The Ringer NFL Show - Tristan Wirfs's Injury, Ruiz Vs. Diante’s Top-10 QB List, and More

Episode Date: July 10, 2025

Steven and Diante start the pod by examining the effect Tristan Wirfs's injury will have on the Bucs' season. They then take a look at the Washington Commanders' new throwback jerseys, before discussing the Chiefs putting their franchise-tag option on guard Trey Smith. After the break, they systematically go through Diante’s current top-10 QB list and debate the futures for each individual signal caller, including: #1 Lamar Jackson#2 Josh Allen#3 Patrick Mahomes#4 Joe Burrow#5 Justin Herbert#6 Matthew Stafford#7 Dak Prescott#8 Jayden Daniels#9 Jordan Love#10 C.J. Stroud The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.rg-help.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Hosts: Steven Ruiz and Diante LeeProducer: Chris SuttonSocial: Kiera GivensProduction Supervision: Conor Nevins and Arjuna Ramgopowell Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When you hear the word Seattle Supersonics, what comes to mind? Maybe it's Sean Kemp, The Rain Man, or Gary Payton, the glove, or maybe an image of a tall and skinny 19-year-old rookie, Kevin Duran. For fans in Seattle, it's something else. It's tragedy. It's theft. An iconic team with an incredible fan base that packed its bags and shipped off for Oklahoma City. From Spotify and The Ringer, I'm Jordan Ritter-Con.

and in my podcast Sonic Boom, I talk to players, politicians, owners, and fans about how Seattle lost the Sonics. You can listen to it on the Book of Basketball feed, on Spotify or wherever you get your podcast. Hello and welcome to another July episode of the Ringer NFL show. I am Stephen Reeves.

Sheel is still on vacation, so you're going to have to wait a couple weeks to hear his Dolcet tones again. But we do have Deonté Lee here. And Deontay, I don't know about you, but it feels like the first day of football season this week because the college football video game came out this week. Did you buy this year or you're skipping?

I'm not skipping. I'm waiting right now. That's a smart move. I have no impulse control, so I don't wait. Yeah, so I'm, and I have to do that. I know I had to do that at some point because I'm also the person that's like, oh, M.O.B. the show's coming out. I'm buying the platinum deluxe top of the line edition.

That's $119 because I want to get all my stubs. Yeah, I can't do that. Road to the show guy going and, you know, E.A. doesn't necessarily have that same draw for me with buying the deluxe stuff. It doesn't pay off because I'm not an ultimate team guy. So I'm waiting. I'm going to wait for the patches. I want to see all the parts of the game that are broken first and then I'll jump in once our group chat has solved the game. That's what I'll jump in. That's a smart man. That's a smart fan. I'm not patient enough. You know, I splurge on it and then I regret, you know, spending so much to play the game early. But to celebrate, what I would say is the end of the offseason. We're going to do an offseason tradition.

we're going to have Deonté share his top 10 quarterbacks, which has been a thing. I feel like it's been a firestorm for any other content creator in this space this year. And I'm just happy to be on the outside looking at. I get to wait until August to reveal my quarterback rankings and get yelled at by the internet. But Deonté is brave enough to share his today. But before then, we're going to hit on a couple of news and notes. The top story kind of came out of nowhere.

Tristan Wirthes underwent surgery on his right knee and is expected to miss the beginning of the season. We don't really have a full timetable or whether he's going to go on the Pup list. But we do know he's going to miss a couple of games to start the season, which I feel like it's a big loss for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and could have some impact in the NFC South race because we know the margins for error in that division seem to be slim. It's like one game separates first place and second place seemingly every year.

So I wanted to ask you how big of a deal is this? What's your level of concern with the Bucks? Because I do think their offense line was such a big part of their success last year. Well, I think it's always tenuous, right? like I think about a couple of seasons ago. I think that was the end of the time Brady era and coming in the Baker Mayfield. The big reason why it was very clear that they needed to turn things over there was because the offensive line was hurt.

And obviously, you can't necessarily control for that all the time. But when that's the engine of your offense, that's something that you always have to be aware of. And these things happen in cycles, right? Like, they've been really healthy over the last couple of years. And that's why their run game has been extremely efficient, especially when Worf's there because it just allows you to do so many different things offensively in the run game and setting up play action,

It really keeps defenses on their toes. So if he's going to be on the Pupp list, which it sounds like it's going to be, at least right now, right? Like we've kind of got to let the recovery process play out and see exactly where his knee is at as we enter training camp. But if he's got to miss the first month and a half of the year, that can have a major impact on what the NFC South Odds are going to be.

Even though I think that this offense otherwise, the two deep is still good. I would still say it's probably the best offensive two deep in that division and one of the better ones in the NFC. You just now have to be aware of the fact that, you've got a quarterback that does not respond well to pressure, and he just lost his best pass protector. So you have to be really, really, I think, aware.

And now I think things get a little bit tenuous to open the season for Tampa Bay. Yeah, I think that's a great point, like the Baker-Mayfield thing. And maybe we'll discuss Baker-Mayfield later when we start talking quarterbacks in the next segment. But I do think the thing that was undersold about the buck's success on offense last year was how good the offensive line was

and how big a part of their offensive success that was, especially in the passing game because I do like you hit on. Baker Mayfield is, I think he's a very talented quarterback, but I do think there are still weaknesses in terms of pocket presence. And when things aren't clear to him, he can move around in the pocket a little bit too much to his detriment almost. He can run into sacks. So I feel like if the offensive line isn't what it was last year

and he's facing extra pressure, even if it's real or perceived just because he doesn't trust whoever is protecting his blindside, I do think it could hurt them early on. And then you're also working in a new offensive coordinator. I know when we did the NFC South preview, I was kind of downplaying how worried I was about the offensive coordinator just because they did have this offensive line, which I think is like the biggest cheat code for any offensive

coordinators having a great offense line. Like I feel like either of us could put together like a below average offense if you just give us a great offensive line. But they might not have that with one of the best left tackles, maybe the best left tackle in the game right now out. So, yeah, that's definitely a concern. I'm just hoping that it's not a lingering issue and that the time he misses, he's back and ready to go

because this offensive line is fire. This is a fun team to watch. It's a fun run game to watch. The way that they were able to work the passing game off the run game last year was really impressive. Again, new offensive coordinator. I'm a little worried about it. I think I'm a little more worried than you

just because I don't think they have the best, or like, biggest margin for error. But I do think it might. be a little bit of an issue early on. But beyond that, it doesn't sound like it's going to be too much. It sounded like it was more like a cleanup exercise rather than like reconstructing anything or like something that's going to keep them out. So that's good.

Another bit of news, the commanders debuted some throwback uniforms, which were really just their old uniforms. They're calling it the Super Bowl era uniforms. I don't know if you caught that, which is just like a, hey, the time when we had a racist team name for decades and decades era. But no, this is a much need of change because the commander's uniforms I think the branding kind of stinks. I don't like the name commanders, but the uniforms are god awful,

like objectively terrible. The white uniform, especially, and this throwback is a white uniform, is really bad. So it's good to see the old style uniform come back without the logo or the name. I know some fans in Washington still want the name and the logo, but I think we're beyond that point. What are your thoughts on their uniforms? And I also have a question after that after you answer that. So I've never really been a big fan of that whole kind of like deep maroon.

in, you know, darker yellow combo. As a USC guy? Theirs is not the same as a Cardinal and the USA. It's not the same. That's such a fan take. That's such a fan. Look, look, buddy, I've spent a lot of time looking at these pan tones, okay? You brought up a NCAA.

That's a lot of time in Team Builder trying to replicate all the colors you like. The hex codes are different or whatever they call. And I think I used to, actually, which is really sad. That says a lot about me and how much time I spent on a MacBook when I was in high school working on Photoshop. But no, I mean, I've never been a fan of, I wasn't a fan of it when they had the slur as their name, not a fan of now as the commanders. I do think it's funny that you call it Super Bowl era because like now we're harkening

back like several decades. Like it is 2025. 30 years now. Yeah, I was going to say, even if we're going with like the peak of the Joe Gibbs years, we're talking 30 plus years ago. Okay. So it has been a while. So I don't necessarily know who that is supposed to resonate with except for the fans

that you mentioned, right? the ones who never wanted to change the name, but are now very excited because they have a franchise quarterback again and trying to rope them back in. And just from a basic perspective, it's not like their redesign is the most involved, right? Like, you change the piping on the pants. Right.

You go back to like the double trim, the double color trim on the end of the jerseys. The helmets have that old school stripe, which they already had. Like, there's really not that much going on. I would say in terms of throwbacks, this one probably falls pretty far down the line. All right. So if you could pick any team,

you're going back to their throwback, you're making it permanent, what team would it be? I have my answer. I'll get my answer first. I'm going to go with Seattle. I don't like the new Seattle. The old Royal Blue.

It's been like 13 years. I guess it's just like aging me. It's not really new. But I don't like the new one and like the Royal Blue with the silver and the green. Like that's my shit right there. I think they need to go back to that full time.

Big time fan of that. I will say, obviously as an Eagles fan, I'm always a fan when the Kelly Green comes out, right? Like, that's a great one for me. I like the old Patriots red uniforms. Patriots fans hate it because it's so reminiscent of a bad era of Patriots football. That's the problem, right? Yeah. They never want to see those on the field again, but I think that they're good looking uniforms.

And then the last one for me, locally, obviously, you know, the Chargers uniforms, they have a lot to choose from. I will say, for me, and I guess they're throwbacks now, because. we were kids a while ago. I was a really big fan of the Navy in yellow. That worked really well for me. Obviously, the most popular answer is the powder blue in yellows, which can never be mad at. As long as we retire the Royal Blue and whatever the hell they've been doing with the yellow

pants as of recently, all those needs to be thrown away. All right, reject that tradition. They're grace of more modernity. It's, dude, I'm like, come on, man. I get it. Michigan, I understand Jim Harbaugh, but please. God, we can do a better job with this.

There was nothing wrong with the Navy uniform. So those are probably at the top for me. And then maybe the last one would be like the old school falcons, especially the logo. I was going to say the logo. The old school falcons logo and the red uniforms are top top tier. The Falcons is their recent rebrand. I think it was like three years ago at this point.

That one pissed me off the most because they had such an easy answer. Like just go back to like the, you know, the black helmet with the white outline Falcon like there's no red in there or anything like that. That was, that's the best look. And when they wear the throwback, you could just, it just highlights how bad their new uniforms. They look like some like arena football, 2002 uniforms. Get that, get that shit out of here. It's, it's so bad.

Okay, how do you feel about like the Rams with like the bone thing? Like, where are you out with that? Do they wear the bone anymore? I think they might have retired. I think they've left the bone behind. I think they should just go back. Do they have like a serial killer in their department? department is like, yeah, we got to get some bone uniforms.

That's what we've been missing. But no, the thing I hate about the Rams uniforms is the gradient numbers. Yes. If you get into the gradient numbers, then you almost have just like a modernized version of what they used to wear. And they did, like, the new uniforms did solve one thing that I had. Like one problem I had with the old like throwback uniforms that they had like the Navy blue helmet with like the Royal Blue jersey. And it just, at least now they have the Royal Blue helmet. So, yeah.

I think my pick, my, I'm changing. my pick to the Falcons because their new uniforms are an abomination. All right, one bit of actual football news, I guess. It's not really news unless Tuesday comes and goes without anything happening, but Chiefs Guard, Trey Smith still hasn't signed a long-term deal after being franchise tag this year. I don't know if he is going to tag it. He is going to sign it. He's going to make $23.4 million on the tag. And if the chiefs don't come to an agreement on a long-term deal with him by July 15th, which I believe is next Tuesday. They can't negotiate until next off season, obviously,

and that increases the chances of him becoming a free agent. But because of how the franchise tag works with offensive linemen, they don't differentiate between tackles, guards, or center. So he's making basically essentially tackle money this year, and he's getting paid around $3 million more than the next highest paid guard. So if I'm Trey Smith, I have no urgency whatsoever to sign this deal. I would rather just take this $23 million, possibly hit the open market because it becomes very difficult to franchise tag him again because of the rules. And he's only 26 years old.

So I feel like he still has two big contracts left in him if he is able to maintain this style of play. One, do you, do you, does it make sense in your brain why the chiefs are kind of playing hardball with them and haven't, you know, jump to sign a long-term deal with him? And two, if you're Trace Smith, are you in any rush to sign this deal whatsoever? Well, let's answer. I want to answer the second question first because it's simple. The answer is for me, if I'm Trace Smith, is no. I'm not signing anything. Same as T. Higgins on the tag over the last couple of years, right?

Like, no, I'm going to walk this all the way down because I know you will not continue to tag me. And I think that the thing, if I'm going to give a little bit of bail, if I'm going to shoot a little bit of bail to Kansas City, they are kind of over a barrel in this situation. Yeah. Because they're trying to clean, they're kind of trying to fix the plane mid-flight, right? Like they've got they've had a lot of veteran contracts over the last few years because they've been pushing towards contending. Part of that is a part of that is why Justin Reed is gone. It's why they had to move on from Joe Tuny, right?

Like they're trying to clean up their cap sheet as they go. And if you go on over the cap and look at what their cap liabilities are for 2026, they've still got to reshuffle some money to make this work. They're going to have to restructure the Patrick Mahomes contract again, convert some of that money into a bonus, right? I think they're going to end up having to eventually rework Chris Jones's deal to be able to move some money down the line. And that might be just enough for them to be able to pay Trace Smith what he's going to ask for. And it's because Tray Smith knows I got franchise. When I get franchise, it's going to be a combination of all offensive line contracts, not just guards, which means I'm making more than Landon Dickerson, who is the highest paid guard based off extension money that we've had recently, if I remember right.

he's making $23, $24 million. If I'm him, I'm going to look and say, whatever Pena Sewell is getting paid, I want to get paid that too. Whatever the top under 28, 29-year-old tackles are getting paid in the league, I want that money too. And that's probably going to range you somewhere

between like $29 to $31 million. And that's a lot for the chiefs to pay. But at this stage now, they're not in the business of letting good young players walk out the door. So it's going to be really difficult for me to see how they get disresolved without paying him what he's asking for.

And I think the moment they do, we're going to be right back to the drawing board in terms of asking how they have to nail a draft in order to keep this window open with Patrick Mahomes. I almost feel like Brett Veach, the GM, should be feeling some type of pressure to resign this guy just because of his draft record the last couple years. It's like not the best track record. I know they've found some gems on like day two and day three, but like when they've tried to target areas to fix, especially on like the offense. and the playmaking group hasn't worked out well for them.

Draft-wise so far. Like, Machine Rice might be a hit, but so far, you know, he missed last season. He obviously has, like, all the off-field issues that have been circulating. So I almost feel like Beach has to get this done and has to have this guy in the roster. So, like, two years from now, we're not looking at the pro football reference page, the draft history and being like, are any of these guys on the team anymore? It's like Creed Humphrey and Mahomes is there before he got there.

So I do think there's, like, some of that at play. and the more that I think about it, can you recall a time outside of like Labion Bell, which is like running backs, this is a totally separate situation, where a player did play the franchise tag game and the team played the franchise tag game with a player, and the player came out like worse for it.

It almost seems like the player always ends up winning. Like I'm thinking of Kirk Cousins in Washington, thinking of Dak Prescott anytime he's had contract negotiations in Dallas, he comes out on top every single time. It just seems like that's been a winning strategy for players, even though it is seen as like a tool, a salary depression tool for the elders? I think so. And I think part of it is because teams are smarter with how they hand out franchise tags, right?

So it's just a much clearer marker over the last half decade of the guys that you know are going to be in highest demand. Right. We talked about it at the end of last season that if Trey Smith hit the open market, he was going to get paid more than any other offensive linemen in free agency last year. And that's coming off of the season where he wasn't the greatest past protector. Even as a run blocker, it was a little bit up and down at times, right? Like, this was not the Trace Smith that we saw in 2022 when they were just mowing teams down on the interior. And that was a big reason why Patrick Mulhomes was effective, even though he didn't have a guy as good as a Tyree kill out on the perimeter, right?

He felt really safe in the middle of that pocket. Trace Smith still is a highly valuable guy. And at his age, you don't get access to guys that are that good that often, right? He can still be a pro bowl player, even if he's not a perennial all pro level guy. So again, like it just leaves Kansas City, I think, in a really tough position, right? And it's less about me wanting to finger wag them for what they've done wrong with managing contracts. Because again, guys get old. The attrition happens.

They've been trying to keep this window open since 2018, 2019, right? Their first trip to the Super Bowl, right? Like eventually some of these bills come due. But now when you have a success story like Trace Smith, who you draft on day three, if I remember, right? And now this guy turns into a Pro Bowl fringe hall pro level player. You've got to pay this deal. dude, and unfortunately, the rest of their contracts don't really set up a friendly situation to do so.

So I'm really going to be fascinated to see how they handle the trade deadline this year, what they do early in the off season after this year to try to keep a guy like this in the door. Because if he leaves, like you said, we're going to be having a conversation about their two deep asking what happened to all the guys that aren't named Patrick Mahomes and Chris Jones on this team. Yeah, it could get awkward. And like, if it is a year from now and we're still having the conversations where like how do the chiefs fix their offense?

Why aren't they, you know, completing the deep passes? Why aren't they more explosive? Why isn't Patrick Mahomes top three in every passing statistic? I think you almost have to fall back on the GM. You're not going to blame the quarterback, obviously. So you're not going to blame Andy Reid either, which I think Andy, I know I was doing the bit last year, like kind of, you know, chitting on Andy Reid all season and saying he was kind of washed.

But Andy Reid has the clout where no one's going to, by default, blame him for the offensive design, just because we all, you know, see him as an offensive genius. a guy that knows best. So I think it's, you know, it's going to be Beach. And you brought up a good point, like 2022 when they won the Super Bowl, the year after losing Tyree Kill, Mahomes was as good as ever, like statistically, like put up the same numbers he did.

Like my EPA. Every season of his in his career so far. He was so good that year. It was insane to watch. But them building that interior offensive line was a big reason, like you said, why they were able to sustain their offense success and kind of take stuff off of, like, playmaking burden off of Patrick Mahomes because they had that. I remember talking to Andy Heck, the offensive line coach for the Chiefs before the Super

Bowl at the media day about how building up that interior offensive line kind of allowed them to do more in the run game, do more like pulling guards, man blocking type stuff, you know, getting away from like the Andy Reid is known as like a zone blocking scheme guy through and through, but they kind of deviated that little bit. And Hecht was talking about how like the personnel changes allowed that, but now Tune's gone. Right. And now Tray Smith, like a year from now could be gone. He's obviously going to play this year. Although Andy Reid has been a part of teams that have rescinded the franchise tag twice. Like they've made trades. I think Keith Ford was one of them. So there is a possibility that they trade them. But I think after Tuesday that becomes less of the possibility. But did they lose Tray Smith a year after losing Tune? And they still haven't really figured out the wide receiving core? Like next year, what the hell is this chief offense going to? Is it going to be save us, Patrick? Save us on third and eight. And I don't want to say. And I don't want to see that. I don't think anyone should want to see. I understand

if you're a Broncos fan, Raiders fan, Chargers fan, it would be fun to watch. But for the rest of us, it should be, Patrick Mahomes is playing well. Football is fun to watch. So I'm hoping that doesn't happen. This Chief's offense can find something. I want them to be entertained because I don't know about you, but I did not enjoy watching this offense last year.

I hated every moment of watching this offense last year. It sucked. It sucked. And people gave us so much shit for it, right, for being the people who were throwing cold water on this team as they were winning week over week. But God, that was such a chore. And like you said, you look at this depth chart now.

I mean, if Kingsuizuamatae doesn't look as strong as he did in flashes towards the back end of last year, you could be looking at a rookie left tackle, a left guard that has already had problems over the first couple of years of his career. And now Trace Smith, who we're still not sure is going to be able to reclaim what he was in 2022. And a Joanne Taylor that you already don't trust. So you're talking about a quarterback and a center of the only two guys

inside the box that you trust on a snap by snap basis. It's like a six-yard circles that you trust in the offense when he's on your center. 1,000 percent. It just, it can very easily become non-viable, even with all the optimism that I know I have. And I'm sure that you share about what this offense can be. So definitely going to have my eye squarely on what this offensive line looks like going into 2025. Yeah, because we definitely didn't see the best of Patrick Mahomes. I don't think it was his fault last year.

I just think the situation he was in, he was just playing on hard mode. He's playing on all-madden all season long. and I don't think we saw the best of him. And I think, like, there was discussions about him. Like, is he still the best quarterback in the NFL by the end of last year? I ended up putting Lamar number one in my rankings just because I think he was playing out of his mind. He was the best football player in my mind. I still, like, if I, I don't want to, like, no spoilers,

but I'm assuming that I'm going to put Patrick Holmes as the number one quarterback going into the next season. I'm very interested to see what your top three looks like after last year, after the just remarkable performances by Josh Allen, Lamar Jackson, and then the down year for Patrick Mahomes. So I really want to see how you order those guys. We'll do that after this break. We'll get Deontes's top 10, and I'll try to rip it to shreds. All right, we are back.

It is, I feel like it is quarterback ranking graphic season on social media. Like, you just throw the top 10 out there, no context whatsoever, and you feed whoever made the top 10 list to the commenters who are going to rip their part. I'm going to play the part of the comic section in this section. And I do want to put your top 10 out on a graphic. I want to see, I want you to deal with what I deal with on a weekly basis during the season. I've got a couple that I'm sure are going to get me lit up.

I'm positive of it. Honestly, do you know what would be a good bit is if we just made a top 10 for Shield? Like we just made up like the most like. Oh, man. That would be great. The most polarizing top 10 list and he comes back from vacation. Yeah, so we got to put that on right before he comes back from vacation. Because I would believe anything that you put on, like, a quote card, a graphic.

Like, that's probably why people get ball sack sports. Because you see it looks official. There's a picture of the guy. There's a quote. Like, of course he said that. So, yeah, I would believe anything. Like, Yahoo is so good at that, right? Like, where they've got the great graphic design and you've got the big bold letters on the bottom.

Like, you can tell me anything about a player. You can tell me a player died with that graphic. And I might believe it. Yeah. Maybe that should be the punishment for losing our picture. contest, if we do it next season, is the other two get to make a fake top 10 quarterback list with your name on it. You have to

tweet it out. You know, you can't give up. Like, yeah. You can't give up the bid and you have to respond to at least five comments. Like, yeah, I don't hit that. I don't hit that, yeah. That should be our fan duel, our fan duel punishment. We'll do a test by doing it for Sheal before he gets back with her

question. I'm going to make that list. I'm going to put like, I'm going to put like, who's a worst guy we can put in the top five for Shield? that it just offends all his sense of it's realistic. I would put like Baker Mayfield ahead of Joe.

I was thinking Baker. I was thinking maybe two yeah. Who else? Trevor Lawrence in the top 10 gets me awry. Purdy will be a good one. That would get me wrong up.

I would know the bit. I'd be in on the bit and I would still respond to him angrily. But anyway, enough of that. Enough of Shield's imaginary top 10. Let's get to Deonti's actual top 10. And I didn't know whether to start

with 10 and go to 1 or go to 1 and go to 10. But I feel like because the bottom five of a top 10 is more controversial, I feel like, than the top five. Let's start with one. Let's build up suspense to who you have in your top 10, starting with the number one spot. I'm assuming I know who it is, but I'm really interested to hear who you have. I mean, we've talked enough about quarterbacks that I'm certain you can guess who was number one for me, right? Like not a lot, and honestly not a lot of suspense early in this if we're comparing it to yours.

I've got Lamar Jackson at one. I love it. For me, like... I really wanted to get into a debate over Lamar versus Patrick Mahomes, but now I'm going to have to change my mindset because I wanted to argue for Lamar, expecting you to do Mahomes,

but now I can argue for Mahomes. So for me, right, and I tried to look at the last two seasons, right? I tried to create like a rolling average because, you know, sometimes guys get really hot in certain ways.

We just talked about Patrick Mahomes' is surrounding cast and how that influence the way he played last year, right? So I kind of wanted to open up the sample to be a little bit more forgiving to guys who maybe dealt with a particular thing in one year that they didn't have to deal with in a year before.

And like for Lamar, when you do that, it only helps his case, right? Like you think about how efficient he was last season within the pocket. And I think that when you're talking about him, when you're talking about Josh Allen, when you're talking about Patrick Mahomes, and those are three guys that I think exist in their own tier. And on even giving any one of those guys you can just throw out and say his number one, and even if fans of the other two don't like it, you all kind of have to nod in agreement. I just look at the way that he was operating from the pocket. I compared to Matt Stafford working in structure, right?

Like he's gotten to that point now where he knows how to get to the end of the progression and be just as aggressive at the end of his progression as he is at the beginning, right? Like, and that's an evolution in his game. He's always been accurate. He's always known how to place the ball. I thought that he was really good vertically early in his career. I think the intermediate accuracy now has only grown year over year. And last year, I think, was the best manifestation of that.

That's a big reason why Rashad Bateman. had one of his most effective season since he's been a pro. It's a big reason why Isaiah likely has now broken out as a tight end. It's because of what Lamar Jackson can do to manipulate guys in the middle of the field and get the ball of two players as they're coming right out of their break. And then we get to the thing that actually makes him more unique than any other player we've ever seen at this position. It's what he can do outside of structure, right? Like after the first two and a half seconds, he's first in throwing EPA, third and success rate,

first in the NFL and pass-ser rating over the last two seasons. And even though a sack rate is low and I would say, well, here's how I'll praise it. He loses a lot of EPA on sacks sometimes because he'll get into try to save the play, try to save the play mode. And we know that he has some fumble problems at times. But it's so hard to actually get your hands on the guy to get him down. So right? So they're like, there's a big delta between how much EPA he loses.

Right. It's a net positive because those disaster plays don't happen often enough for you to actually have to be concerned about them. Right. whereas maybe it was like a Joe Burrell who will get to later get sacked a lot more often, right? He just has less disastrous ones because he just gives his body up sometimes if the play's not there. But those plays don't take away from what he does in terms of punishing defenses and the way that defenses warp their attention to him. The second that plays extend past the first couple seconds. Once he gets outside of the tackle box, that's why he can be so aggressive and push the ball downfield.

I don't think you can be wrong with anybody in the top three at number one. but for me, I look at how he's played over the last two seasons, man. It's hard to find a better guy on a down-and-down basis than Lamar was. And the thing about Lamar, I think he's the best player in the NFL right now is he gets the same looks and the same benefits as like the system quarterbacks, like the guys we talk about like to, like, two Brock Purdy. You know, they got these guys scheme,

these coaches scheming up, looks for them. And like, it's easy because they're facing certain types of defense. Like, you can make that argument. If you just look at the stats, you can make that argument for Lamar. Like, he benefits from the scheme. If you didn't watch any of the games, you just look at the stats. You would think that. But he creates that environment himself.

And we've seen that with two different coordinators now. We've seen it with Todd Munkin, and he's taking it to another level with Todd Munkin. But we even saw it with Greg Roman, who, for my money, is one of the worst offensive play callers in the NFL today. And I don't know of another quarterback that does that because we, like, we, we talked about Patrick Mahomes's lack of supporting cats just now. But when you put like, compare these two supporting casts next to each other,

the Ravens and the Chiefs, I don't think there's much of a difference. Like you have... There's really not. The best receiver is a tight end. Like the top target is a tight end. The receiving core is, there's some talent there,

like definitely some athleticism and agility. But they aren't like number one receivers who dominate and like dictate looks on the defense. It's like Zay Flowers is like, I don't even know what to compare it to. It's like the wide receiver that Andy Reid is trying to draft every season basically, say Flowers. The undersized Speedster, Rashad Bainman has been up and down in and out of the lineup. I mean, they've thrown like wash Des Bryant in there.

DeAndre Hopkins is in there. Odell Beckham. And no matter what, it's explosive. No matter what. And it's not like that with Patrick Mahomes. I would still pick Patrick Mahomes if I had to win a game tomorrow I had to pick a quarterback

I'd pick Patrick Mahomes but this is a different conversation this is like a full season who would I rather have and be guaranteed that I'm going to have a top five offense it's Lamar Jackson and whenever he's been healthy the Ravens have had an elite offense

without an elite supporting task until really last year so I just think he's a starter kit for a top five offense and I don't like I think you could say it about Josh Allen because what he produces in the run game. I don't know if you could say that about Patrick Mahomes,

but I think what you get with Patrick Mahomes is an elite offense in terms of winning, like contributing to a win. And I think that's what we saw at Mahomes, which is why I still think that Lamar had a better season than him last year, but in the long run, I still think Patrick Mahomes. I think I would take him to win a game tomorrow. It depends on what your standard is.

So I don't know. How do you differentiate that? Like, would you agree that you would pick Mahomes to win a game tomorrow? I think so, right? Like, if you use the Bill Simmons, like alien invasion, you've got to set up your roster for one game, it would be hard to leave Patrick Mahomes on the bench if he's available, right? Like, I'm taking Mahomes. If it's up against the best defense that you could possibly design up against one quarterback,

it's Patrick Mahomes. If we're doing a fantasy draft, right? Not fantasy school, but just a fantasy draft like you're in Madden or, right? You're just talking with your buddies. who do you want to start your roster with? It's Amar Jackson. Because I'm thinking over the course of a season, the problems that he solves

is going to put defenses in such a bind just to prepare for that guy. There's nothing you can do, really, especially when he's passing at the level he's been passing at the last couple of seasons. It's not just one game. You're getting a run system unto himself. Right.

It's a pass game. He solves problems. It's play actions. Scrambling, all these things. You know, so like, he's, he is in a system unto himself, right? Like, it's derogatory now to make this analogy because of just what his career has turned out to.

But I think of like Pete James Hart, like early James Hardin in Houston when it's like him and Dwight Howard. And it's like, oh, wait, like not only is this guy a superstar unto himself, as long as he has a pick and roll threat, we have an offensive system that's going to be top five in points per possession, right?

Like, Lamar Jackson is very reminiscent of that in that regard. And unfortunately, because of the lack of playoff success, Maybe the hard thing is apt right now until he finally gets over that hump. But just in terms of like play-by-play season to season, man, it's hard to find a guy that's going to be more productive regularly than he is. And that's without having an elite supporting cast. And by the way, the playout loss, he averaged over 0.2 EPA for play. Right.

You really can't compare it in that. I know you have the two funnels. Yeah, but the guy was like amazing in that game outside of those two bumbles. All right. So I guess this is, we know who your number two is. There's no way you're dropping Baham's three. Well, let's have that talk. Let's have that talk because for me, I thought the way that I approach this or what I

ultimately left with the top 10 is like, if Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson could share the one spot for me, they would. And then perhaps when the Holmes would be my two. But if I'm taking what I've seen over the last two seasons to try to project out what I'll see over the next two seasons, Josh Allen is number two for me, right? Like, it's the effectiveness as a passer. Again, we're talking about guys that have limited supporting cast. The most impressive thing to me about Josh Allen's evolution as a passer is that it happened as Stefan Diggs was losing some of his value as an outside receiver.

And after he left the roster, it's happened with them playing more heavy personnel, having less guys that can beat man coverage on the outside. This is about him getting the ball out faster than defenses can react to him. This is about him being an unsackable force, right? Like I said that week over week when it became clear that he was a legitimate MVP candidate down the second half, of the season, I think about that Lions game is one of the best examples, right? And the Rams game as well. But like when he gets in that mode of we're getting this first down, nobody is bringing me down.

We are moving the chains. There's nothing that anybody on defense can do, right? Like, it's Cam Newton-esque in that respect. It's Dante Colpeper-esque in that respect where guys can just be hanging off his arms, hanging off his shoulders, got his legs tied up and he's still going to get the ball off or he's going to escape all together. And I think that if there's one knock, right, it's just that we haven't seen the explosive passing game that we know that Josh Allen is capable of.

And you look at some of the contextual stats in that regard, right? When outside of structure, when he's pressure, when they see more man coverage, all the things that rely more on wide receiver talent than the quarterback's ability, he doesn't perform as strongly in those stats. But I think it's very clear when you turn on the tape. It's because he does not yet have an outside receiver that can go win and allow them to be aggressive and vertical. But everything in just terms of what he's doing in the pocket.

getting the ball out of its hands, navigating pressure, identifying what's happening before the snap and punishing defenses for it. Only Lamar Jackson to me has been better at that on a down-by-down basis than Josh Allen. So for me, he's number two.

But I think this cluster of top three guys are all really, really close. Yeah. Let me preface what I'm about to say with this is relative to the other league guys, not relative to the league standard, what I'm about to say. I think Josh Allen is amazing and his progress, especially over the last couple years,

his game is really matured. sure, but I do think I think he's kind of what Lamar Jackson skeptics think Lamar is. Like a little too relying on chaos and like the decision making kind of goes, can go out the window when he goes

into chaos mode. Whereas Lamar, he's such a consistent problem solver. And the one thing about Lamar is like he is very good at throwing a checkdown and like creating a situation where the checkdown is like a potentially an explosive plague and he knows when to throw him, like

situationally, I just think he's a better decision maker than Josh Allen. I would put Patrick Mollum's way ahead of both of those guys in terms of situational decision making, which is why, even though I think you can make the same argument I made for Lamar Jackson for being the best football player, you can make that argument for Josh

Allen because he does so much for the offense. But I do think there's a lack of consistency when he goes into playmaking mode, and I think he can, like, it was way better last year. I have to say, the year before that, there was decision-making problems at times, and he lost them a game or two last, the year before last year. Last year, I think he really

tightened the purse strings there, and he wasn't like just giving up the ball to the defense. But I still think he has some room to grow before he catches Lamar Jackson and a lot of room to grow before he catches Patrick Mahomes in that regard. So I'm guessing Patrick Mahomes is three, because if you drop him lower than three, I'm

literally can't be lower than three. He literally cannot be lower than three. Yeah, there's no way. He should be lower than two if you're not. I was going to say, honestly, if people want to yell at me for having him lower than two, then I'm okay with that, especially because I think a lot of the reasons why I don't think of them as highly as Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson are really like conditions that are out of his control. Exactly. I talked about that with Joanne Taylor not being the past protector they thought they were paying for when they brought him in.

It's the issues they've had at left tackle since Orlando Brown Jr. left, right? Like it's the fact that they don't have a Tyree kill. It's the fact that Rashid was not available to them last season after tearing up his knee. it's the play calling, which can be an issue for as much as I love Andy Reed. I think that this marriage of their offense to the RPO game has actually caused them a lot of problems. I think sitting in the Super Bowl with you and Sheel, it was really instructive, kind of watching them on first and second down, playing up against the defense that's just not going to give that stuff up. I think about that playoff game against Houston, right?

Like another team that really kind of put the screws to them on early downs and didn't allow the cheap stuff with the RPO game on early downs, there's not very many answers. He does not get any relief really within this scheme to be the Patrick Mahomes that we saw from 2029 to 22. But the superpower is still there, right? That situational decision making you're talking about is still there. The fact that he gets pressured as often as he does without being sacked is maybe like it's one of the most confounding things in the league, right?

Like if you were hitting the pause button based on when disaster strikes in this offense and putting and dropping any other quarterback into that situation that's not name Josh Allen or Lamar Jackson, the offense immediately probably becomes one of the five worst in the league, right? Because of the amount of pressure that he's having to work through with wide receivers that don't beat man coverage very well with the tight end that's aging, right? There are a lot of things that are working against him. The fact that he's still third because of his, the way he performs on a down-to-down basis with all those things in mind, I can't say enough good about him, right? And I'm probably, I've probably been as critical of him as a

quarterback of anybody in national media and of this offense period of anybody in national media. But you go back and you watch, man, and you watch with the eye of here are all the things that were wrong before the play even started. Here's all the things that went wrong once the play started. And there is Patrick Mahomes still getting this offense out of trouble. You can't have them any lower than third. He is still very much the same superhero that we've been watching since he took over the job in Kansas City. Yeah, I think our buddy, Seth Kalina, works for PFF, who used a podcast with two high podcast, RIP. I think he put it the best.

He said when it's second and six, if it's second and six, Mahomes gets you seven. If it's third and seven, he gets you eight. Like, that's what he does. And that's why I think,

like, the stats don't really tell the story of how many problems he solved. I don't think it was, like, his best showing, but I think it, he was playing the quarterback position at a very, very high level.

And I don't even know if any quarterback was really asked to do what he did last year in carrying that offense. Kind of reminds me of, like, obviously different playing style, but it kind of reminds me of, like, post that first MVP Lamar, when, you know, it was like Greg Roman was struggling to figure things out,

the offensive line regressed, and they didn't really have weapons. They were still like a fringe top 10 offense still, like the cheese were last year, and like in big games when they needed it, they could score points. But there was something rotten at the core of the offense, and I think, like, we're seeing that right now. But the quarterback is so good that it covers it up. So, yeah, I mean, for you is this a 1A, 1B thing with Lamar? and Josh Allen then...

It is. It is right now. Isn't it a 1ABC thing? Are you separating those two? It should be... It should probably be one ABC thing. I think that the athletic potential, the aggression as a passer for Josh Allen

and Lamar Jackson right now, I think that I just lean a little bit further in that direction. That comes back to like stylistically for me. Yeah. I think that the way the passion will holds has been forced to play has a big influence on this.

But it's just hard to watch the... It's hard to watch a passing game. basically take on the identity of five yards in a cloud or dust, as often as Kansas cities does, and it not have at least a little bit of a negative effect on how you look at them on a down and down basis, but that doesn't necessarily speak poorly of Mahomes. I just got to take what I've been watching, right? Like, I can't fill the gap for them, so to speak. Yeah, that's true. We can acknowledge all the things that create the gap that has nothing to do at Mahomes, but I can only fill that gap but so much. I would say for me, like the way that I think

about him right now is exactly how I thought about Tom Brady, maybe from like 2016 to 2019. Right. Yeah, yeah. Oh my God, there are a lot of times where it's like the only guy he has outside of Rob Grunkowski is his game's white. Like, and they're still somehow putting up 24, 28 points

on a week by week basis. And it's only because of the excellence of the quarterback. They're very much in that phase right now offensively in Kansas City. So again, can't be worse than third based on how he's performing in the circumstances. But I just look at how unstoppable of forces that Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson have been,

and it's hard to say that they haven't been better on a week-by-week basis. I'm just still not picking those. They've got to face off against 15 in a playoff game. Yeah, I didn't expect any controversy with these top three, but I think there was a little controversy there. I was really shocked that Mahomes is three, but I understand the reason. I kind of agree with it.

I definitely had Mahomes third at the end of last year. But yeah, so I'm really looking forward to who you have from four to 10, because I think that's where most of the controversy lies when you put these out. And we're going to do that after the break. All right, we are back. We have gone through one through three, the usual suspects, Mahomes, Lamar, Josh Allen, although you put it in a different order. You have Lamar first, Josh Allen second, and Patrick Mahom's third.

Who do you have fourth? I think this is where we're going to start disagreeing a lot more in fighting. I think that here's where the fights come. And this is the first time I've done this maybe since 2021 in the conversation with these quarterbacks. Number four for me is Joe Burrow. All right. I think this is the first time I've had him ahead of Justin Herbert in a long time for me as a quarterback. Let me say this is the first time that I don't hate that pick. Like I think before last year, I think you were objectively wrong if you had Joe

Burrow ahead of Justin Herbert. I felt the exact same way. But Joe Burrow, he leveled, he became what everyone, how everyone talked about him last year. He became that brain, like that he wasn't taking the bad sacks. He was. he was solving problems and protection, which I think he didn't get enough. Not criticism because he was a young quarterback, like handling protections. I think like any young quarterback is going to have some,

you know, some troubles with that. But there were times, like the Tennessee playoff game is one that gets brought up a lot. He got sacked eight times, I think. Go back and watch those sacks. Those were protection issues, which can be solved before. They weren't blocking issues.

I mean, there were some blocking issues because the Bengals' offensive line wasn't good. But they could have been solved by a better protection call, all I'm going to say. Maybe that's a Zach Taylor thing, but I will let you continue. Yeah, no,

I mean, this is the first year for me where it was like, like you said, Joe Burrell looks like the quarterback that everybody who is a Burrow fan is telling me that he is when we're having these conversations of where he lands compared to a Josh Allen, compared to a Justin Herbert, compared to the other guys that are in the MVP conversation on a year by year basis. And a lot of this was not just what you were saying in terms of solving problems pre-snap. I think he was always proficient to good at it last year in a lot of those games because you know you're not getting help in the run game. that was the first time to look like, oh, great to elite at times, right? Like, he really checked that box of being a guy who can find you success before the balls even snap because he knows what defenses are trying to do to him and his receivers. And then to me, and maybe the biggest layer of evolution for me is the fact that things did not break down outside of structure.

Things did not break down as often when he was pressured. Things did not break down outside of those first two and a half seconds where he's just chucking and ducking to a T. Higgins or a Jemar or a Jemar chase out on the parameter. Seventh in passing UPA after those first two and a half seconds, six in success rate. His pass the rating was 109.4. That's an elite number.

In the film, backed that up. I think that, and for me, I think that this was probably the first year where, even though I did not necessarily look at them as a playoff team, when I would watch them in these tight games, it was very clear that this wasn't just the,

Jamar Chase, go turn a curl into an 80-yard game to keep us in the game. Although there was a little bit of that. There was a little bit of that, I mean, the Ravens probably called it the worst, right? And those front-time games, with that being the case, to me, this was a lot of, Joe Burrow, you've got to chain together these eight, ten, 11-place sequences now where you're being right, right?

First down is only going to get you two yards on the ground. And now you've got to go do the rest for us. You know, you can't take a sack on first down if we go with the early down pass. And I think that he was able to meet and exceed that moment more often than at any other point in his career. I think that because that's happening, the evolution that the offense is taking on naturally is even more effective now because Joe Burroughs doing better from the pocket, doing better when he's pressure, doing better when things break down, and avoiding those situations more often.

And as these things continue to grow, man, I would not be surprised at all if he ends up leading the league and most passing efficiency metrics next season. Because if they're able to keep him upright, if what we saw on 2024 is an indication of what we're going to get over the next couple of seasons, he's going to look like the best, guy that's not in that top three conversation for me. Yeah, I think it became harder to fool him. I remember there was, you know, Mike Sando does his quarterback tears. I think it was the Mike Sando edition.

It might have been the ESPN version that I think Jeremy Fowler does. Sorry, if I'm getting the people wrong there. There was a defensive coordinator, obviously anonymous because these guys put their names to any of this. I was saying, like, you could show Burrow one look and then change the look after the snap and you could fool him. This was like two years ago coming off to Super Bowl, which I think that was true then. I think it was true even the year before last year.

year. But this year, I think as a post-snap processor, he's gotten even better than he was before. And he doesn't get fooled. And I think he's less inclined to kind of go one and done. Sometimes he was guilty of like his first read wasn't open. And like then he went into scramble mode a little too quick, drop his eyes and took some sacks. But no, I think you're starting to see that gate, that part of his game just get chipped away. And there was, he took a chunk out of it last year and really evolved. I still have Herbert ahead of him. And I have Herbert ahead of him just because, anything you can argue about Joe Burrow, like in terms of his skill set,

I think Justin Herbert has a superior version. The accuracy thing, I think, has been Joe Burroughs thing forever. I think Justin Herbert is just as accurate as him. I've never seen him struggle with accuracy at all. He puts the ball where he wants, no matter where the throw is, I think Joe Burroughs still has some, if you look at the numbers,

he still has accuracy issues when throwing those deep outbreaking routes. I'm not bringing up, I'm not using the baby arm Burrow nickname I used to throw around because I think his arm has gotten stronger. but you could still see it there, whereas Justin Herbert can throw anywhere on the field and doesn't lose any accuracy whatsoever. That's what armed talent is to me.

And I think that the office's evolution is also a recognition of that, right, of not trying to put him in situations where he's doing that so often. I think that's a lot of why Jamar Chase has been moved around more often. But the only reason why that works is if Joe Burroughs is willing to work the middle of the field, if he's willing to throw in the tight windows, if he's willing to attack in the seams more often. and he's been doing more of that, right? And again, all of this is in an ecosystem where he does not have another option.

Now, what he's throwing to is as good as you can never ask for in the league, right? But it's all said and done, this might be the best number one and number two-do. Especially for his style. Especially for his style. Like a pre-snap processor where you have these two point of reference wide receivers

that dictate what the defense can do. Can be guarded one-on-one? You're giving him the answers before the test. It's almost a cheat code for him, and he's like the perfect quarterback to take advantage of that cheek coat. And I think that last year was a great example of what it looks like when Joe Burrow is meeting those guys at their level, and it's not just T. Higgins and Jamar Chase making the best out of tricky situations from the offense. Not saying that Joe Burrow is causing the wide receiver problems, but just when the offense will break down, I think it will be more upon those receivers to go beat one-on-one coverage when they had it and just Joe Burrough to go recognize it when it was there.

last season felt a little bit different to me in terms of down-to-down quarterback play where like you said, he's not being fooled by changing pictures, he's not being taken advantage of by the blitz nearly as often. And I think that outside of structure, he's much more comfortable now because he knows himself as a quarterback better and knows that if he can just get the ball out to one of those guys, something special is probably going to happen. Yeah, so I would say that in my opinion, Justin Herbert's a better thrower to the football.

Like if you're combining accuracy and arm talent, that he's a better thrower to the football. And then we talked about Joe Burroughs processing and the leap he took last year. He was already good at it. He made it like an elite strength. Justin Herbert has never had a problem processing on time. That's why he doesn't take a lot of sacks.

That's why he's able to solve problems as well as any. Like Lamar Jackson solves like pressure problems, like a deteriorating pocket as well as anyone as I've ever seen. Justin Herbert might be second on that list. It's a totally different style because Lamar could just, you know, stop time and space and become. He's a night crawler from X-14. that first seen in X-Men 2.

Whereas, Justin Herbert's a robot. Like, he takes a subtle step to the right and then gets a throw-off. He had that one throw against, I think was the Broncos. It was like an outbreak

route on third down. And there's like a guy in his face and it's like a crazy throw. I think Jim Harbaugh was like, he just like ranting over it in a press conference recently. But yeah, I think he solves,

he has better processing time. I think the one thing you could argue is Joe Burroughs a little more ambitious. He's not going to give up on a play. Yep. But that's why he gets. take so many sacks. Like there's a balance there.

And I think what Justin Herbert has done over the last two years has struck a better balance. I still think he can take the restrictor plate off more so than he has. But I think like the old criticism of him, which was very, it wasn't like off base at all. I think it was very, you know, I agree with it, was that he didn't scramble enough. He didn't try to make enough plays.

I thought you saw him scrambling more often last year. I think you saw him testing stuff and then showing in the tight windows more often last year. throwing out of structure, not, you know, defaulting to the checkdown just because they took away one deeper route. I think you saw that last year. So I would put the processing ahead of Joe Burrow there. The athleticism, obviously, he's a better athlete than Joe Burrow. You're not running zone read and stuff like that. The charters don't really do that with Herbert, but they can. They have done it. I mean, and we definitely saw more design runs last year with Harbaugh at the helm once Herbert was

healthy. So like, the only thing I can really think of is like the aura thing. Like, oh, he just shows up and wins big game. The guy has, he's missed the playoffs, and I'm not putting that on him because it's a team sported. I wouldn't put it on Herbert for missing the playoffs or any quarterback for missing the playoffs with the team stinks. But, like, those arguments tend to fall apart. I remember when Russell Wilson was the guy that never lost

and was clutch and, you know, led the game winning drives. And then, like, five years into his career, he led the NFL in game losing interceptions. Like, it's a small sample size because none of this stuff is actually a thing in my mind, even though 20 minutes ago I said I would pick Patrick Holmes to beat the aliens.

I mean, and that's just kind of like, that's a tricky nature of this thing, right? It's like, you know which guy you think is better and then you end up trying to wrap the argument around that, right? Like, I think that for Herbert, to me, I love Herbert. I mean, obviously, you know how strongly I feel about Herbert. I think that for me, the thing that hangs me up with him, and I have him fifth, right?

So it's not like I don't think that he's good enough to win a Super Bowl or win playoff games. I think my hangups with him are very similar to what my hangups are with Dak Prescott, right? And it's like, you get to a, certain point where the processing is so elite, and now I'm hyper-focused on each decision you make and why. Now, they manifest themselves a little bit differently between DAC and Herbert. I think that DAC can be very machine-like processing in terms of whatever my most aggressive

option is, I want to take that. He's on the James, the James Winston end of the spectrum. And I think that Herbert's a little bit more like the Matthew Stafford at the spectrum at times. right, which is just kind of like interesting because Matthew is Depperson is obviously in this top 10 and kind of sandwiched around some of these guys. I think that for me with Herbert, and it's funny because this is the worst thing to happen in the wildcard game, I wish that he would just cut it loose

more often. Yeah. So he can learn exactly what he can get away. I still feel like almost a half decade into this guy's career or have decade in this guy's career. I still don't know if Justin Herbert knows what he can get away within the NFL. That's the thing. Yeah, he still has to take the restrictor plates off. And, like, I think he'll get there because he's kind of been inching towards it over the last couple of years.

He needs to bring the shooter sleep back. I don't know if you remember. Yeah, he hurt his elbow. When they were, I think he wore it when they played the Vikings two years ago. And he just, like, torched Brian Flores. He was, like, throwing everything out of him. He was just handling it all. He needs to bring the shooter sleep back.

Shooter sleep, Justin Herbert was, it was great time to be alive. Until he got hurt. I mean, my favorite throw of his is from a few years ago, right? It's that deep throw in the middle of the field to Josh Palmer. And it's like, dude. By the team? Yes, you can do that whenever you want. You can climb the pocket and push the ball down field if you see that whenever you want. I think that that risk aversion does hold him up at times. It's understandable because this offense doesn't offer a whole lot of aggressive opportunities. I would say even less now with Greg Roman. Right. Like you just can't really trust the design of the passing game to give this quarterback as many options as he deserves and he just has not had that throughout his career because the same thing exists when Dana Staley was a head coach. I want to see him just continue to grow in that regard.

I want to see him have a year like Joe Burrow did last season. I want to see him have a year like Josh Allen did in 2022, 2022, right? Maybe he's never going to do the turnover because there were a lot of turnovers in 23. But like 2021, 2022 when it was like, oh shit,

Josh Allen just figured out that like you can play quarterback this way. And now that he's added his skill set to this, now it looks different. I think that Justin Herbert needs a little bit, more of that Josh Allen in him of hey man like if you got one-on-one coverage out on the boundary man go take it if you can if you can pin the ball on a guy's shoulder which we've seen him do when he's locked in go do that more often we just don't get that often enough but he does so many other things well just like a mini lobotomy 100% little like my buddy of bull wolf uh texting me because like

he he's not as big a Justin Herbert guy and his argument is always like he's too normal he's too normal. He's too chill to be the kind of quarterback that he should be, right? Like, he's too normal. He's too normal. Jaylen Hertz is normal too. He's, he's the same thing. I'm with you, which is part of the reason why I think that I think, and there's obviously a whole other layer to that with you're too close to, I think probably a little too close to the elephant to see the whole thing with Philly guys. But I would say like with Herbert, the things he does well is the pocket, the pocket maneuvering, like you said, it's not like Lamar Jackson in terms of, of the escapeability or the stop on a dying movement.

But what he can do at his huge frame to be able to avoid guys and still access passing lanes is one of a kind in the league, right? One of the more unique things that we have in the league. And the fact that he is able to get the ball out efficiently and effectively at all three levels, basically on command is one of the most impressive things to me as well. I think that there's just, there is a turn, there's a corner that we're still waiting for him to turn

based on how talented he is. and I think that that will kind of determine whether or not he's Matthew Stafford, where it's like we've got to wait till late in your career for you to land in the right situation or a Josh Allen where it's like you can put any 10 guys around him and he's probably going to find a way through his aggression, through his ability to avoid sacks and push the ball downfield to have an effective passing game. So I'm just waiting to see that for her. Yeah.

We could have, we could just have this back and forth for like an hour because I want to respond, but I'm going to move on because I'm going to keep talking about this. who's your number six? Yeah, six and seven and then the last eight, nine and ten, I think we can kind of cluster together. Okay, cool.

Six and seven for me are Matthew Stafford and Dak Prescott. And these are two guys, again, that I had a really hard time uncoupling, right? Because you can really make an argument for either in a single season sample being in the sixth spot. Some of these, for these two guys, at their best, they can probably be as high as four, right? Can I just say something?

Can I just say something? Because I know people hear Dak Prescott at seven and they're like, what the hell are you talking about? Jack Prescott, what? We're like, what, 14, 15 months removed from him being like the MVP favorite? Like, this guy was second team all pro 15 months ago. I feel like people have the memory of goldfish when it comes to Dak Prescott.

Yeah, he was banged up last year. The Cowboys were a disaster. But like, we are two seasons removed from him having a potential MVP season in the same season that Lamar just went crazy. Like he was challenging Lamar in the favorite before he had that. I think it was the loss to the bills, actually, that kind of ruined his tanked his campaign. But the guy was playing brilliant football not too long ago,

and I think we're going to see that this year with George Pickens. Right, and we're also not talking like six, seven, eight years out from now, right? Like, this is single game sample based on what you've seen over the last couple years. A great Dak Prescott is still just as good as a great Joe Burrow. You can be just as good as a great Justin Herbert, right? he might not access it as often. And I'm really fascinated to see now what that's going to look like with the George Pickens in the fold, with another year with Jake Ferguson, with C.D. Lamb,

maybe getting to spend a little bit more time doing the things that he does best. I'm really optimistic about what this offense is going to be. But that's a whole conversation for another day. Just looking at Dak Prescott, specifically as a quarterback, you talked about it. It's processing from the pocket, right? I think that his recognition of what defenses are trying to do to him is maybe the most unappreciated trait of any of the quarterbacks that we've talked about in terms of their best traits.

Dak Prescott, because he turns a ball over, doesn't get enough credit for all the things that he does to set up an offense for success on a snap-by-snap basis. He sees things well. He can adjust things from the line well. I think that as he is recovered, after recovering from that ankle, that foot injury early in his career, he'll never be as mobile as what he was coming out of Mississippi State. But his functional mobility has been really good, especially. like you said, two seasons ago when he was playing at his best, he looked like one of those guys

that if you don't get him on the ground within the first two and a half seconds of a play, he's going to tear you up. And I still think that that exists for him and he can still access that on a down-by-down basis. The arm talent is there. The accuracy can be there. I do think that he can be helped by tamping down on some of the reckless decision-making from time to time. I think that, and part of that might just be inherent to the way he plays. plays a position.

I think that as years have gone on. I feel like the personality issues too. 1,000 percent. I think that for him, he just feels like he has to take those chances. So for the people who have legitimate complaints about those parts of his game, I'm not saying that they don't exist. And I'm not saying that those can't cost you games.

We've seen it. We've seen it in the postseason. Those turnovers cost his team games. But I also think that you don't get the Dak Prescott that I love without pieces of that. And while I don't necessarily think that he's an elite quarterback anymore, I do think, like you said, he can still access that all pro-level play. And to me, like, if you're seventh and you can still access that all-pro-level play, that says a lot about where the league is at as a quarterback,

because there will be a lot of years where the best of Dak Prescott looks like one of the best in the league, if not the best in the league. I definitely think Joe Burrow surpassed him this last year as the processor, capital T, capital P. I think before last year, it was Dak Prescott. if you wanted to look at like the classic pocket passer, problem solver, the guy that harkened back to the era Brady and Manning, the sheriff, whatever nickname John Gruden gave. Like he was that archetype of quarterback.

And I still think he hasn't in him. I'm not going to hold 2024 against him and assume that's what it's going to look like going forward. I'm going to look back at 2023 and 2022 and 2021 and like this larger sample size, which is not only like productive football, not only good film, but you look at their record, the Cowboys just win games when he's held. They win games and they go to the playoffs when he's healthy.

And I don't think that can be discounted either. But yeah, I do think he has something to prove that he still has that in him after what happened last year. Because before the injury, he wasn't playing the best. I know there were issues all over that Cowboys' offense, but I do think he has something to prove.

Matthew Stafford, I feel like people have reluctantly come around to him being still in this tier. I know when I ranked him, I think it was like eighth, a couple years ago, like, people lost their shit because he was coming off a year where he didn't play that much.

I mean, 22 was awful for the whole franchise. Yeah, yeah. But his film, like, a couple of those games, you could still tell he had it. Like, he made a couple of throws where he just like, holy shit, how does this guy do? And he just continues to do it. I'm in awe of watching him play quarterback. I don't think he's the best quarterback in the league, but he might be the most fun quarterback in the league beyond, like,

you know, the circus freaks at the top because they're like Lamar and Josh Allen who do these crazy things. He's like, I'm going to throw a football behind my back. He doesn't do that, but he comes close to it. But I do think the difference between him, like, he has the arm to do all that stuff those guys can do. He can't manipulate time like those guys can. He can kind of do it with like the eye manipulation where he can move a guy

because he's not going to be a guy that can go outside the pocket and move a guy. He has to do it with his mind or his eyes. But I think that's the difference is once he faces pressure, it goes all downhill. And that's why we've seen the Rams passing game fall apart when that protection isn't there. but when he gets protection, man, he could throw for throw with Josh Allen. We saw it last year. That Rams,

Bill's game was one of the best quarterback games I've ever seen. And that was a testament to his talent that he could hang with a guy like Josh Allen in his prime. Yeah, I mean, it's interesting for him, right? Like with Dak, I made the point that, like, in a given year, he can be as high as four. To me, with Stafford, I think the ceiling is a little bit lower because of his age. We're like, I don't know if he'll ever actually be higher to me

ceiling-wise than about six. but he'll probably, as long as he can be protected, I don't think he'll ever be worse than his six to eight range because of what he can do with his arm. And you mentioned it, right? In terms of like, one of the most enjoyable players to watch,

this is a very much football writer, football podcaster thing. In terms of quarterbacks to watch at practice, it does not get better than Matthew Stafford. You probably hear the ball travel to the air. I've never seen him in practice. I've never seen him in their training. Went to their training camp last season.

I mean, I don't think the Cooper Cup got many team reps. So it's not even like he was working with the best of his group the entire time. But they set up their team situation towards the end of practice. And I'm standing in the far end zone just watching the office march down the field because I want to see him work the pocket. And I mean, dude, it's special, right? Like, it's one of those things like, as a fan, if you don't see it and if you're not looking at it from that perspective, if you're not seeing that end zone angle on the all 22, like he's an end zone angle guy. Yeah, 1,000%. He's the guy that you get NFL Pro for.

So you can watch him work the pocket out of the end zone. You get money for that plug? You should, you should. Don't pitch a product unless you get paid for it, man. Hey, man, look, I'm not going to tell anybody to pirate the product. If you do, that's on you. But look, I'm saying if you can get all 22 access and you watch a guy like that from the end zone angle, obviously the Eagles playoff game in the second half specifically was

instructive in that regard. I think that the December stretch where things are kind of funky for this team, if you can just kind of discard that and just attribute it to age, and you look at what it was basically like from Halloween to Thanksgiving, where this offense kind of started getting some things rolling. I mean, that's the level of Matthew Stafford, man. That you just don't, it's hard to appreciate if you're not watching for it. You've got to know what you're watching.

It's definitely appreciating a good wine type of quarterback play for me. I'm like you're kind of making the hips or pitch but I gotta say like you know the meme where the like the two guys on the bus and like on the bus yeah but I feel like if you don't enjoy Matthew Stafford you're just like you're dork like you don't like football

it's like so fun how he plays football like I don't know but yeah so let's go to your eight nine and ten you said those guys were kind of clustered they're clustered together and this is where I think I'm going to get the biggest reaction from you meat for me is Jaden Daniels

see All right, let me hear your nine and ten. Okay, so eight is Jane Daniels, nine is Jordan Love, 10 is C.J. Stroud. And I would say the Stroud and Love can kind of be interchangeable for me. And then obviously that's going to open up an interesting discussion of the guys who didn't make the top 10.

The two I would flip, I would put Stroud at eight, I think, and then have Love in Jaden Daniels as those guys that are hard to kind of parse. Just because I think everything we said about Jack Prescott, I think Stroud could be that guy this year as soon as this year, just because they're giving them the keys to the offense

and it's finally able to be that guy I think if you've heard C.J. Straub talk about football and breakdown football. He clearly has the brain and the capacity to do that, to be the guy that handles the offense. And we're going to see that this year. And I think his play, even though the stats are bad, I think in spurts, you could see evolution in this game where he was a little – he could make plays out of structure a little bit more last year. I think you saw the process get a little finer last year. But I'm really excited to see him. Jaden Daniels, for me, is a tricky one because – like, I –

And I just recently went back and watched like four of his games for the quarterback rankings. And I think I'm a little higher on him than I was at the, you know, watching him throughout the season because you get to see it all in a row and you're not just watching games one at a time. Right. And the thing that I definitely underestimated about him coming out. And I was a fan of him. Like I kind of changed my tune on him late in the process where I was like, all right, this guy's going to be, at the very least going to be a good quarterback is that his ejector button is the best in the league beyond Lamar Jackson right now. Like out of the pocket, a problem. If there's a problem, and sometimes he does it a little too early,

but it never backfires because he's so good at it. He's just able to pick up six, seven yards, no matter what, on first down. Like, they could draw a dropback pass and they can be covered, and they're still getting eight yards because of the fact that he can run. I think where the evolution is going to come in his game. Because we never really talk about young quarterbacks who have these big years. We're just like, oh, yeah, he's amazing, and that's that. You're like, no, he's a young rookie quarterback.

He obviously has area of him. He has flaws. I think it's just working deeper into progressions, attacking the middle of the field, deeper into progression. But I think when you're able to set it up, and Cliff was able to set it up for him a lot of times last year, he completes those passes.

He doesn't miss passes. And then in the quick game, I just think he's like, he was nearly perfect in quick game. Like, just didn't miss throws, got the ball out on time. I think it's when you take away the first read is when you start to see some of the problems,

some of his pocket management. And I do think the arm isn't special. the arm is good and it's not special. And I think you do see that when it's a tight pocket and he's throwing with bodies around him. We kind of see the ball flutter a little bit. The ball can, that's when he misses throws. That's when he has thrown like interceptions.

A lot of the times when he threw interceptions last year and there weren't a lot was he floated the ball of the middle of the field and like a safety who wasn't really in position to guard the receiver, like just got the easiest intercept. Falls into it. Right. So like that's where I want to see. But I think his floor after last year is like top 13 quarterback.

Which is amazing. And that's honestly why I have him at 8th, right? Like, is that he can just access something in terms of, like, getting out of emergencies that a Jordan Love can't athletically. And you were all that with Jordan Love. I feel like you were the first person to really bring that out. And, like, after you said it, I couldn't unsee it. And then you could find it in the stats.

1,000 percent. And, like, and I had all the same hangups that you mentioned, right? Like, I think about the way that we were podcasting in the first month of the year when they're winning games. And I felt like every week, was coming in being like, dude, like, look at the data is telling you that this is not real. And like you said, right, like as you start watching it, as it expands, as the sample size grows, as you go back and rewatch games, as you get deeper in the season and you have just a more full

body of work to evaluate, the more I realize, like, I might be looking at this wrong. A, the design of the past game, it's not the most sophisticated. No. Now, part of that can work to Jaden Daniels' benefit. Exactly. Right. Like as a rookie playing within that passing game for all the problems. It wasn't in Arizona either.

Like with Cliff. So I don't. It wasn't solely like a J-Daden and helped the rookie out thing. Exactly. So like it was and he operated it really well. I think that for me, if we're just evaluating what we saw in the field, you name what the superpower is going to be.

And it's that accuracy when he's got a clean platform. He can put the ball any and everywhere. That was the thing that I was most impressed with, especially when they were playing up against top competition. Right. Like, he played really, really well against Tampa Bay, basically, you know, playing as an accurate quarterback. Back-to-back weeks, right? Like he was able to do that and played well down the stretch.

And then you add in the scrambling factor. You called it the ejector, right? That immediate sense of, oh, okay, what I wanted isn't there. I'm out of here. Or I feel it. I feel a guy on my back. I'm out of here. Only Lamar Jackson is in the conversation of guys that has that burst.

and I would say that Lamar Jackson, his burst, hasn't been at that level since 2019, right? Like, he's added, he's added some weight and he moves a little bit more with agility. I would say the jaden is more like sudden, vertical, I'm up the field, you can't touch me once I get to top speed. And you can just see defenses, like, not know how to react to that.

Because there's nothing like that in the league. Even Kyler Murray, more agile, a guy that I think can get to second and third be your best. He's a little cartoon mouse. Yeah. It's 1,000 percent. I think Jane Daniels is more of like, you're zero to $6. He's an F-1 car.

He can get right to tops. He's a F-1 car. And my concern was he was as durable as an F-1 car. And the guy I'd like to run into a brick wall at times at LSU. But I didn't see that as a problem last year. And then the other, he did get dinged up a bit. Yeah, right? The ribs.

The rib injury definitely affected him in the middle of the season. But I would say that that wasn't as much of a product of, all right, dude. Like, you got to know when to get down. Because I actually think that he protected his body, relatively well based on what I expected it would be like coming out of college and more just like, hey man, that build, that frame in the pocket, you're probably going to get lit up a couple times and it's going to hurt when you get tackled. But the accuracy is there. The management of the pocket was there at a level that I did not expect coming out of college. The accuracy was top

tier, even amongst other really good relative to other really good quarterbacks. And like you said, I mean, if he's able to avoid some of the arm strength issues that he's just going to have based on his arm talent, and he can just avoid trouble, get the ball out quickly and effectively. And if they can continue to grow the passing game around them, I think that we'll get more elite-level seasons out of Jaden Daniels because the floor is so high based on what he is. And we're not saying he has a bad arm. We're saying relative to the top of the top where like every quarterback now seems to have like one of the greatest arms of all time. I mean, everybody above him has a much better arm.

Except maybe Burrow? maybe Burrough. I think if they're on par. And I would say that, exactly, and I would say contextually the use of Burroughs arm, he's able to mitigate that in ways that we just have not seen year over year because Daniel's only a rookie

in the way that we have it from Daniels yet. One more thing I would say about Daniels, like where he could take another step, and this would just make him unguardable is if he threw on the run a little bit more because once he leaves the pocket, he's running. I think there are stats. If you look up stats, it's like historical

how averse he was throwing outside of the pocket. if he did that, I don't know how you guard him. Because like you said, when you watch how defenses react to that speed, that ejector button we were talking about, that's why Washington's offensive line wasn't a problem last year. On paper, it looked like shit. I know they've upgraded over the offseason,

but last year on paper, it wasn't good, but teams were so afraid to pin their ears back in rush and give up those scramble lanes that it didn't matter. I was going to say if you look at the pockets, they were wide open, but they weren't even pockets. They were like those college, it was a wall. and he had no one around him. And it's because of him.

It's not because of something else. They didn't respect him and they wanted to keep him in the pocket. It's because they were scared to death if this guy getting into the open field, which I don't think is going to go away. I think you can maybe when he's like 2930, maybe you start to worry about how the speed and if he hasn't evolved those parts of the game we talked about,

then you start to worry. But for the next five years, I mean, he's probably going to put up to that stuff. Yeah. It's going to be tough. So let's talk about Jordan Love because I, Jordan Love is a tough one, just because one small sample size, two, the inconsistent decision making, and then three, he was banged up last year, but he still played,

which is hard to kind of adjust for. And I think there are some people that will be like, oh, if you're on the field, then we can just judge you based on how you're playing. There are other people that will take that into account. I don't say either one's right. It's probably somewhere in the middle what he should be doing. But it did clearly affect him. and when he was healthy,

he had some games where he looked like a top 10, top five quarterback in the league. And I want to see him fully healthy. I want to see him play 17 straight games and see what that looks like and see what the decision making looks like now that we have two seasons of him as the starting quarterback. So what are your hangups with him not being higher?

And then what are the positives that have still on him as a top 10 quarterback? The hangups are the things that we've been talking about with love, right? It's a lack of creativity as a pastor. right? Like I would say, and it's not like he's an untalented arm, right? Like when I say that, for example, when I say that Michael Pinnock Jr. is not a very creative passer, a lot of that I think is just by how his arm, what his arm is and how he utilizes it. With love, he has all the arm talent in the world to be able to do whatever he wants from the pocket, right? Like, and unfortunately, the only thing that we get from him are the fadeaway throws, right? Like, you were the guy to first point

that out, I would say, national media is all the fading rate throws, the trick shot looking throws where, you know, when he wants to put arc on the ball, you could see him kind of fade back. There are times in which that gets him in trouble, but for the most part, it's just something that he can do really effectively, more effectively than the other quarterbacks that attempt that. I would say it's the accessing a tricky arm slot from time to time to be able to work the intermediate areas of the field, that 10 to 12 yards range, you don't see as much from him. Yeah. We don't see the shaking off pressure. And even if the play only ends in a checkdown, it's like, okay, I can see that you can navigate your way around this, not lose sight of what you're going through in your progression and still get the ball out effectively.

it happens from time to time, right? It kind of comes and goes, and that's the inconsistent decision-making that you mentioned. And I think a lot of that is because his MO, his default processing is, if I can get a throw-off, I want to throw the dig. If I can get a throw-off, I want to throw the post. If I can get a throw-off, I want to throw the comeback.

And, like, it's very entertaining to watch, especially when Green Bay is playing up against teams that they're better than, and you get to see Matt LaFour start cooking in a play action game, or you go bats, protect out of shot. gun and you can let Jordan Love just rip the ball in the middle of the field. That part is great. It's more of the contextual things that we don't see as often, right?

Like, I think that if he had a little bit more of CJ Strata, C.J. Stroud and a little bit more Jordan Love, we will be talking about top five level quarterbacks. Yeah. Right? Like, because they just respond to those tricky situations a little bit differently. But just like what he can do, feet planted in the pocket, it's right up there with your Justin Herbert.

It's right up there with your Josh Allen's, big bodied, strong-armed quarterbacks that can put the ball wherever they want to. That stuff is, it's tantalizing to watch. I just need to continue to see him grow in his response to pressure,

his response to changing pictures, right? Like the Seattle game, he kind of had some trouble with that at times. And obviously, he's been banged up so often in his career, even as a starter, that it's hard to know exactly when to extricate. Like, he's making this decision

because he can only do X, Y, or Z, versus he's just having trouble with dealing with defense. You think about that second Minnesota game where they played a bunch of man coverage and challenged Jordan Love to play outside of his comfort zone. And you saw those hiccups. You saw the hesitation. You saw the turnovers. You saw the pressure turning into QB hits and sacks.

As a result, I want to see him not lose that aggression or find contextual ways to be aggressive within that. That's been Lamar Jackson's big help as a dropback passer, is that he'll work through his progression even as he's being pressured and being hit. that's Joe Burrow in 2024, even though he knows pressure is coming. He's going to work to the end of his progression. That's Patrick Mahomes, basically since he's been a starter. He'll take the contact to work through the progression because he knows that he can still find effective offense, even if it's not the biggest, most explosive plays. I would like to see him continue to grow in that respect.

But for how young and new he is to being an NFL starter, it's hard to have many more complaints outside of that. I'm speaking just strictly as like quarterbacking, like how we envision quarterbacking as an NFL quarterback. He kind of stunk in college. Like he made boneheaded decisions. He's very much an outlier case. I feel like he has evolved as

a processor. There's a lot of room to grow, but he has evolved as one. It has made great stride. So that's why I'm a little bullish on him. I think he's going to just keep going up and up and up. I think he's more of like a creative pastor than he gets credit for, like beyond the fadeaway throws, like eye manipulation and no look throws. He does all that stuff. He misses them a lot more than Matthew Stafford does. But

he still tries them. Maybe when he hones that ability, he'll jump into the top five or around the top five, which I think is definitely his ceiling, definitely in the range of outcomes for this upcoming year. So we talked about the top 10, Stroud. There's not much to say about Stroud. I think Stroud was a victim of high expectations last year.

I think that was the issue. I think as a quarterback, he improved in some areas. The stats regressed. I think more control over the offense is going to, to do him a big favor. Because last year there was just some looks where he didn't have the tools to fix him before the snap and he just had to take on a free rusher. I do think that will help him in the long run, like becoming a more,

or better, more creative problem solver. Where do you want to see him improve the most next year? I think it's, I think a lot of it is just going to be, can you be a little bit more efficiency leaning than explosive leaning, right? Like some of that is the effect of the offense, right? Like obviously Bobby Sloak was trying to run, was trying to replicate something that he experienced. Once Christian McCaffrey got to San Francisco in terms of like,

we're going to be very aggressive in a play action game. We're going to be very aggressive in a dropback passing game. And that stuff we know he can do very effectively, especially when his wide receivers are healthy. When he has Nico Collins there to take tops off defenses, what we see in terms of him working through the progression looks as good as any of the other guys we've mentioned in the top 10. I think that for me, it's like, what is it going to be when you can't rely upon that?

That was a big reason why they were having trouble last year. Obviously, Sloic owns a lot of that in terms of design of the offense development of the offensive line. But a lot of that was stuff that we can fairly put on CJ Stroud, like not being able to change that gear in his mind. Yeah. Of knowing like, okay, dude, I can't wait to the absolute last second wishing this dig open, wishing this curl open. wishing this skinny post open, I've got to just get the ball out, right? Like that's the part of the Matthew Stafford game.

A quarterback, we know that he idolizes, that he has not yet developed, right? He doesn't have the arm. Maybe he hasn't built up. He doesn't have the arm for it. Any household had to build up the scar tissue. I don't think for it, right? Like, Stafford kind of had to get the shit beat out of him

for a few years in Detroit before he really kind of accepted, you know, what he can and can't get away with. Maybe this was an instructive season for him in him getting more control over the offense at the line of scrimmage and having experienced what he did in terms of the ways in which an offense can fail you and take you out of that mode of being able to be aggressive as often as you want to be. I think that that can end up being a net positive, assuming that he's not a shell-shock quarterback, which it didn't seem like he was, right? Even in that playoff game against Kansas City, when guys are bearing down on

them, you still saw a quarterback who wanted to be aggressive. That's an excellent trait of his. It's just going to be being efficient when that stuff is not a big. for you to access. I think that he can and will grow in that. And the rest of this stuff sets such a high floor because he does have a good enough arm to push the ball outside the numbers at times because he is aggressive enough to push the ball deep down field in the middle of the field or outside the numbers. He's got a lot of the necessary tools to be really effective and efficient. It's just going to be him taking control of the wheel and making sure that his offense puts him in position where he can be that efficient on a down and down basis,

even if structure breaks down. Yeah. I mean, I can talk about it. these quarterbacks for long long. We've already gone like an hour and 20 minutes. But your top 10, just to recap, was you had Lamar number one, Josh Allen number two, and that was a 1A, 1B thing for you. Patrick Mahomes basically O&C, Joe Burrow, Justin Herbert, Matthew Stafford,

Dak Prescott, Jaden Daniels, and then C.J. Stroud and Jordan Love were interchangeable there. I think you had love 10. Just to hit on some guys that I think are going to be controversial omissions from the top 10. Where did you have Baker? Baker to me is 14th. Okay. So who was your 11 through 13 then?

So 11 through 14 was Hertz, golf, Purdy, and Mayfield. Okay, okay. In that order. Hertz? So why Hertz over golf? Because I feel like those are two quarterbacks that are very hard to compare, but they are quarterbacks that kind of benefit

from their surroundings. I think that for me with Hertz, for me was Hertz, the reason why I feel as safe putting him at 11 is because he doesn't put the ball in harm's way, right? And now, once we're outside of the top 10, right, like the guys who can access elite level play, I'm really hyper-focused on guys that can avoid disaster. So functional, like, Hertz has a functional disaster mitigation, essentially. 1,000% like, and it's different between Hertz and golf, right? Golf is trying to get the ball out before he gets hit because he knows bad things. If he can play on an office chair, he would.

That's always been my bar stool. I mean, he would be the greatest quarterback in all time. He'd be the same quarterback too. In flag, right? If he was in flag, if he was in flag ball and wasn't being rushed, he'd probably be the, I would say this, he'll be this best seven-on-seven quarterback that's ever lived. Yeah. If that were available to him, right? Like, I think with Hertz, he's a little bit more willing to take the sack.

And I think that he exchanges the sack for the risky throw. Yeah. Which is frustrating, right? It can break down an offense, 2024, basically all the way up until December. was instructive in that regard of how that can break down a passing offense when your quarterback would rather be sacked than put the ball in harm's way. And I think that, but I do think so that when he's healthy, he can move the ball on the ground. And when he feels confident in the passing game, which he should always give him the wide receivers that he is to throw the ball to, that you do get that best of the rest quality. Right. And that's really where I think that his ceiling comes out.

Right. The Super Bowl was instructive in that regard. Even the NFC championship game, a lot of that was, you know, explosive runs or just explosive plays, kind of putting them in good position and turnover luck. But even in that, he was working effectively then the divisional game against the Rams was like the worst version of that, right? The weather gets bad. He doesn't want to turn the ball over because he feels like they're going to win this game as long as they hold possession. And he's taking some really bad sacks in the second half. And that's just kind of the yin and yang of what Jalen Hertz is going to be.

With golf, it's more because he wants to get the. the ball out before he gets hit, he will take the risky throw in high leverage situations that he probably wouldn't in normal scenarios and that he knows he shouldn't. He just doesn't want to be hit. I think that the divisional game against Washington was the biggest example of that. But those two guys, I think, are right there with one another. And really this whole cluster of Hertz, I would say Hertz golf and Purdy Mayfield, I think, is a little bit more interesting. But those three guys, when they're not turning the ball over, when they're not taking terrible sacks are the last three guys you can probably have the conversation of being Super Bowl level

quarterbacks playoff winning level quarterbacks if the rest of the situation is right around them. I want to get you in trouble. Where did you have Tua? Right. Tua's 20th. Who's directly ahead of Aaron Rogers? Oh, God, that's perfect. And based on the conversations we've had about Aaron Rogers, I think that says a lot about how you look up that group of quarterback. Okay, just to make our boss happy, Where do you have Drake, May? He's 18th, so right ahead of those two. I would have him a little bit higher. I don't know where I'm going to end up with him.

I'm really liking what I'm saying. He's tricky. He is tricky, you're right. He's tricky because they weren't winning a bunch, but the level of play was great. You have to fight the urge. You have to fight the urge to like already give him credit for the progress you think he's going to make. You know, like you see the flashes and you're like, oh, that's who he is.

And it's like, no, he has to like put it all. He has to fill in the gaps a little bit. Not as much as people thought, definitely before last year, but they're, there are still some gaps to go. And I would say in the opposite direction for me is Gino, who I had 16th, right, where like I have to stop myself from thinking about the cliff because of some of the things we saw that were problematic for him down the stretch of each of the last two seasons with being pressured and the offense breaking down with him in the pocket because he does so many other

things really, really well, right? And I think that when you feel really secure about the things that a quarterback like that does well, the issues start to really shine a lot brighter. And I think that for Gino, I probably ding him a lot for the failings of Seattle's offensive line, for the failings of his offensive coordinator at times for the failing of his wider receiver core at times. We just have not. It just runs so hot and cold with Gino that I have a hard time knowing exactly where I'm

going to place. I am now realizing I'm in offseason mode and need to get it together because I didn't even process that you left Gito out, not only of the bottom of the top 10, but out of your 11 to 14. He's not in the top 15. Yeah. I want to, now I want to fight you.

I want to fly to San Diego and fight you. I might lose. I probably will lose, but I don't care because I have to defend Gino's honor. Because if I don't, who will? Like Greg Rosenthal, Mina Kimes,

and that's it. Right. Mina Kimes, basically. Geno Nation. Doesn't run that. Yeah. It's a lot deeper than it was in like 2018 when it was just me and grade.

But yeah, that's an inexplicable omission on, in my opinion. But no, I wasn't a, offended by your top 10 list. I mean, there was obviously some things that would move around. I think Jaden for me is just a little too much too

soon, maybe three spots, four spots lower. I would put him in the same area. I had Stroud before last year. I caught a ton of shit for not having him in the top ten. By the end of the year, I was looked at as someone who was too high on him, so that's how it goes. But, God, man, talking about quarterback, Scott, I'm excited

for football season now. Season's back, man. I love talking about quarterbacks. Teams deported to training camp over the next couple weeks. We are back at it. I cannot wait. But yeah, that's going to do it for this episode. That was Deontay Lee. Be sure to yell at him about his top 10 quarterback rankings on Twitter. Any social media platform that you can reach him on,

let him get a taste of what I have to deal with. And by the way, I didn't say this. I meant to say this earlier. We were talking about Jalen Hertz. Eagles fan recognized me on the Metro yesterday. Big fan of the show, listens to the show, said I was too low on Jalen Hertz. But he was very nice.

Maybe the nicest Eagles fan I've ever interacted with. they're probably all going to be a lot nicer to you because they won the game. That's a great point. And he probably got off the train and like talk shit about me to his friends. But shout out to know. He definitely got cussed out in the group check. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, that's going to do it for us.

That was Deontes' top 10. I'll have my top 10, my top 32 coming out at some time in August. We will not be back next week. I think we're going to take a week off. Then we will be back. We're going to ramp up the season preview coverage, training camp coverage. We're going to have people at training camps all over the country.

So I'm looking forward to that. But we will see you in a couple of weeks. That was Deonti Lee. I am Stephen Ruiz. Thanks to Christopher Sutton for producing. Thanks to Connor Nevins and Arjuna Ramgapal for additional production supervision. And thanks to Kiara Givens for socials. Must be 21 plus and present in select states.

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