The Ringer NFL Show - Training Camp Reactions and Thoughts on the New Kickoff Rules

Episode Date: August 6, 2024

Nora and Diante look around the league and discuss how teams like the Ravens, Bengals, and Chargers look so far in their respective training camps. Hosts: Nora Princiotti and Diante Lee Producer: Stefan Anderson Production Supervision: Conor Nevins and Arjuna Ramgopal Social: Kiera Givens and Eduardo Ocampo Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Join me, Danny Kelly and Danny Highfits on the Ringer Fantasy Football Show for all things, fantasy, NFL, and more. But that time you said join me, Danny Kelly. It sounds like you're Danny Kelly. It's join me, Craig Horlebeck and Dan... Right, right, right, right, right, right, right. Okay. Join me, Craig Horlebeck, as well as Danny Highfits and Danny Kelly. Nice. Thank you. For all things, Fantasy football, NFL, and more on the Ringer Fantasy Football Show. Boom. Hello and welcome to The Ringer NFL show. I'm Nora Pinciotti, and I'm joined this afternoon by Deontay Lee. Hi, Deontay. How's it going?

It's going well. This very much feels like a hot Southern California day. I have been running in 2,000 different directions, but never too busy to get more training camp takes off. So glad to be on with you. Okay, I'm going to go out on a limb here and do something maybe potentially risky. But would I be correct in assessing that you've got a fresh haircut? That is correct.

Yes. Oh, thank goodness. I did not preview that. I did not preview that before we hopped on the mic. And it is always men, women, anyone, it is a dangerous game to go around just like a certain that someone's got a fresh cut going on. But it looking good, looking good. I know this is a great topic for an audio medium. But I think some of that fresh haircut energy is going to come through on the mic today.

I would say more than anything is very. reflective of the fact that we don't have all the real football in the world to talk about yet. So talk of practice, we can squeeze in some time to talk about hairstyles and things of that nature. I don't know. I just agree. I think haircut

I think haircut talk is a year round in season, out of season topic. Always fair game. So consider yourself warned. If we're potting in November and I think you've been to the barbershop and there's good things

happening there, probably going to bring it up. I appreciate that. So as you said, it is the heat of the summer and it is still training camp. So we're going to keep things going with a little bit of news and notes, just stuff that's happening at camps, storylines

that we're interested in following. And, you know, I would be remiss if I didn't take advantage of the fact that I've got a defensive expert across the Zoom on the other might. on this episode,

then to start us off with the Ravens defense, which if we listen to the reports coming out of camp there in Baltimore, is looking very strong. That's a unit that has a lot to live up to this season coming off a year where they led the league

by fewest points allowed and where Mike McDonald did such a good job that he ended up getting hired away to Seattle. But it sounds like so far, very much so good for this unit under new DC, Zach, or part of what's going on there seems to be

just that this defense is really, really physical and really, really, really intense. John Harbaugh made some comments saying that he had to talk to Odafe Owe, who was so disruptive in a couple of practices, that Harbaugh told him to just rein it in a little bit, which I can't think of that many times when I can think of hearing a coach say, yeah, I went up to that guy and said, like, hey, I'm going to need you to chill.

out a little bit in practice because you're messing things up out there. What are you thinking at this point about how the Ravens are shaping up Deontay? I think it's good news, less surprising news than it is just like good news, right? Like if you were just to look at the depth chart, I think it would be pretty easy to project stable production coming into 2024 because they did not lose a ton in terms of player loss, right? And I do think that while this defense may not be as inventive as it seemed under Mike McDonald, I think that they can play maybe a more traditional style of ball and still be really effective, right? Because the guys are just good. I think that it's worth noting that Marlon Humphrey is healthy right now. And I mean, of course, he's been Nick and bruised up over the last couple of

seasons. So it's something to keep an eye on. But when he's a part of that defensive rotation, their defensive backfield is deep. That allows him to do a lot of different things personnel-wise with Kyle Hamilton with Marlon Humphrey. We'll see what Nate Wiggins looks like. I was talking with one of the assistance on that staff. And one of his early takeaways in training camp was, this is probably as fast as the defenses look in the past few years. And I think that that's probably reflective of Trenton Simpson, who was a second year player out of Clemson that they drafted at linebacker, taken over for Patrick Queen, Nate Wiggins, who I mentioned, having Marlon Humphrey back on the field. So I think that they have a lot of the playmakers there that made that defense what it is.

It's just going to be a matter of how does Zach Orr kind of use these pieces? Is it just going to be a copy paste of what we saw under Mike McDonald or does he have his own flavor of this kind of three, four defense that we'll get to know a little bit more about as the season opens up. What do you think about Trent and Simpson and how he'll slot in there next to Roquan? I think it's probably going to be pretty

similar to Patrick Queen. When I was looking at him coming out of college, one of the things that he did really well was kind of ranging sideline to sideline, being explosive. And that was the salesman Patrick Queen coming out of LSU. Well, good tackler, guy that's a little bit raw in terms of like skill set. There's a lot of different ways to use him.

But the athleticism alone makes them valuable. And I think that him being behind Passion Queen, playing alongside Rokon Smith now, they're going to be able to protect him in ways that I think he might still be vulnerable in terms of coverage and matching up with guys and being able to deal with a faster NFL game than what he's used to coming out of college. But I think that, again, because you can blitz him,

because he's a good tackler, because he has good range, you're probably going to see a simple game for him where he can play downhill, which is a good fit for him. And while I don't think he's going to be as good as Patrick Queen was, the last two seasons or season and a half, after they traded for Woke-on, I think that you'll probably get stable production from linebacker. And this is a franchise that really never has bad linebacker play, right?

So I think that there's reason to be pretty encouraged with how they kind of bring guys up and develop them in this system. You're seeing stories coming out of camp. Like, I think there was something in the Baltimore Sun that was just detailing. You know, he's spending these practices kind of Velcro road to Roquan Smith's side. And obviously, you got a former linebacker now running the defense there. And as you mentioned, just the history and the legacy of that position there in Baltimore is big. And it seems like he's really taking advantage of being in that environment where it's just

like there's so much philosophy and so much that goes into how they think of that position. And it sounds like he's really taken advantage of it. Also sounds like he's been one of these guys who just like, the intensity is at an 11 or a 12 in some of these training camp practices. 100%. And I think, you know, the environment there is kind of built for us to hear about this, right? You have Derek Henry, you have this defense, this offensive line. This is a franchise, again, that has always been built on being really physical, trying to pound teams, you know, into dust throughout the game. So I think that, again, it's just more so encouraging than anything. There are still some things we have to see, right? Like, I don't want to, I don't want to take all the

positive reporting that we're hearing out of camp and gloss over the fact that they did last year have to bring in, Kyle Van Noi and Jadavian Clowny because they didn't feel like they had enough on the edge. So while it's encouraging to hear that Adapé O'OA is kind of starting to take some steps forward in year three or year two for him, you know, I think that we have to see it on the field first before we can say that we check all the boxes that were lost

in terms of personnel, especially when you consider that the best defensive play caller or football isn't in the building right now. Do you think if there's something that ends up holding them back a little bit, do you think it's that just sort of the explosive niffs off the edge or the edge depth just in terms of what the island roster? I would say so. I mean, this was a team that didn't generate high levels of pressure, right? When you look at like their pressure rate, they were pretty middling last year.

I think they did a really good job at converting pressure to sacks last year. They were one of the top 10 teams in the NFL at that. And I think a lot of that comes back to Mike McDonald, knowing how to use Patrick Clean and Roquant Smith as blitzers and having these, you know, kind of unique fronts or simulated pressures and things like that, where you're bringing God from different angles to kind of manipulate an offense. And that's always going to be effective. That's just may not be something that Zach Orr leans on. And if that's the case and there's more pressure on their front forward, just getting home, that's where I think people have a right to be a little bit concerned about whether or not outside of Justin Matabeeke,

if they have enough up front to constantly affect quarterbacks without having to blitz or be as creative as they were over the last two years. the flip side of that being potentially that if Marlon Humphrey is able to bounce back is healthier, he's also reportedly dropped like 10 pounds and is just a little bit lighter and quicker because of that. If Nate Wiggins is able to give them something and they get really good play in the secondary,

maybe it doesn't need to be so complicated at the second level. And maybe it just becomes, as you said, a little bit more of a simple defense, but just a marriage of pass Russian coverage. And they can not have to be at that Mike McDonald's sort of like 400

level. We're going to make everything look different all the time and just have all of those units working together. So, you know, don't want to get out over our skis here with training camp reports. However, I'll just, I'll just repeat the busiest headline, which is 17 interceptions in the first week of camp.

according to reporters of practice. Great. I mean, and typically good teams stay good, right? Good units stay good. This is not like, I would say, it's not like San Francisco in a sense where like, okay, guys are aging, you're on your second and third deals for some of these players. There's been a lot of attrition on the roster, especially at positions where they've been strong. They've done such a good job, I think, at drafting and developing to keep strength, strengths on this side. And because Kyle Hamilton, who was clearly the centerpiece of this whole thing, is still young, in great condition, and still available to them, I really don't

have much reason outside of saying, hey, maybe there is going to be a gap in losing Mike McDonald's that's going to cost them a little bit at the top of the league. But if this is still like a top eight to 10, a top eight, top 10 unit, having the offense that they do and what I think that they're going to be able to do on the offensive end,

I still expect them to be an AFC contender when we're having these conversations in November and December. All right, good stuff. Let's stay in the AFC North and go over to Cincinnati. Addie, where it's a little bit more mixed results coming out of camp so far. On offense, sounds like the Bengals have had some really positive signs so far this camp in terms of a couple of positions where both in the short term and the long term,

there have been sort of question marks. So one of those is wide receiver where I would say one of the most just sort of individual player hype cycles this training camp so far has been Andre Yosebos, who while Jamar Chase is out of practice doing his hold in, he's been running those routes, those plays. And according to both the reporters

on the Bengals beat and also Joe Burrow doing a really, really good job making some of those plays. Obviously, so many of those Jamar Chase plays and the routes that he runs are those just sort of like, I'm better than you. It's not about scheme. It's just about beating your opponent type routes and plays.

And he's apparently lighten him up out there, running ahead of Jermaine Burton for now. That's really significant for a number of reasons. One just being that, despite the fact that the duo of Chase and Higgins has obviously been part of the Bengals' offensive calling cards, for the last few years. Depth has been something

that they've struggled with and a little bit forward looking given that Higgins may not be part of this team for terribly long in the future, although it's still possible that they could find a way to sign both of them. It would be pretty huge, I think, for the Bengals if Yosovos really, really panned out,

gave them an exciting third option for now, but potentially wide receiver too, if Higgins ever moved on. What are you thinking about all this this Yoseva's hype?

I think finding out that Yosevis has also been able to be productive in practice, has been really encouraging. And I think about this news in conjunction with last week, hearing that Jermaine Burton was showing really well in the slot in a way that was making them not feel as concerned about losing Tyler Boyd

this offseason. And to the point that you're making, you know, a lot of these AFC contenders have been kind of going through this reshuffling, right? As they're paying their quarterbacks, teams are having to take a look at, all right, where can we find, you know, the next competitive edge and bringing in young talent that can maybe supplant the guys that we can't pay on this roster? And to your point, they can bring back T. Higgins, but I think it's important for this roster, not just after losing Tyler Boyd, but knowing that the T. Higgins question does not get answered for them to have some youth, some explosiveness, some playmaking to injecting

this offense around Jamar Chase, who is really the engine that makes this whole thing. go. Right. So between Yoseva's, between Burton, having Higgins there, you know, I know that there's been some optimism about whether or not a Marius Mims can be a part of the offensive line rotation ahead of schedule because they definitely brought, you know, having Orlando Brown, they bring in Trent Brown to be, I think guys that put them in a position where they don't have to force Mims to play immediately as a guy that didn't get a lot of snaps

out of Georgia. I think that there's reason to look at this team similar to some of the others that we've seen in the AFC, your Houston's, your Buffalo's. and kind of looking at their death chart and saying, hey, maybe there is enough here for them to remain near or at the top of their division in conference. And if that's the case in Joe Burrow does stay healthy this year, while I still have some questions about what the run game is going to look like right now, I think that if they have a full complement of offensive options to throw to around Jamar,

chasing T. Higgins, that's going to keep this offense around the top and explosive play rate, which has really been the calling card of the Bengals offense over, you know, the Joe Burrow era. The run game for them has been such a moving target and sort of different eras of the borough era, but it does. It looks like Mims is ahead of schedule to the point where he could potentially be ready to start if he needs to be. They did activate Trent Brown over the weekend, or they activated him today after he passed his physical on Sunday. We're recording this on Monday afternoon. You know, I covered Trent Brown in New England.

for a little bit, take that, you sort of take that one day at a time. And that probably in some ways applies to the MIMP situation too because for a player who doesn't have the most experience, a lot of physical tools in a first training camp,

it's often a little bit, two steps forward, one step back. But that's why they built it the way that they built it, right? There's multiple throws at the dartboard and we'll have to see what happens with the run game there, but it does seem like they have this idea

that we're going to have these big towering bodies on the offensive line and there's some insurance on the roster if somebody's not ready to go. No matter what is. And that's the most important thing, right? Because you're going to have to see the best teams in the NFL, more likely than not,

week in and week out, being an AFC North team, just in the AFC in general. And this is a team that where roster attrition is going to be a consistent question for them, not just because Joe Burroughs health always kind of feels like it teeters because he does take a lot of contact. I think he's gotten a lot better at handling pressure

and getting the ball out and trying to protect him. But this offense puts a lot on his shoulders. And a lot of it does kind of require him to sit in the pocket and be willing to take some punishment to get the ball to Jamar Chase or T. Higgins deep down the field. So having more guys that can work underneath, guys that can rotate and taste,

you know, Jamar Chase does twist an ankle in season. Or even if they just need, you know, extra time to build a rhythm while he's, you know, going through his holdout situation, trying to build up more of a chemistry, more of an identity that's not so Chase-centric can only lead to good things for this offense. And if Chase Brown is a running back that they believe that he can be as an explosive piece, and they have been, you know, really kind of taking these dartboard shots at offensive line as well, there is a chance for them to really build, I think, a more balanced offense,

which is ultimately what I think they need to do to remain competitive in this conference. Flip side of that, a little bit less encouraging news coming on the defensive front. Sam Hubbard and Trey Hendrickson, both nursing injuries that are not, don't seem super serious, but still have been in and out of practice because of some knee stuff, I believe. And then last Thursday, Cam Sample went down. It was announced, I believe, today or over the weekend, Zach Taylor said very recently, that he tore his Achilles. So he'll be out,

which means that the defensive line is getting its depth potentially tested pretty early. It puts a lot of pressure on both Joseph Osai and Miles Murphy to be a bigger part

of that defensive front than maybe they were anticipating for this season. What do you think about those guys and just how concerning this news is? for the Bengals defense. In honor of our recently departed,

Ben Solac, like, I want to be a big believer, a Big Lou, as he would say. But I do, I look at this depth chart, especially as there. Do you ever, sorry to jump in. Have you ever had to come down on the, oh gosh, I'm going to really let Shield Capadia down here. It's Big Lou versus Mr. Lou?

Yeah, I go big Lou. I think it's something like that. I go Big Lou. I think the Big Lou is a little bit more complimentary. Mr. Lou sounds a lot like my APU.S history. I'm totally ruining this. And I've pot it. Like, I have had a conversation on air with Schill about this exact topic.

But my brain is just like so mush because it has to make room for things like the Charlie X-C-X Apple dance that I don't even remember what his nickname. Captain Lou. Captain Lou. Captain Lou. Yes. I'm still, I'm a big Lou guy.

Captain Lou sounds like my dad's deadliest catch marathons from 15 years ago. But I would say. Mr. Lou, what is wrong with me? Yeah, Mr. Lou definitely forgot that he assigned the reading and the, you know, rapid response. Oh, God. Yeah, Big Lou. Big Lou is one of the better defensive play callers in the NFL for sure. But I look at this depth chart and so much of it really does lean on Hendrickson and Hubbard,

not only being available, but being at their best because this isn't a defense that's built with star power in mind, right? It's about having no weaknesses more than anything. And we got to see last year when they didn't have Jesse Bates that this defensive back bill can very quickly become a weakness. And it's young. I think bringing in Geno Stone helps. If Von Bell is his best, I think that helps. but those are not guys that we look at as franchise changing defense changing talents, more so stabilizers, and they've had issues at corner basically every year in the Joe Borough era, and they've been able to kind of paper it over by having good safety play.

So if they don't have that, and I think coming into the season, it's safe to assume that they don't have that, and if their ad dressers aren't available, knowing that Joseph Osai wasn't the best last year, Miles Murphy basically took last year as like a redshirt season because they just thought like he was not ready. to handle all the responsibilities that come up playing edge in this defense. I'm kind of concerned about whether or not we're going to see another defense that has trouble with giving up explosive plays, getting off the field on third down and forcing turnovers,

which is really what they were good at when they made their Super Bowl run a few seasons ago. Probably comes down in large part to just how serious those injuries are, and if those are things that are going to affect those guys going into the regular season in a significant way or not, which doesn't sound like it's serious stuff. they very well may be. And in the meantime, for someone like Murphy, who, as you said, basically took that red shirt year, probably doesn't hurt to get some snaps with the ones at this point in camp. So maybe there's some development opportunity there. You want to talk about the kickoff? Yeah, let's talk about the kickoff. All right. Let's take a break and then we'll come back and we'll do some

nice kickoff talk. That's what everybody comes here for. All right. We are back. And I'll just, I'll read you a headline. This is from Frank Schwab at Yahoo, who does a great job. Here's the headline. Sean McVeigh says the new kickoff looks weird. Thanks, Sean. That's a very genuine reaction to the FO kickoff. We have to bake it down to one word.

It's also very like, weirdest fitting. It's also very like someone's been, someone's been clicking on too many Kamala Harris memes. even though somehow I doubt that's how Sean McVeigh is spending his time is just like rotting his brain online. But like calling people weird is just having a real renaissance. And maybe that's steeping in here. But McVeigh said it just feels weird.

It doesn't look like anything that has been anything I've been familiar with in football. The Hall of Fame game, of course, was the first chance for people like us, but also a lot of people around the league to see the new kickoff rules in action in a real game situation. And the big takeaway, I don't even know if for me it was so much that it looks weird,

but more so just that the lack of explosive plays kind of stood out relative to a lot of the expectations about what this new rule would lead to being an assumption that it would create a lot of explosives. There were eight kickoff. in the Hall of Fame game, which got cut short,

but before they had to call it because of the weather, there were eight. The longest was returned to the 31-yard line. There were three that were brought back to the 26. One was a touchback that came out to the 30, and the average starting position was the 25.6 yard line. So all things considered just a little bit of a flat start, Devin Hester was there and was on the broadcast, on the game broadcast,

and was just sort of like, what's going on here? This is pretty dull. Do you think this is just teams sort of being vanilla, given that it's the preseason they don't want to show their hands? Or do you think that there's something that's been overestimated in terms of what this role will change? I think that you can make the argument that it's equal parts in both directions. Right. First, with the McVeigh thing, like, I've just been kind of chuckling to myself because I'm like, this is maybe the most articulate coach that we have in the NFL.

You could ask him about his third tight-in, and he's going to talk about the entire blocking package that he's able to access because he's got this guy on roster. And tell you something that, like, the University of West Virginia was doing in 2008 that made him want to do something when he was in Washington. And then he remembered it in the middle of a dream two weeks ago. So he brought it back. Right. But the kickoff, he's just like, ah, vibes are a little off right now. now. Not really sure what to do with this. Sometimes though that's the sign of someone who is truly articulate is that they don't feel

the need, even though they clearly can do the 4,000-word dissertation. They're going to tell you when they just think the vibes are a little off. And I appreciate that. So I do think, you know, to that point, I think that that's going to be a sentiment. We'll probably hear a little bit more openly as we get closer to the season, closer to the season, more preseason games happen. Because I do think there's going to be a recalibration that everybody's going to have to go through. in this process. It's easy to assume best athletes in the world. I do think that this kickoff

obviously does open the opportunity for more explosive plays, but we have not really had an era in the NFL where special teams, explosive plays, were just common happenstance. I think that what's more likely than not, and I think that this has been noted by other coaches in the league, there will probably be a team that's a little bit better prepared for this, especially early in the year, and maybe they have a competitive advantage, or they're using different things, wise, like I'm really interested to see, like, how the chief's kickoff unit works out because they have Justin Reed on the roster and maybe they give up less explosive plays because you have a guy that can get it downfield and can participate as a tackler. We're going to have to figure

out how teams look at their 53 man when cut down time comes and whether or not that's going to affect how they design, you know, their kickoff teams in terms of personnel. But all the schematic stuff, we're not going to know, I think, until a couple weeks into the season, if that, because people have to find out what actually works and what doesn't. And I think once we see it, we're going to see copycat schemes all over the league, the same way we do on offense and defense. We're just going to have to kind of take some time and maybe deal with the fact that for a bit we're going to see very vanilla returns or teams that just take the ball on the 30-yard line and run their offense from there or 40-yard line and take it from there

instead of showing anything in the preseason. I think that's how I feel for the most part, except for just the fact that I think in some cases, it's not so much that they're being vanilla on purpose and saving stuff and hiding stuff and more just that this is new and they're practicing and they're frankly not, you know, these teams are not very good at this yet. They're going to get a lot better. But you see them

doing stuff where gosh, I wish I could give I'm trying to remember who this was, but I saw someone doing a good breakdown on Twitter of just some of the examples in the Hall of Fame game of blockers trying to pull

to create return lanes and and just some of the stuff that they were trying to do and clearly working through that in theory could end up creating some of those explosives, but they just, they weren't, you know, guys weren't used to the spacing yet. There were some penalties called. The return guys weren't necessarily hitting the holes that were there,

even if the formations did create them. So I think it's actually like, I've been surprised at how openly you'll hear a lot of people talk about this. And I guess the McVeigh example works for that. But even like Dave Taub with the chiefs was talking about their strategy for the kicks themselves. And essentially trying to coach it so that there's as much movement as possible on the ball. Right. Either so that it basically functions like you're skipping a stone when it lands in the target zone with the hope that it'll just sort of skip out of the end zone,

which would then bring it to the 20, which is relatively good under the new structure, or just for the fact that if it has a lot of spin and it's bouncing around in there, the return team, before the return team brings it down, your guys will have a better chance to get down there. And, you know, that all makes sense. I just thought it was interesting that he was willing to just talk about it like that. So I do think that we're seeing some tinkering happening in real time. And these teams are just going to get better at it.

So maybe it's probably a little bit of all of that stuff, but I do think that teams are trying stuff. They just probably need to rep it a few more times, and then maybe we'll see it start working somewhat closer to the expectation. And I think, I mean, if we just, to me, success in this instance really has less to do with explosive plays and just more plays where there is something happening of interest in a football game, right?

Because we've been able to kind of dismiss kickoffs because kickers have been so efficient at putting the ball through the end zone. I just want to see more plays where it's possible to happen. I really don't, it doesn't even have to be kickoffs returned into opposing territory or take it for such a show. Exactly. I want to be able to open a game with like a real play is going to happen. This is not just going to be a procedure to get from one commercial break to the next

commercial break before we get to play real football. Amen. All right. Now, Deontay, am I correct in being under the impression that you've spent some time at Chargers camp? So I was there for Chargers mini camp. I should be heading up this week to watch them in training camp. I'm working on a story for the Chargers that I'm kind of trying to work through, given some of the news that came out at the end of last week about their quarterback,

but I have been up there to see them at least this offseason, and I was just at Rams Camp last week. Oh, how cool. All right. Well, be excited to hear what you're thinking about that. in particular because I was interested in a story that came out over the weekend coming off of some joint practices that they had with the Rams, where the Chargers Pass Rush was reportedly pretty dominant against, I was about to say against L.A., but I guess that doesn't work against the Rams. in team drills alone, they force six turnovers.

The combination of Bosa and Mack rushing together is apparently looking pretty, pretty good, but the depth pieces they have there, Bud Dupree is looking good.

Jesse Minter's defense. So far, sounds like so far, so good, this camp in particular, getting the chance to go against another team.

How are you feeling about the Chargers, particularly on the defensive side of the ball? I think even before the news about Justin Herbert came out with him dealing with his foot injury, and I think the timeline on that, the language on the timeline on that was a little wonky, which I know that you and Sheel kind of got into and trying to suss out what this team's going to be like

approaching the regular season. I think that the defense was going to be the best unit for the Chargers, no matter what. So hearing that, A, Joey is healthy. You know, that's something that he noted when I was up there for minicamp in May, May or June, was that, hey, I feel good. My body's right. This is probably about as hard.

I worked on my conditioning coming into a season. You know, I'm weak. I think it's easy to kind of dismiss some of that stuff because everybody does the whole best shape of my life thing, especially the vets coming back to the facility. I do think it kind of resonated with me hearing that kind of echo throughout the defensive staff. It's like these eddressers are here. They're in great shape. we think we can lean on them.

And then to your point, they have added pieces. They have 2-2-LUPA2 as a fourth rusher. You have a mother as a third rusher. So they have depth behind these guys. And I think having that rotation is what's going to make this defense work, especially because they don't have a lot of pieces up the middle of this defense, at linebacker, at defensive tackle to, you know, kind of even out the rest of this unit.

But if that pass rush is as real as we heard it was during the joint practices with the Rams, we can probably think that this team may be as competitive as the most optimistic about the chargers have been, and that might put them in position to win more games and people would assume just looking at the depth chart and the fact that they are kind of in a rebuild type of position or a retooling at best. What do you make of a story like that coming out of a joint practice session,

particularly against the Rams, who have an offensive line that's health-wise, not doing so great. So on the one hand, this might not have been the top. tallest test this Chargers defense could have faced. On the other hand, it's Matthew Stafford. It's Sean McVeigh. We've learned over the last couple of years that you don't count those guys out necessarily,

even when sometimes it feels like you should. What do you think, just I want your litmus test on real or fake Chargers defense hype based on those sessions? That's a good question. The Rob haven't seen injury last. week actually happened right in front of the media. And he was kind of unsure. Like he couldn't really describe to the training stuff where we could over

hear like, it's like something just doesn't feel right. And I know that Sean McBey said, like, we're not really sure of the severity and the press availability after. So I do know that they're down some guys. And I would have loved to have been able to do a litmus test of this if they were all at full strength. And we could have seen what would have been one of the more powerful offensive lines against these two veteran star edge rushers.

that we know the Chargers have. And that's, so I'm trying to couch my optimism about this defense in that. I do think to your point, if Sean McGuade wants to find ways to mitigate pass rush, he has a lot of the tools to do so. We know this because we've been watching this offense for what feels like, you know, a decade now between Washington and Los Angeles. He has a pretty good package of plays and a quarterback that's experienced enough to be able to work around pressure.

So the fact that they were still forcing turnover, still affecting the ball, still being productive in the backfield. That tells me that there's probably something there. It just might not look like as dominant as we heard it was at the joint practices this weekend. Sure. This is probably as real as anything that you're really going to get a training. Exactly. Out of practice, right.

All right, good stuff. You'll have to keep us posted on that as you spend some more time with L.A. as the camps finish up. Last team that we're going to hit, the Atlanta Falcons, who Deontay, you brought them up as a team that we should talk about, which I think is a great idea

because there's just been so much sort of like snippets and little stories of Falcons buzz and that's become, it feels like, a training camp tradition over the last few years at this point. I know I've fallen susceptible to that at times and it's worked out with,

varying degrees of success or lack thereof. So tell me what you're thinking about Atlanta and why you wanted to talk about them today. This is such a hedge, and I feel like such a coward for doing this. But the reason why I brought them up is because I just don't know. I don't know what to do with this franchise.

I feel like I haven't known what to do with this franchise since they fell apart in the Super Bowl in 2016. I just don't know what to do about Kirk Cousins because everything I hear is like, oh, you should be fine. he's being a leader. The energy in the organization is good around him being the starting quarterback.

He's spending a lot of times with this young receiver and court. Kyle Pitts is in better shape, and we're using it more often. He's going to be more featured in the offense, which is definitely not something that's been promised every year since he's been drafted is that he's going to be this top tight end in terms of targets and yardage and explosive plays.

So there's just so much up in the air. I think that the reason why I'm interested in them is because there are a lot of pieces that I've been accustomed to believing in and trusting in in terms of stable production, right? Kirk Cousins' quarterback, that Sean McVey offense was at Robinson as a play caller, I have a lot of reason to believe that they'll be able to replicate some of the early Rams and late Washington stuff in terms of using the run game and play action and being able to get the ball in their playmaker's hand where they can get a lot of yardage

after the catch. But I look at the defense and I just think about the fact that, this is just not coalesced on offense as well over the last few years. And I'm just not ready to believe. And then I talk to my Falcons fans who are really like keyed in or people who cover the Falcons who are really keyed in. And they kind of echo the same sentiments of like, there's some good here.

The coaches all seem like they have good energy, but we don't know if they're blowing smoke. We don't know what to trust. So it's still until I see them in the preseason and get to see some of their young pieces produced and contribute. and then obviously opening up the season and seeing Kirk Cousins, I got to see it first. If they show up week one and they're putting up 40 points

and blowing the doors off the defense, then I might feel a little bit differently. I just bring them up because I need to hear other perspectives on how much they believe in this roster and what this franchise is trying to build right now. They're going to Miami for joint practices this week, a little later this week. Is there anything you think that they can show

just given the opportunity to, go up against someone in a different jersey in a practice setting, that would be meaningful? It's funny. I think I'm looking more for reasons to be out than in. So, like, if on Tuesday and Wednesday we're hearing, like, oh, Jaylon Waddle and Tyree Kil just absolutely lit this defensive backfield on fire.

Then I'm like, okay, you can let me know now. Or they just couldn't affect Tua in the pocket at all in team period. So like, all right, the past rest is exactly what I think it's going to be. I don't have to believe. I don't have to invest. I can just let this be your run-of-the-mill NFC South team that maybe wins 10 games because they play other NFC South teams and sneak into the playoffs. I think if we hear anything like, oh, the offense is like it's really ahead of schedule

and they were giving Miami's defense fits, which is a team that is borrowing from that Mike McDonnell, Baltimore Ravens Tree with their play caller, right? If we hear that we were doing, you know, really struggling with handling Atlanta's offense and they're very multiple and Kyle Pitts looks good and Drake London looks good. And Kirk Cousins is building up a lot of chemistry, with his guys, and Bijon Robinson looks explosive. I'm probably still going to, like, couch it and be like, ah, it's practice. So I don't know if I'm looking for reasons to be optimistic as much as

pessimistic, but I will be, you know, focused in on how that defense looks against the most electric offense that maybe we have in the NFL, at least in the regular season. That makes sense. I'm interested in the fact that they're one of these teams, and actually the Dolphins have talked about doing a little bit more of this themselves, who, you know, they've invested a little bit in more blocking style tight ends. They brought over Ross Tweli. They brought over Charlie Werner from the 49ers this off season.

And I feel like there's been a pretty big handful of teams that have talked about emphasizing tight ends in some of the blocking schemes, but also like two tight end sets. You've heard that from McDaniel in Miami as well. I'm just like I'm interested in sort of like why that's coming up so much would be curious. to see these two teams that have talked a little bit about it and are taking some cues from some of the same offenses around the league. Just one, how they do it. And also, since they're going against an opponent in a practice setting, if there's anything that we can learn in terms of, like, what the adjustments are for defenses to try to deal with it. But do you think that there's anything happening? Like, do you think that there's anything that explains that impulse? Because I feel

we've heard something similar from a bunch of different teams this offseason. I just think about the Rams last year really leaning in a downhill run game, despite having Pooka Nakuwa and Cooper Cup. You know, I think about Houston and all the explosive plays that they had in the play action game, in the dropback game, and still being like one of the most reliable run-on first-down teams in the NFL. And I think that a lot of that is offenses, I think, trying to wrestle with dictating the terms to defenses in a ways that make them uncomfortable again. I think that because so many NFL defenses now have these kind of jack-of-all trade types that you can play at the second level of defense,

I think that we're going to see more and more offenses lean into getting bigger bodies on trying to dictate the terms of personnel and then trying to get to explosive passing offense out of more heavy sets. And that's something that I think we've been kind of walking towards over the last half decade. And I think that as this specific system, the Shanahan, McBay, you know, type of system continues to spread around the league, we're just going to see more and more of that. Because I think it's easier for offense is to find the body types of fit that than finding a dynamite third wide receiver, right? Or finding a quarterback that can handle muddy pockets and still find explosive offense. I think those are things that are a little bit harder to come by

then like, oh, our second tight end is just a guy that we can use basically as a sixth offensive linemen, and we'll just do play action game off of that. So I think that there's just kind of like a natural progression in that that we're seeing, and it takes some stress off the rest of the offense. So I'm reading about the Falcons focus on that in a story in the athletic by Josh Kendall. and I do feel like I have to share with you that those two guys, Werner and Dwellie, who came from San Francisco,

they are also best friends and they went on their first trip to Waffle House together last week. How sweet. It's adorable. I got to know what the Warner was. I know, I know. If anybody knows, Josh Kendall, doing a great job with the reporting.

If you know, drop it on Twitter, find it somewhere, you know, smoke signals, whatever, or anyone in Atlanta, just if you want to follow up on that, we would love to know the order. And I hope that they know that the entire city of Atlanta will be judging them based on their order, if not just like the South in general. So All-Star Special, play and safe. What my first Waffle House order was, because I can tell you that another fabulous

member of the athletic NFL staff, Jordan Rodriguez, took me to Waffle House for the first time. I will say for people who haven't been, it's an experience I cherish. All-Star special. It's as safe as you can get. You get a little bit of everything. And it's not, it's not cost prohibitive, which for me is a Southern California is a very foreign concept when you're going out to eat basically any meal. So. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you're talking to New Yorker. It's like, I went out for a couple of coffee this morning. It was $7. Curse my heart every time I got to swipe my card. the times we live in, man.

All right. Last thing before we go, Deontay, you and I, neither one of us plays a lot of fantasy football. However, we are signed up to play in the Ringer Fantasy League

and we're drafting, I think, like, this Thursday, we haven't even, we got to come up with our strategy, we got to figure it out, but I just wanted to say here and now, couldn't have lucked out with a better teammate.

I'm ready to dominate. We got it. this. And I love that you're saying that and you didn't come to me first because my first thought is I am mortified. I have not done fantasy football because I was like a sophomore in high school. I don't know how the leagues work. I don't know what the rules are anymore. I listen to the ringer fantasy show and half the things are talking about is just like completely foreign to me now. So if you see me draft a wide receiver way ahead of where I'm supposed to, please understand the fact that I'm just like coach in media brain. I have not spent any time on this at all.

If anybody who's listening to anybody who's listening to this wants to share with us, your secrets, the way that you, you know, strategize your draft, things that you think that we should do, let us know. We will be very grateful, but I think we got this. It's okay. No rules, just vibes. We're going to crush it. I love the optimism. I don't share it, but I love All right. Well, that'll be later this week. We will also have another show. I believe the two of us joined by Shiel Kapadia on this feed later this week as well. That'll be lots of fun. This has been The Ringer NFL show. I'm Nora Pritziani. Thanks to Deontale for joining me. Thank you also to Stefan Anderson for producing this episode and to Connor Nevins and Arjuna Ramgapal for additional production supervision. We'll talk to you soon. offering online sports wagering in Kansas under an agreement with Kansas Star Casino LLC. Gambling problem, call 1-800 gambler or visit fandle.com slash RG in Colorado, Iowa, Michigan, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia,

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