The Ringer NFL Show - Trevor Lawrence Will Finish This Season As a Top-10 QB

Episode Date: September 7, 2022

Welcome to ‘The Island’!  Nora Princiotti talks with a guest about an idea or topic that they feel strongly about, and the guest tries to persuade Nora to agree with them. Our first guest on ‘The Island’ is The Ringer’s Steven Ruiz, who tries to sell Nora on the idea that Trevor Lawrence will be a top-10 quarterback by the end of this NFL season. Will she join him on the island or sail elsewhere? Host: Nora Princiotti Guest: Steven Ruiz Associate Producer: Stefan Anderson Additional Production Supervision: Arjuna Ramgopal and Conor Nevins Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Bill finally gave the ringers Philly crew a podcast. I'm Ben Solac. And I'm Shiel Capadia. That's right. Just a couple of Philly guys with a new space to fire off some Eagles takes, get caught up in the Sixers, Chaos, and more. We'll be coming to you twice a week on Sundays and Thursdays, plus bonus episodes whenever we get Breaking News or Philly drama.

Join the fun and follow the Ringers Philly special now on Spotify. I'm Nora Pinsiani and welcome to the Island, a new show on the Ringer NFL feed hosted by yours truly. Each week, a new guest will join me to stake a claim they believe passionately in with implications that will help define the NFL season, but that might defy conventional wisdom. They'll put themselves out on that island for a team, player, or take, and then actually back it up.

In 30 minutes or less, we'll analyze that claim, look at its counterarguments, and decide what it means for the league as a whole before I ultimately choose whether or not to join my guest on the island or head for other shores. This week, the ringer's own Stephen Ruiz joins me for a discussion of a quarterback he thinks is ready to join the elite ranks at that position. Stephen, welcome to the island. Tell us where you are.

I'm Stephen Ruiz, and I am on Trevor Lawrence will be a top 10 quarterback island. Woo! Okay. I love this because this is a perfect topic, I think, because it's not totally crazy. But I poked around and I could not find any ranking. prediction, really from anybody, that had Trevor Lawrence above like 14th or so, 14th, 15th among starting quarterbacks. So I'm very excited to see if you can convince me here, Stephen. Let's start with like an elevator pitch before we dig in, right?

Like what's the 30 second synopsis of why you think Trevor Lawrence can make this type of leap in 2022? I don't think there's like one ideal way to play the quarterback position. but if you look at the best quarterbacks in the NFL, I think they do share one common trait, and that's the ability to go past a plan A. Like anybody can execute a play that's well drawn up, and it beats the defensive call.

But the best quarterbacks are able to overcome a bad play call and maybe go past their plan B option and get to their plan C option. And I think Trevor Lawrence, in his rookie season, even though the stats weren't great, showed off an ability to get to plan A, plan B, plan C, in a timely manner, and still make explosive plays while doing it. I think if you have that part down,

the rest will just come naturally with development. So I like that you started there, because when I think about Trevor Lawrence and his rookie year, other than just the Urban Meyer chaos of it all, I think of a quarterback who actually did a lot of the hard stuff well. You know, he showcased some of that nuanced pocket movement that you would think of coming from, a much more experienced quarterback.

He was top 10 in Sackright despite facing a ton of pressure because he was so good at those little subtle movements and figuring out where the pressure was coming from. A lot of his interceptions were with the team trailing, I think,

14 of 17, which, you know, the Jaguars were trailing a lot, so that's not saying much. But he's testing those tight windows at least some of the time trying to make those hard throws. But I also think of a player who was missing a lot of the layups.

He ranked 26 among starting quarterbacks with an adjusted completion rate of 80% on passes 0 to 9 yards from the line of scrimmage. So just those little

like fundamental bread and butter dink and dunk elements of quarterbacking, the really simple stuff wasn't happening even though some of the upper tier like, wow, this guy

could really be your franchise quarterback things. did seem like they were there. So I'm curious how you think that he can, in that development, make some of those easier things happen or if you think they'll just happen naturally because the situation around him will be better.

Yeah, I think it's like a degree of difficulty situation where his layups weren't necessarily as easy as some other quarterback's layups were. Sure. Like I'm thinking about like Davis Mills, who tended to throw his checkdowns a little earlier than you'd like to see, you'd like to see the quarterback hang in there

and give his guys a chance to make a play downfield. So when you're throwing to a checkdown like two seconds into the snap, he's going to be wide open. You're not going to face a lot of pressure and it's going to be easy to make those throws. I think a lot of the time,

Trevor Lawrence really tried to give the play a chance to develop. And by the time he got to his checkdown, the pocket wasn't very clean. His feet weren't right. And he had to force to throw and make an awkward throw to get it there. And obviously, that didn't happen every time.

he had rookie mistakes. Like he missed a lot of throws, like you said. Sometimes he held onto the ball a little bit too long. Sometimes his movement in the pocket was a little too drastic and he'd run himself into pressure. But when you go back and watch the tape, and this is what I implore people to do for all these young quarterbacks, go back and watch the negative plays and ask yourself,

was there anything he could have done? Was there a play on the field that he left on the field? And the answer, like, 90% of the time was no. And I think that was more the case with him compared to the other rookie quarterbacks. Even like Mac Jones left more plays on the field than I think Herbert did. Or not Herbert, sorry. That was a Freudian slip.

You can't help yourself. I can't. Those are my two guys. More than Lawrence did. But he had more opportunities to make those easy plays. Lawrence just didn't have them. It happened like twice a game, if that. Like, I can't explain how poor his situation was in Jacksonville.

It goes beyond Urban Meyer. Like the receivers were bad. The offensive line was bad. the play designs weren't very good. They weren't very creative and they didn't give him easy options. He was on hard mode, more so than any other rookie quarterback I've ever seen.

And I'm telling you, when you watch the film, it looked good. Like, I would come away from watching a game of his without checking the box score yet. And I'd be like, oh, that was a pretty good game. Like, he probably completed like 65% of his passes. Probably only three, like, one interception. He probably averaged a decent yards per attempt.

And then you look at the box score, and it's like he was 10 for 27 for 80 yards in five interceptions. And you're like, what? That's not what that look like. And I know it's kind of a like, take my word for it type of thing. And we got to watch the film type of thing, which is kind of annoying. But I have no other way to explain it. I'm not annoyed.

I'm not annoyed by you, Stephen Ruiz. I do push back a little bit on none of it was his fault. I think that's largely true. And there are some like just absolutely eye-popping stats. about how bad the situation around him was. I mean, even just the Jagged receivers leading the league, I think they had 41 drops. It's just an unbelievable amount of drops.

And you try to piece together, you know, like one of the areas in which Trevor actually wasn't so bad was Air Yards. He was, I think, 15th, sort of middle of the path. And yet this is an offense that struggled to create explosives severely. I think their average play went like five yards or something. So an absolutely like devoid of explosive play offense with a quarterback who was kind of throwing it. And you start to realize like, oh my God, such a significant number of those either got picked or dropped that it really went a long way towards skewing what the results looked like actually on paper here.

So I take your point that you really do have to look at it and see how he was playing. notice just how wildly incompetent, a lot of the situation around him was. The one thing, though, that I want to dig into is I think you can quibble with how long he held onto the ball sometimes. I mean, Trevor Lawrence is a quarterback who has super, super fast mechanics. The way that he releases the ball is like lickedy lightning split. And I spent a couple days down there this summer. And that was the thing where, like, you just watch him, you just watch him do like a stupid

individual drill and you're just like, oh, one of these guys is not like the others and just how the ball comes out of his hand. So you'd think that that would lead to a really low time to throw and it should lower it somewhat, but he was still holding the ball on average 2.8 seconds, which is a lot even when you don't factor in those super fast mechanics. Now, again, situation matters there, but I think some of that was on him. Do you think the changes they've made on the offensive line, they got Brandon Shurf in there, um,

plus the new scheme under Doug Peterson. Like, do you think that that is a number, that 2.8 seconds before he would throw, that goes down significantly in year two? I, I do think so. And if you've read anything about the Jaguars and training camp, that seems to be the, the consensus is that he's getting rid of the ball quickly now.

And, and while that stat, is bad. That number is bad. He did have a high time to throw. And you could see it on film. You're like, oh, you got to get rid of the ball there. You waited a half a second. And a half second makes a big difference in the NFL. But you almost want to see your rookie quarterback take those chances. He was like a real gamer. He wasn't just trying to get through a play and survive. He was trying to make plays. And that's what you want from your rookie quarterback. And he was kind of figuring out what he could get away with. And you really saw this in his interception numbers. He threw a bunch of interceptions. I think he threw like 12 in the first. three games. But then in the second half, his interceptions came down, his turnover-worthy play rate came down significantly. He was at the bottom of the league in the first half and then near league average in the second half.

And I think you saw him start to get it. You saw him start to realize what windows were open, which ones weren't, because it's a big difference between playing in college. Like even the dimensions of the field, the hashes make a huge difference. It's almost a different sport. And he had to learn it. And I think part of that learning process is expediting your process, your mental process. And if he is faster with his release, like if he gets rid of the ball quicker, like everyone's saying he is in Jaguars camp, then it's hard finding a weakness.

It's hard finding a weakness in his game. He does everything at such a high level that if he fails in the NFL, it's going to be because of injuries are bad coaching staff. And I think the Jaguars have put a good coaching staff in place this year. I agree with you that it is actually encouraging how much he sort of like tested windows, right? Because if we believe the scouting from college, we believe our eyes and what we saw before Trevor Lawrence under the NFL and some of what we've seen on tape from his first year, his ball placement touch, ability to lead a receiver into a throw should be an asset. Right? And like I go back a lot to just how much of a mess those receivers were and how many big mistakes there were from that group last season. They've changed the coaching. They've changed the receivers coach. Obviously, Christian Kirk's A. Jones brought in new personnel. There's a lot of reason to believe that it would be different. And it is probably a good thing. I am compelled by this argument that seeing him test those windows and kind of figure out what. throws you can make and what throws you can't make at the NFL level is a good sign.

Again, it's just like, will we see the foundation? Will we see the throws where it's not on hard mode, where it's on easy mode? So I'm curious what you think he's going to look like in particular in this new offense under Doug Peterson and Press Taylor, other than just it being sort of not an insane. environment. I think he'll be encouraged to get rid of the ball quicker than he has throughout his career, going back to college. I think one thing that wasn't covered enough during the pre-draft process was how

simplistic his offense was at Clemson. And when you have a can't miss prospect like Trevor Lawrence, we don't really scrutinize him. They were just like, oh, yeah, he's going to be the number one pick. No need to overthink this. Whereas with like Justin Fields, you're like, oh, was the Ohio State offense? Did that prepare him for the NFL? Oh, did Mac Jones have too much help around him?

Oh, did Trey Lance? He played at a lower level. Is he going to be ready for NFL speed? With Trevor Lawrence, we didn't really ask those questions. But if you watch the film of the Clemson offense, like it's one of the most basic offenses you'll ever see. They ran a bunch of the RPO stuff. They're passing concepts were really simplistic.

It was like one read and then make a play, do something, be generational. So learning an NFL playbook and being able to, not being able to, but being encouraged, to hit those checkdowns more often because you have to hit the checkdowns to survive in the NFL. In college, you can rely on explosives and get by.

But you have to hit him. So now that I think he's got a real NFL coaching staff, and he has Doug Peterson, who's more, whose offensive style is more get rid of the ball on time compared to his last staff,

which was throw the ball downfield, take big drops. We're going to block it up for you. Like, take your time with it. Just get the ball down field. Now I think he's getting coaching for the first time that really emphasizes

is hitting those layups and hitting them on time and hitting them repeatedly so the defense has to account for them. I think the coaching staff is going to make a huge difference. I don't know if Doug Peterson's going to be able to lead them to the playoffs, but for Trevor Lawrence's development, it's going to be a big deal. And I think that's what matters the most.

We'll be much more willing to make it easy. He will want to simplify it. I think he already has simplified a lot of what's going on for the offense. And then we also know that he'll use a bunch of extra linemen right? Like there will be a lot of mechanisms in that offense to not just help the quarterback specifically, make sure the blocking's better. Their offensive lines should be better with sure they drafted Luke Fortner in the third round to replace Brandon Linder who retired. I think it all sort of like the aggregate amount of talent comes out to kind of a wash,

but it's probably more consistent. More reliable. Yeah. It's that difference of being like 28th to 19th or 21st, right? Which in an offensive line ranking kind of can matter because it's like you're just not getting blown up on every play. It's sort of they're not creating a lot of huge opportunities, but they're not screwing them up. And that's sort of, especially with someone who's as good in the, pocket and understands how to subtly evade pressure as well as Trevor Lawrence does.

I do think that makes a big difference. I think the combination of some of the talent upgrades, but then also just the scheme change to that Doug Peterson offense where they will use either an inline tight end or a sixth blocker a lot of the time, I think that will make a difference. And at the very least, right, like we're talking about the release time, we'll get to see it, I think. I think we'll have a much clearer picture of if what we're talking about, is that time to throw a number on Trevor or is it on the situation?

At the very least, we'll have a much clearer picture at the end of the season than we do right now in terms of where that falls, I think. He's played so little at the preseason that I don't really think you can draw all much from it, but has anything struck you in the snaps you've seen of Trevor playing this preseason? The start of the NFL season is here, and the best place to practice your touchdown dance is on Fandul, America's number one sports book. Fandul is kicking off week one with a no-swebett for everybody. It doesn't matter if you're a new customer or already have an account. You'll get free bets back if you don't win. Just log in and see for yourself. What bet would you make with a

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Tennessee redline at 1-800-889-9-9789 in Tennessee, 1-800-5-22-470 in Kansas or Wyoming, or visit www.1-800 gambler.net in West Virginia. Yeah, like, as much as you can in limited reps, you do kind of see him expediting this process. he is getting rid of the ball clicker. He's avoiding sacks. He's avoiding pressure situations.

And I think there's more trust in his receivers. And that's like, that's not just the, oh, my receivers were so bad last year that I didn't trust him. Like, he was splitting reps with Gardner Minshu in training camp last year. The Jaguars didn't do, they didn't go all out. He was in a competition with Gardner Minshu. Like, it's just ridiculous on face. And that, that waste time, that waste reps. He could have been building up a rapport with his receivers.

And you could see it. I think that contributed it to the higher time to throw because if you're waiting for someone to get open, you don't trust that they're going to get open. Like if I'm Tom Brady and I have Mike Evans out there and he's running like a little stop route, I could throw that pass early because I know Mike Evans is going to get open. And even if he doesn't, he's huge and he's going to box the cornerback out and win the ball. But when it's Laquan Treadwell, I want to see him get open before I throw him the ball. And even then, I'm a little worried that he's not going to catch it.

When it's Levisca-Cenault, I'm not expecting him to fire off a route like Keenan Allen, like Justin Herbert can do on third down. Like, I have to wait and see it. And I think that's another layer of the time-to-throw issue, which is legitimate. But I think that's another layer that we have to consider. So having Christian Kirk, yes, Christian Kirk is probably not worth $20 million a year. But he can get open. Trevor Lawrence isn't the one paying him.

No, exactly. And he can get open and he can catch the ball. And Trevor Lawrence can trust him to get open and catch the ball. That makes a world of difference. So you're not too worried about how the Jaguar's offense will fare now that Leviska-Shannalt is a Carolina Panther? No, no, not at all. I was really in the in the Chanel hive for a moment. It's sad to see that dream die. But I agree with you that the receiver core, I mean, you know, when they have three receivers, Kirk, and then Marvin Jones and Zay Jones, like that's an obvious upgrade from what they were dealing with. And it's the type of thing that you would expect Trevor Lawrence to be able to take advantage of. Stephen, I feel like you've done a very good job so far of convincing me that Trevor Lawrence is going to take a big leap. It's going to be a lot better.

So many things have improved around him. but I believe where you planted yourself was on top 10 quarterback island. So I want to understand what's the topography of this island? Like, what does it look like? What is Trevor Lawrence's season and what does the Jaguar's season look like

if he is a top 10 quarterback this year? All right. I'm thinking 4,000 yards passing. Okay. I think that's a conservative benchmark for him. Considering that the Jaguars aren't going to be a great team, they're going to be throwing the ball a lot. If he doesn't get to 4,000 yards, I'll be disappointed.

25 plus touchdowns, fewer than 10 interceptions. And he makes the Pro Bowl. Now, do the Jaguars make the playoffs? I don't know the AFC is so loaded, but at the same time, they're in the easiest division. Yeah. So maybe the AFC West kind of eats themselves, cannibalizes themselves.

The AFC East kind of does a similar thing. The AFC North is very strong too. So maybe like they beat up on the Texans and the Titans and they win three more games than we expect and they win 10 games and sneak into the wild card. I don't think that's out of the realm of possibility. I really have a lot of faith in a coaching sap that's won a Super Bowl before and a quarterback

that I very clearly think highly of. Now the question really is, who is he going to leapfrog to get into the top 10? And that's a more interesting discussion. And that's one that I may have to like explain myself a little more with. Do you want to do that or can I give you some names and can we sort of play over under? Yeah, yeah. Give me some names. Okay. So let's get a bunch of guys out of the way here.

I'm going to give you a group. And if you do not think, if you think that Trevor Lawrence is better than one of these guys, please stop me. But are we agreed that we can count Josh Allen, Mahomes, Herbert, Rogers, Brady? We're all above Trevor Lawrence territory here. Okay. Joe Burrow? Yes. He definitely is. But I think there will be questions after this year.

Okay. Lamar. I'm still putting Lamar ahead of him. Just because everything he contributes to the offense, I don't think Lawrence has a chance to be the focal point. We saw that last year. He couldn't overcome the rest of the roster. But Lamar kind of does that every year.

So I'm not ready to put him over Lamar, who has MVP. Okay. So that's seven. By the way, not going to count Deshaun Watson on this list. So one last quarterback for you to deal with. Now I think it gets interesting. Matthew Stafford. See, that one's the toughest one for me.

Okay. So let's actually, let's save it. If that's the toughest one, let's save it. Okay, yeah. Russell Wilson. I think he'll be better than him. By the end of the season, he'll be better than Russell Wilson.

But I am admittedly low on Russell Wilson. Yes, you're a little low on rest, but that's okay. What about Dak? I'll tell you. See, DAC is right ahead of Stafford for me. I'll take Dak. a thin margin, but I would not be surprised if Lawrence surpasses him by the end of the year. And this is why I think Lawrence has the potential to do all the things that DAC does well,

which is like the smart quarterback things, like really commanding the offense. But he has that little like extra bit of talent where he can do, he can make the impossible look easy. And I don't think Dak quite has that. Okay. What about Kyler? I think he'll be better than Kyler by the end of the season. It's because there's less to worry about.

With Kyler, like his size, it's always going to be there. Now we have, like, the work ethic questions, which I don't really fully buy into, but where there's smoke, there's fire. I don't like the vibes with the Cardinals at all, so I could see that offense kind of dragging him down. I think he's going to be on par with Kyler, who I would put in the top 10 by the end of this year.

On like a results basis or what you have shown as a quarterback, because that's where it gets hard for me, because I agree with you, I don't like what's going on in Arizona. I'm not super optimistic about what the Arizona Cardinals are going to look like this year. That said, I feel like I've seen Kyler Murray do things that add up to exceptional quarterbacking. And even if this year is kind of a mess, my assumption is that I won't look at it and go like, oh, that's all Kyler's fault. So it just, that, although I guess that's what happened to Trevor Lawrence in a lot of ways last year.

So that one gets hard for me. But okay. But by December, when Kyler has his late season injury and Cliff like falls off a cliff, no pun intended, I think it will be easier to look back on the seat. Like you'll forget about what our perception of Kyler was in October when he's probably going to be an MVP candidate. And then we'll look back in December and be like, I was kind of a rough year and Trevor Lawrence is ascending now. So like I like for me, this list like comparing. these quarterbacks is like general perception.

I think by the end of this year, Lawrence's stock is going to be way up. Okay. All right. That's easier for me than the aggregate total of what he's put on film will be better than the aggregate total of what Kyler Murray has.

But it sounds like, it sounds like you are a man of your word, Stephen Ruiz. Because if you have Trevor Lawrence above Russ, Dak, and Kyler, which

true? Yes. Not right now. By the end of the year, but by the end of the year, you think he will be better than those guys. Then you can go either way

on Stafford and he will still end up top 10 on your list because we had the seven guys that we agreed definitely better and then Stafford, if he were eight, would be eight. And then Trevor,

could be nine. You didn't say for sure if you felt like he was going to slot in above or below Matt Stafford. So I want to hold you to that. Where do you think that one ends up, you know, understanding that these are very small

degrees of difference. Yeah, I'm making a prediction and like you have to consider everything and the news about Stafford's elbow is kind of concerning and it's hard to overlook it. And the Rams kind of lost a lot of over the offseason.

They're replacing Odell Beckham, who was such like a big part of that offense and really rescued them from that mid-season slide they had and replacing them with Alan Robinson, who's kind of passed his best and had a down year last year, so who knows what to expect. But what makes it so hard to compare these two is I think they kind of have a similar thing going on,

where Stafford obviously has this high level of play that he can attain. But then he has those plays where it's like, what was that interception? or that was a bad miss. And, like, that's Trevor Lawrence now. And the question with Trevor Lawrence is, is he going to clean that stuff up

and be like a Tom Brady type who never makes mistakes? Or is he going to remain that, like, volatile player? And I think for him, his floor is probably Matt Stafford. So do you think, like, which one of those, in a dream scenario for Trevor Lawrence where he shows all this group, where does he end up between those two things?

Do you think he will be sort of always a little bit of a gun slinger for lack of a better term, or do you think his future is to refine the layup stuff, refine the easier stuff, and become like that sort of Brady Rogers

incredibly clean passer? I think he becomes that incredibly clean guy. Like I think Herbert is the model for him, like being able to make those tough throws and those alien-type plays without the risk

involved without taking sacks, without throwing interceptions. And like I said, he was trending that way towards the end of last year with a bad supporting cast. Now that he has a little more support, I think it will be easier for him to clean that stuff up. And yeah, I think very highly of him. So I don't think he's

going to end up with that Matt Stafford type career arc where it's like he's wasting away for a bad team and then he gets straight to a good team. And we kind of, it allows his talents to flourish and it hides his weaknesses a little more. I think he's a quarter that will figure it out himself.

He's that good. He's that talented. He's a generational prospect, and last year did nothing to convince me that he wasn't. So we think, and part of the reason we're having this conversation is because we think of the second year for a quarterback as, like, the best time for them to make this big leap. I think the guy that we think, I mean, you know, Herbert,

there's a lot of examples that you can pull out, obviously, Mahomes, in some ways, although it's a little bit different because he was sitting. the guy that I think of right now having done that is Burrow. And in some ways it's an apt comparison. I think Burroughs tape was ultimately a little bit more consistent in the first year before he got hurt

than Lawrence's. The situation was bad, but not as bad. And obviously just sort of like the organizational turmoil wasn't so crazy. How do you see Trevor Lawrence's first, season as stacking up against Joe Burroughs. And do you think there's any, like, can we use that to kind of be predictive?

Do you think that reaching this level requires him to make a bigger leap or not as much of one because of the situation? I'm using Burrow in some ways as sort of an arbitrary example, but how do you see those two? I think it's going to be really hard for him to kind of match the perception. of what Burrough was by the end of year two, just because of not only Burrow, obviously, he made the Super Bowl and he beat Patrick Mahomes in the AFC championship, and I don't think the Jaguars are quite ready to do that.

But Burrow, like, did it in a cool way. Like, the way that the Bengals' offense worked with just a bunch of explosive plays and downfield throws that look awesome on Twitter when you're watching videos, I think that's easier to appreciate as a casual fan. you're not going to be like, like the average fan isn't going to be sitting there on Tuesday grinding Jaguars tape.

And they're like, oh, did you see Trevor Lawrence go from one to two to three in two seconds? Whoa, that was amazing. No. And he's not going to have T. Higgins and Jemar Chase to throw perfect deep balls, contested catches downfield. So it's not going to look as cool. So no, I think he's going to have a hard time

matching Joe Burroughs lore. But like, people around the league will be like, we'll put him in that conversation. And we'll start to see like, anonymous execs go, oh yeah, it's between Herbert, Burrow, and Trevor Lawrence for who has next. Stephen, you waited until like minute 29 to bring the anonymous execs into it. You should have told me if they're on board. Come on board yet. They will be, though. They just don't know it yet. They just don't know it. It's going to be a big year for Trevor Lawrence to improve his standing

among the anonymous execs of the NFL. All right. I think it's the moment of truth. am I coming to join you on Trevor Lawrence will be a top 10 quarterback by season's end island. I have to be honest, I didn't think that I was not optimistic about getting there by the end of the season, by the end of this episode, because

it's tough for me to really say it with my chest that he's going to go above any of those guys that we talked about. Like for me, It's just a little, the Stafford Wilson, Dach Kyler group, I'm still struggling, although you might convince me with Russ. I'm still struggling when you combine the fact that those guys have just done it and that those guys, maybe with the exception of Kyler,

still, I think, have better situations just in terms of overall roster talent. I think I'm still not there. I don't think I'm moving on to the island with you, Stephen. But can I like paddleboard around the island? What if I'll come over for a picnic? No, you need to earn your way on Chevro-Lorence. You don't get to, you don't get to dip your toes in the water. You have to, you have to be committed.

There are like five of us on the island right now. Okay. All right. See, this is a, those other islands, they might, they might look better, but they're so crowded. And like, it's just bad. they're not playing good music. Like, you come to Trevor Lawrence Island.

And if it hits, like, you feel better about yourself. This is the way to go. Come to Trevor Lawrence Island. It is a secluded paradise where only the elite film grinders of the NFL get to set up their parasols and drink their pinocaladas. All right, Stephen, I'm sorry. I'm off the island. Maybe I would be on Trevor Lawrence is going to be a top 12 quarterback by Seasons End Island.

But I think you've made an exceptional, pamphlet to support tourism and enhance your local economy in the year to come. And even though we did not end up island mates, I will forever consider this a special podcast because you took the maiden voyage to the island. You were the first person to join this little. archipelago we've, we've gotten going. So for that, I thank you, Stephen. And very excited to watch Trevor Lawrence this season. I'll send you a postcard in November. I look forward to it. Thank you for listening to The Island. Thanks again to Stephen. We will be back next week.

Thank you to Stefan Anderson for production on this episode and to Connor Evans and Arjuna-Ronga Paul for additional production supervision.