The Ringer NFL Show - Von Miller Injury Impact, Top Young Quarterbacks, and What to Expect From the 2020 Season | The Ringer NFL Show

Episode Date: September 9, 2020

Kevin Clark is joined by the newest member of the The Ringer NFL Show feed, Warren Sharp, to discuss if the Denver Broncos can overcome star linebacker Von Miller’s injury (17:59). They then rank the top young quarterbacks (25:08), talk about what trends to expect in the 2020 season (34:40), and more.  Hosts: Kevin Clark  Guest: Warren Sharp Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's episode is brought you by Heineken. Heineken original lager is made with pure malt in their famous A-East, which makes Heineken an all-season all-the-time kind of beer. I love Heineken. My family loves Heineken. And drinking Heineken during the NBA playoffs has been a real treat. It's been summer. It will be fall.

I have no plans to change by beer of choice. Pick up a pack or have it delivered today and drink responsibly. It is the Ringer NFL show, part of the Ringer Podcast Network. I'm Kevin Clark. Join today by co-worker, Warren Sharper. Warren Sharp. Warren, welcome to the team, buddy. Thank you for having me.

I'm so excited for this opportunity. Can't wait to absolutely crush the 2020 season, covering all aspects with you guys. We're all going to crush it. So here's a quick rundown of what 2020's going to look like. Sunday night's going to be myself and Nora Prenciotti. Tuesday, Ryan Chazier, who announces retirement today, we're very, very excited to have him giving his insight on Tuesdays with Cole Wright.

Wednesdays is Warren Sharp. And Verno, Chris Vernon. We love that. Thursday, I'm back, and then Friday, Warren Sharp and Joe House. Warren, are you excited for the 2020 season? Like, where are we right now? Like, are you ready for this? It starts tomorrow.

Do you feel like it starts tomorrow? I actually do. I've heard from a lot of people that say this week snuck up on them because it's just so much and we didn't have any preseason games. But I've been building towards this for so many months now, writing that in-depth book, you know, that I started months ago. And it's just a lot. that I've already invested into analyzing everything with this season, that I am really looking

forward to these games actually kicking off and everything getting started. The one thing that's going to be unique is, you know, you guys can't see this because it's a podcast, but I have a little theater set up where I watch all the games in my little laboratory, and I have eight games on one screen and I have two other side TVs that each show games. It's keeping up with all of those games. It does, the preseason is useful to train your eyes again since you haven't. I haven't done that since week 17 of last year because you start the playoffs in January onward and you're only watching one game at a time at all times. So to be able to watch and follow the action in nine games, I think, kick off at 1 o'clock.

I don't know why the NFL didn't push a few more to 4 o'clock. I think that's a gripe that I always have with them almost every single slate. But it's just going to be difficult to keep up with those games. So Sunday at 1 o'clock is going to be like a rush of being able to process things. But at this point in time, I'm feeling pretty good. So when everyone talks about timing issues in the preseason and getting up to speed and how the speed of the game might be different in September this year as opposed to other years, they're mostly talking about you Warren and your ability to track different games

and watch eight games at once. And your eyes are just going to be a mess for the first, what, three weeks of the season? I hope that it only takes about five minutes because I... Okay. I try to keep up with every single game. Keep the ground running. No, no reps doing it cold. What is your second favorite sport? Is it hoops? Are you keeping up with the hoops right now? I'm, I've got hoops on on occasion. I want to see if the Lakers are going to get to the finals.

Like I don't really pay close attention, but I do. You're locked in. I'm locked in. I do pay a little bit of attention to basketball, but very little. And other than that, nothing like that one big golfing event, Kevin, that was a few weeks ago. where they were videoing. It was like Peyton and Brady with Phil Mickelson and Tiger. Sure. I was doing, I was actually trimming some trees in my yard at that point in time. So I'm not really a big into other sports anymore. No distractions. Yes. Trees and football. All right. So the reason I ask is I think that's the problem with how people are processing this. I'm ready for this season because, and you're ready for the season, because we talk to people who it's their

job to get ready and so they're in the mode. But I think that there are some people who, and it's our job to get ready, by the way. But I think most people are consuming basketball or hockey or the Champions League final was just a couple of weeks ago. Normally, it's in May. So I think that it, I think just on the sports calendar, people having a hard time processing it. But I'm excited. And I think there's a lot to talk about. We're going to get into that in a second. I do want to start with two bits of breaking news. The first is Jalen Ramsey. Now, I thought it was, I understand how salary cap works and how how money works, but I thought it was very funny that there was a report yesterday that the Rams were literally over the salary cap and needed to get under the salary

cap by the first game, obviously. And that was followed by news that they had signed Jalen Ramsey to a five-year, $105 million contract extension, $21 million per year, $71 million in guarantees. He becomes the highest paid defensive back by wide margin. Basically, I hate this term, but basically resetting the market at the position. Warren, leaving aside for a second, the fact that the Los Angeles Rams are, have taken the lead over the Northern Orleans Saints as far as just finding money where there seemed to be none. What do you think about this deal? And do you think that Jalen Ramsey deserves to be the highest paid cornerback, a defensive back in football? I think he does. To answer your last question first, I think he does deserve it. And I also think that these

salaries have probably been suppressed for a little while now when we look at what some of the top receivers have been doing. So I am definitely not going to be sitting here trying to convince anybody that he doesn't deserve this amount of money. And I'm happy for him that the Rams were able to figure out a way to do it and to get it done. What it does make me think is how great of a deal the bills got when they got Tredavius White a couple days ago for significantly less than that. Because if you look at the average salaries for the starting corners out there. I mean, Tredavius White just barely eclipsed Darius Slay. Tradavius White comes in at $17.3 million average. Darius Slay was at 16.7 and Byron Jones were at 16.5. So Slay, so White comes in just above that.

And then you have Jalen Ramsey just crushing them going all the way up to $21 million. So I think Ramsey did a great job. His agent did a great job of getting this deal. It's about time that corners that actually do a really good job and help limit the offensive passing attacks, which we know that's the number one goal of any defense is to slow down that passing attack. I think they deserve some of this money that they're starting to get. I do want to point out, and this is something I keep hearing from a lot of people, but timing is everything in contracts. And it's not just the player reaching the open market or having the threat to reach it.

It's when teams do their deals. And when you need to bring up Stradavius White, it's a great point because if the bills had waited three months to do that deal or even three weeks, they'd be working off a very different number. And the ability for teams to understand the market and how it's exploding and get their guys under contract before the market resets is really, really, really crucial. And so Brandon Bean did a hell of a job in Treidius White before the market reset. But I think the Eagles love doing that. That's not a Howie Roseman thing necessarily because that goes back to Andy Reid. As soon as somebody shows potential before the market resets five times over, over a four-year rookie contract, get them signed as soon as possible.

So I think that that's crucial. And it's going to be interesting to see how the cornerback market develops going forward. The Rams, with the way they're currently constructed, are what? Where do you put them in the contender pecking order if you put them there, at all. They have a lot of good players, but the roster is just, I don't know. I mean, it's not where it has been in previous years. We saw some, some real flaws in it last year. The offensive line was not where it needed to be. They have essentially a new coaching staff under McVeigh. McVeigh obviously remains, but they have a new defensive coordinator, new, new coaches

kind of throughout the staff. He's remaking the team in his own image, I guess you could say, but what are your expectations for them in 2020? I think they do close to what they did last year, which was what, like nine wins. I don't see this team as being a real contender. I think that NFC West has gotten a lot better. You look at what Arizona is doing, and they brought in DeAndre Hopkins, and they've got year two with Kyler.

I think Seattle, I really do think that they are going to let Russ cook a little bit more than what they were before. Will it be enough to satisfy the appetites? Will he cook enough to satisfy the appetites of a lot of us in the analytics community? that's to be determined. But I do think that they're going to be a little bit more productive from a passing perspective and do that a little bit more frequently, which raises their ceiling.

And then, of course, you've got the 49ers who I think they take a little bit of a step back this upcoming season. But I still think they're going to be really good. So the problem, bottom line for the L.A. Rams is just that the vision is really stacked and really loaded. And I think that they've got key constraints. I mean, it is hard to build a roster when what they're paying, Brandon Cook's 21.8 million in dead cap and Todd Gurley, not over 9 million in dead cap?

Like, how can you build a competitive roster when you are literally paying over $30 million to have players play for other teams this year? Then you've got the exorbitant cap hit that you're paying to Jared Gough this season. It's just hard to fill out a 53-man roster at that point in time. And plus, you've got the big money to Aaron Donald. So I think it's just a challenge. after some of those key components that they have as to how deep this roster really will be in a season where you kind of need a little bit of depth. We don't have to get into this topic

right now, but I think that we're going to have a lot of injuries after this week one. Yes. And I think week two and week three. Especially soft tissue, soft tissue, which is a huge issue in 2011. We've already seen some in the limited padded practices in camp. There are real medical concerns when you don't have that offseason program. Yeah, I mean, some teams struggle with it like you said already. We see a team like the Philadelphia Eagles. They seem to never be able to get away from that. But it is going to be a big factor, I think, heading into week two. And the problem with a lot of these soft tissue injuries is you don't really know. Different guys recover at different speeds. It's really hard to be definitive. Okay, this guy's

definitely out for two weeks. This guy's out for four weeks. Like, should we put him on the IR? Like, I love the IR rules this year. I think that they actually should implement that going forward just almost permanently. You can't obviously bring a guy back off the IR more than once, but I think the ability to have a guy go on IR for just a few weeks is a great, great attribute of this season. But I think it is going to be tough. It's something that we're going to have to analyze very closely after these games is injury impacts week one primarily, but also after the week two games. Hey, just philosophically, you know, trading for Sean Pick for Dalyuan Ramsey, paying them all this money. Is there, when you study this stuff, is there a

a real value or what a quantifiable value on having a dominant quarterback in this sort of passing boom era that only seems to be getting more heightened every single year with the you know with with with with deep all accuracy improving and all that stuff what is I guess the value of a jalen Ramsey when you're trying to to improve a franchise it's hard for me to put a distinct number on it um if you're if you're asking me I think the interesting discussion would be if you could have let's say on a one to 10 scale with 10 being the best if you could have a number nine or 10 cornerback, but your other cornerback was going to be like a four or five, or if you could have two sevens, which would you prefer? And that's, I think, an interesting

discussion where there's some arguments to be made. But I think nowadays, many offenses, because passing has become a lot easier and because a lot of coaches are figuring out ways to get the ball to receivers in positions where they're going to have edges, finding the one guy who, based on a pick play or something pre-snap, the quarterback knows where he's going to be throwing to, like, the guy who has the best upside on this play call. I think it gives the benefit to having a more well-rounded secondary than perhaps in years past. But if you really do have like a number 10 corner and teams just throw away from that side of the field, it does make life easier for the rest of the defense.

And we've seen that historically as well. It also depends how the Jaguars use those two first-round picks and their fourth round pick and what that rebuild looks like and whether or not they're able to come out of it. I mean, there's been, again, I've had a sort of come to Jesus moment over the past couple months where I reflexively sided with with the teams that got the picks in the past. And now there have been certain in this cap environment and in this roster building environment, I'm starting to get away from that a little bit and just value talent sometimes. And that sounds easy to say and to value talent. But I think it's obviously a case by case basis. But having Jailon Ramsey's better than not having Jalen Ramsey. But I think that there's, there's a whole lot of

unanswered questions with what Jacksonville will do with that. And I think that's, that's the X factor in the entire value discussion. What I really call into question is, it's great to have picks and it's great to say you're getting value. But who is the person in the building that's actually utilizing those picks? And have they done anything over the last decade to prove that they know what they're doing with that value? Because getting value, I think there's somewhere in my brain, there's a Seinfeld episode. It's the reservation episode where like you know how to accept the reservation but can you hold the reservation like and that's a thing i don't think that they're actually getting that value out of the out of those draft picks and so then it does hurt them a little bit in that transaction their first round pick list

is grim it is grim and and i you know even they'll just start in 2012 just in blackman at five luke jockel at two bordels in 2014 at three dante faller in 2015 at three follower was not a terrible pick. Ramsey, they got two first-round picks for, and then obviously he was a linchpin of that defense, and that there was great value there, and they learned four net. And then you get into Taven Bryant, Josh Allen, C.J. Henderson,

and Cleveland Chason, and those are all TBD, although I really, really like Josh Allen. But, yeah, I mean, I just don't see, even though Tom Coughlin was there, Dave Caldwell has been there for, for this run, and I

assume at some point, unless there's a miraculous season, there's going to be a regime change. But it is, uh, it has not been a good run. And having first round picks has not been particularly valuable at this point. That's all I'll say about that. We can get into that in another episode. Now, von Miller out for the season. Um, this is from a team building standpoint, uh, terrible for the Broncos, not just obviously for the 2020 season, but he's essentially going into a contract year and they have a decision to make. I think that from a personal standpoint, obviously, Von Miller is a crucial part of that franchise.

He basically single-handedly helped win them in the Super Bowl. When you look at just how dominant he was in 2015, I've sat down with him. He's a tremendous guy. And I think everybody in the organization is sick over this. But when you look at this from a football standpoint in 2020, Warren, were there any expectations for the Broncos on your end? Do they change now?

They do change. You know, if we want to talk about the betting market real quick on the line for the week one game, this pretty much was a pick. I mean, it was actually trending towards the Tennessee Titans before this news was announced in some spots. They actually had Tennessee at minus one. And so now it's sitting at two and a half at most spots and there's some twos out there. So some people might think, well, if it went from pickum to two and a half, he's worth two and a half points. But that's not accurate whatsoever. We'll talk about this on the betting shows later. But it matters where the point is moving to. So moving from a one to a two and a half is basically

moving through zero key numbers. Two is not a key number at all, although it does fall on occasion with missed extra points nowadays or two point conversions. It's very rare that two matters. And so moving from one to two and a half really is the equivalent of just only a point of value. But over the course of the season, you know, if he is actually worth a point to the point spread, that's worth about half of a win. And I already produce. predicted the Broncos, one of my thoughts and bets that I made this year was Broncos under. I took them under at eight wins. I also laid a little bit more juice and took them under at eight and a half wins just to just to have that extra reliability because I do think that they probably win seven games.

I think Drew Locke is a lot of people are on the lock bandwagon and love some of the things that he did at the tail end of last season. But when you factor in strength of schedule, when you factor in his actual completion percentage. It really, as you know, this is a quarterback-driven league. And he had the, I think, the ninth highest expected completion percentage of any quarterback, but delivered only the 27th best completion percentage on his throw. So there was a big drop-off by where these receivers are down the field and where the closest defenders are and how much pocket space he has to what he actually is getting done out on the football field. We usually see a jump year one to year two. He's going with a different offense coordinator. I don't

love that. And I do question some of the things on the defensive side of the ball, even prior to Vaughn Miller going out. I know that they're a flashy team. They've got some great speed at the receiver position. They've done a good job of securing him, some weaponry from that perspective. But they do play in a division that's, there's question marks on all of these guys. I certainly don't like the Chargers quite as much with losing Derwin James as I did back when I anticipated James was going to be playing. But I still think that this is a Broncos team. that's going to struggle to get to 500 this year. I do want to get into Von Miller's future.

So as a lot of smart people have said, and what I mean by he's going into what amounts to a contract year is he's under contract for 2021, but he has no guaranteed money. Brad Spielberg from PFF said that there's an option for 2021 in March to trigger the last year of his deal. And I think there are a lot of questions when you're out for the year and what that looks like. Von Miller, to you, is he still?

a top, top, top shelf guy coming off this injury and would you commit the kind of money that the Broncos need to commit, which in his final year of his contract, I believe would be 21 million. It is tough. I don't know the healing time on average and how well these guys come back from this type of an injury. I haven't dug into that enough. But I do know that he has been the most reliable edge rusher that we have in the NFL. Since what is it, 2016 or 2014, playoffs included. Denver has played 100 games and he's been there and started 99 out of 100. That is just such a high level of commitment and availability. It's really hard to comprehend. I think that him missing the season, obviously going to affect their current plans, like in terms of what they're going to do and how

they're going to get pressure. But in the future, you know, I would give him the benefit of the doubt in terms of being able to come back from this type of thing, given what he's shown before. I was reading quotes about how much he worked this offseason about how prepared he was. He did not have a great season last year. It was definitely a down season. Eight sacks down from 14. Yeah, it was a down season for him. He worked really hard in the offseason to get back and really have a much better year in 2020.

I think he was excited. They have not had some good supporting quarterbacks there for a number of years since Peyton was there. I always cycled through a lot of different guys. I think he was interested to see what Locke was going to give him, what the kid was going to give him. So very saddened for him. If I am in charge there, I'm giving him every opportunity to heal up and come back because he's given so much. I think he still has a little bit more in a tank, but it remains to be seen. I don't know the injury recovery rate for this type of thing. So the one time I sat down with Von Miller a couple of years ago, and it was

in Los Angeles, and I wasn't expecting much. I wasn't given much time with him. And he really opened up, kind of out of nowhere about his mindset. And I was so impressed with how he thinks about the game. And this was when he was one of the best players in the NFL. But I've talked to a lot of guys who are, you know, at the top. And they don't have, they can't describe their mindset as well as he can. And I was, and since then, I've thought about how just, I guess, mentally tough that Von Miller is. and it's something where I wouldn't bet against him in the situation.

Remember him talking about how he studies Derek Thomas, the former Chiefs legend. And he said that it wasn't the game film, although he did like to watch the game film. It was the interviews because he thought that Derek Thomas he saw on YouTube once described himself as an offensive player playing defense. And that he wanted that aggression. And Yvonne Miller carries with him what he describes as an offensive mentality, which is, I'm going to go do this. I'm not going to react to anything.

I'm not going to take what the offense gives me or whatever, whatever people say, I'm just going to go out there and dominate. And I know that this sounds like a small thing, but knowing what I know about Von Miller, I would not bet against him in the rehab process. I would not bet against him in the recovery process, and I still think he's got the physical tool. So I am betting, I'm placing a bet that Von Miller is going to be back

with one of the NFL's best front seven guys at some point when he's fully healed. Today's episode is brought to you by Heineken. Heineken would like to remind you that it's time for seasonal beers again. That's right. If you thought a cold, crisp summer Heineken was something, just wait until you taste the Heineken fall lineup. Is it a new product? No.

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credit that expires 14 days. Restrictions apply. See full terms at sportsbook.bandwold.com. Gambling problem call 1-800 gambler. In West Virginia, visit 1-800 gambler.net. In Indiana, call 1-800-9 with it, or in Colorado, call 1-800-5-22-470-0. Let's get into this season. So the NFL did this is solid and put Deshaun Watson against Patrick Mahomes. Two of the best quarterbacks in the NFL.

Mahomes is number one, where you rank Watson is a matter of debate. But he's definitely in the top five. I do want to use this to jumping off points, talk about the young quarterbacks and how you feel about them. First of all, I take it no objections to the Watson deal sign this week. No, other than the fact

I really hope that his GM slash head coach can give him the talent that he deserves surrounding him to help him win. But in terms of the deal itself, I have no reservations or hesitations. He's outperformed, I think, at least my expectations for him coming in. You know, he obviously hasn't won

Super Bowl like Patrick Mahomes, But his performance and his consistency, his ability to come back from the torn ACL in 2017 and perform really solid behind a shaky line, 2018 and 2019. Like, I've been very impressed by him. So I'm really happy for him. Yeah. All right. Where do you rank the young quarterbacks?

Can you give us a top, I don't know, four in your opinion? Top five. Well, obviously, you've got to have Patrick Mahomes up there at the top. I think, I don't know, can we can still consider Russell Wilson a young quarterback? Or what is the, where do you, give me the choices. All right. How, all right, let's, what Russell Wilson is 31. I think, I think that that's, I think he's aged out.

Even though, relatively speaking with that golden generation of quarterbacks ahead of him, like Tom Brady and Peyton Manning, all of whom were in their late 30s and early 40s and basically changed the way we think about the position, 30s. 31 is still not young. Okay. So I think that we're looking at Mahomes. We're looking at Deshaun.

We're looking at Lamar Jackson. We're looking at basically anybody drafted, you know, I think the 2016 class, Goff, Wentz, Prescott is still in that mix. I would say anybody drafted since 2015, let's say. Okay. So, hmm, I'm, trying to think of the exact order, but the guys that would be up in the top of my group,

you've got, I would probably stick Carson Wentz in there for sure in my top four. Okay. I would stick Lamar in there. And I will say for sure, that's because I think obviously all these guys, you can look at some of their weaknesses. And I was big and early on the Lamar Jackson breakout season last year, but I still want more from him, if that's even possible to say, like, I want him to continue to evolve the way that I think he's capable of evolving. So, like, the challenge for him. So those are

three at the top there. And then I'm trying to think what, what is, real quick, what is the evolution for Lamar Jackson? What is, is that what John Harbaugh says, which is the deep passing to take advantage of those stretched out defense? It is, I also, I want him mentally at the line of scrimmage. I, what is. I want him. one, him to be given the ability from Roman to get them into the right plays. It's one of the things that, you know, Tom Brady excelled at over his career. Obviously, you're talking about the best quarterback of all time. I'm not trying to compare him and saying, you know, his third season, this is what I expect out of him.

But, you know, to be able to get into run plays when the box is light enough to be able to get out of bad plays when the defense is giving look, not necessarily move from run to pass, but just the right type of audible moving out of something. have that understanding visually of where to go. He's such a talent when he has the ball and he's great at releasing it when he needs to, I feel like, but I just want him to be able to optimize the ceiling. So it's a double-edged sword. You've got the play calling and the play design themselves, which is what Greg Roman excels at. I mean, I think it was ridiculous for Earl Thomas to tweet out that, what was it, 22 personnel

where they line up in pistol and end up using four verts. I mean, this type of play design that Greg Roman's got going on here and the personnel that he's got out on the field is just absolutely incredible and they can do so much from it. And it's obviously helped Lamar Jackson. Let's not deny that Lamar isn't being aided by the system and the buy-in from the coaching staff. That's inherent, but it's also inseparable. You could say that for every good quarterback out there pretty much that they are reaching whatever ceiling they're at, thanks in part to what is being designed. for them. There's a couple guys maybe you could argue is not enough is being done, but even Patrick Mahomes. It's the same type of thing with what Andy Reid makes his life easy. So I just want to see Lamar.

It is some of the deeper passing. It is being able to hit on some of those plays down the field a little bit more. And it's got to have it moments. It's one thing when you're up by 17 points and life is fun and the game seems easy. But when you got to have it, you're down by three in the second half. touchdown drives. I want to see that execution and that performance against difficult opponents. So is your fourth guy in that equation then Deshaun Watson? On your Matt Rushmore of current young quarterback? I think it is. I mean, I haven't seen enough of Kyler with this offense to move him up ahead of Deshawn. Could he get there? There's a potential for that. Sam Darnold is extremely talented. I really liked him. I was a little bit higher on him. But the pairing of he and Adam Gage

and the weaponry there just has not done anything for me. So that is not something that's excited me. I did not expect Sam Donald's name to come up in the best joint quarterback discussion. Is there a, may I ask, is there a path forward for him, whether or not, so next year, if the Jets hire a good offensive coach or, you know, in two or three years, if Donald's kind of Ryan Tanna-hills it and assigns a bridge extension and then finds his way under another team, is there a path forward where in 2023 or 2024, Sam Darnold is a successful NFL quarterback, Warren? I think he has the talent to do it. There are question marks, but from a passing perspective, from a pure passing perspective, I think he has the talent.

It could he ever be like an upper echelon? Like we're talking top four quarterbacks in that argument for guys under 30. Does he have the ability to be in the top four quarterbacks under 30 in two years? I don't. think so because of the talent that we've got here. But could he be top eight under 30? Yes, I think that he could. I think he, I don't think we've seen the best of that Donald has to offer. Let me just put it that way. And in a different system with different skill players and better coaching, I think he could reach that. But I also could easily be wrong and he's not the type of guy that we thought he was coming out of school. I also want to throw DAC into this mix because Yes, absolutely.

Because, Dak, you know, I do think from a pure passing perspective, I would lobby in favor of Wentz being above him as well as Deshaun being above him. But that being said, like in terms of accuracy and everything like that. But that being said, I'm excited to see what this coaching staff is going to do with Dak because I don't think a lot of people are talking about this, Kevin, but. Jason Garrett operated from 2016 when they drafted Dak Prescott through until last season. This was the number four most run heavy offense on early downs to start games. Mike McCarthy in Green Bay, when he had Rogers the entirety of the 2016 season, Rogers, the games that he played in 2017 before he got hurt, and then in the 2018 season before Mike McCarthy got fired.

In those three years with Aaron Rogers, they were, the number one most pass heavy offense. So you've got a quarterback, and I know he doesn't call the plays, but trust me, his finger, I mean, you might know better than I would. His fingerprints are all over that offense in terms of the general philosophies and approaches that they want to take. This is a team that could move from very conservative on early downs and run heavy to even if it's above average, even if it's not top five. It's still going to be a dramatic shift from what they've been doing. That helps a quarterback. It helps a quarterback. It helps a quarterback to pass the ball when the defense thinks you might run it. It does not help a quarterback

to be put into third down situations or second and long when you just ran the ball and didn't gain very much. And the defense knows that a pass is going to be coming here. So passing when the defense thinks they might run is really going to help us show what DAC Prescott is. And you talked at the top about teams are smart that can time when to do deals. And I think it's really interesting how they failed to hit it on Dak Prescott. And I think they could be walking into a hornet's nest here because I really do think this is a season, although I've got some questions about that O line. They've got to get a couple guys back in there and we got to see what it looks like. This is a season that I really think Dak is going to look better than he has any other season with the coaching and with the talent

they have at receiver that Jerry could be spending more than what he had anticipated in spending. Yeah, and listen, this is something that Bob Stern when he was on our podcast last week said, this is going to be the first time since before they had Jason Garrett, where the Cowboys had an advantage in coaching. They went into every game behind the eight ball, so to speak, because they didn't have a schematic advantage, you know, old Charlie Weiss saying, and now in some games, at least, they will because Mike McCarthy can out coach people. I think it's fascinating.

I think it's going to be fascinating to watch and how that roster talent reacts to actually winning schematic battles is going to be fascinating. This episode is brought to you by Bacardi Spiced Rum. Looking to spice up your game day plans, check out Bacardi Spiced Rum for a new take on your favorite old classics like Bacardi,

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Let's talk about this season that Mahomes and Watson will kick off tomorrow. I think that there's probably a bigger sense of, I don't, panic is the wrong word, but just a little, I think every team is a little uneasy for how this is going to look. Warren, you talked a lot of people around the league. What is the sense? I agree. I mean, granted, I talk to guys that are a little bit more on the offensive side of the ball, but there's a lot of hesitation about this season.

There's a lot of, you use the exact right word, just unease with some of these coaches and some of the mistakes and being worried that the defense is a little bit ahead of things. I'm not going to say, I disagree. I will say that coaches are warriors from just, it's in their blood. They can't get rid of it.

They worry about everything. They think a lot of negative things. Everybody in football worries about everything. Right. So it's natural. If they're not worried, then their heart's not being. We might have to take their pulse. It's probably natural and a good thing that they're worried about it.

But here's the other thing, Kevin, when we're talking about just these coaches and they're worried about their offense, that sort of thing. They're going up against the same exact defense every single day in practice. This is not as if they haven't had the opportunity to even do any inner squad scrimmages where the defense might not know what they're doing. They're seeing these guys every single day. The defense knows how to attack the O-Liaming on the pass rush. I just think that they're over exaggerating their fears here because a defense has played them every single day for weeks and their offense isn't crushing this defense every single day in practice. So I think that that is, I don't want to say it's ill-founded. We may see some hiccups and mistakes and that sort of thing.

I'm sure we're going to talk about that momentarily. But I think that league-wide, there is concern. But I do think that the offenses actually might have a little bit of a, of a, of a. here this season. Yeah, I agree. I think that there are real concerns about defensive readiness with hitting and speed and timing and all the things that the coaches are normally concerned about. I think that there's real concern about special teams because they're just not doing reps

something Rex Bielman told me a couple weeks ago where even if you're doing quote unquote live reps in practice, the hitting on special teams behind closed doors is not going to be anywhere near what it is during a game. I mean, like, it's not going to be guys flying and going as hard as they can. Maybe that's different this year with guys trying to make the team. But there's going to be a speed element that I don't think a lot of people are ready for. I talked to Kevin Colbert, the Steelers GM last week for a story. And he basically said, we're going to have to find out things we don't know about ourselves on Monday night football.

And that's never happened before. Like, yes, okay, sometimes, you know, a guy missed the preseason or whatever. But I'm saying, young guys don't understand the speed of the game. and the NFL game. And they're going to find out in front of 20 million people on ESPN against the Giants, right? And I just think that's a fascinating thing to watch. And I'm intrigued to see how it develops and how teams take advantage of it. And I think, and this is something that a couple of GMs have said to me, I've shared this,

I think Thomas Dimitrop was the first one where even though everyone thinks it'll be simplified, teams will actually want to get as complicated as possible because they're going to be doing complicated things against defenses they can't get that complicated, right? So if you've got a Julio Jones and Matt Ryan, you can do things you've been doing for 10 years, you should do it because defenses are going to be flat-footed. They were on Zoom, you know, all through April and May and June

and early parts of July. It's not going to be the same. If you're Lamar Jackson, the teams that were supposed to catch up with you, I mean, listen, you know Zoom. No one's got anything done on Zoom. And I just think that it's going to be, a really good year for the players who are already dominant and opening up the advantage over mediocrity, I guess you could say. Two things to that. Number one, you're 100% correct that

if you think about the way that coaches, offensive play callers, OCs, etc., typically have to approach the preseason. They're trying to find out who's the best for the roster. They're also trying to get their guys ready to play week one. But they also have their whole schedule in with all of these games. And they're carding out things. They're trying to work on plays for the guys for the games, some of which are backup guys, get all those guys up to speed. It's very difficult for them to then.

And then you got like rest day after the game. Whereas here it's just practice, practice, practice all the time. Rest day here or there. So much more work with these guys. The offensive coordinators can actually be a lot more creative, build in more things that they're going to use for week one or week two, focus on those types of things. as opposed to having to break up and schedule out game plans for four different opponents during the month of August. So they haven't had to waste any time doing that. Yeah, there's going to be some drawbacks to that.

But there's also positives if you want to look at the flip side. The bigger thing I think that, you know, I'm trying to lean on what we can take from this. And I'm not going to go as deep here, but we will be covering this on Friday's episode when we talk to Joe House is what is the closest thing to, what we're going to experience in 2020. And to me, I went back and looked at what happened in 2011 when we had the lockout. They were figuring out a new CBA. And the players could not come to the facility from after the Super Bowl all the way through like July 28th or something like that. Very similar to what we experienced this season, except two big differences.

Number one, guys were not interacting with each other nearly as much during the off season, whereas in 2011, they were. were interacting more, teams were organizing more things together. We saw a little bit of that, but it wasn't to the extent as it was in 2011. The other interesting thing about 2011, though both years this year and then had restrictions on hitting and two days and things of that nature, back in 2011, we actually played every single preseason game except for the Hall of Fame game, which is the very first one. So every team played for preseason games. You know what happened that season, we saw the first couple weeks of the year, 73% of the games went over the total,

which is the highest that we've seen on record. And I think that we're going to see that situation bear out a little bit this season with the defensive tackling, which you alluded to, as being the bigger factor. Even if conditioning is not down terribly because these guys are practicing a lot and they're still getting reps and all that type of thing, and maybe they're even practicing a little bit more. They are not in game ready shape, especially in the second half of games to be tackling for 60 plays. And I think that's going to wear guys down.

If I'm an offensive coach, I'm trying to use tempo early on in these games to try to gas this defense even more. And tempo does not necessarily mean go L.A. Rames 2018 as fast as you can go. It just means get to the line of scrimmage so that defense cannot substitute guys out. We've already talked about the fact. I think Pete Carroll alluded to it, and I've seen some other guys. You probably know better than I do, Kevin.

Guys that wanted to rotate through more of that starting 53 because they knew they weren't in complete game shape. So they wanted to use as many guys. They don't want to dress guys and not even play them in a week like this coming off of an offseason like this. If you're the offensive coach and you can restrict that, you already know that they want to substitute guys in and you can keep those guys out there. get to the line quickly. Take your time if you want, go a little faster if you want, however you want to do it, but do not let those defensive players substitute in and out. I think it's going to give the offenses an advantage, particularly as we head into the second half of these games. I remember talking to people because there was a huge pace thing at the beginning of the last decade. So like 2012, 2012,

2013. I think at one point the Patriots almost ran the most plays in history in 2012 because they were running so quickly. And the difference is that Peyton Manning was different from everybody else and that he ran to the line and would go no huddle, but then he would just stay there for like 30 seconds, 40 seconds, get the defense very uncomfortable, but then didn't have to necessarily run the pace. I mean, like Peyton Manning, you know, he's going to take his time once he's up there, as we know, but he would get up to the line, get the defense stretched out, have to declare themselves, and then go from there. And I think that that's always been my preferred method of, of pace, I guess you could say, in football, as opposed to maybe the Chip Kelly thing. I want to bring it back to the young quarterbacks,

because I'm not done with those. Do you think this is a tough year? We know kind of data-wise that it's really hard for teams, for quarterbacks to go from good to great in from year two to three. That's typically from year one to two and then it progresses from there. Is this a harder time for quarterbacks to take a leap. If you're Josh Allen, Sam Darnold, Baker Mayfield, what are you expecting from that crew? And then it's kind of similar question with the younger guys like Kyler. Is this, are we too optimistic about his breakout because it's just a weird year? I think that there definitely is an element of truth to that. It's hard to get the exposure to your offensive coach and what he wants you to do and how he wants you to train and how he wants you,

where he wants you to target these passes and when you're not playing with these guys and you're not practicing at all and you're not doing anything with them. So that's what we've dealt with all offseason. I think, though, that there's some things that some of these younger play callers, like some of these guys that are calling plays for the guys that you mentioned, right? Like, you got Brian Dayball calling plays for Josh Allen. You've got Cliff Kingsbury calling plays for Kyler Murray. You got Kevin Sifansky calling plays for Baker Mayfield. I think some of these guys are smart enough to figure out what wasn't working as well for this quarterback last year that maybe we can change for this season. And so it's not as much like we're getting all the reps and we're

emphasizing peak performance. What we're doing is we're stripping out things that this quarterback isn't great at or doesn't do as well. And we're emphasizing things that are going to be more beneficial for him. And so I think we might see with more time to noodle on these things and sketch things out and come up with ideas, like those three play callers in particular could be coming up with things that are going to make these quarterbacks still have a jump in their production and a jump in their performance this upcoming season. It's just not necessarily going to be from all the reps and all the practice time that they had together. Who do you think, by the way, just to put a bow on the conversation we had earlier? At the end of

2020, we think who is the second best young quarterback. Oh, that's a good question. I hate the fact that Yon is not there, but I really do expect Lamar to, he's not going to have an MVP season. Like, he's not going to go 50 and no MVP votes because we already saw him last year. This is one of the hard things. Like, we saw Mahomes at his greatness in 2018 and he got the MVP as the number one seed in the AFC that year. We saw Lamar at his just come out of nowhere almost and have such production and get the number one seed. That's the thing. I think some people need to realize these these MVPs, they tend to be on teams that have the number one seed. Granted, they're earning that seed because of their performance, but we're really not seeing MVPs lately. I mean, nine to the last 10 MVPs have

been quarterbacks. Most of these guys have had first round buys number one seed, if not number two seed. So I don't think we're going to be like so shocked by oh my God, Lamar Jackson this season, right? We saw that last year. We were expecting growth, maturity, better performance in certain areas. But I just think the full package that he brings the table, it's going to be hard for a guy like DAC or Carson, who I have huge expectations for Carson Wentz heading into the season. But a couple injuries to the O line, a couple injuries to the wide receivers have tempered those a little bit. But I just think, I mean, people forget what he was dragging along with him in that 2019 season. I mean, he had zero receivers over, what was at 500 yards, and he still had over 4,000 yards passing.

It was absurd, the only quarterback in history to do such a thing. I still have really high expectations for him. But if we're talking about purely young guys who were still going to walk away this season really impressed with, I think Lamar is probably be my guy right behind Mahon. I'm of two minds on Jackson. I think, first of all, I picked him, picked the Ravens win in the Super Bowl. So that's settled, in my opinion,

as far as my, where I'm predicting the Ravens to finish this year. But as far as his individual performance, I see a scenario in which he just kind of does what we're expecting, which is he runs all over these flat foot of defenses who are trying to figure him out over Zoom the last six months. But I also think, having listened to some comments about his running,

versus his passing or as we talked about how he's going to take advantage of those defenses that are so stretched thin. And I could see that maybe trying some different stuff to where he becomes maybe a more valuable or better quarterback in the long run or this year, but takes a statistical step back fairly similar to what happened with Mahomes last year, which is Mahomes was, his numbers were down, even adjusted for playtime, touchdown percentage down, yards per attempt down, All that stuff was slightly down or in touchdown percentage, in that case, significantly down, but didn't matter because he was taking a step forward as a better quarterback, and you could see that. And certainly you could see that by January.

So I think that there's a scenario which Lamar Jackson does not have MVP numbers like he did last year. Maybe he wins the MVP again, but it's not the same. And yet the Ravens, he takes a step forward as a quarterback and just becomes what Mahomes was last year. I think that's a great thought process on where we could see Lamar. I don't, he's never going to become the pastor that Mahomes is. Oh, no, I just meant, I just meant as far as the evolution of his career, just as far as numbers get worse while he becomes better and they win Super Bowl. Yeah, I, I 100% agree because he did some phenomenal things that really are unsustainable last year. And I absolutely believe that part of the key with this development between Greg Roman and Jackson,

is this understanding of when to do certain things and how to do it. And Roman's goal is going to be to make life easy on Lamar Jackson as much as possible, which is exactly what Andy Reid does. Andy Reid could call plays a lot worse. He could run the ball more on first down and force Mahomes to throw the ball more on late downs, making Mahomes life a lot harder, but Mahomes would have a lot more production because he has to carry more of the weight and the load of this offense.

Instead, they're throwing the ball more on first down. They're playing around with depth of target. Like, he's still going to make his freakish throws and his great conversions on late downs from time to time, which is exactly what Lamar is going to do. But the goal of that offense coordinator is to actually make the quarterback's life as easy as possible while you're winning games. And I think you're right. We are going to see a statistical regression to the mean a little bit for Lamar Jackson, but that that's not mean and should not be viewed from fan as he got worse this season.

All right. We get you out on this. You're a co-worker now. I think a lot of people know you as a, as just crushing football stats and being among the smartest people I've ever talked to about football, quite frankly. Tell us something we don't know about Warren Sharp. Give us, give us a fun fact. Let the people know what you're all about. Oh, man. God, there's not much fun in my life. Aside from my family and my, my, my football. So I'm like your normal guy who just loves work. And I got two kids. They're doing homeschooling on their computers right now. And here's a fun fact. If you really want to know a fun fact, it's actually the opposite of fun, but it is a fact. It's an unfun fact. We did zero this summer since.

So we went nowhere. We took zero vacations, did absolutely nothing. And previous to that, every single year, we, we did. We rented out a huge beach house right on the ocean with a pool out back and everything and did that for years and years in a row. And this year we didn't. And it sucked, but that's made me more hungry to crush this season and more focused to absolutely deliver some great information to you guys on my show with Chris on Wednesdays and my show with House on Fridays.

And I couldn't look more forward to being able to deliver with you guys really excited. and definitely happy to be with such great minds that you have over here, including yourself, is going to be a lot of fun. I can't wait to break down games with you guys every week. Yeah, it's all going to be super collaborative throughout the season. We'll be doing stuff together, even though it's five really fun and different shows. And I think that that's what we're looking for is just being able to get a different thing every single day.

And I love both Verno and House. And that's going to be a hot. I cannot wait to listen. just from a fan standpoint. And we're going back to the beach house, Warren, in 2021. I can't wait. We're all going. I can't wait.

We're all going. Take over the ocean. Take over the ocean. It's been the Ringer Enough show and Ringer Podcast Network.