The Ringer NFL Show - Top Five Rosters Going Into the 2021 Season

Episode Date: August 10, 2021

Kevin and Nora are joined by Benjamin Solak to give their thoughts on some of the big money extensions handed out around the league (4:00). Then they each list their top five rosters in the NFL (24:33). Then each of them pick which roster improved the most, improved the least, and has the most potential (56:03). Hosts: Kevin Clark and Nora Princiotti Guest: Benjamin Solak Production Assistant: Isaiah Blakely Additional Production Supervision: Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On Fairway Rowland, Joe House and Nathan Hubbard are joined by a rotating cast of Ringer and Golf World personalities to break down the latest in golf headlines and news. They also delve into the world of golf gambling. Check out Fairway Rowland on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. It is the Ringar NFL show. Part of the Ringar Podcast Network. I am Kevin Clark. joined today by Benjamin's the whole life. Benjamin, what's going on? Nothing really, man.

Thanks for having me back. I wasn't sure if I'd make it back after round one. Glad that I'm here. Well, we tried to find somebody else, but, you know. Unfortunately. Availability is the best ability. Nora Prince, Idi also joining us a little under the weather.

Cannot keep up on this two-wedding pace here. Yeah, I really, really did a number on me. I thought, I really did think I was going to have to roll in here and say, guys, my apologies if my voice is a little scratchy this episode. I'm going to hang in there. It's going to be fine.

I had too much fun at a wedding this weekend. And I sang too many songs. and I wooed at too many speeches and events. You didn't know how to pace yourself. Now I think I just have your run-of-the-mill sore throat. Oh, that's disappointing. Benjamin Solex, fire alarm just went off. Is that because of the takes?

Do they see your Google Doc open? Preemptive podcast face would be something else. The fire alarm could predict it. No, we have no idea what happened. But it's funny, I told my wife Meredith, I was like, all right, I got my new podcast equipment. I don't know how sensitive it is. The second time they're going to fail show.

She keeps the dog quiet. It's going to be great. We were like three seconds from starting. And my fire alarm goes off. And so I walk out of my office and she's just outside, throwing stuff at it, ripping the battery pack off, doing everything she can to kill it as quickly as possible. That's delightful. Yep.

That's how it goes. Just pelting the fire alarm. Yeah, absolutely. Which we've set that fire alarm off so many times and absolutely nothing of consequences ever happened. Nobody's ever come and asked us what's going on. It's just fire alarm, let's everybody know, just stay inside and do nothing. Sounds like Calam. I do think fire alarms might be a sham.

Is that true? No, that's probably something that could be like mildly, legally actionable for me to say on a podcast. But it just seems like usually when they go off, it's not a big deal. I remember in grade school when they were like, don't pull the fire alarm. And then they were like, if you do, it's going to let's going to like squirt ink on your hands. So we know you're the one who did it. I was like, ah, I just want to do it more. Really see if that's true.

That feels like a lie. Which AFC playoff team had the alarm pulled in their Foxborough area hotel the night before a playoff game? Might have been the Texans a few years back? It was, I believe so, yeah. I remember that. I know what that hotel is, and the fire alarm has gone off for me as well. I don't think this is a Patriot's conspiracy. No, they arrested a guy.

It was like a guy named Sully. He did it on purpose. Well, I mean, that's why it was it a Patriots? It's not really a conspiracy. It was a Patriots. It was Steelers. Patriots, which... Steelers Patriots?

Steelers Patriots. Yeah. I feel like Steelers is a little bit more excusable. If you felt like you needed a competitive advantage over the Texans, man, like... Was the guy actually named Sully? Maybe, maybe not. It was... Was that just an insult to a characteristic of... I have no Sully on my Google results.

So, Laura, just telling us lies to open the podcast. I'm going with Sully. I was not invited back to a private school in Orlando, in large part because I was falsely accused of pulling a fire alarm. falsely. Falsely. It was 100% false.

That's not my style. That is not my style. I love it. What is your style? Just, you know, more bits, I would say. More bits, not fire alarms. All right. I'm in Wentzville, Missouri.

A city I've never been in. It's like 50 miles west of St. Louis. It's a new thing. We're going to do two things today. We're going to react to the news. And we're also going to go through the best roster in the NFL. We have some subcategories. Really, really cool discussion coming up.

But we'll start with, Josh Allen and his extension, $258 million, six-year deal, $150 million guaranteed biggest guarantee in history. Ben Stillach, when you first heard about it, you thought what? I understand why they did it and they got it done now. I think that that's always the best move. I remember when the Eagles got the Wendst deal done before golf and before Dak, it was like, us is a good decision. And then obviously, you know, that contract didn't hold up, nor did really the golf contract hold up.

And then Prescott situation was prolonged. Nor did either of those players. Yeah, right. It's not the, buddy, buddy, it's not the contract that didn't hold out. Right. The wisdom of those decisions, we'll put it. Getting the contracts done early, not necessarily solving the problem. It is interesting.

It's a little bit of a paradox because he's, right, he's making more guaranteed money within the first, what, like four or five years of the deal than Mahomes is, right? And if you told me before, you know, after Mahom signed his deal, all right, like, who should be the first guy to break this? I beg nobody, absolutely nobody. You shouldn't give anybody more guaranteed money than the home's got. But then, if you told me one guy had to get it, it's probably Allen. Because he's the only dude was a chance of getting to that level that Mahom's at.

I don't think he will. But he's the only guy. So I understand why they did it. I always feel there's a little bit of danger when a GM makes a pick, like the Allen picker, makes a move that's viewed as risky. And then it pans out. And then he kind of pats himself on the back with the contract. Like, oh, Alan's so good.

Look at this deal. And it's like, I'm not sure if giving him that much money to contend with the Mahomes contract on Allen's timeline was necessary. So as always, extend your good quarterbacks. But it was one year and it is Mahomes money. And that is, that's a little bit too much. That's a little too rich for my blood. It is a little bit misleading the guarantees just because Mahomes has those rolling

guarantees that don't technically like sealed with a kiss guarantee it. but all but do that in a way where he should probably get more effectively guaranteed than Josh does with this deal. But the interesting thing to me is that, okay, so it's six years. And some of those deals that you just mentioned, Goff, Wentz, and then Doc Prescott, those were four-year deals, which is interesting because you would think that most agents would look at that and say, okay, four years is a great thing to use this precedent to negotiate off of. because then you get another bite at the apple. Like, I think that Dak Prescott, when it's all said and done, will probably make more money than Patrick Mahomes. I think when you're talking about these kinds of sums of money,

at a certain point, everybody's fine. And if Patrick Mahomes would rather be locked up for 10 years and have that kind of certainty, great. It's a great deal. But the shorter term, I think there has been typically a little bit of a changing of mindset where the shorter deals are viewed as, an opportunity to get another bite and ultimately make more in the long run. Six years, obviously it's not 10, but it's pretty long, which you can see it both ways, right?

They are basing this off of one year of high level performance from Josh Allen. So there's risk in that. That said, if Allen does not seriously, seriously regress, which I do not believe he will, this is going to be one of those contracts that in a few years looks like a bargain, even though it has the sticker shock and is kind of in the Mahomes territory to begin with. And in those few years, when it already sort of looks like a bargain, it's going to have a few years left, which is the differentiator between, I mean, look, with Goff and Wenz, they were thrilled those deals weren't longer than four years.

The teams were by the end of them. But what I find even more interesting than the dollar figure, is the term length of it. Because I think that's where you see a little bit more differentiation between how teams view these players. It's funny. You mentioned the bargain part of it. So three years ago sitting in Atlanta and I started in Thomas de Mittroff,

and we were talking about the Matt Ryan contract that had just been struck. And he had just become the first quarterback to get 30 in a season in the average deal. And I had said, hey, you know, this might end up looking a bargain. two years from now. And he said, how long? And he was joking because it wasn't going to be two years. It was almost immediately. And now $30 million, which is Matt Ryan's number, is 10th in the NFL.

Ryan Tannahill is at 29.5. Grappalo's at 27.5. Stafford's 27, whatever. But Cousins is above that. Wens is above that. Gough is above that. Deshaun Watson is above that. Dak. Now Josh Allen, now Mahomes. And this is the cost of doing business with any, with any reasonably good quarterback. We're going to that with Baker here. We're definitely going to see that with Lamar. It puts more pressure on Brandon Bean and, you know, he has built a really good roster. We're about to get to that in a second. But I talked about this last week and he said that they started planning for this extension at the end of 2018 when they took $60 million in dead cap money that year. They're paying all Marcel Darius and all these people not to pay for them. And they knew, okay, we're going to start building.

We're going to have mid-level veterans. We're going to build the line. We're going to keep them upright next year we're going to get them some weapons. Stefan Diggs level elite weapons. And then they're going to start building for the extension. And I think that as the cap rises, there are going to be some insane numbers. And every contrast is going to be tradable in the event of disaster. I'm talking about for any of these quarterbacks. I mean, it was pricey to get out of the golf deal, but they got out of it.

The one's deal had barely kicked in. And it mostly hadn't kicked in. They got out of it. So with the cap, with the fact that people just have desperation for quarterback, I'm starting to wonder if there's any such thing as an awful quarterback contract when it comes to elite quarterbacks. Maybe I'm crazy. Yeah.

I think for me, it's that sensation of, you know, it is this six-year deal, right? It's this extended deal, right? Like for SpotRack has the earliest out after five years after 2025, right? Like that longer time frame implies a level of security and the consistency of Josh Allen's play that is difficult for me to get my head around, especially because, we make that point, which is, you know, at getting this done now means it'll look like a bargain later. And that's been the case of pretty much every major quarterback extension, especially when you're the first from a class. And like, we said that about whence. And then like two years later,

it's, we got to get out of this deal. Right. And that's the thing is like, because of Allen's in my, like, for me, my perceived volatility of Allen, I wouldn't have expected such a long runway, such such assurances over such a time frame because to me he's he's not I'm not that confident that this stays that steady for that long. That is kind of a Brandon Bean calling card though because look when you're predicting the future nobody's ever working with perfect information but when they did Dion Dawkins they beat out Ronnie Stanley and Garrett Bulls so they did that deal before the market resets with other players at the position same thing with Tradavius White vis-vis Marlon Humphrey and Dylan Ramsey,

they have a habit there and a philosophy there that, you know what? Yeah, you got to take, they're not leaps of faith, they're informed decisions. Right. But you have to accept the uncertainty because wholesale doing these things on the early side

ends up better for the team in the long run. With the comfort level that teams have, taking on dead cap money, the Eagles are paying $33.8 million dollars. Yeah, they are. money for Rents. The Rams are basically made, built a franchise around being totally fine, taking on dead money. I just think that, that NFL teams are comfortable with that.

That's what I mean when I say there's no such a thing as an awful disastrous contract because teams will just take the hit. The Eagles were not going to win anything anyway this year. So I don't think, listen, the Wentz contract as a decision was bad, but it didn't ruin the Eagles franchise. Right. That's the thing is right. If Allen ends up dropping right back down to 2018 levels, it's like Nora said, probably not going to happen, everything's going to happen. Bills are screwed either way. Doesn't matter if you're out, 40 million dollars or not. You know, you're still at the same

spot, which is that we don't have the quarterback that we thought we did. And now we have to reassess that. So yeah, it's a big healthy deal. But listen, I mean, like, if Alan's going to be successful, it's going to be in Buffalo with the, with the circumstances that are there around him and then with the belief, right, with the momentum that they have, which, you know, to what degree momentum is real, but they've got momentum there, right? They feel like they got it right. And so I'm not surprised I wanted to make that big of a commitment. My only thought on this is the last thing I'll say before we get to the other contract.

But I just, the rules have changed and they have changed over the last decade about just how we view elite franchise quarterbacks. And the teams that have tried to outsmart themselves or outsmart the market have lost. That means the Dallas Cowboys. That means the football team with Kirk Cousins, even though obviously that's a different situation. both of those teams were saying, hey, we're actually smarter than the market. And I think with quarter, I just think this is, this is it. This is the costing business very much like real estate. Darius Leonard, five years, $99 million.

Nora, what do you think? Well, so I think we're also going to talk about Fred Warner. And the thing that I think is interesting when you talk about where the market is for linebackers, is that what we're seeing is that's a really tough position to play right now, right? Like all of these smart offensive coordinators, offensive-minded head coaches, they stay up until three o'clock in the morning every night, kind of thinking about how to screw with linebackers a lot, right? Like those are the guys that often you hear about, okay, this is a play design.

We're trying to create a mismatch. We're trying to get somebody who's a little bit flat-footed in coverage to screw up. What are those two guys have in common? They can both hold their own in coverage. So I think like the linebacker position is, is fair. fascinating to me right now. And especially with the sort of anyone in the group of sort of more hybrid safety, like that type of player, I think is facing some interesting conundrums in where the game has

gone. And I mean, look, for better for worse, I think what we're seeing in these deals is at least some degree of belief that these players can really hold up in the coverage game. And I think that's been then proven on the field. so it makes sense to me. Whether or not that continues, I think it's going to be a factor in how we view these deals long term.

But I think what I see in both of those moves is just kind of a differentiating at that position based on how good of a coverage player someone is. Ben Solek, Leonard and Warner. Yeah, I watched a lot of Darius Leonard today because I wanted to think about and maybe write about how that coverage responsibility affects how much linebackers are getting paid and going to get paid.

Because we have Tramaine Edmondton, Roquan Smith from the same class who are potentially after a fifth year option is getting big deals. Devin White and Devin Bush from 2019. We've got some big linebackers coming up. And Leonard gets away with it in coverage. Leonard does his job. Leonard's got his goods and his bads, right? That Matt Everflus, Tampa, two, cover two defense wants Darius Leonard to play eight yards off,

to deal with stuff in front of him to go let completion. tap and rally up and tackle. Does his job well. He has some issues with routes behind him, whatever. Fred Warner's a god, man. Like, Fred Warner just, it is the, the ask in the defense from San Francisco on Fred Warner is so much bigger in coverage than the ask from the Indianapolis defense on Darius Leonard. It doesn't mean Leonard doesn't have those skills.

There's times where he's, he's that pole runner in Tampa, too, and he's carrying a tight end, 30 yards down the field, and it looks awesome. But Fred Warner's just like, he's covering Markey's Brown. Like, he's covering golden tape. Like, it's just disgusting the stuff that they ask me do. And it's so much to that defense's benefit because, especially with not the best corner situation over the last couple of years, they're able to play that match quarters and have those safeties help over number two, help over number one, help those corners. Because Fred Warner could just take tight ends out of the equation. And if the innermost slot, the number three, that's Fred Warner's responsibility, you can take that guy too, which is absurd.

And so Warner is, to me, the best linebacker in the league. He's the best coverage backer in the league by a mile. Him and Bobby Wagner, it's the whole conversation. And what he offers to that defense in terms of helping make numbers better elsewhere, that warrants that $19 million per year. Whereas Darius Leonard, it's just he's good at what he does. It's just I'm not sure what he does is that valuable. And Leonard and Warner are the first two linebacker contracts

to be worth at least 10% in terms of APY of the current year's cap since 2002 with Ray Lewis. It's been 20 years since we saw a single linebacker be worth this much of the cap. And so we're, this market's kind of exploding a little bit. And I think with guys like Warner, it's warranted. With guys like Leonard, you get it. Once we start getting to like the Devin White conversation, it's going to become really interesting. Because if you're paying that guy that much money, it's going to cause you problems in past defense. I will say the guarantees on Warner are higher than with Leonard. I think it's 40 million guarantees. for Warner and low 30s for Leonard.

So there is a distinction there in while the total number on Leonard is higher, I think that's a little bit misleading, but, and probably reflective of everything that you just said, Ben. Kevin, I cut you off. I'm sorry. No, I was just going to say the APY and the cap percentage is a little bit strange this year just because the cap's not to explode, explode. And so for this year, you kind of have to throw that out a little bit because it'll be

200 pretty soon. It's, you know, it was 1 in 2. Now it's going to be 200 pretty soon. And then, I mean, good Lord, some of the numbers they have in 2024, 2025 are just ridiculous. And so, the league still doesn't know that. I mean, that was the thing, Brandon Bean, actually, and I talked about this last week, is he said,

basically said, we still don't know the numbers. And we're just guessing and we're just kind of flying blind a little bit. And then they're keeping in close contact with the league office, but nobody knows. And so that, to me, would scare me a little bit, but the bills obviously understand that, I, This is, they understand what happens when you have,

having a league quarterback and, and sort of how that's perceived. Anyway, I think these, these deals are both fine. I agree with you, Ben, the Fred Warner thing.

I mean, this is the wholesale change that everybody saw coming. He talked to defensive coordinators around the league, four or five, six years ago. They said that this, this was going to be it. It was just going to be athletic,

fast linebackers who could, who could play the lateral game, who could adjust him. That's what all, what it was in college. That's all it was in college. College and high school started developing these guys, the NFL was happy.

to have them. And this will be a league eventually of players where everyone is trying to have a Fred Warner, basically. And I think that's the athleticism at that position just exploded. Xavier and Howard is not demanding a trade anymore. They came to an agreement. Norprinciotti, this is good. Yeah.

It's rather impressive given the amount of time he had left on his deal. He just got money. He just kept complaining until they got money? I mean, It's kind of what happened, right? Don't knock it until you try it. To which we all aspire. 15-year-old dad is amazed.

Knock it until you try it is what I'll say about that particular gambit. And look, I think, so he can make up to 16, a little more than 16 million in 2021, I'm sure the dolphins are pleased to not be doing, they would much rather do some sort of, you know, bigger, more longer term restructure, monster deal. whatever in line with health and market value, which is apparently what they told him that they would do next February or March, which from the team perspective, either he's not coming off this monster year where he had 10 interceptions and 10 past breakups or they have more evidence that he's that top, top, top corner and totally worth it.

So I'm sure that's much more approachable from their perspective as opposed to doing that right now. but it's just interesting that I think all of his leverage came from how essential his position is in that defense. Because if not from there, where else did it come from? Because he had years left on the deal. And, you know, as 10-year-old Ben would be so impressed by. Yeah. All the guy did was just complain. They didn't work when I wanted to bigger allowance.

But it worked for Xavier Howard, man. We just shaved five years off of the age of which Ben was excited about. I don't think I had an allowance when I was 10. Maybe. I would not have been responsible with that money. That's for sure. Were you like a top shut down mandiband corner? Because that also feels like a big piece of this.

Okay, yeah, that's what I thought. I just wanted to make sure. This is booming. Ben, big question. But what does Avian Howard allow the dolphins to do on that defense? Play man everywhere. Oh, man. I mean, the thing is like, I don't know.

It's a nebulous idea, but like, players are better at like knowing how the league works a little bit. You know what I mean? With with increased like you have these like, like, you know, these tight end summits and the office of line summits and you just have like a lot more visibility on social. Like Xavier and Howard knows not only that he's a good corner, but that he's better than like a lot of other guys on other teams

because he watched their film and he's seen what they've gotten paid. And then also he knows that the dolphins. Or also on his team. Yeah. He kind of dunked on Byron Jones. The Byron Jones thing cannot be overstated. I wasn't going to straight flame Byron Jones. but also, yeah, like, Byron Jones gets a big extension,

and then Xavier and Howard produces like crazy. Now, you know, I'm sure Byron would tell Zavian, hey, like, maybe you got 10 picks because they were throwing the ball to you because they weren't throwing the ball over to me. But that's part of why, like, the Dolphins want to build this really good coverage unit, right? And Zavian Howard knows this and knows that he's integral to it.

The Dolphins defense is predicated on the idea of being able to play man coverage on the back end. No matter how they line up or who they line up with, we have the bodies to do it. If Zavian Howard says, I'm not doing this anymore. Not only do you now have worse cover guys, you have to change how your defense is going to work structurally, right? He's that integral. He's a cornerstone in that way. And so they want to play man on the back end. It's that way they can get funky with numbers in the

box. That's how Brian Flores does it. That's how Belichick did it in New England where Flores came from. And so Howard is a cornerstone to that team. And I do think that it is appropriate that he got that money. It is interesting though. Like his contract is still get outable in 2022. It's a little more dead money than you'd like to swallow. It's 9.5 million on a 14.4 million cap hit. So it's like about 60, 65 percent, which it's more than you usually see. But like if he doesn't play well or, you know, the relationship turns toxic again, this didn't increase the length of the commitment. It just put kind of more money in his pocket right away, which is what do you want? And I understand that because I think, Nora, you know this as well as anybody having been on a

beat, especially the Patriots. The smartest teams are well aware of the contract dynamics in locker rooms. And the amount of stories I've heard where one guy to position gets more than another and there's an absolute freak out in the locker room, it happens. It happens a lot. It happens a lot more than sort of on the record reporting happens. And so if you've got Xavier and Howard, and he's sitting there, he's unhappy with his contract, he was signed as six-year deal, so signed through 2024, even though, as Benjamin said, there's, there's out. There are, there are, I think it's worth the money to just make him happy and not have four years of him trying to undermine the franchise.

And not that he would do that. I'm just saying it's okay to just restructure, put a little cash in his pocket and let's move on. He's the best player on the team. And that's, I'm fine with that. And I think they are too, obviously. All right.

Anything else you guys want to talk about before we get to rosters? Any fire alarms, okay? Yeah. Well, I mean, like, I feel like there were no real hot things in the contract discussions. It's going to maybe be a hot takes in the roster discussion. So we'll check in then.

We're getting there. All right. We're doing three categories here. We're doing top five rosters. Easy. Then we're doing most improved least improved. And then the potential. The potential bucket.

Which really could go sort of off the rails there. Arjuna was like, what if people, he was like, what if people say like the chiefs or something? I'm like, well, then we will shame them, Arjuna. So let's just do the roster.

real quick. Let's go throughout 5 through 1, Norm Preciati, number 5. All right. So my number 5 roster, I'm very glad to be doing this this week, as opposed to a couple weeks ago, because it is the Green Bay Packers.

And obviously, this is a conversation that starts with Aunt Rogers, the quarterback for the Green Bay Packers. I don't know if you've heard. But when you look top to bottom at Green Bay, I think what is kind of emphasized to me is that the high-end talent on this roster is focused on the passing game on both sides of the ball. So that's Devante Adams on offense. But then Jair Alexander and Adrian Amos,

those are super high-end secondary players. There's not a thing that I think will come up in some of these conversations is, okay, how do you value high-end talent versus depth? There's some drop-off. We're going to get to that. Here, when you go from at cornerback, the number one, Alex, Alexander to Kevin King, although I think he got a little bit too bad of a wrap from the playoffs. Poor Kevin King. It's just, I just feel bad for the guy. I want to give him a hug. I really, it's kind of inevitable to bring it up because it's sort of a defining feature and

where you might poke holes on this roster or why it's not higher up in the top five. But I just want to give him a hung and I don't want to be mean. They drafted Eric Stokes, but obviously that's a tough transition and might not happen immediately. Another thing to watch, I think, is replacing Corey Lindley with Josh Myers at center. Yep. Because Aaron Rogers is not the type of quarterback. Like, for instance, I think Justin Herbert is really going to benefit from that swap because he's young and because a smart experience center can do a lot for quarterback. Aaron Rogers doesn't need that from the mental perspective, but still, that's an important position on the offensive line. I think as we get smarter about football, it's been more and more clear that has.

having a good center is a big deal. So we'll see, you know, how it all can come together. But I just think that when you start with a great quarterback and then really high-end talent working in the passing game on both sides of the ball, that's a pretty fast way to have a great roster. They also have Jenkins for depth as well on the offensive line. So, Ben, Packers, top five? Yeah, I do have the Packers in the top five.

I have the Packers at two. I don't know if that's, that's, that's, that's, too high. Okay. All right. So, so, so I take it

your weighing quarterback way heavier than Nora. No. Whoa. Okay. Roster's just awesome. Okay.

Now, the, yeah, so two players who to me are critical that I want to throw on a pile of good Packers players.

Number one is Darnell Savage. I agree with Nora. That secondary is built really well. I love Adrian Amos, love Jerry Alexander. Darnel Savage is

thinking good. Extremely physical safety. He was able to play. He's got a nickel body type, stock corner body type, able to play man cover, short zone, deep zone, all the good stuff. But then that guy's supposed to be bad in run defense and Savage is a shot out of the cannon. I mean, he arrives with bad intentions. He's a good quality technique tackler as well.

And so he gives you everything that you want in that weak side linebacker body, which is usually like 2.30 in can't cover. In this case, Savage can. So he's extremely important to being able to play in the nickel. They're able to play with three safeties. So him and then Rishon Gary, another player from that, from a couple years, I think he was the 2019 class. Yeah, the Bose class. Gary's gotten step by step better over the last couple of years. And that pick was criticized. It definitely should have been Brian Burns. But Gary is taking the path that people expected coming out of Michigan, a little bit of an underdeveloped athlete who is a very nice third russia for them and allows them to get funky on third down with NASCAR packages. You get the

Smith brothers and Rishon Gary on the field. That's a lot of power and a lot of speed all at the same time. The linebacker room is abysmal. Shout out Mike Patton. But everything else to me has depth. There's star talent pretty much everywhere. Aaron Jones, AJ Dillon, the depth of that backfield can't be understated. I've got concerns with Josh Myers and I've got concerns with linebacker. Besides that, to me, this is absolutely the star talent and then the depth on the roster. Simply delightful. Kenny Clark, we didn't, like, Kenny Clark's a good nose tackle. You just like kind of forget to mention him as the sixth most important player. It's a very, very good roster. I like Green Bay a lot. I have no quarterback waiting at all.

Something I think is going to be interesting. I mean, I don't know your guys's lists, but one thing that really stood out to me as I made mine that I think speaks to just sort of the state of the league, I have a feeling we're going to cite weaknesses at linebacker and in the running game on both sides of the ball a decent amount in this conversation. I know I will on my list. Obviously, we're not talking about weaknesses so much because we're talking about the best teams at football, but that was something that was really interesting to me. It was that not necessarily across the board, but for a lot of the teams that I put here,

those were kind of the places where it was like, okay, something's got to give. This is not where we have our highest end talent. Right. It's not where we spent our money in pre-agency or set our fix in the draft. So I have the Packers at three. And part of it was the high-level talent that we just talked about with.

And also I just feel like Aaron Rogers, I did quarterback weight in that regard. And I feel like they have a handful of players who are among the best of their positions, obviously. Well, that's Bacchiari, Devante Adams, Aaron Rogers. They all have the case to be number one, in fact. And if we're doing a different episode, I might rank those players, but that they do have the case.

Kenny Clark is obviously up there. Jaya Alexander is obviously up there. Obviously, Randall Cobb is still elite. Otherwise, Aaron Rogers wouldn't want him back. That was a joke, by the way. Pause for a blas. So, no, the Randall Cobb thing is. You want to try it again?

Kevin, maybe the smoke glass. I don't. No, I don't. I don't. I don't. I'm going to let it ride because the Randall Cobb thing is the cost of having Aaron Rogers back and that's worth it. Let me ask you a question. Let me ask you guys a question.

If Aaron Rogers had asked for all of those guys to come back, would it have been worth it? Like all the guys he mentioned, like Clay Matthews coming back, that whole crew. If he had to get like five of his buddies back on the team, would it have been worth it for the backers? Yes. And it would have been delightful content for us. I would have enjoyed it tremendously. If we just had to watch Marquez Velda Scantling behind Jake Cumbro and drills, like, what is this? They could have played the Cardinals, and it could have been like a 2014 All-Stars game.

It's been great. It would have been great. All right. So I'm with you, Ben. I like this team a lot. There's a reason they've made two straight Final Fours. And we'll probably do so again because I picked them to make the Super Bowl this year. All right.

Number five, Ben. All right. This is what I have the Buffalo Bills. which I wanted in my heart to have Buffalo higher, but the problem is they're just good everywhere. And there's still obviously a star talent on this team. Love Tredavius White. Thing the Tredavius White is underappreciated.

Tremaine Edmins as well. I think the Tremaine is a stud young player. And then obviously, Stefan Biggs at wide receiver. But when you look along like their offensive line, right? And you have guys like John Flesiano and Mitch Morris and Dionne Dawkins and Daryl Williams. They're all good. And the best part about that offensive line is people would bring up, in preparation for the 2020 season,

was the continuity. It's that they're all back and they're all together. Cody Ford's going to play a guard and like, oh, what a luxury and they have depth. And it is true. They just don't have, I think, like a stud

along the offensive line. On the defensive line, we brought him Mario Addison. He's with Jerry Hughes and we drafted Carlos Basham, we drafted Gregory Rousseau, AJ up and Selesia in the second round. Cool.

We have depth. We have like the same body types. You can play our big end roles. But there's no stud, right? And so for as much as I think that like Michael Hoyt and Jordan employer are a delightful safety duo and really help, you know, a defense that requires a lot of cerebral work, a lot of pre-snap recognition. Those guys are so, so, so important. They don't

hold a candle to like Juan Thorin Hill and Tyron Matthew or Adrian Emos and Darnel Savage because they don't have, in my opinion, the star ability that those other guys do. And so for a very, very, very good, deep roster, but just one that perhaps doesn't have the star punch, Buffalo comes in at a five for me. Yeah, and part of that I would say is by design. I also have Buffalo number five, solid everywhere and a team that can legitimately win Super Bowl, but they don't have that high end talent like we were saying where they have a bunch of guys who could be in the mix for the best of their positions. They do a quarterback and obviously Stefan Diggs is unbelievable.

And I think that because of the team building philosophy they have where they went out and they got solid guys like Mitch Morris like John Feliciano, that is a part of that is by design. They solve their problems with those mid-level guys. Ed Oliver has not met expectations. I think that there are guys who I thought had a chance to be elite that just weren't. And instead, you're left with a really good team that won the Super Bowl. And I'm okay with that.

Nor are the bills. So I have them at four. And look, there's not, we're talking about razor thin differences here. I'm mostly in agreement with this. I just think that that wide receiver group in particular is, that's the proverbial basketball team, right? It's a real complimentary set. And I think if you take the Bill's own philosophy that was used to, you know, do this big deal with Josh Allen, that he's going to at least approximate his performance from last year going forward. That's just a, that's a, that's a

underratedly just strong across the board group for me. And I think when you look at the Bill's roster, even when you go to the defense, it's the same. It's the same. type of thing where, look, we've talked about it before a lot of times. Defense is a weak link thing. And you can certainly cite, okay, blindbackers here are not necessarily as good as deeper in the secondary. But overall, they're pretty solid. And at a certain point, I think if they keep investing resources in the pass rush,

they're going to get a little bit more because I think last year there were big questions about, okay, beyond Jerry Hughes, who's doing this? And at least they're trying, I think, is my feeling about that. And when there's solidness, solidity, I don't know what word I'm going for. When you're on that solid playing field at pretty much every other position across the board, there's a little bit more room to make up for that. So I think the bills get a little bit of a just a stability bump. But I could have gone either way with them in Green Bay here.

but I think ultimately it's just a really, really, really steady, solid roster. This should come as no surprise to anybody, but if you're on the top five rosters, you can win the Super Bowl. So it's a lot of small little differences here. And so don't get mad.

If you're on this top five list, you're doing pretty well. Number four, Ben. Baltimore Ravens, which, yeah, I don't know if they're fringe or whatever, but I look at the ravens And there's probably one too many players here who I have a particular affinity for that makes it definitely like a little bit of a biased ranking. But like I really like how Taya Spouser came around last year.

And I think when you let like Matt Juden walk and you let Yankee Giacan walk in free agency, it reflects the fact that Tias Bowser became a lot better. Meanwhile, you go and sign Justin Houston in like the middle of July free agency. And Justin Houston is top 10 in the league in Sachs for the last two years. You know, he's been available and effective. And he was there for one year for a four million. And that's like classic, you know, Eric the cost, Ozzy Newsom, just good management bringing those veterans to do that work. So Edge, which I think was the biggest problem in a lot of people's eyes for the Ravens, to me, with the faith I have in Bowser and then my appreciation for Houston's kind of late career consistency, to me isn't too big of a problem.

So then you go to the rest of this defense. You see the best corner room in the NFL, in my opinion. A solid safety group in Chuck Clark and Deshaun Elliott. Linebacker, I think your combined improvement of Patrick Queen along year one, plus Malik Harrison, who, who, who, who, I think was impressive as well as a rookie and ever-steady LJ Fort veteran. I think you're fine at linebacker. And this defense is going to be a top three, top four defense again. The additions at wide receiver and some of the returns at offensive line

mean that if we get those problems short up, then yeah, the Raven should be making a deep playoff run with their non, with their playoff demons kind of excused. And so Kevin Zeiler, I know, Alejandro Villanoeva, Ronnie Stanley back. Offense line should be better. I love Rashad Bateman. I love Tyler Wallace in the draft. Like there's a lot of my guys here.

But for me, this is legitimately a top five roster. All right. Well, I actually want to debate the Ravens, but I want to see the rest of your list before we get there because there's going to be a couple of different things within there. My number four is the Cleveland Browns. Are they on your list? They are.

Okay. So I love this team and I love the way that Andrew Barry has problem solved over the past couple of years. I think that so obviously their problem last year was a secondary. And part of that was Grant Delpit being out for, for the season with the Achilles. And I think that they, the way they went out and identified,

obviously John Johnson, obviously getting Greg Newsom in the draft, getting Greg Grant Albert back, I think there'll be no problem there. You look up front, Miles Garrett, Gidevi and Clowning is having a strange, a suspiciously good camp and I'm,

I'm worried I'm going to buy into Gedevian Clowny. I'm not there yet. I'm just war. I'm just, I'm inching towards. You're on notice. I'm on notice for maybe saying something positive. You can join me.

You're there? I'm inching towards maybe saying something causative. Dedevian is a very useful player, despite his counting stats, which are not as good. But he's a great player to have when you're wrong. Let me ask you a question. For his money and all that, the way his career turned out was good,

great, good for him. Would we think of him, you and I and Nora, would we think of him better if he did not have the conversation in the hype he had coming out? Yes, absolutely. Yeah. Like if he was a third round pick, we'd be like, oh, my God, Dewe and Clowny.

He underwhelmed relative to expectations substantially. It's not just even like first overall big expectation. It's this guy murdered a Michigan running back on live television. He's going to be the greatest player alive expectations. Is he a bust? I would argue no. Because, like I say, to me, he's got great utility. And he's a useful player.

Yeah, but absolutely, right. Yeah. If you took this guy at like 45, 50 overall, man, you're feeling great. We got it. Well done. He's going to get to a decade in the league, and a decade in the league is not lost. Yeah, there you go. Not even close. Not even close.

Obviously, can't say enough about the offensive line. Jack Conklin, great pickup last year. Wyatt Tower, Jeddrick Willis. I mean, like, Jay C. Trudder, just the way they put together was really good. O'Dell Beckham is talent. And I think that there are people in Cleveland who are really excited about him. And, you know, again, the quarterback question here and the quarterback waiting is what makes this a tricky thing.

I have the Packers third because Aaron Rogers is better quarterbacking Baker Mayfield. But this is a solid damn roster. And what I like about it is, and this is a point I've made a bunch of times. But listen, victory has many fathers, orphans a defeat, right? And when you're putting together this roster with so many different GM, so many different stops and starts, a guy like Andrew Barry can go out and problem solve is so important because he's going to be able to identify. They're not going to have those holes. We, as the ringer overhyped that team a couple years ago that had a terrible offensive line,

that all of these holes we overlooked because they had out of Odell and Baker and Miles Garrett and all that stuff. And the Browns now, the Browns under Andrew Berry are going to operate as a solid franchise forever with the talent that they got when they were essentially processed. And I think that that's really, really important. Those guys can stay healthy and Andrew Barry can keep making the right moves to plug holes year after year. That is the basis for a legitimate Super Bowl contender eventually. neither Ben nor I was on staff for Browns Week. Don't drag us into this. I said we is the ringer.

Now, let me tell you something. Let me tell you something right now. I would have participated uproariously at Browns week when I was around, but I get to, you know, act as if not. Our hands are clean. I would also say that when you joined the ringer, all of our previous mistakes are pinned on you as well. We're all in this together.

I don't know if you missed the part of orientation where we were totally explicitly to hype up the Browns there, Nora. But that's critical part of the job. That's what I was told last week. It's the first question you're asked is, where were you in during Brown's week? Were you supporting it or not? Whose side were you on?

Whose side were you on? There is a line in the sand. I believed in Freddy Kitchens. I was there. Freddie Kitchens ability. I just want to, I don't want to spend too much time. Guys, are we about to do a Freddie Kitchens segment?

No, no, no. I'm going to pull the fire alarm. I once asked Freddie Kitchens, kind of a question that was a little bit philosophical. and I cannot I cannot overstate how much he had no idea

what I was talking about just no idea didn't want to put any thought into it and he was like yeah I don't know man and I can never tell if that was just him just not want to answer

my question or he just legitimately didn't know what I was talking about but a little boat I think what's that scene in the West Wing where the other guy who's running for president

is like crime boy I don't know yeah that's what I decided to beat you yeah are you guys both are you guys both West Wing people? Yeah.

Usually I don't tell people that, but I, yeah. My dad, when that show went on Netflix, my dad who was like at this point, like, what is Netflix? Was like, this is the greatest thing ever. We're watching the whole show. And so, yeah, absolutely. Wow, Ben, do I relate to that content? Yeah. Ben, when did you watch West Wing?

Like, a couple years ago? No. Probably in like, like, probably when I was like in high school, probably like ninth grade. Okay. Same. Also with my dad. Never, never seen an episode. Likewise, not my style.

To go back to that line. not my style. Yeah. Too busy writing Browns Week content. Deadwood. Deadwood. All right. Phenomenal.

We like the Browns. Ben, where are the Browns for you? Browns are three. So I'm five, Buffalo, four, Baltimore, three, Cleveland, two, Green Bay,

one yet unannounced, but I think one is pretty obvious. Don't do it. Don't do it. Is it the Texans? Yeah, buddy. Big Pierre Lewis fan over here. Nora, number three.

Also the Browns. So really solid roster. And I think we don't need to keep going over. Runs through great offensive line. Great running game. Good scheme. Hope for a little something extra of Baker and Odell, like, you know,

somehow find a way to make magic together and it's lovely. What's really interesting to me is that if you look at last season, I think one of the biggest weaknesses for them was that the middle of the field was just squishy. You know, it was like a nice, if you were in offense and you're playing the Browns, that's like a nice friendly place to lay your head or rack up some yards. And what I think is fascinating about how they sort of addressed that is that they weren't really working on their linebackers.

What they did was add extensively to the secondary. And I think both like in particular Troy Hill and John Johnson, like those are really, really, really love those moves. They're going to have more defensive backs on the field more of the time next season. So they can have some of those linebackers who are screwing up. Those guys can come off the field. So it's just a really interesting example, I think, of smart team building and being able to look at, okay, where were the weaknesses and what are the different ways of addressing them? Like, there's not one set way to plug a hole. And I think the Brown's building that way is really, really exciting.

Hopefully, I think there is still, like, you could squeeze a little more water out of the cloth on offense, certainly if Baker picks up where he left off last season. and maybe if they can get that connection with O'Dell Beckham, who's obviously very talented, working a little bit better. But really what I'm excited about here and why the Browns are three for me above teams with better quarterbacks, although part of that is just because I was not waiting for quarterback. It's because I'm more excited about their defense this season.

The defense is bad last year. But again, they will be better and they will be good. The Browns would be a legitimately good team this year. Okay. Number two, North Pinciotti. The Kansas City Chiefs. Yay. Wow. What muted fans there.

I was there today. I was there today. There's a lot of buzz. They were like, people were coming up to me and they were like, are we on Nora's list? Before we started recording, Kevin was, you know, just catching up. And I wanted to express a lot of excitement over something Kevin said. but as mentioned, dealing with either a little bit of a head cold or I sang too many songs,

no one's really sure. So I can't really raise my voice. I can't, podcast listeners, you were actually getting 100% for me right now. It cannot go up any further. So I just had to say, totally deadpan. Wow, I'm really happy for you, Kevin. And it sounded really insincere, but it wasn't.

And it was exactly like that woo that Kevin just gave. But I guess he won't hurt his vocal cards. So that's a perfect. right there. Anyway, the Kansas City Chiefs, my number two roster, look, you know these players are good. I know these players are good. The offense is stupid. And they upgraded the

offensive line significantly, which was the biggest question. On offense, I think really, like, we can skip to the end of the regular season here. Does Kansas City have like a middling to decent defense? Because if they do, then I think they're going to win the

If they have a bottom-ish defense, then it's a little bit yish. Yep. We've seen that movie before. We have seen this movie before because it's just there is still that drop-off in the front seven really after Chris Jones. And it's not like, look, I love the safeties. But the secondary as a whole, it's not like mind-boggling. I think Legerius Sneed was like an incredible find for them and a jump from him. and a jump from him and a full season,

like that would make a huge difference. But what we're talking about here, right, is why is a roster that has Patrick Mahomes, Travis Kelsey, Tyree Kill, and a massively upgraded offensive line, not the number one roster on the list. And to me, it's just because the defense is not as good as the defense of the number one team.

And if they have some things break right there, then I'm not sure that'll matter. But I'm just not positive that all of those things will have. It's the most top heavy roster in football because they have the best quarterback in football and then they have Tariqil and they have Travis Kelsey who is one of the best who opens in football.

But part of that is because the top is like, like it weighs a million, bagillion pounds. Yeah, part of that, yeah. So they're my number two as well. It is a, it is extremely top heavy and that's fine because the top is amazing. and the offensive line problem solved Orlando Brown Joe Tunney going out and getting Creed Humphrey

Trace Smith who's a sixth rounder they like and I think that the defense there's obviously question marks I don't really think that the Frank Clark trade was was worth it I don't know who would think it was both from a salary and a and a pick perspective so it's not like Brett Beach has been flawless, but he's been really good. And the best thing you can say with Brett Veach, and the reason he's in top 5 GM is one of the best minds in league is when he has to help Patrick Mahomes, he does. And everybody who saw that Super Bowl, everybody realized what they needed.

And they went out and they fixed it very quickly and efficiently and to a point where I, I don't even think in my wildest expectations if you would show me this offensive line and you'd show me Orlando Brown, Joe Tooney, second round pick. I would have been stunned. Kyle Long, by the way, who's on Pupp and we'll see about him, but just going out and getting him. That aggressiveness is what you need, and it's an aggressive roster. And it's not going to be 1 through 22 amazing.

And it's going to get harder because they're going to be paying their quarterback a ton of money for the next 10 years, which is fine because he's worth it. And he's, you know, if you lose two or three players because of that, well, guess what? Patrick Mahomes is better than having two or three better players somewhere. else along the front seven or whatever, right? And so I'm, I'm okay with this roster. I like this roster.

It's number two because of the super duper stars on the roster. It just doesn't have the depth and it doesn't have the consistency of other, of other rosters. Yeah, Chiefs are outside my top five. Yeah, I, I realized that. And probably for. Yeah, I would have been like, yeah. I understand.

Every time I do my list, Nora makes a face at me. Like, are you counting? It's because I'm bad at math. And I was like, wait, something's wrong here. The team with Patrick Mahomes isn't on it. Patrick Mahomes is one 50 third of a roster. No, he's not. I think the cheats are going to win the Super Bowl,

but it's not because they have the best roster in the sport. Ben Soak, take us through why they're not a top five, even though Nora and I haven't top two. Right, yeah. So the Chiefs are 22nd defensive DVA last year. And Steve Spagnolo is a good defense coordinator. Steve Spagnolo is doing the things necessary to squeeze the blood out of the stone. But right now, the edge group is Frank Clark, who is like a name that you recognize,

but has not played well in multiple seasons. Alex Okophor, Taco Charlton, and Mike Banna. It's one of the worst groups in the league, and they didn't add anybody to it. The linebacker room right now is Anthony Hitchens, Willie Gay, and second round pick, Nick Bolton. They've been Neiman, who they liked and they got. him playing a little bit last year. They had Daniel Soornton. It's a box safety. But it was a bad unit last year. They lost Damien Wilson and they added Nick Bolton. So in general, it's a push. The corner room, which I agree, the Jerry Steen played very, very well last season. He did so for a

stretch, right? Eight games, you know, you always want to see it longer than that. He's a convert safety fourth round pick. So it wasn't necessarily the sort of guy that you expect to be sustained. But then behind that, it's Charverius Ward and Rashad Fenn. It's the same guys last year. It's not a good defensive roster. They get away with it because they can score points literally whenever they want. And a lot of that has to do with Patrick Mahomes, Travis Kelsey, Tyree Kill, who are three of the best players of their respective positions. And in the case of Patrick Mahomes is so far above everybody else at the most important

position that it erases so many problems. But the critical fourth component of that offensive juggernaut is Andy Reed, who is not part of this roster, right? And to me, if I'm looking at ranking the best rosters, I want to be able to put any coach in charge of this team and produce. And I am not confident that I can take Joe, judge and get the same offensive production out of this team as I would with Andy Reed at the helm. And then in regards to the offensive line improvements, very much love Joe Tuny.

I think Orlando Brown's a good ball player. I am very interested to see the difference in scheme and how he's going to be used, how often he got to run action block in Baltimore, to how often it's going to be straight drop back pass set with nobody on your shoulder with no inline, tight end. That is a massive difference for an offensive tackle. And so, I like Orlando Brown. I'm not fully sold that that transition goes super smoothly week one. And then I also,

like Kyle Long, like Lauren Duvinae Tariff is back. Sure. But if you are starting two rookies, Creed Humphrey and Trey Smith, I'm a little worried about your offensive line continuity. And we know Office of Line is a position where you want five strong. Not necessarily star players and then scrubs because defenses can attack that weak point.

And so to me, offense line clearly is better. But like, when I ranked that offensive line among some of the other top offensive lines, it didn't hold up to Green Bayes, it didn't hold up to Cleveland, it didn't hold up to Tampa's, and it was right around the Baltimore area. And so to me, I didn't give them that much of a boost for it. I think Kansas City is absolutely the premier Super Bowl contender, AFC or NFC, but I also don't think they have a top five roster in the league. I see that argument. I absolutely do. I think that we're, me, I'll just speak for myself, I'm waiting to superstars because I think that

there's, I think that the top heaviness and their superstars give them the ability to win any game. And I don't, I'm, I think that that matters. So yeah, that to me, what's them number two for me? All right. Number one, not a surprise for anybody. Nor are you want to kick us off? The Tampa Bay Buccaneers. It's a good team. Pretty solid, right? It's just ridiculous. Do you want to hear my logic? I mean, yes, I do. So they won the Super Bowl and then it's the same team.

Yeah, I'm with you so far. I'm there. Yeah, and then they brought everybody back. They brought everybody back. Everybody stayed. Same people that won the Super Bowl, going to try to win the Super Bowl again. End of podcast. Ben, take us through what you like about this roster.

I like the fact that, like, they just signed Levanti David for extremely reasonably. Like, that's the thing. as like Levanti coming back and Gras coming back and the Shaq Barrett deal. Like not only do they bring everybody back, like the guys on the team works contractually, right? And like they have never, the Buccaneers,

they have never pushed money into future years like this, but they did it to bring this whole team back. And so what you see now in terms of, you know, obviously we've talked about star talent. We've talked about like, you know, the strong and weak parts of the rosters. What you see on the Bucks roster in terms of depth is absolutely absurd.

Like if you want to talk about issues that they have, last year. Like, oh, Jason Pierre Paul's old and he's taking like 85% of the snaps. That's bad. I would just draft Joe Tryon in the first round. Like, that's great. You go, oh, VitaVe got injured last year. Well, we brought in Rakeem Nunes Roaches. He played well for us. And now he's just going to be a backup for us. Steve McClend is just going to be a backup for us. They're going to have Mike Edwards as their third safety. And he's a tremendous, not tremendous. He's a solid, like, nickel player, right? The, the depth that they have, like, many people have talked about how they were the healthiest team in the league last year. And that's not uncommon for deep

playoff runs. If you're able to stay healthy, you're going to be able to make it into January and into February. But the death that they have means that if they sustain more injury than they did last year, they're probably going to be able to deal with that except for like quarterback. You know, I mean, everywhere else, they have such numbers that it is to me impossible to argue another team over them as the top roster NFL. All right. So let's do our subcategories. We'll start with most improved, Nora Princiotti. Most improved for me. And so this, this, I'm interested to here just sort of like how you guys thought about these categories. It's just

really hard for me to say anybody but the Jacksonville Jaguars. Okay. So you've been on this for a while. What do you mean? You've been talking Jags for months. Norris been popping up the Jags? Let's go, baby. I'm actually a one, I am a one

woman Jags week. The Jags and the Falcons are the weird corners, Nora. When no one was thinking about the NFL in June, Nora was quietly doing the work, laying the groundwork for the Falcons and the Jaguars to have a southeastern revival. Okay, I don't really know what you're talking about in terms of the Jaguars, but I appreciate the callout that I love the Falcons with every fiber of my being. I don't really know why, but I do feel it in my soul.

So I appreciate that you acknowledge that, Kevin. That means a lot to me, actually. It's important. How many games are the Jaguars going to win this year? Oh, God. Like, I think they could win like eight. And a hush falls over the room. What just happened?

Is your fire alarm going off over Nora's take? I think they could win like eight games. If Trevor Lawrence is the stabilizing force that he has been billed to be, I really don't think that that is an unreasonable expectation, particularly because, look, like, there's some, there's some, there's some talent on this roster. I didn't want to do it. I didn't want to do it.

I really, really, really, really, really wanted to skip out on that take. But there is some real talent on this roster. Did you just keep repeating words until we were just going to take it away? Okay, here's the problem. You want to finish the take? You backed yourself to a take corner. All right, I just did the Jaguar's schedule on my hands and I got them to seven and ten. And that felt honest.

So A is not. Is not that crazy. Thank you. It's a bad division, right? They get the Texans twice, the Titans twice. They get the Texans twice. Yes. And they get the cold.

actually they don't get the Colts early. But they do get the Jets. They get the Bengals. Pretty bad, bad schedule. I can see it. The Cardinals are bad, but the Cardinals will beat the Jaguars. Okay, I can't believe,

I can't believe we're doing Jaguars schedule analysis. But come on. Come on. The receivers, the receivers are interesting. They're interesting. I'm not saying they're amazing. I'm saying they're interesting.

DJ Chark, Marvin Jones, Lavisca Chanel. I'm still, I am in the Levisca hive and, like, just won't leave it. So I had LeVester ranked above every receiver in that class day for CD-LAM. Shout out. Shout out. And Justin Jefferson.

You get it. Come on over to Jaguars Hypland. The water is nice. Here's my thing with most improved for the Jaguars being the most improved roster. They spent big money on Shaq Griffin. They spent big money on Rashon Jenkins. They drafted Tyson Campbell early. And I think that their secondary is about the same as it was.

Right. I like the fact that they went for it. I don't really love the players they brought in. And I'm also like they've got with the, their shopping, CJ Henderson. That pick seems like it's been difficult for the team to handle. And obviously it's a new,

a new regime as well. Meanwhile, like no additions to the defensive line whatsoever, despite the fact that Caleb on Jason didn't have the strongest rookie season. Like that defense was debilitatingly poor last year. And they were kind of like, well, what if Shaq Griffin?

It's like, man, I'm not sure that, that's going to get the job done. Okay. But remember when they drafted the quarterback that's like the greatest prospect since Andrew Luck? Shouldn't that count for something? It does. It certainly does.

I mean, like the only person they added to that wide receiver room is Marvin Jones. So how much weight are you putting into Marvin Jones right now? Just maybe a little too much. I do like Marvin Jones. He's a fun player. But a nice amount. This is funny because I would have guessed that you had the same team that I did.

It is. I have the Patriots. Yeah. I mean, they should go on a must improved list. Yeah, yeah. So for me, I was like, oh, man, Nora's going to snife this one. Can I ask you a philosophical question? I'll do my best not to Freddy Kitchens.

Okay. They're most improved. And I agree they're most improved. Okay. But isn't that a separate, and this is going to be crazy. Isn't that a separate question for whether or not the moves were good? Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Okay. All right. Would I have given, you know, Jalen Mills? four-year contract. It's kind of like a two-year-deal, but whatever, right? Would I've given both Hunter Henry and John O'Smith, you know, 12.5 or whatever it was, a million dollar per year deals?

No. With that said, they are better than the players you had previously, which is an improvement to your team. The loss of Joe Tuny stinks. Marcus Cannon gets straight at the Houston. With that said, even with the departure of Dante's Garnakia, it seems they have retained the ability to just like chuck offensive linemen into the starting lineup and have them be amazing.

I watched Michael and Wenu at the shrine game that year. And I was like, this guy could be something in a couple years. And Bill Belichick was like, what about in week one at a position he's never played? Right away. Yeah. How does that sound for you? What about now? Yeah, they'd put Justin Heron in a tackle.

And like, Justin Herod's film at Wake Forest, and one pretty. It was all right with the New England Patriots in the NFL for some reason. So they can get away with it on the offensive line. I am concerned with the departure of Patrick Chum. He's now gone. but I can't remember which McCordie brother is gone now. Jason, I think. Jason.

Yeah, yeah. You only add Jalen Mills who, Mills is a tough player to watch at times. I think that, you know, I'm a little bit concerned in the secondary, but overall, the improvements along offense were tremendous, and I think they did a good job plugging the gaps that they were going to get on the offensive line

with the inevitable departures they had coming down the mountain. Duns of High Towers back from the COVID-19 list, impossible to overstate his value to that defense. And, you know, freaking, hey, Kyle Van Nuoy, You want to just come back and be good here and not be good anywhere else? Let's do it. So, yeah, to make Patriots most approved team. I like the Patriots have to yearly have one guy who got paid somewhere else.

Yep. And then just came back. They're going to make Patriots Hall of Fame. It's a nice little roll with it. It's a gloating tradition from Belichick. It's just a little victory lap. Yep. And please, Jamie Collins incoming is all I can say about that.

I like Jamie Collins. And I like Detroit, by the way. All right. So, but I'm just saying one day he'll come back to Patriots. and make Patriots Hall of Fame. He already did that, though. I know. He's going to come back again.

Round two. Yeah. And Trey Flowers. The second lap. Trey Flowers and Jamie Collins are going to keep coming back. Guess he's going to be great. Isn't Patricia on that staff, though? Yeah.

He's on the Patriot staff. Yeah. He's a contract guy. Oh, no. All right. So, oh, no, is right, Ben. I agree with you. I also would put the Jets in this category.

I'd also say that with the Patriots, they didn't have to do much to literally improve just because of COVID, the COVID outfouts. They had so many last year. Right. Now, I mean, like, the three big ones were high. They also spent a bazillion dollars. I just think the tiebreaker is, look,

their top pick in the draft may or may not play a full season or at all. And I think you get dinged for that being on the most improved list. But they would, you know, they're absolutely in that conversation. All right, least improved. There's a lot of this going around, Nora. A lot of teams not improving. Ouch.

I also like how it's least improved, not like got demonstrably worse. But it's actually, like, the most improved teams tend to be worse than the least improved because it's a function of where you had to come from. Yeah. The bucks are the least improved team.

I was going to say the bucks, the bucks are least improved because they didn't, they didn't do anything new. Nothing got better. They just brought back the team that won the Super Bowl. Talk about a failure of imagination. The bucks are the most stagnant. Is Jason Light on the hot, is he on the hot seat, baby? He's not doing anything. Jason Light just choking away.

There's not one good idea from Jason Light this year. He just brought it back. Ran it back. All right. All right. So my least improved is the New Orleans. Saints who didn't have a lot of money to improve their team with. And actually somehow managed to find some within the couch cushions, but look,

they lose Drew Brees. They lose Trey Hendrickson, Doris Jenkins, Sheldon Rankins, Emmanuel Sanders, Jared Cook. They got Corn Alexander back. But Alex Anselaone, Malcolm Brown, like that defense in particular just took a hit. And then Drew Brees last year was not playing like the Drew Brees of his prime. But still, I think when you lose your starting quarterback, that's obviously a big deal. It sounds as though if we want to do a silver lining, it sounds as though Peyton Turner's having a very good camp. And that's a big deal because as discussed, this defense took a lot of

hits this offseason, but they just, they couldn't really add. And I don't know how you factor in James Tassum's situation into Breeze's departure. But I think the combination of a lot of key players plus the quarterback just kind of seemed like an obvious one to me. I am in that bucket. I also think the Saints got worse this year. And I also just, I know this is just kind of an normally point. We've been talking about it for months,

but I'm not going to talk myself into that quarterback competition. I'm just not going to start saying things I like about it. It's a bad competition. You're going to focus on clowny. I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to be bullied into saying this is a good quarterback competition. Just not. It's good for content.

Yeah, it's great for content, but it's not good for football. I think that's your trapdoor on any clowny take is just I'm doing this instead of talking about the Saints quarterback room. I just kind of feel like everybody, I don't know. I think weird is not a replacement for for Drew Breeze. For good for Drew Breeze. I don't think that Drew Brewery. I mean, Danny Kelly made the best point possible a couple weeks ago on the podcast. say, were the Saints that good because of Drew Brie's last year?

No, not really. Drew Brie's had a struggle. So the problem was, as you said, they've lost a parade of other talented players. And that, that to me is just a big problem. Ben, who got demonstrably worse? Yeah, to me, right, Saints are my demonstrably worse. Cist team. Yeah.

And right, that Drew Brie's point, right? Like, was Drew Brie's doing the things he was always doing? No. But Breeze always had that ability to not make mistakes, right? He always was that risk-averse player would keep you out of bad situation. And then you could sneak out of it with Alvin Camaro and with Michael Thomas and whatever. The current quarterback competition is not lend itself to mistake-free play. And I think that that's going to expose a lot.

Keep you out of bad situation. Oh, and by the way, Michael Thomas is openly feuding with your organization. Right. Also, like, yeah, I don't know how much we- Who plays receiver? Throw that in the least improved bucket. Is that the best player on the team hates everybody he works with? It's also like Michael Thomas is either going to have a like 60% target.

share or just hate everyone for both. He's been doing both those things for three years and now he's stopping the target share part of it. When he went when the Saints were like, you guys should see Marquez Calloway in camp right now. So again, we're going to see him this year in week one. He better be good. There's nobody else in front of him with the death chart.

Michael Thomas ignored a trainer's call for three months. Things are going well is what I'll say down there. All right. Let's our last category, potential. give us the roster we're just not talking enough about things can break right nor gave us the jaguars on a different list so she can't do this now unless she wants to double up we'll start with you nor well so i guess i i guess i looked at i have sort of a yin and yang thing going on because the teams that i have for most potential what came to mind for me

i put the broncos in the washington football team because i was just thinking about the kind of the quarterback away teams i i thought about that as well okay because I mean particularly like let's talk about Washington because it's heavily skewed towards defense although you know Terry McLaurin they have guys on offense that are young and are good but this defense is so good and it is so young so obviously I'm saying the word young a lot and I'm going to say it more because now I'm going to mention that Chase young 22 years old four years left on the rookie contract if you count the fifth year option then you get into guys like Montes Sweat. I love Cam Carle. Pain, Davis. Like, this is just a really, really, really promising

roster. I think we're going to start to see it with Fitzpatrick this year. It's just that I don't really count that for most potential because while I guess Ryan Fitzpatrick would probably take issue with this, I don't see that as their long-term solution. But that's a roster that I think is sneakily really solid in a lot of areas. It's just that right now they don't have the long-term quarterback answer. It would be really interesting if they ever found it is all I will say. That's correct. Broncos is basically like same thing.

It's more driven by the players on the offensive side of the ball than the defense. I almost took them out of this because I'm mad at them because they didn't draft a quarterback and just seemed to be complacent with their current quarterback room, which is a little bit scary to me. That said, I think in a objective sense, they merit inclusion. So I agree with you on both those things. I would also say a different version of this. And maybe their most improved more than potential is the chargers where, and I saw some, some folks had the chargers in like a top five roster situation. I don't think that. But I do think that they have the capability, especially with the improved offensive line to be

following in the kind of the bills footsteps where they're going to keep Herbert upright and they already have. if they stay healthy, if they remove the curse that they've had for 50, 50 years on the franchise. Like that, that to me is the kind of team that has the path to be a Final Four team. I agree with you, but the Broncos, if something shook out with the quarterback position that we're not expecting, like that, that's important. Ben, potential teams. Yeah. So, in a similar vein, I'm on the Miami Dolphins. Yeah, my thought about them.

Yeah. My big thing with Miami, which is really fun, is if you look at the projected starting lineup, offense and D. defense. The only players on it that were acquired by the Dolphins before 2019 are Devante Barker. Durham Smyth, kind of, don't really know who's winning the Ty Venn battle. Jerome Baker and David Howard. It is an extremely new group, a very young group, obviously, but also with some of the free agent editions that have recently come in, Justin Coleman's going to play an important job at that nickel. They'd made the trade for Bernardric McKinney. It's second year of Emmanuel Ogbath. He had a very nice season. His first year.

first year. There are so many new pieces that are still coalescing. I'm not going to get caught up in training camp hype, but it sounds like Tua's coming along nicely, which is what you want to see, right? It's not just height, but it is like, you know, the box that you want to check for your second year and your first time taking all those first team reps made so many recent additions to the wide receiver room that even if he's not amazing, even if he's just a win-with player, those folks should be able to maximize him in that passing game, give him some short targets, let them run after the catch on so as a proud owner of Miami overwin total shares and also Miami win aFC East shares I think uh yeah this this roster's got a boo-hoo potential and I'd love

to see them hit on it you think you bet on you what is this like the end of Indiana Jones we just have a warehouse full of futures bets you can't even keep track of them there's I mean define warehouse I've got more than a few and sometimes it can be tough to keep them in line I agree with dolphins are there I do think that there's I I feel like any positive to a stuff is training camp pipe at this point. Yeah, but I'm going to believe it. So I'm just going to just going to do that. You're just going to.

You know what? I'm not going to get caught up in training camp pipe is. What? It's the thing you say before you get caught up in training camp. Yeah, I was going to say you literally you're like, yeah, I'm not going to get caught up. But reading, here's the reading tweets. I can't. There are two teams right now that I cannot stop consuming.

training camp, I'll hype from, and it's Miami and the Chargers. I want both those teams to be good. Yeah, it hurts, and I know it's bad for me, but doggone if I don't keep coming back to the well. Oh, I want him to be good. I saw, I speak, training camp hyped the Chargers the other day. I said that they're at a, like a all-time high for season tickets. When the Chargers, when the Chargers drop those videos and it's Bray and Stanley going like,

yo, what's up, 33? And I'm like, this is why he's a good coach, baby. Dude, no, everybody, I noticed that. There's this thing now, there's this thing now where it's like, like Brandon State will just be like it's great, it's a great day for football and people will quote tweet and be like do you know how hard it is to connect with players like this?

It's so funny. And like Shane Day is their quarterbacks coach. I have not been the biggest fan of Shane Day's worked across the course of his career. I watch him in those videos. I watch him in those videos. I'm like, oh, Shane Day's got Justin Herbert where he needs to be.

This guy's a genius. Get it. Whoever's the Chargers social and video team. Shout out to you guys because you have me ready to make irresponsible predictions for the charges. Well done. I think it's Brandon Staley. He's just tweeting himself.

Give me that phone. Give me that phone. All right. Guys. Gets the millennials. We've gone through the rosters. Feel good about it? Nora,

how's your voice? I think it's fine. We just got a little animated, which is probably a bad idea for me. But, you know, I like to give. Can I ask one training camp question to Nora real quick? Have that it.

Yeah. as the Zach Wilson propona on this podcast. Oh boy. How are we feeling about the training camp reports to this point? They're not good. My voice is fading. Yeah. Guys, I need to go drink some tea.

Really sorry. Really sorry. It's been the Renfell show on the Ringer podcast Network. Thank you to Isaiah Blakely with additional production assistance by Arjuna Ramkopol. We'll be back later this week. I will not be in Wentzville, Missouri at that point. Lord knows where I'll be.

But this is, uh, fun. See you later this week.