The Ringer NFL Show - Which Teams Are Actually Good? A Definitive List | The Ringer NFL Show

Episode Date: April 30, 2020

With the NFL draft complete, 2020 rosters taking shape, and teams starting to gain hope, Kevin is joined by Eric Eager and George Chahrouri of 'Pro Football Focus' to run through every team in the NFL and answer the question: How many teams in the NFL are actually good? Host: Kevin Clark Guests: Eric Eager and George Chahrouri Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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and it's a charitable donation. Once again, that's the ringer.com slash WCK. It's the Ringer NFL show, part of the Ringer podcast network. I am Kevin Clark, joined on the other line by the Lennon, McCartney of football data science. It's Eric Eager and George Tahrie. How are you doing, guys?

That was the kindest thing anyone said to me this year. Yeah, doing well. It's fun to, you know, we've done so many podcasts together that we've been trying to, you know, have guests. And it's great to be a guest on one so that we can add another great voice to our discussions. So here's what we're doing today. We're just going to do who's good. And the reason we're doing that is because the draft was last week. week, we understand in general, mostly what the rosters look like. I think with the exception

of Cam Newton and Andy Dalton, there aren't a lot of X factors out there right now. We know what these rosters look like. There's a couple of positional battles. Everyone, I think, especially kind of middling teams or bad teams, they've got these fantasies about upgrading their team in June, July, August. I remember a couple years ago, I had said something about the Seahawks in May, and everyone said, no, no, they're going to get an extra cornerback. Listen, these teams are never going to get extra extra linebackers. With the exception, again, at the two outstanding quarterbacks, this is kind of what this team looks like. And I wanted to bring you guys in, because I obviously value you guys' perspective on teams. But I want to first unpack the discussion we were having before we started

recording, which is the just sheer, I'm not even sure what you'd call it, brilliance of watching a game and even maybe betting on a game if you don't know the outcome in quarantine. Because the other day, I was watching the tennis channel, which I didn't even like tennis. And with the exception of the 08, I guess Wimbled and Final with Nadella and Federer, which I don't even remember that much about, I haven't watched a tennis thing in years. And so I thought, well, maybe I could just, like, get really into tennis and live a sport for the first time. And then I realized I didn't like tennis at all. Tennis is beyond, like, I enjoy, I'd enjoy playing tennis. So maybe that's where I, that's where I could maybe make some headway is I would just become, I'd be like, you know how

Jordan bet on golf every day of his life, basically. That might become me. I wouldn't be able to watch the tennis, but I'd go play it and lose all my money that way. Maybe soccer. Soccer is a great one. I know too much about the results of soccer. Eric, you were watching a USFL game the day, right? Yeah, I mean, I'm one that, you know, I've been like dabbling a little bit in like these

Madden Sims, which again is like at least like the outcome. That doesn't really talk about that. But I've been watching old football games, and usually I'll only go back to when I was born, like, 86. But I kind of got a little interested in because the XFL folded, the USFL. And it was really funny because you hear all these names like Steve Young played, Herschel Walker played. And yet I had no clue what was going to happen. And I'm not going to say I was on the edge of my seat, but I was somewhat interested in the outcome once it became the fourth quarter. I was thinking about this.

What about like live cooking shows? I love food. Trying to bet the live cooking show? I don't know. That might, because you get tired of watching old games after a while. You need some live content. I don't know.

That's where we're at right now. Yeah, this is week five isolation. All right, we're going to get to what we're here to do. Not that George coming up with betting on live cooking shows and we're here to do. But I just want to go through the divisions to figure out who's good and who we should expect to be talking about in September. And I think it's a weird time for everybody because the offseason is basically canceled.

I think that we can't really put any sort of weight because we don't know on what it looks like if Mike McCarthy can't ever see his people, his new team in person and quote unquote, establish a culture or all that. I think that there's a lot of outstanding questions about that. In 2011, obviously this happened. The entire office is canceled. You could go out and organize, you know, the Jets, Mark Sanchez had basically. the Jets practice out in California during the lockout because he couldn't have any communication

with the team, but they were able to at least be together. You could travel the country, so it was a little bit different, but it was the most analogous to this. And essentially what happened in 11 was the Patriots were good, the Giants were good, a lot of teams, the Saints were good, a lot of teams that are normally good were pretty good. And I kind of have shaded some of my viewpoints as far as that goes with what's going to happen this year. I'm just so glad we don't have to talk about the Packers.

if we're only going to talk about teams that are good if only going to talk about the good teams I'm just grateful. Thank you. George does not have to talk about the Green Bay Packers. But I think unfortunately we're going to have to break down the Packers and what their 2020 looks like because they did make the NFC championship game last year. They're the favorite still.

They are included in the Who's Good episode, even if you don't want to talk about that. All right, let's start with the NFC East. Very, very weird division. The Eagles won it by default last year, almost kind of like an old school college football, like some team got eight wins and all of a sudden they're playing in a Fiesta Bowl kind of situation. They send their fan base into the pit of despair by taking Jalen Hertz, which I think is actually a defensible pick.

The Cowboys get better with C.D. Lamb. They have a coach who's not Jason Garrett. The Giants in the Redskins are the Giants in the Redskins. We'll start with you, Eric. Who's good in the NFC East? Yeah, I think those two teams at the top, right? I mean, both of Philadelphia and Dallas, I think, you know, were poor teams a season ago,

but for different reasons. I think Philadelphia was unlucky because of injuries. They're playing AAAF players at wide receiver. They haven't quite, you know, figured out coverage, and I don't know if that's ever going to get all that better, although they got Kaban Wallace in the draft. And so they got unlucky in that way. the Dallas Cowboys outscored their opponents by like more than 100 points a season ago.

You know, that bad kicking that, you know, drops everywhere. They got unlucky, you know, in these like sort of more granular ways. But I think both teams going into, you know, 2020 are going to be seen as good teams. It's just whether or not, you know, one of them or both of them can put it all together, which is seemingly, you know, something that avoids every, you know, both of these teams, at least the last two years. That would be a step up. Like last year, I don't know if either of them.

were good. So the nice thing about it is that... They seemed good. The problem was they seemed good the whole year. And you looked at those teams and you said these are good teams and there turned out to be no evidence for that. No evidence ever developed for it. But they seeming better than they were.

You brought this up, right? So the fact that we're going to have a shortened off season, which form of luck is more likely to be less impacted by that? Because the Eagles are hoping that they don't have a receiving core that completely disappears. The Cowboys are hoping that Mike McCarthy makes smarter decisions on

fourth down and doesn't throw an out to Ezekiel Elliott on a crucial, you know, fourth and five. Like which one, I don't know which one of those is necessarily easier. I would say it's like which one is gooder is Dak McCarthy versus Wentz Peterson because you've got to boil it down somehow, but I'm still torn. I mean, when you look at, when you look at Dallas, though, I mean, there were, you know, traces of being a good team. They were, you know, top 10 in yards per play, both offensively and defensively in tops and offense. You know, Dak Prescott was the second most valuable player in the NFL going into

the playoffs. Like, there's a lot of good there. And what I like about what McCarthy did the other day in the draft, whether by hook or by crook, you know, his offenses in Green Bay got progressively worse as the receiving course got shipped away at, right? They went from having, being three, four deep for years and having a decent tight end, to having only Devante Adams. Now he's going to have Gallup, he's going to have Cooper,

and he's going to have Lamb with a pretty good offensive line. And obviously, you know, running back, they don't have to feed carries to anymore. Like, I think to me that's why they're favored, you know, in the betting markets. And that's why I would firmly put them in the good category in the NFC. Eric, are you picking them to win the division? Yeah, I think so.

Yeah, it sounds like that. Okay. Yeah. George, do you agree with that? I wake up every day thinking something differently about this division. Because I, the Eagles draft to me. I just love that we all wake up thinking just completely insane things during this quarantine and you think different things about the NFC East when you wake up.

And you're never sure which day is which. So that that adds to the thing. The Eagles draft to me was maybe a tick below the Cowboys. But what they did really strengthen their team quite a bit. I wouldn't underscore, I would underscore that I think Jalen Hertz helps them. Like he. I agree. The ceiling on that pick is so much higher than we think.

And even in a one-year sample, I mean, if you have to take Wentz out for three games, but then you bring a guy in that teams actually fear, that is a huge, huge asset. But the Cowboys are just more talented, right? Like, they just still have more talent. I believe that they're the better passing offense. The kicker for me is this. Kellen Moore and I think Mike McCarthy will be on the same page with throwing the ball on early downs. And that's the one bugaboo for the Eagles, right? They, they run a ton

on second and long. It's like my pet peeve. So I would have to lean with the Cowboys, I think. When we went back to their Super Bowl season, I mean, you and I were, it was like our first year doing a podcast, we praised Doug Peterson through and through and through, and we go back and watch that season, and it was littered with first and second down runs and then, you know, wents, bailing them out on third down with an outrageous season full of third and long conversions. And we've seen that that hasn't been sustainable over the past two seasons. It is, they are a smart organization. I think Dallas is underrated in terms of how smart they are.

Phyllis is smart organization. That's the one thing that I can't understand about Peterson, you know, and them is just, you know, they're just inefficient offensively, I think by choice in some cases. I am so, I understand the carryover from Kellyn Moore and the fact that's going to be continuity that way. I don't know what's going to have with Dak Prescott's contract or whether or not this this weird offseason impacts that. Listen, I kind of think we glossed over this. Adam Schaefter sit on his podcast that if the ramifications of the pandemic are what they could be, which is empty stadiums the entire season, the salary cap could go down like 60, 70, 80 million dollars over the

course of a year. And at some point, that has to start weighing on contract negotiation. I mean, It's a completely different episode of this show. I'm just saying things might kind of get ugly with guys who are negotiating contracts. Do they bail out teams, though? Like in that sense? Now, this is definitely a different topic. Yeah, do they, no, I mean, it's a great question. Do teams get salary cap bailouts if revenue plungers?

You'd have everyone just be totally screwed. Like, even the lowest spending teams, right? Bills would finally come due for the New Orleans Saints after all these years. Finally. No, it's a great question. I mean, there would have to be some allowances or else you just have to have to cut anybody who wasn't a quarterback or a veteran player. There would have to be complete overhaul of how teams spend money and how the NFL allows teams to spend money. You'd almost

have to go on cap for a little bit. You'd almost have to have a holiday, right, of, you know, certain, you know, basically, you'd be able to push contracts and things like that further into the future, you know, for a few years. Yeah. Anyway, this is me hiding the fact that I'm going to pick the Eagles to win the NFC East. All right. But I think both these teams are definitely in the good category. This is the closest division. Are you sure? I think there's a lot of close divisions.

I think the problem is that the Eagles... I have one that I think is maybe closer, but I think Vegas disagrees with me slightly. I think the problem from my perspective is that the Eagles and the Cowboys are basically the same genre of team, and that's why it seems so close, which is just like team with a lot of talent that never popped last year. Yes.

I think, yeah, there are probably, what, four or five divisions here where, you know, if you were to handicap them to win the division, they're all under 100, you know, all under 200, right? And there are somewhere, it's pretty, you know, it's pretty evenly dispersed. And the NFC East is one of them, but not the only one. To quote Brett Musburger, I'm looking live at odds somewhere on the internet. And this is the only division where, uh, one of two divisions where the two favorites have the same odds. Hmm. You're right. Uh, there are two divisions. Uh, there are two divisions. that are close.

All right, let's, uh, I don't want to do the conferences. So, so let's switch over and just do it by geography. AFC East.

This is tricky. The New Eagle Patriots have won it every single year since Matt Castle was their quarterback and briefly interrupted things. Um, they are changing. We don't know. We're talking about quarterback X factors.

This is one of those places where we don't know if Jared's been Brian Horner are going to be the starter or they go out and Andy Dalton or they go with another mid-level veteran somewhere else. Like a Derek Carr if he becomes available, something like that. or they swing a trade to get somebody bigger. We'll start with you, George. I have to believe that the New England Patriots are going to be good by AFCE standards.

And that is, it goes against every sensibility that I have because they could have the worst quarterback in the division. They probably have the least talented offense. but don't you, I get the sense that Bill Belichick is just running circles around, you know, most of the coaches in the NFL, but certainly the ones in this edition, I love Sean McDermott, but I think they will be good enough. I think the bills are interesting because Eric and I are having this conversation. Their roster, if you weigh all positions evenly, it's probably a top five roster or close. and then the dolphins could have the best quarterback in the division,

whether they're playing Ryan Fitzpatrick or Tua. Like either one of those guys is legitimately could lay claim to being the best quarterback in the division. And I always want to go with the best quarterback. So I think this is actually a three horse race, to be perfectly honest with you, because I don't know if any team is good enough that you can overlook the glaring weakness. they have. I'm going to speak out of both sides of my mouth here a little bit, but I think you're, I think you're underestimating. It's very much welcome on this podcast. Yeah. I think you're underestimating the Jets, George. And here's why when you, well, I almost never going to say.

Please. So, so you look at the, you know, the top five teams last season in yards per play allowed were San Francisco, no, no surprise, Pittsburgh, no surprise, New England, no surprise, Bill's fourth, Jets fifth. Now, I said before I overlooked a little bit. bit about what it would mean for the cowboys to integrate new things into the sort of like the pandemic infrastructure here. But when you look at Miami, Miami was the collection of the least amount of wins above replacement on any defense in the NFL S season, any roster. And we know they've made a lot of good moves. But this might be a situation where those benefits are delayed maybe a season or a half a season because of this. And then Buffalo and New England are interesting

because I think they're both teams that have decent rosters everywhere of a quarterback. And so when you look at the Jets, Sam Darnold is the former third overall pick. Adam Gaze has done, you know, he has a very, very mixed track record in terms of, you know, getting teams for respectability. But he can get them in that seven win range. I mean, he did last season. And I think that the division's won by an eight or nine win team. So if I'm going to look here at like sort of a dark horse, I think the judge,

Jets are very much live in this division race, which is probably, I think, against conventional wisdom, but something I think that is certainly plausible for that. My issue is they have almost no weapons to throw to for Donald. George, where you're on the Jets? Okay, so quarterbacks with below a 65 PFF passing grade last year, Sam Darnold, Mitch Trubiskey, Josh Allen, Kyla Murray, Jacoby Brissette, Case Keene, Mason Rudolph, Kyle Allen. It's not illustrious. And may I ask as someone who doesn't study PFF grades, is there a path forward for the, like if you look back four or five years ago, are there guys where there's just huge, huge improvement in that regard? Or is it pretty consistent? It depends on your grading profile, right? So you don't generally see guys who make a high level of what we call negatively graded plays. And you can think of that as like an uncatchable pass, you know, to an open receiver. If you do that a lot, we generally don't see that. That's a pretty sticky thing from season to season.

Where you can make headway is in areas that are more unstable. I can increase the rate at which I make really good throws if my scheme allows me to. So I think there is possibility there, given you have the accuracy. I think Darnold maybe does, and that's why I can kind of get on board with what Eric's saying. But to me, if you look at the dolphins of the Jets, the dolphins made themselves dramatically better this off-season. Byron Jones is fantastic. The fact that they went and got a guy like him says to me that they're not messing around. And I really like Brian Flores quite a bit more than Gase.

So I'm not buying them that much. I'm a huge Flores fan. I actually like the job that Chris Greer is done. I like the process. I know there's some questions about the dolphins reached on a couple of their high picks. But I think I like the process the dolphins are doing. I just don't think, listen, they made. They played more players than any team in history of football last year.

The book took the biggest dead cap charge in history. They made more transactions. I think they made 130 more transactions in any team in the league last year. And seriously. And I think that when I see that kind of tear down, it just doesn't track for me that they could be anything more than a year away. I think that they eventually will be very good. I just have a hard time believing, especially in a year like this year, that they can

get that good that quickly. I remember last year one of their linebackers told me that he calls the plays on the field and he looked over and he did not know the name of the person he was next to in the middle of the game. And it was like that that's the kind of, to go

from that to they're in the contention is tough for me. Again, I think they're going to be very good, but I just, you know, it takes a while in my head to build an NFL team. Splitting the bills and the paths, like what is the decider for you. So I was actually on a text threat about this this morning with some folks and we were talking about it and some adult in in particular. And I think that a Bill Belichick defense with competent

quarterback play wins this division. They were historically good through about 10 weeks. Some of that was scheduled. But a lot of that was the fact that there was some bad teams and they were able to take advantage of that and that's how you win football. You can accidentally win 10 games fairly easily if you're competent. I think that I am so worried about them going into the season with Stideman Hoyer and just the X factor of that. Having said that, I love the Buffalo Bills. I think Brandon Bean's essentially a tear down.

When we talk about the Dolphins taking a huge cap hit, I mean, the bills took a massive one a couple of years ago to get rid of some of those Doug Whaley contracts. That Brandon Bean rebuild job was awesome. So I love that team. I think they're a definite playoff contender, but I'm, I cannot pick against the confidence.

Bill Belichick until that's proven otherwise. If he gets, so say they figure out a way to bring Dalton in, and we get, you know, for people that are listening that don't follow us, one of the kind of bug of things that we deal with a lot is Josh Allen does not grade well for us.

He's not a very accurate quarterback and that we ding that in our system as I think we should, right? To give you some context here, there was no quarterback in the NFL that made a higher rate of what we deemed unkatchable throws last season. Josh Allen was

35 out of 35 for us. So if they get Andy Dalton, or even if Stidham slash Hoyer, probably not Hoyer, but let's say Stidham is way better than we anticipate for some unknown reason, that gives Bill Belichick potentially a leg

up in the passing game, at least from a quarterback perspective. And that to me is a huge, like you give Bill Belichick that, you don't want to bet against him. I just think if we're going, if we're going to go with, you know, the projections on Allen. I just have, and I agree with you, Kevin, I think the bills are one of the most impressive teams in the NFL. I think they took a chance

on a quarterback with a really high ceiling, and I'm not ever going to, you know, fault them for that. But if Alan isn't who he is supposed to be, that transition is going to be pretty awkward to do mid-season and still win a division, especially with a quarterback who's probably going to be new, whether it be from or or Dalton. And so, like, I have a, that's my, that's my reservation about the bills is I just think it's going to be an awkward season for them. Like, I can see it kind of being like Chicago this past year where they're not terrible. They'll win some games.

There'll be some hope every so often, but it ultimately just not be good enough. And that's where I see the door opening, New England, obviously, but also for a team like the Jets and maybe the Dolphins if everything comes together. please send your Josh Allen slander complaints to pro football focus and not the ringer. That's that's the key takeaway. I think that

again, they have an incredibly talented roster in Buffalo. I think that Josh Allen is not where he needs to be, but I did, I mean, listen, he did get better last year. He did get better. Whether that's enough is very much remains to be seen.

You know, Robert Mays went up there and talked to him last year, and he basically said that a lot of the, I guess you'd say, fundamentals of quarterbacking. He never got from a young age. And this is a league where a lot of these guys from Texas or from Florida or from California and they're throwing year-round seven-on-seven's kind of 10,000 hour theory. And Josh Allen didn't have that. I think that whether or not you can learn that in your three of football, a year-three of professional football is another story. But I do think that there were steps last year to where I don't think he's he's a total wash.

All right, pick the division, guys. I will go Patriots. Yeah, I'm the same. Me too. How boring. Yeah. All right.

Jets plus 750 is not a terrible bet, though. NFC North, again, they're all strange divisions, except like the AFC North and the AFC West, right? Like, they're all strange divisions. So big picture, Eric Star with you, NFC North. Yeah, this one's interesting because I think everybody's going to be down on Green Bay, and I think understandably so, given the direction they're in.

And also when you look at their point differential, you look at basically every metric of season ago, they were not a 13 win team. But when I look at the composition of this division, Minnesota got a lot better last week. But it's going to be very difficult, and they're going to have to hit a royal flush, basically, to have all those players work out. and be like, you know, a contender for that division come September. I think people are overweighing, you know, the probability that they're going to be good based upon the draft that they had, which was, you know, understandably good. I think Chicago's in a difficult situation. Detroit's gotten better, but I'm always a little bit hesitant about Matt Patricia.

So even though they had a terrible draft, I think Green Bay should be the favorite to win this division again in 2020. I thought you were going to steal my point, so I'm glad that you didn't. I wrote down, you know, I looked at the division odds this morning. I wrote them down. And I look at them and Green Bay is the favorite and the lions are seven to one. And I go, are we sure the Packers are for sure better than the Lions? Like, are you that? How confident are you?

Because the Lions last year were bad for the majority of the year. But when they were intact, they were good. Through week five last year, they were fifth and expected points added per pass play. Matt Stafford was throwing the ball downfield. They were leveraging play action at a high rate. They were putting the ball up to both of those receivers that could go get it. And they should have beat the Kansas City Chiefs had it not been for basically they were walking into the end zone of the one-yard line and a fumble six the other way.

So to me, this division is totally wide open, with the exception of the bears to me are the team that I have the least confidence in because of the quarterback position. And I think the Packers, the Packers, the Vikings, and the Lions all have really big, really serious questions. Like the Packers, it's structural, right? Like, you know, that seems volatile, clearly, if you listen to Brett Farr. The Vikings have two receivers and are going to, you know, without Kevin Stefansky. And then the Lions are trying to put things back together and convince themselves they're good, probably more than we're trying to convince themselves they're good.

So I think there's a legitimate three-horse race in this division. So I think that the Lions probably have a lot of talent. I think that I'm as big of Matthew Stafford fan as anybody. Some of their weird results earlier in the season, like the Cardinals game was just a debacle. And then obviously Stafford's injury got them off track a little bit, but I think there's talent there. I do not believe in Matt Patricia as a coach.

I just don't think he's very good. And I can't put any chips on, Matt Patricia ever. Do you believe in the floor though? Well, I kind of do because I've seen it. I mean, like, I understand that some of that was Smok and Mirrors last year, but I think that he

I think that the defense performed well enough, which I obviously, Mike Petten is in charge of that. I think that I think the philosophy he has is going to make things a little bit awkward because he clearly wants to go full 49ers and that takes a while. I mean, it's really hard

to retool the philosophy of a team when you have a quarterback under contract for three more years at, you know, a $30 million plus cap hit. I think that drafting, you know, a running back that high when you had so many other offensive needs was a debacle. I, quite frankly, I'm not a huge fan of the Jordan Lump pick. I just think that that was, I think that in a vacuum, it's a good pick, but I think that if you're talking about the 2020 season, it's a bad pick, obviously. And so, I think that if you're doing it, I wrote a column this week talking about Billy Bean, the A's general manager. He just talked about Arson Vanger, and he said that Arson Vanger managed the team like he was going to run it for 100 years.

And taking Jordan Love in the first round is I'm running this team for 100 years kind of thing. And in football, some of that is necessary. But for 2020, I'm not sure that was the pick. So that's a long way of saying, I kind of believe in that one floor. The Packers were 21st in yards per pass play last year. Like, their record, I don't have another word for it. It was fraudulent. Like, they did not, I did not, they did not get better offensively in the passing game with LaFleur versus McCarthy.

It may have looked different because the score was better, but they didn't get that. They didn't get better. And if they did, it was very marginal. And now they're making a huge change that maybe Rogers isn't on board with. Well, but I do want to push back just a little bit in the sense that what they really leveraged a season ago was a mediocre division, which I think with respect to 2020 has only gotten worse, right? The quarterback is probably going to have a good season just by virtue of the fact that

he's one of the best quarterbacks ever played the game, and there's some motivation there. I think long term, this team's going in the wrong direction unequivocally. I didn't like the Jordan Love pick fundamentally. I didn't like trading up for him. None of that stuff. And he ended up being their best draft pick. But in this current climate

where continuity is probably important and high-end sort of like fragile things like Aaron Rogers, I think are more important maybe than anti-fragile things like Minnesota's defensive play caller and all that kind of stuff. If we're going to be consistent with

teams we think can, if I'm going to be consistent with, teams we think can take advantage of of a season with no off season. I think the Vikings fall into that. I think that there's a lot, they know what they are. There are,

it's veterans in a lot of different places. I think the digs trade takes a little bit away from that, but I think that they drafted enough. What I'm intrigued by, Maui Rubin and I talked to this in the podcast last week, what I'm intrigued by is the general trend. And we saw this with five, six, seven teams who traded away pricey veterans

and drafted a guy as their one-to-one replacement. And the Vikings, didn't necessarily try to do that 100%, but obviously they got receiver help early in the draft. And I think that their ability to replicate that on offense is going to be really big.

But I think that the Vikings are going to be pretty good this year. But they have so many rookies. Yeah, my concern with Minnesota is all three of their starting corners, now granted, Xavier Rhodes stunk last year, but all three of their starting corners are gone.

Everson Griffin, their second best defensive linemen, gone. Limbault Joseph, their nose guard, they let him go. They might bring him back. But like defensively, I agree with you that Zimmer being there and Zimmer is one of the greater defensive minds in football. Do they have the horses though to play defense, you know, like they have historically? I really question that despite, like I said, I think Dancer's a good pick and I think Gladney is a good pick. It's just whether they can acclimate to the NFL. Right. So part of the reason I like their draft class, the reason they took 15, 15 picks was, because they knew that free agency was going to be such a debacle, undrafted for agency,

such a debacle that they wanted those guys later in the draft, which I think, if you're thinking about how to get value, that's a really good way to do. I mean, you can, it's really easy to get late round picks. You can get it easily. I still believe in their talent. Like, I still believe in the spine and Harrison Smith and the linebackers, Dinell Hunter. Again, Mike Zimmer being one of the defensive geniuses of our era on offense. I still think her cousin's pretty good.

I understand you guys will dismiss Delvin Cook out of hand, but he is, I do think, fairly talented. Adam Thielen, like, I like the pieces for them to be a pretty good team. Okay, the final thing I'll say on this is, so you mentioned coaches, like the continuity of the coach and being able to carry a team through the off season. Are we dismissing the impact of the quarterback there? Because to me, the quarterback might, depending on the team, be the person in charge of keeping guys together and on the the same page in the offseason. And if that's the case, give me Matt Stafford. Yeah, I mean, we're talking about Kirk Cousins.

This is like the fifth straight year that he's had a different offensive coordinator. Let's say the whole team, the whole offense in a text chain. Okay. And that's your main form of communication or a Zoom call or whatever. Kirk Cousins is like, hey, guys, let's do a little Zoom happy hour at 5 p.m. today. How many responses is he getting? Matt Stafford says that. He's got everybody on the team.

He sent them all beers. if we're thinking of ways to take advantage of this, I'm not sure looking at the quarterback isn't important. But then how does that fall with Rogers, though? Because if he calls his own family, they're not picking up. The problem for, the tough thing for Rogers, and this is why it's going to be so hard to implement this Niners scheme, is they are built totally differently.

Like, he's got a bunch of slow, big receivers. Like, when he sends that text out, it's just going to Devante Adams and David Bactiard. Sorry. It's not a full team group text. Corey Lensley. Yeah. No, I think that you guys need to develop a way to measure how many guys are in the Zoom happy hour. I think that's the next project for PFO. That would be fantastic.

Is that like grit? It is like grit. All right. Eric, pick the division. I'm still going to go Green Bay, despite everything. Social grit. just because I have to be, I got to pick one long shot. This is the long shot I like the most. So I'm going to go with the Lions.

Wow. I'm going to go Vikings here. I'm getting seven to one odds. Hey, it's Bill Simmons. I wanted to tell you about a new podcast on the Ringer Podcast Network that we are launching this week. It's called TV concierge. It's only available on Spotify.

These are 12 to 15 minute mini podcast that review the latest TV show streaming on Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, HBO Showtime, effects Apple TV, wherever else. We'll preview new shows that are launching. We'll break down the biggest shows that just launch. We'll review the biggest binge watch seasons that drop as they happen. It's our new TV concierge podcast from the Ringer podcast network. Think of it like a little bit of a playlist.

Pick and choose the ones you want to listen to. It's available only on Spotify. All right. This one is probably pretty easy. We don't have to spend that much time on AFC North. George. you know, I am, are we sure about the Ravens? And I mean, are we sure about the Ravens in the sense that are we sure they're going to win this division 68% of the time? Are we sure they're dominant?

And I'll give you a couple of reasons why. Lamar Jackson was phenomenal. And we just had a conversation earlier today. Would you rather have Lamar Jackson or Deshawn Watson? It's like one of the hardest questions I've ever had to answer. But he was the highest graded quarterback under pressure last year. That is something that is very volatile from season to season. We'll probably regress. And they ran only 94 plays

in the first half where they were losing. The next closest team was 137. Those are some things that if they don't quite go that way, I'm not sure how much we know about the Ravens. So the Ravens are certainly good.

I don't know that they're dominant good. And I honestly don't know if any other team in the division is good. If I had to take one that I think ends up being good, though, I do like the Brown's chances to end up being good. I just think with Stefansky there, that is such a 180 from Freddie Kitchens. Like, he'll actually run play action out of heavy personnel a couple times. And that was something that Baker Mayfield did really well. He might actually get him and O'Dell on the same page.

So that would be the team that I think could creep into good. I mean, I think this is sneakily one of the best divisions in football, given, you know, what the Bengals did. I agree with that. It became, you know, one of the, like, they took steps to being more anti-fragile, getting, you know, three defensive backs in free agency, getting linebackers in the draft, sure up the offensive line a little bit with Jonah Williams. And then T. Higgins, A.J. Green. I mean, that's a, that has the makings of a pretty good fourth place team, frankly, if you're looking at divisions. The Browns are a little bit better. Obviously, you know, I think Stafansky will do wonders there.

the Steelers with Big Ben. Big Ben was on the decline before you got hurt in our opinion. But at the same time, they had one of the best defenses in the NFL. I'm still going to go. I still think the Ravens are firmly the best team in this division, though, just because there's so much stability. I don't mean stability in the natural sense. I mean, like, when you have Brandon, you know, when you have guys like Brandon Carr as your, you know, fifth best corner, and he's, you know, and you have, you know, Marcus Peters as a playmaker, You draft Gino Stone to go with Chuck Clark and Errols. Like they just, and then Patrick Queen, a position they were actually poor at,

you know, doing a great job there. They just, they're just few leaky things that can happen with the Ravens. And when you look at teams that are 14 and 2 and you're looking at how could they get worse fundamentally, they probably will have a worse record, but worse fundamentally, you look for leaks. And as George said, I think the only leak with Baltimore is the quarterback position. but I think if any team is self-aware enough to address them, it's Baltimore. Yeah, I am hugely impressed with what the Ravens have done. I understand.

It almost reminds me a little bit. I think people overreact when they hear regression in some ways from Lamar. It is a little bit what happened with Mahomes last year, which is everybody said, well, Mahomes' numbers will come down. Everybody freaked out. But that's just the nature of what happens when you play at MVP level, is that, you know, numbers come back down to Earth. That's what they do.

Mahomes' touchdown numbers went down last year, but they didn't make him a worse player. Just made his numbers go down a little bit. And they won the Super Bowl and everything was fine. So I think I've been hugely impressed with the Ravens have done this off season. Clayys Campbell was a nice pickup for value. Their ability to turn fifth round picks

into real meaningful players is one of the best team-building jobs of the last couple of years. I think that they're going to win this division. I think what's different about it this year is that there's not going to be any easy outs this year. I think even the Bengals help themselves quite a bit in the draft and the way that they were building around, whether that's T. Higgins, whether that's Logan Wilson. I think that they have pieces now where they can start building, but they won't build for 2020 and be successful. So the way I look at it, I think the Steelers are good and I think the Browns are good.

I think that what we tend to do, we've talked about this a lot on this podcast, we tend to be a year early on most of the hype teams. And there's a pretty reasonable explanation for why this happens. I remember everyone talking about the Niners two years ago and how they built that team and starting to hype them up. Obviously, Garapolo's injury kind of precluded us from seeing what they would look like two years ago. But I always feel like you can kind of set your watch by which team was hyped and in the next year that they're pretty good. And the reason is because, you know, you assemble the team quickly and maybe there's some things we overlooked. With the Browns last year, that was the offensive line. They go out. and they solve that with someone like Jack Conklin.

So I think that they have the capability to be good. I think there's three good teams in the division, as I said. But I think the Ravens are just at this point the second best run franchise in football and maybe the best run franchise in football. But the chiefs just have Patrick Mahomes, so it's 1A and 1B. The Ravens aren't going to sneak up on anybody either. Right. Like that's the other part of this, I think, that should be noted is teams are going to spend

their whole off-season. Now, what does that actually gain you if your off-season is remote, maybe not a lot, but they're going to have a tougher road. I'm with you on the Ravens and the Browns. I'm not sold on the Steelers, though. Their defense was so good because of turnover differential. And that's something that is going to, you know, plummet back down to normality. Their defense was good.

They won because of defense because of turnover differential, though, right? That's, I think, the distinction, isn't it? And so if they have even passable offensive play, don't you think that that's the makings of at least a decent team? Their defense was good, take away the turnovers? I'm not buying that. Almost every. I mean, they were pretty good efficiency-wise. Like, I think, I agree that you, like, much like the Jets, you don't win with that kind of

defense unless you get turnovers. But it was a good defense. Yeah, I just don't think there is robust to change. I think there are going to be some, you know, they might have some injuries. Like, T.J. Watts probably not going to be the highest-grade edge offender again. I'm not sold on Ben either at this age. Like, I don't know. But the Ravens win.

Yes. All right. Yeah, we're all picking the Ravens. All right, great. Absolutely. Okay. NFC South. This is a tough one because it's basically Tom Brady and Rob Gunowski coming to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers along with all they've built and whether or not that's good enough to be better than the Saints. We will start with you, Eric. Yeah. And I guess I guess I'm going to go back to this, this quip. But, you know, Tampa Bay. as a team that I think people were really underrated about last year. You look at expected points added on defense, you look at yards per play. Their defense was actually a pretty tip-top group last year. And, you know, James kind of tanked their ability to win. They go out in the getting Antoine Winfield Jr. I like the complete, and obviously Tristan Wirks on offense. I like the

completeness of that team, but banking on a quarterback as, you know, long in the tooth is Brady, grong coming back to play tight end after a year off and, you know, losing a decent amount of weight. I still, you know, I'm looking at New Orleans as the team. I think they're every bit as complete and there's a lot of continuity there. So I think that, you know, everybody's right that those two teams are the ones that should be vying for that division. But I think New Orleans, I think the gap between New Orleans and Tampa Bay is bigger than most. Any case for the Falcons here? Well, that's what I was going to ask. I was going to say, like the, the team I'm curious about is, are the Falcons good? To me, this is maybe the one that I struggled with

the most thinking about divisions. I was like, I know the Saints and the Bucks are good. Now, I'm not sure which one, I have my doubts about the Bucks. This to me is the litmus test for what happens during quarantine, right? Like, they're all new. Is Tom Brady finding a way to organize, you know, TB12 sessions in his backyard over the summer? I wouldn't put it past him, but you never know. And we've seen quarterbacks in the first year under Bruce Ariens, granted not Tom Brady quarterbacks, but set PFF records for turnover-worthy plays in a season. The three are tied at 40 were all in their first season under Bruce Ariens. I don't expect that to happen, but I would expect there to be a little bit of change for Brady. The Falcons to me are fascinating because I liked

what they did in the draft, but relative to what I think it could have been, right, they could have had C.D. Lamb there. It gave me a little bit of pause. And they're just the Falcons, man. Like, stuff just happens to this team. They have Julio Jones and Matt Ryan, who should be dominant in every phase of the game. And somehow, when it matters most, they don't. Like, it's not in the red zone, like when they're trying to score a touchdown, they're one of the worst duos in the NFL, and they're the best everywhere else. I don't get it. Dan Quinn seems to me like Wayne Fons, except for he doesn't actually get his team to the playoffs. despite being rumored to be fired in the middle of every year.

Has that ever been successful? Has that reference ever been made? That's amazing. Dan Quinn, as Wayne Fons, has not been made. I can assure you that. Has it ever worked? You know, Ron Rivera, he saved his job a couple of times with some late season surges, including that one year that he made the playoffs late,

I think with that the year of the year. made one year or whatever. Yeah, the year that led to the Cardinals, the Cardinals, the Cardinals, the Cardinals' Panthers game that we're all trying to memorial. Um, yeah,

I, it's, it's interesting. I wonder if, I wonder when we're talking about the short off seasons, whether or not there's, this is kind of the Occam's Razor NFL season and that teams that have built in advantages are going to be able to use them because it's going to be a

much less complicated sport. And it may be just having Matt Ryan and Julio Jones is, is a great, great place to start and better than we think to the point. I think the Falcons might be better than we think. I am with the New Orleans Saints on this one. I think that they win the division. I am, I almost,

I almost don't want to make any predictions with the bucks, George, because it's exactly what you're saying. It's just a litmus test for what happens when Tom Brady, and I've said this a million times in this podcast. I mean, no one has more, I worked out with Tom Brady for an hour and learn more about football and throwing than I ever have in my life. No one has more stories about those sort of things.

than Tom Brady. And if this were a normal year, he'd have these guys out at UCLA or USC or up in Montana and he'd be working on chemistry and all that stuff, but it's not a normal year. And so what that means for 2020 is a complete crapshoot. So until they come out and or a juggernaut or whatever, it's hard to draw any conclusions about the bucks. I think if I had to guess, they're probably a 10-win team, but I think the Saints are really, really good. here's if I look into the crystal ball that I don't have, the Saints win this division because they can sustain success throughout the season. I would not be surprised if we, God willing, are sitting here at the end of the season.

We go, okay, the Saints are winning and win the division, but the Bucks are the better team right now. And the reason I feel that way is I went through and I was just like, okay, who am I more confident in? Brady versus Breeze. Well, I actually think it's Brady because I've seen. Breeze be great but not sustain it. And I thought Brady, there was no, it was a no-win situation for him last year. The wide receivers, I would take the Bucs wide receiving court. The defense, the Bucs have a really talented defense. The coach, I love both coaches. Obviously, there's continuity there. But talent-wise, the Bucks are better. So I could see by the end of the season us going, they're going to

play on the road, but they're a better team. This is, this is a, this has a classic. markings of like, you know, if Tampa Bay goes 13 and three and everything clicks, we're all going to, I feel like we're all going to be like, where do we miss this one? And it's sort of like, it's like the Ravens being a trap last year. Like, how do we not see the Ravens putting this all together? And I do think that Tampa Bay has that upside. I just see so many more, you know, simulations where it's just like something bad happens and the bottom falls out in some sort of way, at least relative to the Saints. It's interesting when you talked about the buck's getting better because I think that one of the things that has shaped

my view the last couple of years is, and I've told the story before, but a couple of years ago, I went on some rant about how a team's defense sucks. And this was like late September, something like that. And their GM called me. And it's a guy I actually have a great relationship now. And he said, the one thing you have to remember about modern defense is that because of the way teams practice, because of you're not really hitting in practice, you're not really hitting in training camp, you don't have two a days,

that defenses actually have to get better over the course of a season if they're going to be good, and that they actually, to judge a defense in September, even October, is a little bit foolish, and you'll end up looking wrong. And I would also say that that's probably true of the elite defense we see in September

that peter out by December in a weird way. But what I will say is that the capability for teams to get better this year, when there is no practice, when you're just learning on the fly, when guys maybe you're getting in shape in October and just playing themselves into shape, I think that there's more capability for a team to get elite in December than there ever has been. I'm with you. And Brady's the guy that would get the team in a mental space to do that. I mean, Kansas City was a classic example of what you just said, right? They looked terrible in the first eight weeks of the year with a new defensive coordinator. They somewhat figure it out,

and that's enough. Like, yeah, I get that. And I think, I think Tampa was similar last year. Their defense was not good in the first half of the season. And they, you know, underneath all of our noses, you know, basically found their stride. So it'll be interesting to see if they can continue that. Two strong Zoom chat conferences, by the way, boxing and saints, I feel like they'd be pretty strong in that metric. Does anyone have 10 seconds of thoughts on what the Carolina Panthers are doing?

since we literally did not say their name in this eight minute chat. They're trying to win six games. They should be tanking and they'll win six games. I know. They should be tanking. I've been so confused by what they're, some of their moves have been so smart, and then they have moves at reverse.

I'll borrow this from the great Robert Mays, but he said, he's told me, he's like, you know, teams shouldn't tank. They should just always be in a position to go get their guy. They're going to have a,

high enough pick that they're going to have to pay for it dearly, but they could be in a position to maybe go get their guy if it's the number two guy, right? Mays and I have talked a lot about tanking. I mean, I think that it's really hard to actually do an NBA-style tank in the NFL just for a lot of reasons. Number one, you can't do it for too long because of the way when careers are short. It's not, if you hit on two absolute superstars, that's not the end of your rebuild. It's the beginning, whereas in the NBA, it's different. The tanking discussion is a different episode entirely. And also, Maze is just upset because his team is unintentionally tanking.

This is true. All right. AFC South, home of Bill O'Brien. We'll start with you, George. I'm fascinated by this division as well. And I love Deshaun Watson so much. I am confident that the Texans are good because of him. And despite the other things have gone on.

And I actually believe that Bill O'Brien, the coach, is fine enough, right? Like, he makes some smart decisions on fourth downs. I think that team generally plays, like, above what I would expect, a team of those components to play. But, man, like, I don't know what it means to lose one of the best receivers in the NFL. But I'm still confident they're good. For nothing. For nothing. Not just for nothing.

They took on the David Johnson contract. That just gets swept under the rug. It's like, oh, they got this really good fantasy running back from a couple of years ago. What a great, you know, little addition. It's like, no, that contract is awful. Like, if you wanted to trade me that contract, I would say what first round pick do you have this year? Because you're sending that along with it to me. They could have Brock Osweiler with that David Johnson deal, and I would have been surprised.

Like, this happens in the NBA all the time. The NFL hasn't gotten there yet. And the Titans I'm lower on because I believe that variance is going to come back and bite the Titans a little bit and the investment in the run game. You know, obviously I think it's all about the passing game. And what Ryan Tannahill did was execute in situations such as under pressure at a rate that I wouldn't expect him to do again. Took a ton of sacks, most sack quarterback in the NFL rate-wise. So the Texans to me and the Colts are the Texans. two firmly good teams in this division. And while I want to buy into the Colts, because I love

Frank Reich, this is a very new team together. And the Texans at the very least have Deshaun Watson, they have Will Fuller, they have Kenny Stills who have been there for a little while. And if it comes down to it, and I think this division always does, it's going to come down to, you know, the last week of the season. And I've got to go Deshaun Watson or Philip Rivers. I'm not sure I don't go Deshawn Watson. Ooh, Eric? Yeah, wow. I agree with you that Bill of Ryan's not as bad of a coach as he is a GM. I agree with that.

I think Watson, though, has a little bit of Matt Ryan in him in that he is a great quarterback. Matt Ryan probably should be in the Hall of Fame, but there are extended stretches of play where he's unable to overcome some, you know, he plays poorly at times. And we saw that with Watson, you know, in the playoff game, we saw it, you know, against Jacksonville. You saw a lot of times last season. And I just don't know if you start to chip away at supports around him. You know, their defense is probably still going to be terrible. Offensive line is mad.

And now the receivers, they don't have a very receiving corps like they did a season ago. And when they lost Will Fuller in games last year, they became a worse offense. And, you know, Bill O'Brien decided instead of, you know, try and, you know, maybe, placing Fuller with somebody else, he cut out like the most important leg and bought three Will Fuller. So I don't know, it was sort of a weird approach there. For me, I'm just going to throw that out there. Jacksonville's tanking, so, you know, or should be tanking. Sure are. They're doing a good job of it, though. Yeah, yeah. They're out of the conversation, but I sort of like their approach, not the least of which is Jake Luton in the draft.

But when I look at the, when I look at trying to handicap this division, for me, I have to go with the best coach quarterback combination and Frank Reich, the delta between Frank Reich and any of the coaches in this division is so large that I will deal with the possibility that Philip Rivers is cooked. And so I take that, that coach quarterback combination. Your best coach in the division was thinking of taking a running back in the first round, though, or early second round. Andy Reed's top six coach in the history of the league in terms of wins and they took Clyde Edwards-Layer in the first round. But Philip Rivers, ain't Patrick Mahomes. I get what you're saying. I love Frank

Craig. Don't get me wrong. I love Frank Craig. All right. Here's my thought on this. We had Rich Rorinberger on the pot of a couple of weeks ago. He played with Rivers, Clay with Brady. We talked a little bit about this. And he made a point that I've been thinking about Rivers since, which is no one in football is

less equipped to play in a bad situation than Philip Rivers because he will force things. He will be competitive. If he's behind a bad offensive line, he will try to put the team on his back and you see how that ends, right? Now he goes from a bad situation to a good situation. And he goes behind a very good offensive line, a great coaching staff. I think that this can work in Indy.

I don't think that any of these teams are 15-win juggernauts. I agree with you that Bill O'Brien is a really good coach. And it almost, when you see the disconnect between his ability to coach and create a team on the field and his front office work, you almost wish that he was a little. that he was a little more open to not making decisions. I mean, like, why wouldn't you want, it's obvious that he wants this power, which is fine, but that's everyone's right to want power. But when you look at it, it almost seems like he'd be better just saying it, why not I'd hire some guy to be the GM and I'll worry about the coaching?

I think one day, that might happen for him and he'll be better served for it, because I do think he's a good coach, and I do think that he can scheme an offense up. Now, I'm going to pick the Colts in this division. I love Deshawn Watson. I have every faith in them to compete, every bit of faith in them to compete for a playoff spot. But I think this Colts team is just going to come together really well. Ultimately, if I have to pick one, the totality of everything, it's very hard for me to go against the Colts.

My thought is there's not as big of a gap. And as I think people based on, the Colts added a lot of things to, their team this year. The Texans did not. They have like a net negative. And I think that is overweighing people's views of it. I'll take the Colts though. I agree with you that Houston at plus 300 on the market is the best value for the division. If you get three to one under Sean Watson, I'm just saying like if you have to pick the favorite, I think the favorites of Colts. Yeah. I agree. Yeah. Yeah, I agree with that. I also want to give, I also want to say because Titans fans get mad at us for not mentioning that.

they went to the telegame last year. I like the Titans team building. I love some of the moves they've done. I talked about this in the podcast last week. The first round pick, Isaiah Wilson, a little strange to me just in the sense that even Mel Kiper said he doesn't even know if Wilson can beat out Dennis Kelly for a starting job in 2020. He might be playing guard.

Right, might be playing guard. From a 2020 perspective, I don't know if they've gotten that much better. If they had clowny that can help. But I love the Titans team building. I love the Titans organization. But I just don't see him on the same wavelength as the Colts right now. To me, it's Ryan Tannahill. He can't be that good next year.

Like, I just can't be. All right. Let's go, because this will be a quick conversation, AFC West, and then we'll do the NFC West to finish up. Is there any dissent on the Chief's pick here? Okay, good. It's like a wedding.

If anyone has any. Forever hold your peace if you have nothing to say. Who's the second best team in this division? Is there a legitimately good team in this division outside of the Chiefs? I think Denver can be a 2008-19 Buffalo Bills type team. Oh. Well, I think maybe not the defense, but obviously Fangio is very good there. But to me, they put so many weapons around Drew Locke,

that Drew Locke could have a season where we don't like his, fundamentals and they still have success. I wrote down basically the same thing. And my thought on that would be the Broncos and the Chargers were kind of flip-flop in my mind. Like going into the draft, my thought was the Chargers are in a position where with the right moves, they can be legitimately competing with the Chiefs in games. Right now, they're not the favorite, obviously, but like legitimately competing. And they did the exact opposite.

Like they took Justin Herbert and then they traded up to get a linebacker. It was probably as far south relative to where they could have gone as what they did. The Broncos should get a good backup quarterback because they have the talent around the quarterback to be good. And there are backup quarterbacks to be had. And I don't, you know, I don't know if Cam Newton is willing to do that. And I think teams are way more hesitant than they should be to bring in a guy to compete with their young quarterback. If you can't take a quarterback competition, how are you going to handle the fourth quarter of a

playoff game? That shouldn't scare you. You should be willing to have these competitions. The Broncos are good enough that if they got decent quarterback play, if they're a good team. And so they should go and try and get one. Yeah, I didn't, I think that the Broncos draft and their moves this year, especially getting some of the low-key veteran moves that they were able to add, I think it's been nice. I am with you on the quarterback competition thing.

I had said a couple weeks ago that they should be contenders for a Cam Newton style backup. Yeah. If everything goes south, he's there and he can just get healthy and not worry about anything because now Drew Locke is, you know, he's not a complete disaster. In fact, he's quite good. And the blowback I got from Broncos fans was really strange. I'm sure you guys have gotten the same thing because it was pretty unanimous. They're pretty sold on Drew Locke being like the guy.

And I thought that Drew Locke was, and maybe that's just an every fan base thing. I think Drew Locke was good last year. And I think that I'm not ruling him out to be the guy. But I didn't see anything last year where I was just like, let's just not have any competition forever. Let's lock this in because, you know, he's going to be the quarterback from next 10 years. That remains a possibility because he showed some promise last year. But where are you guys on Drew Locke for not only 2020, but, you know, the rest of that rookie contract? I mean, I think he was a good value as a second round pick, but I wasn't high on him coming out as a first round to a sort of prospect.

You know, if you look at yards per play, and I know why there was a situation in a lot of their games and stuff, but if you look at yards for play, you look at sort of any level metric, you know, those are team wins by Denver. And so going four and one was cool. And anything that can give a fan base hope, I'm all for. but I need to see I need to see so much more there and you know what his one good characteristic at Missouri was that he got better every single year he did improve every single year

but even then like when you look at his statistics against power five teams last season most of his wins were against bad teams you know at the end of the season like I just I the jury is still out and I'm 100% with you that you know bringing in somebody like Dalton or Cam

you know might really help that team, you know, sort of, I think their floor is pretty low, but their ceilings, you know, ASC wildcard. And if you want to increase that floor a little bit, the quarterback position's a place to look. Fangio came from Chicago. Like, he should be prepared for this situation. Like, do not anoint a guy too early. And you can have confidence in a guy to be good and also say, hey, there's going to be competition. To me, that's sports in a sense. He had more turnover worthy plays. So, you know, passes that should be intercepted or really bad fumbles. Then he did

big-time throws, which are, you know, you think out or pass the sticks, on the money, that type of thing. You know, that doesn't happen for many good quarterbacks. So the point being is, look, he had, what, less than 200 dropbacks? I'm not going to say that he's going to be a guy that's going to make more turnovers than big plays, but I'm also not going to go the other way around. Like, I just don't have enough evidence there. So you would be naive to anoint a guy this early. that's just what fan bases want to do, but smart organizations should understand that you never quite know unless you have Mahomes, right? You never quite know. And you got to prepare for those other things. It reminds me I had to talk with Thomas Dimitraf last year about paying Matt Ryan.

And we talked a little bit about this idea that is popular on the internet and elsewhere about just whether or not you should ever get into a situation where you trade out quarterbacks every four and a half years. And he said, this guy's expensive. Let's get rid of them. And Dimitrov's point, he obviously paid Matt Ryan, and I think that Matt Ryan is very good quarterback. But his point was you should see the stress in buildings when there's no quarterback. And you should see a GM and a coach without a quarterback and how desperate they are to find one. And once you have one, you never want to feel that way again, right? And I would say that's part of the reason with fan bases that they're so eager to embrace a guy as the guy,

because you don't want to be the fan base saying, what are we going to do a quarterback? It is a stressful experience. It is not something you want to go through. And so when you see any glimmer of hope and the Broncos saw that with Drew Locke, that's where you immediately default to. Again, I think Drewlock was good last year.

I agree with Eric. He's values a second round pick. He's going to get better. But I'm not ready to anoint anything in Denver right now. It's like breaking up in a relationship is hard. The only difference here is that it's not disdained upon to put two people in competition. Right, exactly.

It's the different world. It's the same level of difficulty. You can bring in a Cam Newton. You can bring it in Andy Dalton. I never want to be by myself again. I'm going to hold on for dear life. But I, you know, I feel like that happens in social dynamics all the time. But in the NFL, you're allowed to do it. You're allowed to take a flyer on Cam Newton or Andy Dalton in this league.

All right, NFC West, West. a very strange division with a lot of moving parts. We will start with you, Eric. Well, I think the team that's gotten better the most is Arizona. Isaiah Simmons, obviously Hopkins. You know, last season, you know,

they got Kenyon Drake in the middle of the season. And then, you know, Josh Jones is a very good value in the third round. They increased their yards per play by like a yard and a half last. year. It was astronomical how far they had to go, but they were very respectable. They were, you know, competitive with the Rams, competitive with the 49ers, and they beat the Seahawks in week 16. Like, there's a lot there there. And I'm, I have a similar opinion of them than George does the Lions in the NFC North. So that's just a team. I don't think they'll, they should be the favor.

They'll win. But I think that they've come a long way. The Rams and the Seahawks, I think have only gotten worse. You know, the Seahawks already just a sort of a team that was more... It just doesn't matter with the Seahawks. It just nothing matters. Nothing matters. There's no consequences. 11 wins.

11 wins. And we love our Ringer podcast host, Pete Carroll here on the Ringrenfell show. But we all love Pete Carroll and we can pencil them in for 11 wins despite any and all roster moves. There are no consequences to what the Seahawks have done. You know, Russell Wilson, you know, basically has died for all their sins apparently. So, you know, but I think it has to be the San Francisco 49ers as the favorite, despite

them going on draft night, pissing off George by trading back to give him momentary hope and then taking a defensive lineman. Yeah. But the nice thing for the Niners is that while, right, their moves weren't optimal, they weren't a disaster. And I do think the Rams have kind of had a disastrous couple of off-season slash years. And while the consequences will never, like, Russell Wilson is pretty much bulletproof, right? I would not say the same about Jared Gough.

So the way that I would see, the big change, the big flip-flop in this division would be the Cardinals not being the winner, but putting themselves above the Rams and all of a sudden being what the Rams were a few years. years ago, just like the Niners were what the Rams were a few years ago and now seem to have sustained success and become a good team. And that would make this three good teams for sure with the Rams a pretty darn good, not good team. And that's why this is the best division, I think, in the NFL. From the Niners' perspective, though, they, I think they're closer to not being good than a lot of people want to admit. Jimmy G. in the first half of the season, without Emmanuel Sanders ranked 16th in PFF grade. Now remember, they played nobody in those games. They

were beating the living hell out of teams. When he got Emmanuel Sanders, played some harder teams, he was eighth in PFF grade. So to me, it comes down to whether that scheme and the receivers in that scheme are able to execute. And if so, then Jimmy G can be a top 10, can play like a top 10 quarterback and they can be a really efficient passing offense. But if not, passing offense is where games are won, despite how beautiful that run game is. And that offense could go to average pretty quickly, even though I love Kyle Shanahan. So I think it's still going to be a really tough division. I mean, this division was close last year.

Like it was close, no matter how dominant the Niners looked in the playoffs. Yes, you have a question. This is for both of you. And if you don't have an answer, it's fun. If you were to rank the teams, you think we'll have the most wins over the next decade, where would the Niners be? because I think that this is from a

great question this is a team management question for me because when I look at them trading to Forrest Buckner and getting the 13th overall pick for it I started to think

that they're a sustainable team where almost what we talked about with the Vanger thing they're actually like they're running for 100 years they know how to retool in the fly

they know what their scheme is they obviously have a very good offensive mind obviously the staley thing hurts a little bit but obviously they replaced him with a equal talent, I guess you could say, in Trent Williams,

he's 31 years old. And I just think that when I look at some of the moves they've made, I'd put them higher on that list than maybe most people. I think that we would all choose the chiefs to be number one, just because of how good Mahomes is. I think the Ravens are up there with a mixture of not only Lamar, but just the young talent they have and the GM they have. But I think the Niners are in that mix.

I very much think so. I think of them very similarly as I think of the Alex Smith Chiefs, where you have one of the better coaches in the NFL, you have a quarterback that's good enough to, I mean, the Chiefs won two-thirds of their games with Alex Smith. And I think Jimmy G's even more capable even. I think he has a little bit more to him sometimes than Alex Smith does. And as you said, the retooling, it makes a lot of sense though. I mean, and the Chiefs were, you know, I credit Alex Smith for being good enough for the chiefs to hit their head, you know, basically on the ceiling and sort of see exactly where that is. And I think the Niners are sort of in that, in that sort of middle point where they're,

they're going to let Jimmy G have a few more swings of the bat and then go ahead and take a quarterback. And I only think, I think the only thing that can derail them from being, like you said, like third probably in this list, is if they decide to move on from Jimmy G and the quarterback that they select is not worthy of it. But, but, yeah, I agree. I mean, there's a ton to like there. I think Georgia's concerned about the receivers is valid. I have a little bit of concern about their secondary, especially with age with Sherman and things like that. But, you know, they, aside from signing running backs to huge deals that aren't even their best running back, I think they make decent decisions. Yeah, I mean, that's, and that's,

that was kind of my point, right? Like, so I didn't, I thought they could have made more of the draft. That being said, they didn't take a running back in the first round. You know, like, they gained ground in the first round relative to a lot of teams, and they traded out DeForest Buckner, who they were going to have to pay for a much cheaper option, who is going to probably be a great pass-stressure. I mean, I love Javon Kinla. The thing with Kyle Shanahan is that he is a true innovator.

And I don't know how many of those guys there are in the league on the offensive side of the ball, like truly are going to create novel things. I think Andy Reid is certainly one of them, and I think after him it's probably Shanahan. So I'm with you. I just think that they can, you can be a top three team in wins over the next decade and also have a couple of seasons where you're not dominant, right? And that I think everyone expects them to be dominant this year.

I just, it's so hard to return to that dominance. They had so much, you know, great play on the defense side of the ball. That is something that's just not as sustainable mathematically. And then the receiving core is a question too. John Lynch, though, he will pull the trigger. I think there are GMs that are not as willing to make moves and if they need to move on from Jimmy G, I could see some GMs struggling with that. That won't be John Lynch.

So are we all picking the Niers? Yes. Yeah, I think so. And I think the gap is relatively big. Who's the second best team at the end of the year? In this division? Seahawks, nothing matters. The Seahawks.

Yeah, the Seahawks. That's a great way to put it. a good quarterback. Their home field advantage is not trivial. There are some built-in advantages for the Seahawks. I would not. Let's be careful on home field advantage in 2020. It's a legitimate thing.

I mean, it's a legitimate thing. When I was saying, you know, I wasn't talking up, I didn't talk up the Chargers enough because we got sidetracked by the Broncos hype. But one of the things I don't mean this in a jokey way, but like a lot of teams with home field advantage are going to lose it and the charges are not like the chargers did play in a soccer stadium and and they were going to move into a stadium that we had I think they had sold 28,000 tickets as of last year. That's something you don't have to worry about. I actually think the chargers have a good roster talent and you think about a team like the Broncos who have a very loud crowd. You think about the Seahawks of a very loud crowd that that is probably not. going to be the case this year because of what we're going through. Well, and if there isn't travel, too, I mean, in the worst of worst cases, like a team like Kansas City, which is it plays in the AFC West, but their home stadiums in, you know,

central time zone, they never get, you know, the other teams in the division have to play at 10 a.m., you know, against them. And that's been an advantage for them forever. And it might be something if they, if they go a neutral site sort of, you know, construct, they'll lose as well. Yeah, because there might be states, right, like California. my beloved state of California, they have said there's a chance. They outlaw that in their state. It could be a state to state thing.

That's another interesting wrinkle in it as well, right? Like, how much does the governor care about the sports team? Right. No, really. I mean, really, I mean, you even look at European soccer right now. And France and the Netherlands, they're just out. They cancel the season. And other countries that maybe have a league with,

where I don't want to say it means more, but where the bigger leagues have not even really considered canceling the season, right? And so you think a little bit, you know, the EPL is trying very hard to get up and running in June. And you think about how the NFL is going to deal with this over the next couple of months. And I think that there are some states where they're just going to say there's not going to be sports at all, even with no crowds in our state. And there's some states they're not. I mean, there's a reason that the UFC is going to be in Florida next week. There's a reason that NASCAR is starting up in a couple of weeks in South Carolina. I think that there are states where they're going to be able to have this.

And I think it's going to be interesting to see where that is. I think that, you know, I was a little bit surprised that Nevada said no fights behind closed doors a couple weeks ago. And that's one of the reasons that the UFC thing got sidetracked. They were actually going to have it. They were going to have the UFC fight in it on, a casino in California until Governor Newsom called Disney and said, please don't do this. And so it really is going to be, for as much as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as touchy subject as this is, it really is going to come down to politics where,

where certain games are played this year. Yeah. And that will, and the NFL, you know, generally will strive for fairness usually. And you got to think that if it's, if it's unfair for one or two teams, they're going to try to make it at least more fair for the rest, you know, a level of the playing field, which is, you know, going to be a logistical challenge. I think they'll help them out. But, but I mean, if you have, and I think about California uniquely, because California has enough other things where sacrificing a chance of getting back together to have these football games is not worth it for them relative to some other states. If all the other states are saying, yeah, let's bring football back under these conditions, the NFL will help the Chargers

find a new stadium, but they're not forcing every team to play at a neutral site. Well, I don't know the answer. If the NBA's Disney thing works and they've got them all in hotels and they block them off from the world and they all play at the wide world of sports in that gym there and they see GI the crowd in or put in crowd reactions via web camera or whatever laptop camera. If that can happen, then maybe the NFL thing. okay, we could do this in Orlando or some other place with the million fields. I mean, I think that that might, if that ends up working with the NBA or hockey or whomever,

I think that that becomes a feasible possibility for the NFL. I think travel is going to be so hard. You're dead on. Maybe they could do what worked so well during the draft, which has put fans behind Roger Goodell. And he talks to them. And he, like, looks at them and they clearly, like, can't see him. He's like, come on. Yeah, I also have like, I think maybe there was some tape delay there.

Who knows? You never know. I think the draft, the draft showed that outside the box ideas can work. What this all looks like? I think it's so hard to predict anything because we don't know where anything is going to be in a month. So it's all I know is it's going to be different. There's going to be no mini camps.

It's going to be rookie mini camps. The ability to find rookie talent. and after the draft with undraft, you know, with undraft for agents, it's going to be a little bit different. So it's going to be wild. It's going to be, it's going to change a sport,

quite frankly, in 2020, and that's why, um, this is also difficult. But at least we know after this podcast, who is good. I appreciate you guys coming on.

Hey, Keb, thanks for having us, man. This was a blast. Yeah, man. Yeah, thanks,

thanks so much, guys.