ben, what do you make of this report? Well, I think the Raiders understanding just how dire their edge need was, like, make sense. And, oh, they targeted Unique and Gokway in the Very High with how they got unique, whatever.

But, like, they did blow that top five pick. Cleveland Furl, right, out of Clemson in 2019, who they hoped would come in and be their primary edge rusher. They got a good season out of Max Krazi, but he's kind of faded away. And at this point, like, yes, correct, you do need edge help. Why calling the bears for Mack felt like the best move? Like, did they call the Vikings about Danielle Hunter, who like had like a massive complaint about his contract situation last year? Like, that would have been my first port of Paul if I was like trying to go get an elite edge rusher. Mack, the best, one of my favorite parts about the, the, The Tafer report is that it just ends with very calmly one sentence.

Mac 30 is a free agent in 2025. It's like, yeah, they're kind of committed to this guy a little bit in Chicago. They like him. They don't really want to let go of him. So I think it's understandable why they did this, but it's very funny to me that they would think that like there'd be any traction here whatsoever of like getting Mac back, Mac feeling comfortable playing under Gruden and like being okay with that trade situation. I don't even know.

Like how does Ryan Pace pick up that phone? Like it's Mike Mayoff just like, hey, you guys have a good edge. I think his name's Khalil or something. Like how do you even get that conversation started? It boggles the mind. So glad they thought they needed an edge. Stunned that they thought this could ever work. There's, you hit on one thing that's important.

Is it GMs all the time talk about how if they're truly after a guy, they put him like ninth in the conversation that you just call up, oh yeah, you know, it'd be really interesting. Like maybe we can work out a deal for Dalton, maybe at the training deadline. Robert Quinn, you know, He's got a big contract. That'll be good. Yeah. I mean, maybe you guys, you know,

if Jason Peters, you know, loses his job, whatever, we'll figure that out later. Also, you know, if you have any interest in Colomac being dealt, we would, we would love that. If you have any interest in your best player. Stephen Ruiz, big question. What the hell is going on? The best part about this for me, at least,

was like Gruden won that Sloan Award for the Cleo-Mack trade. He did. He did. 2018 transaction. It's like the one thing where you could point to his second tenure with the Raiders and be like, oh, like, that was kind of a smart move. I don't know. But like now he's like going back on.

He's like, no, I don't even want to do that. Can we rewind and take that off my resume for the Raiders? Think about all of the desperately clung to Khalil Mack jerseys that would have been resurrected from their back corner in the closet had this trade gone through. Truly a victory for those of us who refuse to get rid of old jerseys. shout out my Brian Westbrook Eagles jersey, I feel like.

Yeah. What is the best? Sorry, go ahead. I was going to say that's like any Broncos fans who invested in a Brock Osweiler jersey. You remember when he came back? Is that the equivalent?

Kevin was 100% agreeing with you. And then you said Brock Osweiler and he was like, wait, wait, wait. So I was going to ask what the best Jersey resurrection in sports history was. And then you went with Brock Osweiler there.

And that's why I kind of stopped in my track. Yeah, it's not the best. It's Michael Jordan coming back to the Bulls, right? No, because he didn't change team. He had a different number. And also that kind of doesn't apply because it's a Michael Jordan jersey. It's always good. Having been a Philadelphia guy, I'm surprised you aren't mentioning Alan Iverson coming back to the Sixers.

Iverson's a good one for sure. I forget that Iverson left and came back because it was before my time. Maybe it's John Gruden coming back. And the Raiders fans got to bring up. So many raiders visors that had yet been unused until Gruden returned. There's a chicken and egg thing

with Tampa. I don't know if everybody in the city of Tampa wears a visor, were a visor already or if Gruden introduced visor culture to that area.

But there are a lot of visors in Tampa Beck is what I would say about that. I think it was Gruden. Gruden had a visor on in the tuck gate, which if you remember, it was like a blizzard.

He was wearing a visor. I feel like no one has ever worn a visor in a blizzard. or before that day. So he's a trailblazer in that regard. He was the first. Wow. Never thought about that way.

All right. Last bit of news before we get on to the other segments, Gina Adkins is visiting the Seattle Seahawks, fully cleared according to Enrap Report from surgery that short-circuited his season last year. Rappaport says it could be a big-time addition to Seattle's D-Line. Stephen, do you agree with them? No.

I think it will be an addition. I don't think it will be. I don't think it will matter. edition. If you signed there, it would literally add. I can't deny that it will be an addition. But I don't think it will matter in the grand scheme of things. I think this is one of those signings where, like, Russ knows who Geno Atkins is and you say, hey, we signed Geno Atkins.

And Russ is like, oh, that's a good signing, even though I haven't watched him play in four years. He was at one point, one of the best players in the NFL. He was. He was at one point in this conversation, we're doing later for one of the best players in football regardless of position. It's just, it unraveled pretty quickly. Ben, anything left from Gino?

Yeah, I mean, he did right. Like, I'm looking at production-wise. He was in 2018, he was 30. He had 10 sacks. That was last productive season. He had 4.5 in 2019. Then obviously, he missed last year of the Rotator Cuff surgery. I don't think it's unreasonable that he does improve your pass rush.

When you look at the Seattle defensive line depth chart, it's a lot of guys who like, are they betting on Risham Green again? Are we betting on LJ Collier again? It's like, you know, I understand why you would do this. I do agree that I don't think, right? It's like, we'll look back at the Gino-Atkins signing as the, what tip to the scales for the Seahawks, you know, playoff run or whatever if they're successful.

But I do think, yeah, like, it is nice to have that guy, given the amount of unproven players you're currently trying to bet on in that defensive run. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, all of these, taking a flyer on a guy, especially at a position that ages as, as Atkins does. It's very really successful.

What is the, has there been a late career resurrection for a guy like Atkins ever that you guys can remember? I feel like Robert Quinn kind of like fell off after the Rams and then he kind of had a resurgence and got a big deal.

Like that's the closest I can remember. And that worked out, but it was a one-year deal. And it's a different position. And Robert Quinn is like, oddly a lot younger than people assume he is. He's like 29. Yeah.

Quinn also just has like cardinal traits that like always if you use them right can like mean something. Like Atkin certainly does as well with the length, but still. Listen, if the Seahawks wanted to sign an over 30 defensive player, there's a linebacker. His name is K.J. Wright. Maybe him would have been maybe a little more helpful and nice and better and good. It's different positions, but they could have just called the Bears about Kalil Mack if they wanted to sign an above 30 pass rusher. where would Bears fans go if after getting Justin Fields

and finally feeling good about the quarterback position and they're trading Cleo Macaway? Where would the mental state for like a third round pick to see how Metro Chicago go? I do. I like, I will say this. I like that Ryan Pace,

at least when we got out of the report that Ryan Pace was like, yeah, definitely not. That's a good step. That's a good step for Ryan Pace. Has made like two good decisions this off season, baby.

We're cooking a guess. I might repeat that executive of the year award. It's like Major League. If we win another game, that's called a winning streak. That's the Ryan Pace thing right now. Two good decisions in a row. All right. Let's get to our nuggets.

We're only going to do one for the second week of the preseason because we covered so much last week. We will start with our newcomer, Stephen Ruiz. Your first big takeaway, your only big takeaway from week two of the preseason. Two is good with the question mark No get your own Get your own

No no no no no no Oh my God oh my god Wait whoa You're gonna have to fight over this one No no no no no no no no no I had that too No way So part of the reason I don't ever want

To know is because I like people reacting Because sometimes have people have Hot takes whatever And there's sort of an organic reaction to it The downside of this And this has never happened ever on this show is that there is a chance that everybody can have the same nugget.

The flip side of this is that this is great news for Tua. So let's have the Tua discussion. Stephen, you start. Is it great news or it's a bad news that all three of us agree that he's good now? It's either really good or really bad. Well, it's good news that he's dominating the second week of the preseason. Congrats to Tua. But the bad news is that the jury's still out on our collective football intelligence.

certainly mine. Actually, the jury's in on mine. It's not good. But you got you two. Go ahead. So why I'm so impressed with what he's done this preseason and why I think it looks different

from what we saw last season. It's just his calm in the pocket. Like, during the summer, I went back and watched the last couple games of his rookie season. And there were instances where he would just panic. Like if there was no, his first read wasn't open and the pocket was closing in, he would panic.

But especially against the, I think it was the Falcons this last game. He had this one drive where the pockets were not clean. His first read wasn't open. And he was just navigating the pocket and finding someone open. And I think that's the question with him is we know, like, if his first read opened, he's accurate enough to make that throw. And he's smart enough to know, based on pre-snap look, like where he's supposed to go with the ball.

It's when he needs a plan B. Is he going to be able to come up with that plan B consistently so far in the preseason? And it is the preseason. He's done it. Wow. Ben, your day. Yeah, so I'll I co-sign everything Stephen said

It's funny when we were talking about The Dolphins on last pod with Nora I kind of said like You know you saw that first game of Tua You really wanted to buy in And you threw that bad pick In the end zone against the Bears And it was like oh we're not there yet

And then against Atlanta He just did everything but not the bad pick Like all right now we go Here we go But what I really enjoyed Especially in week two of the preseason Was they definitely Tipped their hand in terms of offensively

what they want to do a little more. Jalen Waddle got involved in the offense a lot more. And this looks, as we would hope it would, talking in June and July about how you would build the offense around this guy in year two. The first drive they're coming out, it's RPO, you know, bubble to Jalen Waddle in the slot. He's not covered. He's not, you know, he's the number two receiver.

Nobody's on top of it's a safety 50 yards. We're going to throw a bubble. We're going to get free yardage. That is collegiate. There's a, uh, they, they use pre-stap motion a ton and they were using it to, uh, flip the strength. right? So defense is always defined like this is where the passive strength is. There's three receivers over here. Well, if you use pre-snap motion right before the snap and you send enough players across, you're going to change the strength. And that's going to force defenses into certain checks.

That's predictable. That's expected. And that gives you easy completion. They were quick with Miles Gaskin as a pass catcher out of the backfield and quick running back routes, forced defensive checks. It's called the Fast 3. And all of this is very good. This is all very intuitive. This is all what he enjoyed Alabama and what helped him be successful is this stuff that lot defenses into into predictable looks. They were running play action shots that Steve Sarkeesian ran last year. Like, it's all familiar. It's all very Alabama-e.

It's all smart. It's all easy gains, too, right? It's like, all right. If they're going to give us gas and no flat, we're going to take it. If you can make one guy miss, first down, new set of downs. We don't need two to be a hero. We need two to facilitate an offense that makes sense to him. And that's, they've talked a lot.

Eric Studsville and George Gossi, the co-offensive coordinator, about how this playbook is going to be deep and it's going to be complex. And that's good. you know, a lot of plays, and we have a smart quarterback. We're comfortable in that, but you do have to have your go get a bucket. And this offensive look, you know, because they're not trying to show everything, was very much the go get a bucket, it was very much the easy stuff. And Tua's going to be able to do that all the way down the field,

especially if guys like Waddle and Gaskin are able to stay healthy, because those guys are you could play makers with a ball in their hands. Totally agree. I was going to mention the quick game to both Gaskin and Waddle. I thought it was interesting. The motion also impressed me, Ben, you know, I was talking to, I did a piece on the ringer.com on Monday about kind of the last decade of football and what it's meant in the 2011 scoring boom and how everything changed. And I was talking to Adam Zimmer, who's the defensive coordinator of the Vikings.

And we were just talking about really you cannot over-emphasize how much motion has changed everything and how the downhill runs have now become lateral runs. And the defense's eyes have never been more confusing. And I use this as a way, and obviously this is not anything that people haven't known for a couple of years now. But if you're not using motion as much as possible, you're leaving production on the table. And so I was definitely impressed with that. Ben, if going back to the draft now and seeing it, I know this is such a Monday morning quarterback sort of question,

Waddle is the guy for Tua, right? Yeah, I think when they were moving around, right, and they went from three to 12 to six. And there was that immediate conversation of, okay, who do they feel like, is potentially going to be there at six, but there's no chance he's there at 12, and they had to make this move right now.

They had to immediately get back up into the top seven, top eight. You were looking at two players. You're going to at Kyle Pitts and to me, Jalen Waddle, because a player like Jamar Chase is going to be that outside vertical contested catch jump ball guy. They already have in Devante Parker, and is never really going to be to his game. That's Ryan Fitzpatrick's game.

It's not really to his game. And then, sure, Devante Smith makes sense, right? in terms of that rat running and that separation ability, but you're really looking for yak creation after the catch, something where Devante is good, especially for his frame, but where Waddle has clearly been better across the course of his career. Pitts also would have made sense. They play two tight ends a lot.

Durham Smyth is going to be an important player to this offense, which is like, you know, shout out Durham Smyth. But they play multiple titans a lot. They want to be an aggressive downhill running team. That's clearly important to Brian Flores. I don't think they're going to be that this year. but it's clearly important to him and they want to have those multiple tight end sets.

And so you see how Pitts would have made sense with the amount of times they move their tight ends across the formation and the times that they get them releasing into the concept. We saw Mike Gisicki be decently featured in the offense and week one of the preseason. That would have been Pitts. So I think Pitts and Waddle were those two guys

that makes sense for this offense, that makes sense for Tua. And I do think that as it looks now, which obviously they should draft Waddle, but as it looks now, Waddle is important. Waddle is, like you say, the guy. They use Jakeem Grant as the way.

Waddle replacement once Waddle started coming off the field. And like, it's kind of good. Like, Jekeem is a fun player. He's very natural with the ball in his hands. But we've already seen Jakeem Grant in Miami. We already know kind of what the ceiling on that is. Waddle gives you a lot. It's,

it's the simplicity of saying if I throw the bubble to this guy, I'm getting to second him for. And that's just such a win for my offense. That keeps things so easy. And it prevents Tua from hero plays, not only because he doesn't have the greatest deep ball or whatever, but also that offensive line still. Like for all the good stuff that we saw against Atlanta,

and all the good stuff we're seeing from Tua, when they have to take deep drops for Tua, when they tried to run some of those Alabama play action shots, it's not a good pass with that offensive line. They had one where Waddle got open on a deep crosser and the offensive line couldn't hold up for more than two seconds. It was a thumb. It was they ran it in 2020 with Mac Jones, yeah,

and Waddle scored multiple touchdowns on that concept. And it's just the back had to be in protection. You didn't get a good look. and then Jesse Davis, right tackle misses a block, two has got no chance. And so, yeah, that pass protection for that deeper stuff needs to catch up, so you really want to stay ahead of the sticks. And Waddle is a great player for staying ahead of the sticks.

All right, Stephen, let's go a big picture here. I know, this is insane. I know what's insane, but this is the content game. For two weeks in the preseason, we've seen it. Does what we've seen over the past three weeks with the dolphins give you any different visions of the AFC East hierarchy? yeah, I think it does because one, we don't know,

I don't know what New England's going to look like. They added all these new pieces. I don't know what that offense is going to look like. We can, you know, guess. And then Buffalo seems to be due for a little regression. I don't think the offense is going to be fire, a fire breathing. I'm not going to bring up.

24 minutes and 50 seconds into your ringer career, you brought the pure, furor of. Bill's Moff. The Bill's Mafia, yes. Well, that's what you hire me, that's what you bring along. I'm sorry, you brought that. You guys brought that on yourself.

But I'm just saying, all I'm saying is the offense isn't going to be like this fire breathing dragon. No, he's what we're going to do. I'm sorry, I'm to interrupt you. We're eventually we're going to have Solac and Ruiz on a segment, and we're going to call it Arm Arrogance Corner. And Nora and I are going to duck out. And it's just going to be you guys slandering Bill's Mafia. And we can put your Twitter handles in the beginning of it.

It will be great. Stephen, you have the floor. They won't need our Twitter handles. They'll know. We'll put a cell phone number of us up. We're on some lists. No, but I think we can't expect the offense to be as good as it was last year.

I don't think you can just expect that. So if that takes a little step back, I'm not saying it's going to fall out of the top five or top 10. Maybe like a little Ravens regression, although I think with the Ravens last year was a little worse than I expect for Buffalo. And Miami's defense, I feel like, I have no reason to suspect that to fall off this year.

And if Tua is just better, like he just has to be better. And they have a quarterback who, like, Ryan Fitzpatrick was productive for that offense, but he was still Ryan Fitzpatrick at times. And Tua is never going to be that guy that hurts the defense. So if he could just be as good as Ryan Fitzpatrick's, I don't want to say best, but when Ryan Fitzpatrick looks like a guy you might give a contract to, if he looks like that, I think the Dolphins can be a 10-11 win team. Hmm. Interesting. I think that my problem with Bill's regression is I can't actually,

I can't actually conceptualize what Josh Allen regression is because we saw the variance is. The difference between good Josh Allen and bad Josh Allen is, was so dramatic. And the leap was so dramatic that I actually feel like if he took a step back, there's no, like, I feel like there's no B plus Josh Allen. Does that make sense to you guys? Like, I just feel, I think he's going to be good this year. I think the bills are going to be good this year. And part of the problem when I talk to you guys, they say, okay, he's going to come back down to Earth. I actually literally don't know what that looks like. Help me, Ben. I do think there is a B plus Allen in the sense that like he can take a significant step down. Like, that's possible. I'm not saying it's going to happen, but it's

possible. But because the offense is well constructed with a lot of talent is past happy, does a lot of the good offensive things, you know, stuff that we check the boxes on. This is how offenses should be constructed. The step down for the offense is minor relative to the step down that Allen takes as an individual. They can sustain. They can survive a lot more Allen variance and so be a pretty good offense. What I would say like my my case for regression is I think that A, you're going to see teams just sell out to stop the pass. Everybody now knows that Buffalo will pass no matter what. Everyone was watching a playoff game where they didn't run the ball in first half.

Nope. And so, A, you're going to sell out to do that. You're going to force Dev and Singletarian Zach Moss to make you pay. And those guys potentially can, but we haven't seen it yet. And B, one thing that is, I think, a little underreported and understated right now is that Stefan Diggs has had a nagging knee problem and is expected to play for week one, but it's not set in stone. And Diggs has largely played the majority of the games

in a season in his career, but he does often miss one or two games, three or four games, with some knee problems. That's been something that he's had in his career. So Diggs health is very important because while I do like the addition of Emmanuel Sanders and I do think that Cole Beasley is a very effective slot receiver,

the availability of Diggs of Beasley, of Emmanuel Sanders, who's over 30, like this is a little bit more of a toucher, go receiver room than it was last year, especially with Diggs currently struggling with injury a little bit. And so I do think that wide receiver depth could get tested, which does matter for a team that's trying to be, as Stephen says,

a fire breathing dragon other way Buffalo is. Is there anything you guys are dying to talk about that has not come up before we get to our players from the preseason? Should we talk about Jabar Chase? We talked about Waddle. Should we talk about Chase? He's dropping a lot of passes. Yeah.

It's not good. It's not good. So are we at the point where we could say that we should start talking about them making a mistake by taking Chase instead of Sewell or even Devante Smith, who I think... It's not like Sewell's lighting it out with position change and all that stuff. So it is to answer your question. Do you agree, Ben? Right. The thing for me always circles back to when I talked about Chase and J.C. Horn in terms of players who dominated with physicality in the SEC in college, usually taking early lumps as their rookies

is that confidence is such an important part of the first like six months of a rookie's career. It's every year underappreciated how just like a couple of good practices leads to a couple of good preseason games leads to early production leads to yada yada yada versus like just how these small divergences compound on themselves.

Like there's no reason for Chase to be dropping easy passes. There's just not something he did at LSU. and you wonder the degree to which he's just like in his own head with kind of his struggles separating and with the increased number of hits that he's potentially taking or whatever it is. And so to me, right, it's like, you know,

you saw the report that they're going to start giving an auditate some more run to kind of let Chase chill out a little bit and not feel like he has to be this guy right away. It's like, all right, like that could go one of two ways. Like he could take that as a big blow to his confidence or he could need that reset. But this sensation, in my opinion, of like young rookie confidence

being an important part of bringing them along and making sure like mentally they feel good with the NFL transition is compounded by the fact that Chase didn't play in 2020, which is something that a lot of people are talking about in terms of like Chase didn't play, he's really struggling.

Roshan Slater didn't play. He looks freaking amazing. People are different, right? People respond to things differently. But I do think that when you haven't caught passes since 2019 and then you come out to catch passes in a live setting, you know, for the first time in 18, 20 months,

and it's a struggle at first. It can probably be really hard to get your sea legs back under you. So I think Chase is my guess right now, kind of reading the tea leaves, is that his problem is a lot of confidence-based. The drops are a lot of going to be confidence, feeling himself,

feeling confident he can make good plays. And I think that taking a step back with him, so as to then take some more step forward with him is the right way to go about it. So I'm nowhere near, I'm still at they should have taken Sue over Chase. That's where I've been, but I'm no further on that than I was previously.

Ben, we made a mistake. You and I made a mistake, because we said, we answered Stephen's question and said it's not to, it's too early to say that. It's too early to say that. Stephen wanted to say it. And he was giving us the opening to say it

and we wouldn't do it. And we're not going to throw it back to Stephen for him to declare Jamar Chase a bus two weeks into training camp. You had the floor Stephen. Okay. So I am not concerned with, I'm not concerned with the drops.

I feel like that could be explained away by him not playing football for over a year. I'm concerned with the reports of lack of separation, which is, that was the pre-draft, concern. And it goes back to the conversation with Waddle and the dolphins drafting him. You have T. Higgins already. If you want a contested catch, like minimal separation guy, you have him. Why not take that second receiver, that Z receiver that plays off the

line of scrimmage, doesn't deal with press like DeVante Smith, like even a Waddle can be? So that's where I'm asking, did they make a mistake? So, I mean, I feel like that receiving court looks a lot better with Devante Smith in it. Yeah. I've felt like it was mistake of a pick since when they made it and I'm still there with you. I'm definitely like I don't yeah like I agree like the drops like they don't really like make it anymore so for me and I think they can be good with Chase and that receiving core. Yeah, there is redundancy right. And there is a a prioritization of familiarity and like burroughs influence that while

noble and understandable is probably just like not super necessary with the fifth overall pick for your second year quarterback just yet. You know what I mean? So yeah, the way the Bengals build their team is endlessly fascinating. And this is just another in many, many examples of curious Bengals decisions. I'm not trying to be too overly critical on their one scout that they have working in that front office. It's not his fault. Oh.

Oh. Yeah, no, listen, the rookie confidence thing is really interesting to me. And adjusting to the level is really interesting to me. And it's what you said, Ben. The confidence is so huge. I was listening to a boxing podcast. A couple months ago by a guy named Sean Porter. And he was talking about how sometimes in a fight you learn early on that 100% is not enough.

And that is like a huge emotional change for you because you're so used to dominating if you give it your all. And sometimes you're going against a guy where that's just not going to work. And I don't think you get that if you're Jamar Chase in the SEC. And you have to learn what that looks like. And I think that that's any rookie. And that's why sometimes the adjustment takes longer is because confidence is a huge, huge part of it. All right, let's get to our list. Easy, easy prompt.

Five best players, regardless of position. This is on the group. Extremely difficult prompts. This is not easy at all. It's a simple prompt, but it's a nightmare of a list. This is not, not in sort of response to the NFL Network's top 100 list. Literally, completely incidental. I did not know that they were finalizing their thing on Sunday night.

Having said that. That list was bad. Sounds like the NFL top 100 list, baby. That list was bad. Wait, do we know the top five? Their top five, I mean? No, Dalvin Cook was ahead of Lamar Jackson on it. I saw, I believe Jayor Alexander was number 41.

Buda Baker is the number one safety. Buda Baker. He's number 18 in the league, if I'm not mistaken. Yeah. All right. Well, let's get to our top. five. Stephen, you're the

debutante. Number five. Number five, I went, this was the toughest one for me. I feel like four through one should kind of be a

consensus, if not a near consensus. But number five, I feel like it's a matter of case. I went with Tyree Kill. I think he's, I don't know if he's the most talented

receiver in the NFL, but I think he's the best. If I'm a defensive coordinator, I do not want a game plan against Tyree Kill. That's the receiver. I don't want to game playing against.

I'm going with him. I think he changes games. I think he changes the geometry of how defenses have to play that offense. Beyond Mahomes, who's obviously the most important piece on that offense, I think he's the second most important piece.

I think it all falls apart. It doesn't fall apart, but it looks a lot harder for Mahomes if Hill isn't on the field. Break the tie for me between Tyro Kill and Devante Adams. Ben? Or me?

No, you. You, you're the one who put Tyroo Kill on the list. Ben, Ben just sitting over there. I can ask Ben to defend your take. I didn't understand the question. Wait, what tie am I breaking? How are they tied?

They're not, they're considered, Devante Adams, in many corners is considered the best receiver in football. You zagged. Explain the difference between the two from a talent. Okay. From a production talent, however you want to classify the standpoint. For me, I think Tyreech Hill

does things that only Tyreek Hill can do, whereas I think you can get a lot of what Devante Adams brings you with a guy like Stefan Diggs, for instance. I think Hill's skill set is so unique and he's just such a different play. Like the only player that I have seen run with him and not need help over the top is Jalen Ramsey, who is just a freak on his own.

And there's no other receiver in the NFL that can do that. I feel like Devante Adams, like you could put Jailen Ramsey on Devonte Adams and not have to worry about it. I know he had a couple catches on him, but for the most part, he held up in that battle, whereas Tyreek is just, there's no answer.

Unless you have Jaylen Rantz, there's no other answer. Ben, number five? Yeah, I have no receivers top five, and I really struggled to rank receivers in general, because the way I ended up thinking about this was, like, just how good are you at your position, which inherently lends itself to, if you were playing your position on a different team

with different roles, different responsibilities. How good would you be there? And because there's so many different ways to win as a wide receiver, I just ended up having a hard time getting those guys above other premier players at their positions, which require a wider range of skills to just survive and like to just be able to play a whole game of snaps. So I went with the very prototypical football guy picked.

For me, the top three were the consensus, five and four I struggled with. I have Quinn Nelson at five. And right, it's like every, you know, big-brained football watcher, you guys don't realize how good Clinton Nelson is. But you guys don't really realize how good Quinn Nelson is. He's unbelievable. You know what I mean?

There's a kind of similar to Stevens case with Tyree Kill. When you watch Nelson, you watch the physicality, watch the way he moves people, you just go, okay, other people don't move people like that. Like, Zach Martin is elite. He just does not displace bodies the way the Quinn Nelson's displacing bodies. he has like room to improve as a past protector if you want to get into like technical stuff but in terms of like vision understanding of blitz packages you know anticipation and then obviously just the ability to sit down anchor and lock down anybody from donald to vita vea and

and all the bodies in between Nelson's best interior lineman he's best lineman in the game and to me he belonged at number five for that reason I wrote I wrote something like two years ago during his rookie season where he's like the only offensive lineman who has like a highlight reel that you could put together. Right. His highlight reel is like entertaining to watch, whereas like other offensive linemen, it might not be the case.

But yeah, he is different. And he's in that same Tyreek category where he's different. That's a great list. Guys, linemen who could have had highlight reels. I think Joe Thomas could have had that there for a little bit. He's throwing guys around. I don't know.

All right. So mine, I actually have a tie because I wanted to group these guys together. Quentin Nelson, David, Bacchari because both of them are a lead at their position. Obviously, Bactiartier, I only played 12 games last year. He both, both of these guys, Nelson and Bacchari, allow under pressure a game. That's when you consider how long Rogers can hold onto the ball.

That's, that's an interesting number there. Nelson's given up three sacks in his first three seasons. He's, I agree with you. Ben, the best, the best, the best linemen in football. So I have, this is, you know, It was hard for me to, Ben, as you said, do the value versus talent. Like, what even is this list? But if you're going, how good are these guys relative to their positions,

these guys both belong in the top five and a half? So, Bactiars is your top tackle, like for sure? That's correct, yeah. Yeah, because I had Bactiari, like, he was in my just out. He was in the top 10 for me. But I have Trent Williams ranked higher. And to me, like, you know, pick your flavor. But we'll talk about highlight reals.

Like, Trent Williams deletes people off the face. in your is Williams in your top five? He's six for me. He was first. Okay. Yeah. And so I was just curious

where you talk about Bakhtiari versus Williams if you'd have Williams or higher potentially or not. But I think, yeah, I think that when you, Bactiari and Williams, the two best left tackles

in the league, clearly, in my opinion. And then, yeah, to me, it's pick your flavor. But I thought Williams deserved mention. If we're talking about how difficult it is to isolate

their, like, a position, positional skill that any of you guys, put Justin Tucker on your list. I hate you. Your thumb.

You're dumb. All right. I got it. You guys weren't brave enough. Don't put it on me because you guys weren't brave enough to put Justin Tucker on the list. This is it for you, bud.

We're not only you're not invited back. I'm not even sure. We're trying to get, it's like the Wayne's World bit. We're just going to get you replaced with Danny Hype that's mid podcast. All right. No, we did not.

Although, listen, here's a thing. Here's the thing about Justin Tucker. This is real. I spent some time with him and some of those guys down there. My belief is that they should let Justin Tucker cook. And he thinks he can make a 70-yard field goal. And listen, I know he's tried those sort of long-field goals

and failed in the past. But I think if you truly wanted to unlock the full Tucker experience, let him take a lot of those. Just let him cook, is all I'm saying. I'm going to start the movement. The coaching staff is holding Justin Tucker back. You're not going to get supported. And it's good.

and it's good that the Ravens listen to analytics. But the worst part is that like when they get like fourth and five at the 46, they're like, oh, we should obviously go for it here. And it's like, you should let Justin Tucker kick it, baby. The nerds are not going to get on board with your let Tucker cook thing. That's why the let Russ cook thing work because the nerds were behind it. It's not going to have a little Tucker. You're on your own on that one.

Well, let me give you the flip side of that. It's really hard for NFL coaches to listen to nerds. that's been proven. They abandon the nerd take as soon as they can. If my let him cook take is about fuel goal, something that coaches love, there's maybe an easier path to that. It's not Harbaugh. Harbaugh is too woke, man.

He's too up with the kids. He was a special teams coach at one point. What if I make it my mission just to get Harbaugh to get way more conservative, just so Justin Tucker can cook? We just want to see the record broken. All right. They should give Lamar's money to Tucker.

Don't sign Lamar, give that contract to talk. If we're talking about positional value, it's not too late. It's not too late. Anyway, I read that story like three years ago. I had a good time. Those are some really smart people down there. At one point, they met special teams, guys, the long snapper, the kicker, and the punter met with like the Navy, like,

weather team just to figure out what kind of pressure and stuff would take. Dude, those guys are in the lab. Those guys are in their bag trying to make a 70-d-year field goal. Stephen, number four? I had Aaron Rogers. I don't know if he's going to be on either of your lists, but I think he's on my list. The way he played last,

I only have two quarterbacks on my list. I bet you can guess who the other quarterback is, but the way he played last year and his command of that offense, and by the end of last year, I think he had elevated his game another level. Like in that Rams playoff game, that was the best quarterback performance I saw, and he barely even threw the ball.

downfield. He just had so much command of what the Rams were doing. And the Rams were, the Rams defense was like the invoked defense last year. No one could figure it out. I think he figured it out and he was a big reason why the Packers had so much success and why it looks so easy for them to score points on that Rams defense, which was the best defense in the league. Ben, Rogers. Yeah, it's very funny. Stephen said the four should be consensus. I said the three should be consensus. My four is Rogers. I just wasn't, as Stephen was sure, whether or not he would be there for everybody where he'd be ranked.

I sat down, I ranked my top three, and I was confident in those. And then I was looking at the list of, like, the best left. And I was like, I can't not put him. Just the way that he operates the game. And there's a conversation here, like, we're doing this outside of positional value. But because the quarterback's decisions are so much more evident than, like, the right guard's decisions, you know what I mean? it's much easier to tell because of like the discourse around it and the amount of information around it when a quarterback is making a read versus like a receiver is sight adjusting a route.

Like it's a lot easier for us to tell that just watching film. So for that reason, like maybe Rogers benefits from exposure that like Stefan Diggs doesn't get and it would have Diggs ranked higher or whatever. I can't really do anything about that. I can't change that. I can't change the fact that when I think about cerebral players who have the ability to never be wrong while also still retaining explosives, which is just not how like football math should work. Rogers is number one. He's above my homes even in that regard.

The way that he controls the game is unparalleled, unmatched by any quarterback and by really any player that I can think of. And so it was very, very difficult for me. The second I started to go to that second tier where I was like, I can't not keep, I can't not put Rogers in this. It's just it's inevitable. So yeah, he's number four for me. I will say this.

Get your pencils out because it's time to adjust your top five. Stephen Holder reports to Carson Wentz is back. on the field and doing full seven-on-seven team reps. Yeah. There's no way. This goes badly. How do you look at a guy with Wentz's injury history and go, let's get him back on the field as soon as he feels good? Yeah, just I don't.

Here's the quote from Stephen Holder. Here's the quote from Stephen Holder. They are not easing him in. Never expected he'd be doing this much. This with the asterisk around it. I just, I'm really worried about that. I wish so much health. This has not been the standard Colts injury of five to 12 weeks, folks.

I put a number four here that I don't think you guys are going to have. And I'm okay being on an island with this. Because I think that he's never on these lists. He's not even in the conversation for top quarterback. And for some reason, we've just sort of moved on from him. It's Tom Brady. Yeah. I have Brady at seven.

I think about this a lot and I don't try to analyze things through viral tweets but there was a tweet last January that was that said it was like I'm paraphrasing what it said Tom Brady looked at a random team and said y'all want to go to the Super Bowl

like that's what happened like obviously there was talent there and we see that now and the guys like Levanti David and Devin White are getting their due I'm happy about that Vita Vaya now is more than the mainstream than just the football dorks.

That defensive line is nasty. Todd Bowles is one of the best defensive coordinators in the NFL. We understand that. But a lot of teams are a quarterback away from true contention. And Tom Brady took the Tampa Buccaneers and they won the Super Bowl. They won three straight road games. I understand that if the chiefs had a healthy offensive line,

it would be a different game, but it wouldn't have been all that different. This was a buzzsaw. And I understand that when you're just watching him, There are points, there's peaks and valleys where it doesn't look that amazing. But I cannot, this is a results-based pick. It's Tom Brady. So here's my Brady take. I think he is, we're past the point where I think he, I don't know how to phrase this

without like slandering Tom Brady, where he's elevating offenses. It's more like he's getting the most out of offenses. Like if you go back to 2019, that second half of that page, here. I know they had a lot of injuries, but Cam Newton didn't get this benefit of the doubt last year. That offense was worse. Always goes back to Cam. It always does. The second half of 2019. Cam Newton corner with Stephen Ruiz. We're going about the Cam Chronicles. Season two of the Cam Chronicles is Stephen Ruiz comparing different quarterbacks to Cam Newton. The second half of that, I'm not going to get, I'm not going to let you determine.

The second half of 2019 was worse than all of 2020 for the Panthers. I just called them the Panthers. The Patriots. I think he got the most out of that Bucks team in a way that James Winston never was but I don't think it's Rogers-esque where he's going to make that he's just going to lift that offense up by himself just because of his brain. Brady does have that brain.

He doesn't have the physical. Brady, but I don't necessarily agree with that knock on his physicality. I mean, like if you look at the way his deep ball developed last year was completely against the run and play from what he was doing at the end of New England. There were some indictments,

not some indictments. There were real indictments in the numbers last year for Brady of the way New England had assembled the receiving corps in 2019. He just did not have guys

you could open down the field. Then he did. Not only that, he had a lot of guys who could open down the field and we saw that Brady still had that physicality. This was not

2015 Peyton Manning where he's just glued together. That wasn't that. Brady was making amazing throws pretty much for the second half of the season. No, no. He definitely was my

when I say he doesn't have that physical ability, it's like outside the structure of the offense. He's not going to be Rogers and be able to move and then create a plan B if the defense has everything gloved up. No, but Brady's arm was amazing last year. Like I don't think anyone expected it to be that good. Yeah. Stephen used to the term like geometry changer for Tyree Hill, right? And I think that Brady isn't a geometry changer

the way that Rogers and Mahomes are in terms of like, all right, we covered everybody success soon. We got a pass rush. We win. And with Rogers and Mahomes, it's like we're maybe still losing. And with Brady, you know, and I think that where you do see some physical tail off, because he is beyond his physical peak, his arm is fine, but it's not what it was, is that the spryness in the pocket isn't there as well.

When he did get quick pressure with the bucks, he was much more willing to late career, Peyton Manning it and just take that one on the chin and duck a little bit and go down five-yard sack, we'll survive, as opposed to, you know, he used to be that paragon of buying that extra second in the pocket, that slight movement that somehow makes a guy miss. It's just that that so much isn't there, right? And the arm isn't where it was. He is beyond his physical peak.

He's great, but he is beyond his physical peak, which does make it tough to put him in this list of like just objectively best players. I do think he is elevating offenses, though. I disagree. Steven said, like, he's just maximizing. He is elevating because it goes back to the never wrongism of it, right? Where it's like this, when this offense is in a bad play, Brady gets you into a good play. And to me, that elevates.

Yeah, no, I would agree with that. That was a bad statement. That's why I hesitated to say it, but I don't think he's giving you stuff outside of the scheme. It's the outside of structure stuff where he's right, a little bind. Number three, Cam Newton, Steve? No, he's number one. No, number three is Jalen Ramsey.

I would have guessed you had Ramsey higher. I would have guessed you had Ramsey higher. No, I can't put him higher than the two people ahead of them. I don't think that's justified. But I think Jailen Ramsey has been an underrated player for the last. I would say after 2017, people kind of got tired of him because he was talking so much and he was talking trash to other players. And like, people forgot about how good he was until this past year.

I was not tired of him. I was not tired of him. Neither without. I love them. And I think another problem is that coverage stats are bad and should be fired into the sun and we should never talk about coverage stats because they do not measure what they're supposed to measure with cornerbacks, which is preventing targets.

Like, it's not a good thing if you're getting targeted a bunch and getting opportunities to get interceptions or past deflections. And I think Ramsey's coverage stats, which haven't been that great, and his PFF grade hasn't been that great. I think that's more of like a survivor bias thing more than it is like he's not great in coverage anymore. Because he is. Yeah. Ben Solak.

Where is Jailin Ramsey? Number three for you? Yeah. So Ramsey for me is three. And I very much agree with Stephen. And I think, again, like, this exercise made me think a lot about the way we think about positional value because we definitely know corners matter and are very important. But we do also understand it's a very volatile position.

And so Ramsey, who is the third most talented, the third best, the bronze medal player in the NFL, his mistakes, like when he has a bad rep, are there so much more maximized. There's so much more visible. And the punishment, the consequence on his defense. is so much bigger than when like Donald has a bad rep, right? It's like when we had that whole like Donald is bad at run defense argument last year, y'all remember that. It was a great time. I do, I do remember that.

It was so stunning and outside of the conception that Donald could have those plays. Because even despite when he doesn't have like good run defense reps, because he's like seven yards upfield being crazy Aaron Donald, it doesn't really hurt the Rams defense as much as like when Ramsey takes a risk. when Ramsey goes to jump a route and then he gets absolutely smoked. But that's just part of playing corner. You could be custom built to play corner

and arguably Jaylor Ramsey is and still have those plays, right? It's just inherently going to be a volatile position where your losses are very visible and they're maximized. And so it can be easy to underrate Ramsey for that reason. But for the amount of the variety of coverages

he can execute, so the versatility. And then the ability to cover different body types. We're talking about how varied wide receiver is. there's so many different ways to win. Ramsey plays Hill one week and then Mike Evans the next week. And it's good work against both of them. And that's dumb, stupid. That's not real, a loud, legal.

That's just absurd. And so, yeah, he's number three for me. And I think it's important to talk about how talented he is, despite the fact that, yeah, when he makes mistakes, they're pretty obvious. To illustrate your point, like, in that Packers playoff game, you have the touchdown by Devante Adams where he's, like, doing motion behind the line and gets a pick play. And then everyone's, like, clowning Ramsey because he gets.

gave up a one-yard pick-play touchdown in man coverage. Like, that's the bar. Ramsey has to clear every week. Playing corner sucks. It's the worst. It's so hard. You go playing for everything. Playing corner does suck.

That's a great observation. It's definitely, but it sucks. I think most positions outside of quarterback probably have a lot of sucky properties. Is cornerback the worst, though? I feel like cornerback is the worst. less physical punishment.

That's true. Like, if you ever met a 40-year-old NFL offensive linemen and their fingers are going in different directions? That's very true. Let me tell you something. The closer you get to football, the more you realize there was drawbacks to a heck of a lot of it. It's a violent sport.

All right. My number three is Rogers for kind of the reason that we've outlined earlier. I think he's the second best quarterback in football. Oh, I wanted to ask both of you guys, who's the second best cornerback in football after Ramsey, if you guys have that consensus? Tradavius White or Jair Alexander. I'd go Jair.

I thought it was Jair until I saw he was number 41 on the NFL networks list and now I'm scrambling. Stefan Gilmore in that conversation and then Marlon Humphrey also and Marlon's another one where like Marlon's probably better than we realized but because the way that Ravens defense plays

they're like Marlon solve all of our problems and it's like okay this is a very third of this guy. He hasn't had seen. he helps since like 2017. It's so unfair. All right. So, yeah, Rogers. I mean, like,

I've spoken to knowledge of you in the last couple weeks on this podcast about Rogers. I mean, I think that it's this, when you watch him practice, it's the simple thing. It's funny because an NFL head coach had asked me on my tour, they were like, who's the best person, team, whatever to watch in a training camp?

And I always say Rogers, because of how easy he makes everything look. And I've talked a lot about the sort of how he, experiments, stuff like that, and what quarterbacks could take away. But I was there the day of the viral net video. If you guys remember what I'm talking about, so there's a small little net, he was 40 yards

out, and he kind of just threw a perfect pass into it. And there are a million things that impressed me when he's running 7-on-7s or whatever, or even 11-on-11s, whatever. But that throw to me, although I was impressed, I was really impressed when I saw

the other two quarterbacks to it, Jordan Love and Kirk Banker. Because they did what 99.9% of quarterbacks would do, and they just hit the wooden post under the net. Because that's what happens, because you're 40 yards out. And it was a thud and it was efficient. And to have the actual touch from 40 yards out to get it in that narrow of a hole, it is actually unbelievable.

It was one of those things that was more impressive live to see. I loved it. There's trillion things I could say about Rogers as a player, but most recently that's what sticks in my mind. He is super naturally gifted at playing the quarterback position. So Aaron Rogers. Number two, Stephen. I'm going to go with Patrick Mahomes.

I'm going to save number one for another person, but Patrick Mahomes, do I have to explain why I think Patrick Mahomes is a very good quarterback in number two on this list? Well, no, you don't. You don't. You don't. What I'd like to do is get everybody's top two here. And then we'll dictate the merits of those two guys.

Ben, number two. The home's two, Donald won. Okay. So help me out here because I had that flip. And that's a positional value thing. I'm just an idiot and I just value quarterbacks more than defensive Wyman. Just from a value standpoint, how they can affect the game, how they can affect a franchise, how they can affect a league and an era and all that stuff.

When you were determining this, Ruiz, you started where? Well, actually, before the podcast, I actually had Bohm's first, and I just switched it up just to change things up for the podcast for the benefit of you guys. I don't believe anything I'm going to say. Great, perfect. Welcome to the round. But if you would have asked me to list the best five players in NFL history, I think Aaron Donald has an argument for being the best player ever. The best player we've ever seen, if you disregard.

Best player ever, not defensive lineman, best player ever. Disregarding positional value, of course. Then that list is just 10-quarter defense. Justin Tucker just coming in like the Kool-Aid man. All right. And the reason why I say, and it happened last year when I started to think this, and it's because that defense and what they asked of him was so different from what they were asking of him before Staley came aboard.

Like he was playing like a four-eye, which is you don't rush from that, and he was still getting past rush productivity. And he was the key to their run defense. which allowed them to be so, to spend so many resources on the back end where they could play too high coverages every game. And I think it's Donald. Like he was the key to that.

And he could do that stuff, defend the run while still offering pass rush. And there are, I can't think of any other player in recent history that has been able to do that, besides maybe peak JJ Watt. Yeah, so the peak J.J. Watt, conversation is always fun because, like,

Watt was keeping pace with Donald's production there for a while. And then obviously injuries got in, but that's one of my favorite. NFL what ifs. The simple reality for Donald is, yes, like, okay, changing league, passing the ball a lot more, different rules, whatever. There's one interior rusher in history

who has over 100 career sacks. It's John Randall. Aaron Donald has played since 2014, so he's played seven seasons. He has 85 and a half. He's not 30 yet. He's going to play another six seasons, easy, probably more,

especially if he's able to stay healthy, which he has shown an unbelievable ability. to stay healthy at a very violent, aggressive position. He's going to finish top four on the all-time sack list, I think it is, like top five if he stays at his current pace, from the interior, he's just a different cat. Like, it's just not, there aren't human ideas that can encapsulate how much better he is

at the most important thing you can do at his position, sack the passer, than everybody else who's played his position. Right? And that's the thing is, like, we think, because, oh, he's a defense line, he's really good stacking. You have to not do that. You have to remember that he is an interior pass rusher. It is not supposed to look like this.

This was inconceivable before Donald. And during Donald, it's still barely wrap your head aroundable, that he's this good, this consistently, at his size, too. Like, he's just not how it's supposed to look in any capacity. To me, like, Mahomes is mind bending and Donald is mind blowing, right? At least I still have some understanding of the game of football intact when I watch Patrick Mahomes, whereas Donald just blows your preconceived notions of the game

and a position out of the water. I think he's not to play in the league. I feel like the equivalent is if the Ravens did start letting Justin Tucker cook and he started banging 70-yard field goals every week. Like that's what Aaron Donald is doing. I'll be honest, I can't track this Justin Tucker metaphor far enough to be able to say I agree with that or not. I've actually lost the threat on that particular notion.

If you were Brett Beach, Stephen Ruiz, sitting around watching Formula One and you got a call from Lessneed that said Aaron Donald for Patrick Mahomes what would you need what would you need would you would you would you

what has that conversation go? I hang up but that's a positional value question right I just wanted to make sure that we were on the same page no I hang up immediately and I block his and I block West Neat quite frankly

although if you need draft picks, that's the place to go. So I would have. I leak that nonsense immediately, just because I want to see what happens. I just wanted to make sure, I just wanted to make sure, as we talk about him being the best player ever

and stuff, I just wanted to make sure that there was still a huge gap there. Great. All right. So I want to talk about Mahomes here for a second, because he's my number one guy. Well, it's interesting to me. So I asked someone who knows things yesterday

because we had so much, there's so much rookie quarterback talk right now. and it's, oh, this guy's making mistakes. This guy looks locked in. This guy's ready for it. This guy shouldn't be playing behind twos. And I asked somebody who knows things. They said, what would have happened if there was no Alex Smith?

And Mahomes had the spot it on him and had to start week one in 2017. And this person said, so it was obvious that he was awesome. There were just more peaks in valleys his looking year. And but from day one, training camp, everybody could sense that there was something special. There just would have been more mistakes. And I think we never saw the fully formed rookie Mahomes because you weren't watching practice and watching training camp.

By the way, by the way, we would have had a completely different viewpoint of even his training camp practice. Nobody's even paying attention to his training camp practices because he was running with the twos because Alex Smith was the starter and that team had real expectations and all that stuff. And so it's interesting to me because we didn't get to see rookie Patrick Mahomes. This person was, we were biescing about this. But we don't really understand that every quarterback makes, make some mistakes.

And there are peaks and valleys for everybody and there's variance for everybody. We just, we got to see second year, Mahomes, and he was a monster. Okay. That's just a separate nugget. Now, Mahomes will evolve throughout his career in a way that excites me. Obviously, we've talked about the fact that I visited with him 10 days ago, some like that. And he said that he's studying Roger's tape because he wants to take the same. evolution that Rogers had in his career where he was standing more in the pocket.

He wasn't bailing out as soon as he felt any pressure or didn't feel any pressure. He was very open. Mahomes was about the fact he would bail from clean pockets in the Super Bowl, watching Brady tape, watching a little bit of Josh Allen tape. And so for me, I think that he's the best player in football now. But I also feel that there are going to be changes throughout his career that are really special. And I think he's a smart guy who's obsessed with getting better. And I also think that he has the chance to be one.

one of the best players who's ever played the game. So that's my number one. I think we're going to see like a Jordan-esque evolution of his game where like that early Jordan was just like a physical like freight train that could just bulldoze through anything. And that's what we're seeing. We're seeing that era with Mahomes. But he's going to learn those parts of the game.

You can already see it coming to him throughout the first three years, four years of his career. And like in three years, it's going to be like, unless some other quarter, maybe Trevor Lawrence is able to keep pace with him a little bit, it's going to be like this guy, like we're talking about Donald, where he's just in his own league and we can't compare him to anyone else. He's compared against himself.

That's what's going to happen. That's what's going to happen. Ben, you had Mahomes as your number two. Why the boy in disrespect? Yeah, so it's the, it's honestly a similar case for like what I talked about with Ramsey where like mistakes are maximized and they're visible. because a quarterback has such a clear effect on every single play, every single time, there's no way to be perfect, right?

There's, like, I think we'd like to think about Mahomes' career arc is like, all right, and like, here's all the good stuff he does, here's the bad stuff he does, and just over time he's going to whittle away the bad stuff, and only the good stuff will be left. And because, you know, defenses are good and they have talented players and because offense isn't perfect, whatever, there's no way to do that. you're going to have to have some bad stuff. You're going to have to have some bad tendencies,

some things that don't look as good in analytics or in charting or on film or whatever it is. There's the conception of like the three-legged stool of quarterbacking, which is like yards per attempt, interception percentage, and sack percentage. One of them's got to be there. You either got to be a low yards per attempt, a high interception or a high sack guy.

You cannot be none of the three. Because that dictates play style. Are you holding onto the ball? Yes or no. And if you're holding onto it, you're taking sack, or you throwing interceptions? So what are you doing here that is your weak point? And with Mahomes, it's sacks.

And so he is amazing. He's best quarterback in the league. He's Patrick Mahomes, crazy. But he's always going to take a few more sacks than you want. And because that's just the price you pay for the way he plays and the miracles that he creates on the field. And so there is imperfection there. And because he plays quarterback such a visible position,

there's no way of glossing over it or skipping over it or missing it. does exist. He's still everything you want in the entire world in a bag of chips. But because it's quarterback, there has to be that one thing. Does it change your notion of the chiefs that they just cut Taco Charlton? Okay.

I just want to go back to when I didn't have the Chiefs as a top five roster because Taco Charlton was like, I'm going to be an important player for them. He has no edge depth. He's been cut. Ruiz, I want to get you out on this because I want to go back to the trade discussion. Who's the best quarterback you would trade for Aaron Donald?

straight up I have an obvious answer but that has to do with other things I would say that's tough I would say you put me on the spot here I would say

I was about to say Lamar Jackson but I think a tear below that was actually what I was going to ask that was actually the player I was going to I'd say Baker Mayfield Baker Mayfield for End Donald so wait where's Baker for you on your list

like in terms of quarterbacks just below Camden just below Camden I would say like 10 to 15 that range that you know Derek Carr range yeah that's the first game that potts on my was Derek Carr

it might be Derek Carr yeah yeah and then I got it up to like I think Tannahill I think that you keep actually no it's probably like Ryan Stafford that's probably where it is it's like eight or nine for me I probably feel comfortable trading

Matt Ryan for Aaron Donald right now wait you said Ryan Stafford then he said Matt Ryan Like, are you combining Matt Sackard? Sorry. Oh, sorry, sorry. I was thinking about the, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think that's right.

Well, the good news is we ended on just a completely unrealistic hypothetical, which is the point of this show. Stephen Ruiz making, even though this is your second time in this show, it's your ringer staff debut. We're excited to have you. Ben Solak still working on an actual replacement for you. But I think we'll be back. I think he'll be back later.

in the week. I did not hear from Nora, unfortunately. So, uh, we're going to have some turnpike talk on Thursday. But cutting of talk with Charlton was not big enough news to warrant Nora's in play.

Or maybe it was too big and it kind of devastated her. She's chasing it, actually. Yeah, we got her on a flight to Kansas City to, to do a TikTok on that. Oh, by the way, TikTok's a journalism phrase for like doing a deep dive story and not the app. So when I say TikTok there,

I didn't mean like an actual like Charlie Dearamelo video. So that's it. Don't know who you just referenced. Neither do I. Probably pronounced it incorrectly. All right. Now this is actually the best way to end it is have me having no idea what I'm talking about. This has been the Rangel NFL show on the Ringer Podcast Network.

Thank you to Stefan Anderson for his production help and Arjuna Ramqqqa. Back from his birthday, birthday lost weekend, I'm assuming. Next up on this feed is us later. in the week. Some combination of us will be back. And we're getting close to this season. See you then. Bye.