The Ryen Russillo Podcast - Mahomes and Wilson Surpass Rodgers and Brady in Mike Sando’s Yearly QB Tiers, Plus: Why Thibs to NY Is a Bad Fit

Episode Date: July 28, 2020

Russillo shares his thoughts on the Knicks bringing in Tom Thibodeau as head coach (3:03). Then Ryen talks with Mike Sando of ‘The Athletic’ about his 2020 QB tiers, the evaluation process, QBs who made a notable shift in tiers from years past, and more (13:12). Finally Russillo answers a listener-submitted Life Advice question (1:02:20). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

today's episode of the ryan russell podcast on the ringer podcast network is brought to you by state farm just like basketball the game of life is unpredictable talk to a state farm agent and get a teammate who can help you navigate the unexpected. The O's taking two or three from the Sox. We'll get to that maybe a little bit later. I was worried about the Orioles pitching after the first game of the season. And then I realized, you know what? You've actually been more worried about the Red Sox pitching. I'll admit, even as a guy that's not as locked in as he used to be on that Red Sox transaction wire,

your boy had to go deep in a baseball reference and be like, who's this converted reliever who's this guy are all the other starters quarantine no only one okay all right so get a teammate who can help you navigate the unexpected talk to a state farm agent today today's plan a little on tibbs and mike sando from the athletic last week. I tease that we were hoping to have him on when his quarterback tier piece comes out as annual piece, which I think is an incredible read and 50 different NFL sources ranking all of the starting quarterbacks, 35 quarterbacks in total.

So we do almost an hour with Sando and then we'll do a little quick life advice at the end. But before we do any of that, we get a welcome back. Our boy, Kyle, who was traveling the world um i don't know how the passport worked where did you travel i went uh right to poughkeepsie new york and i stayed there man outdoor pool what do you guys get an above ground there i saw some footage so no there was a bullet there was a in-ground pool

and then my mom just made the jump knocked down her above ground and she's waiting for them to dig her an in-ground it's about time so you no kidding so you growing up you were an above ground guy i wasn't even really a pool guy for a long time but um yeah most of the friends had the above grounds yeah there you go about there's something about above ground pools it's like you think you just know the person like oh they have an above ground pool oh okay damn i hate that i know exactly what you mean yeah it's like their kid got arrested three times he stole the neighbor's car like what are they having above ground pool over there like yep smells like syrup in the house for some reason yeah i don't know what it is people out there with the above ground pools there's just some nasty nasty stereotypes there's a lot more ways to get hurt on above ground you know oh yeah i mean i've mopped myself

once in a while somebody last summer somebody dove in it head first it's like you didn't even have to put signs up for that anymore because you thought everybody knew but no he was like man i really hurt my neck like dude you're 25 i liked when people like upgraded their above ground pool situation and put like a wraparound deck on it yeah and you're like you know it's still we're still above sea level folks but you know what you do whatever you're gonna do when it's hot dude i'm not yeah i'm not criticizing anybody for it but i'm just saying that the above ground people out there you know you are there's a lot of assumptions made about you some fair some unfair so that's that's not cool. Let's talk coach tips. New New York Knicks head coach,

and I don't like it. I have been lucky enough to talk to a lot of people over the years. I don't know that there's anyone that is more impressive just talking basketball than Tom Thibodeau. I'm serious. I've told the story before, so I don't want to repeat myself, but we were sitting together watching a game, inbounds play. I asked him about it. He ran through seven different variations of what you could have done defensively. And I was like, do I know anything about basketball? Don't answer that. But X and O's game, I don't know that I've ever talked to anybody that's as impressive as him. But to have him be the head coach of a Knicks roster that has maybe two pieces,

although I could see him giving Frank Nielakina a max deal, two pieces, Mitchell Robinson and, of course, R.J. Barrett, last year's lottery pick. It feels a little bit like having Radiohead come by your house to jam and all you have is like Fisher Price toys. So let's run through Tibbs resume. He was 32 years old when he started as an assistant, 89, 90, 20 years in assistant. Up into that final year with the Celtics in 2010, 20 years as an assistant. When he was in Boston as an assistant, a lot of people weren't like,

I don't know if this guy's going to be the head coach, even though everybody thought he's brilliant because it's more than just being basketball brilliant. It's managing the room. He goes to Chicago. They're immediately 62 and 20. They were 41 and 41 the year before. They had Dang, Rose, Heinrich were kind of their top three guys and then tibbs gets there and it's rose dang noah and they brought over booze carlos boozer who was 17 and 10 and if you remember some of the vinnie del negro stuff with rose it just didn't feel super creative offensively it felt stagnant rose was so dynamic but i don't know that they were doing anything necessarily help him out and then it just all kind of clicked and came together and everybody's playing like north

of 37 38 minutes but they had a really good group there and that's an incredible record and for somebody that people were like is he a little too overbearing to be a head coach 62 and 20 your first year in you're like wait a minute that next year, remember a shortened season, 50 and 16. So almost an identical winning percentage. Remember Butler was eight minutes a game, 26 minutes a game, then 39 minutes a game, 39 minutes a game. He was 20 points a game in his fourth season. And the real problem was when Butler and Rose were trying to coexist, it didn't happen. It was the real problem was when butler and rose were trying to coexist it didn't happen it was the same problem for hoiberg after that but tip shows you that i can coach i can coach in this league but let's not forget there are still like three really established pieces as butler was

growing into something later so he doesn't even count in the beginning. But when your first year, it's Rose, a couple of years in, Dang, Noah, and Carlos Boozer, that's a really nice established four guys. But we all know that the Gar Foreman, John Paxson thing, the Gar Pax deal was combative all the time. And there was actually a stretch there where I would defend the Bulls front office on their draft track record because it was pretty good there for a while, and it was this drama that

everybody knew about. There are plenty of NBA front office dramas that we never hear anything about, and yet everyone knew about this one the entire time. He lasted five years and was out at the end of 2015, and the team has really never been the same since, but for a bunch of different reasons. It's not just because of Tibbs, but they had a really good coach in and you know it didn't work out it didn't work out at all stops by espn for a little bit that's when i met him and then a year later he takes over the minnesota job and minnesota was 31 and 51 in his first year they'd only won 29 games a year before um his first season there was carl anthony town second Wiggins and Levine were the same draft so they were three years in and those were his top three guys and then they get Butler and they

win 47 games I like I knew they had lost to Houston that first round and Butler was their leading scorer you know 22 a game just ahead of Carl Anthony Towns I mean Wiggins was still at 18 they had made the trade where it was Levine, Markkanen, and Chris Dunn. I forgot that Chris Dunn had basically done nothing his rookie year because he did nothing.

So that trade, you can kind of look back on it because I was reading some of the stuff at the time when Tibbs ended up leaving Minnesota. And I'm like, let me go back and look at

what some of the reaction was, and I'll get to that in a second. But for him to get this Minnesota team to 47-35, it was all in on Butler. People call him the the timber bulls and some of the guys that came over but you know when you just when you just snapshot it this way you go what's the argument against this guy what's like think about what he did to this bulls team and how much he improved the record he got minnesota to the playoffs and then butler sabotaged the whole thing and butler is

difficult pretty much everywhere he goes except now i think there are times where, yeah, if he was frustrated with the young guys around him in Philly, I could see that even more so in Minnesota. But I think Tibbs maybe miscalculated the relationship thinking, hey, if this guy's disgruntled, I will just get up to practice with an ESPN sit-down interview already scheduled, loses on everybody, then goes on the interview and just loses it again. It's like, okay, Jimmy Butler is doing every little thing he can to get the hell out of here. And that's where it all kind of went south. And it was on everybody. But I was reading back some of the stuff that he'd given up too much in the trade for Butler. I don't know. I mean, I still hold out hope for marketing a little bit.

And Levine's a talented, talented player. But as soon as you got Levine, you're going to pay him too much because a guy like that that has that kind of production, you're going to pay a lot. And he shouldn't be. In a way, Zach Levine, I think, as being your number one option, can mess your team up as much as he can help it with just his talent. Done, doesn't matter, none of that stuff.

The Wiggins contract, even though that's under his watch, I know it sounds crazy, folks, but Wiggins was going to get that's under his watch, I know it sounds crazy folks, but Wiggins was going to get that kind of money anyway. I mean, he just was. And because at that point you're like, all right, we're going to invest in this guy, number one pick. And he's putting up some numbers and we hope he takes the next step. And instead you're like, no, this is who he is this whole time. The Minnesota thing probably, cause they weren't very good defensively with Tibbs at all. After having these really nice defensive runs with Chicago. It's what kind of personalities do you have? And in Chicago, he had a bunch of fighters, even though Rose at times, once the injury sunk in, that could be debated. But Noah

is a fighter. Jimmy is a fighter. Boozer, look, he fell off quick, but he was a fighter. Taj is a fighter. And Towns and Wiggins are not fighters. And then Butler comes in as a fighter with them. And he's like, look, I don't want to fight for these guys anymore. I'd fight them, but I'm out of here. And Tibbs is gone. So coming to New York, this isn't about, hey, is he a good basketball mind? It feels a lot like, I remember when the Celtics did with his Doc Rivers, they brought him in and it felt like a distraction more than it was the right fit at the time because it was, hey, bring Doc in, maybe distract people. Once you see the coach on the media guide or the coach on tickets, you're like, wait a minute,

what's going on here? But at least they had somebody established in Paul Pierce. The Knicks don't even have that. The Knicks don't have a Paul Pierce. Like I said, I think they have two, maybe two and a half guys that are actually going to be on this roster in three years. And Tibbs is the guy you bring in when those pieces are already in place. You just do. And with his relationship with that front office, this feels a little bit like, hey, let's do the distraction because I don't care who you are as an organization. You can sit there and talk about now we have credibility out there in free agency. We have a great mind here. People are going to want to come there. No, no. Guys are going to go to teams where there's already guys in

place to go ahead and win games. So it just feels like Tibbs should be higher than the Knicks in a couple of years once the roster is far more established. All right, we're going to talk to Sando here in a second. But first, let's talk about Miller Lite as the original light beer.

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Events have been canceled and social distancing is in full effect. Miller Lite can still be enjoyed with your people, just not in bars or at gatherings. But staying connected is still important. I'm not staying connected to anybody. It tells it's asking me to what do i need to do to stay connected um with the people that i'm closest with i don't have anybody that i'm you know i check into my dad uh you know bill and i check in every now and scheduling so wise yeah so i'm like i'm not looking for it's not a sob story here i just don't have uh i'm not gonna lie to you and i'm not going to lie to you, and I'm not going to lie to Miller Lite. How's that?

What am I most excited about, though? I'm excited to get out on a boat. Word. Catamaran, Zodiac, you name it. Grady White was always kind of the dream boat when I was a little kid, looking at people that could afford them. But you know what they say about boats. Your happiest day is the day you get it and the day you get rid of it.

Best boat's a friend's boat, right? Yep. You ever heard that before? I love when people tell you jokes that are so not original or zingers. You're like, yeah, I've heard that. And they look at you like, where do you think I've been living? A cave? I've heard that before.

Like, I'm sorry I'm not really excited. Like, you're not getting the reaction out of me that you want. All right, back to Miller Lite. Miller Lite is the original light beer that tastes great and is less filling, which means it won't get in the way of enjoying time with your people. I prefer Miller Lite because, you know, look, we've had some friends over the years that would order food and be like, oh, we're not, hey, we're ordering food. You want anything?

No. And then as soon as you take that first break from the just piles of food around you on a delivery order, like, oh, are you done with that? That guy doesn't drink Miller Lite. The guys that kicked in are the guys that drink Miller Lite. Miller Lite, the original light beer. While you're home, enjoy a classic available for delivery today.

Celebrate responsibly. Miller Brewing Company, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. 96 calories and 3.2 carbs per 12 ounces. It's one of my favorite pieces of any sport each year and it's Mike Sando of The Athletic Now. I used to work with him back at ESPN and it's

another installment of his QB Tears and Mike, just so everybody can follow along here, this year it was 50 NFL employees. So if you can expand a little bit on that and how the voting works, the five different tiers and how this piece comes together every year. Yeah. So this started seven years ago with me going to people that do this for a living and saying, hey, what's important about the quarterback position?

And the answers you get sometimes tell you as much about the people as they do the position, as we all know. But in doing that over and over again, we really settled on these five tiers that most quarterbacks fit pretty cleanly into. And so for this survey, I've got 50 people, and that's head coaches, general managers, coordinators, personnel directors, a few analytics people, a few front office-like contract negotiator type guys, executives. And so we have each one of them take all of these 35 veteran quarterbacks and put them into one of five tiers. So in the number one tier, tier one, Mahomes was a unanimous choice, right? So what does that mean? That means tier tier one you know Mahomes was a unanimous choice right so what does that mean that means that he is the he's a win because of quarterback right you don't win with him you win because of

him and if you're behind and there's no play action run game to help you out there's no tricky scheme there's no amazing uh defense to bail you out you're dead you got to have two touchdowns in the last eight minutes of the Super Bowl and we all know where he's going to be on every play back there throwing that ball and he can in the last eight minutes of the Super Bowl, and we all know where he's going to be on every play. Back there throwing that ball, and he can do it. Tom Brady down in the Super Bowl by 25. That's the ultimate tier one. So I think people can see what that is. It gets a little confusing, though, because there's some really great football players who can't handle that pure past element as well. There's a pure past element to this in the league that's still believed in.

And that's when you're down, you've got to throw the ball. We can't help you out. Quarterback's got to do it. So as you go down two, three, four, five, your quarterback needs more and more help and context around him to have your team be successful. And then by the time you get to even the third tier, I think there's debate. Can we even win it all with this guy, right? So for years, Andy Dalton was a tier three guy. Now, he might look like a tier two when they're completely stacked around

him that year in 2015, but he's a three. Kirk Cousins has been a consistent three, and he's climbed into the bottom of the two before, but really he's a good legitimate starting quarterback, but you gotta be pretty good on defense usually. And you're going to not want him in a pure drop back passing game all the time. You're going to want a ton of play action and that type of stuff to help them out. So it gets confusing because you can manufacture stats for quarterback in a

system that's very friendly for him. But bottom line is what happens when it's all on your shoulders. And I think the higher you are, the better tier, the more frequently you can make the difference and win in those situations. Yeah. As I look through it, it kind of confirms two things. It confirms my thoughts. I think on a lot of tier three guys that I spent arguing about for years on a daily radio show, but then also even if it's 50 people that have been getting an NFL check and these are NFL lifers, the disparity, the voting, sometimes sometimes you're like how the hell is an nfl

employee giving this quarterback a tier two vote and it just speaks to that we're all very different like even though we can become consensus on things with more voting there's always a few people that just see somebody completely different and that can be a topic never mind just quarterback so uh mahomes not to be an editor here but i almost feel like there needs to be a new tier altogether for him uh because he's that special and you mentioned the comeback numbers you have in the piece he had a five and one record last year including the playoffs when chilling by 10 or more points the rest of the league was 32 209 and one um he's he's just another level but i'm so happy to see because i thought tier 1 was a little deep last year.

I think he had eight quarterbacks that ended up in Tier 1. I don't think that Tier 1 should ever be that many. I think it's almost like a cutoff of four or five. But the stats have blown up the way they have, so I can understand that, especially with this many voters. But to see Russell Wilson be what now, only the fourth unanimous Tier 1 quarterback, it's been Rodgers, it's been Brady Mahomes this year.

But I love that for Wilson because, you know, as I was doing it, revisiting the 2019 on last week's podcast, I went, you know, this guy's just, he's that special. And I really think at this stage right now, when I look at the entire field of starters, I would only take my homes over them with the drop off of guys like Rogers and Brady. Yep. And sometimes it takes a while to really see it improve it. People, I live in Seattle area and area and I used to cover the Seahawks. So a few years ago, Russell would get a lot of twos and a few people would give him a three and people would ask me, how the hell is that? And I said, well, because what people are looking at is the whole context. Early on, he walks in with the greatest defense in the last 20 or 30 years. He walks in with

Marshawn Lynch. People aren't worried about Russell Wilson. He's good. Don't get me wrong. He can do it, but he hasn't had to shoulder it early. Now what's happened? They pay him. The defense falls off to middle of the pack at best. They're probably 20th or whatever. And Marshawn's gone. They've got some backs that are good, but the game plan's on him. He's the reason for everything. And they go to the playoffs still every year. They're a play or two away from an NFC Championship game last year. So he gets the full credit now.

He's done it without all that help around him, without all that context of the run game and defense. Rogers ends up third overall, which isn't bad. But the fact that he had four Tier 2 votes speaks to, as you point out, and many have pointed out, statistically, there's some trends now for about two years that are pretty damning. But how different is the evaluation of somebody like Rodgers by defensive coaches in comparison to, say, the offensive side of the ball? What I found is so the four tier two votes for him were like people who'd be more into the numbers and the analytics, you know, front office cap people, a couple of younger guys, and there's no doubt the numbers, you know, he still has his whatever a bazillion touchdowns and two interceptions, right? But the overall potency of the offense

hasn't been there for a few years. So the defensive guys are still, they see no drop off. I mean, exact same guy, they're scared to death of them. They don't think the weapons are nearly as good around them. And I think, you know, it's not like he has to have weapons to be good because I think he's still good. I mean, no one would say he's not a good starting quarterback, I don't think, but to really be elite, the debate now is, has his weaponry fallen below a baseline level to really get the most out of him? Now you also put him in

this play action system that's built for tier three quarterbacks, right? I mean, it's not necessarily what Andy Reid's doing, you know, to the same degree. So I think there is some debate on him, but overwhelmingly still tier one. And, um, no, we'll see where it goes in the next couple of years because clock looks like it's ticking there in Green Bay. The rest of the tier ones are Breeze at four and Deshaun at five. Before we get to Deshaun, Breeze, it felt less about the stats and more about the eye test because the stats are still phenomenal. We know he missed a handful of games, but what did some of the evaluators say about things they're just noticing with him more so last year than other years? Yeah, I think definitely last year, we've seen the deep ball sort of

go away from them and there's a little concern or debate over is that him or is that, you know, who they've got playing wide receiver. People have been talking about him, you know, losing a little bit of strength, I think the last few years, but he really was outstanding last year. I think it got those people that for a couple of years were on the fence and maybe tempted to move him to a two back for more firmly in the one. There's still a big drop off after Rogers. He got 17 tier two votes. So that's a lot more than combined for,

for Rogers Wilson and Mahomes, but he was really good. Give me the pro and anti Deshaun arguments. Cause clearly there's more pro now after last year, but still some, I don't know if it's doubters, but you know, it's not,

it's not a criticism. It's not a knock to say Mahomes light, but that's what I feel like I see when I watch him. Yeah. I think he was one of the big movers. I did not have a sense going in for sure if he would be the one jumping into the bottom of the first year or if it would be Lamar Jackson or somebody who figured somebody would, but it became pretty clear early on that I think people perceive that to not be a great situation, right? Not great ownership now. People are critical of Bill O'Brien. There's not really a GM. They haven't done great with the offensive line for him. There hasn't always been

the great offensive creativity, I think, from them. And now their defense is good, but not just absolutely dominant. And he just wills them to win. I think the last game of the year, well, the second-to-last game of the year for them when they're down 16-0 to Buffalo and he wins it, I think that sticks in people's minds. I think that was a big deal for him and helped get him over the top.

Yeah, the win-loss part of the evaluation still feels like... I don't know. I guess that part of it's always a little disappointing where we have all of this stuff we can watch guys and yet some of the people that are getting a check for this kind of default back to like you know whether it's Garoppolo well he's good enough to get you to Super Bowl you're like okay what about everything else like what about Jared Goff's decline it's like well he played in the Super Bowl it feels like there's still guys that can't get

past the idea that yeah some guys actually win that aren feels like there's still guys that can't get past the idea that, yeah, some guys actually win that aren't as good as quarterbacks that don't win as much. And I know that's not really what the point of keeping score is, but I refuse to believe that every quarterback that wins games is better than the guys that are just in worse situations. Right. I think if you have, if you've been around a while and have done it though, I mean, I think that's natural for people to think, Hey, you know, we, we know that he can be part of that and do it. If you haven't done it and played a long time, there's a little bit of doubt in your mind, or, uh, you know, you have done it. That said, Matt Stafford was still in the top 10. He's never won a playoff game, you know? So there's still

room for people to look at a guy and, and separate out the team. Um, I think Watson is pretty incredible. You know, I mean, I think he does, I think we do get a sense that he does will them. And while they did have good records for a while without him, remember, they were 9-7 team for a lot of years. I feel like there's a feeling like the team, especially maybe defensively, isn't what it was, and he's holding it up, that they may take a huge drop if it wasn't for him.

Not only not be a playoff team, but maybe be a 6-10 team. Do you buy that? Yeah, I do. I, you know, O'Brien is, I think he's more complicated than social media would have you believe because social media just, you know, there's certain people that social media despises and social media thinks Bill O'Brien's like one of the three dumbest human beings in the NFL. And yet when you look at some of the games that he's won with quarter with different quarterbacks, you know, when Deshaun either missed games or before Deshaun even showed up, you're like, wow, they won again. Like they won that many games.

You know, I don't know if it's just a product of of the rest of the division or what. I'm not telling you O'Brien's the best coach, but there's maybe it's more about the GM part of it. Maybe it's that more criticism comes to the GM and that takes away from maybe some of the credit for the fact that they seem to win a lot of games every year. Absolutely. You know, one of the criticisms that I heard, we've been just talking about it. I actually had one of the coaches, he wasn't sure what his vote was going to be.

And he went back and watched hundreds of snaps of Watson. And then we had a conversation about it. He actually showed me some of the video and he said, you know, they, Bill O'Brien was with Tom Brady, you know, and they really ran a good offense there. And he said, one of the things he notices watching Houston is it's just a very simplistic scheme in the passing game. And so why is that? Is it because Bill O'Brien doesn't want to do more? Is it because he feels like this is where Deshaun's at and what he can handle. Is there going to be a progression there?

I think that was an interesting thing to me, just on more of a coaching level and how they're scheming. I think a lot of teams run simpler schemes. We're probably trending that way, right? I mean, we're doing things more for guys what they did in college, but that could be something to watch with him and just how does that offense grow. I actually thought that was a great point, going back to the top of Tier 1,

where it was Carroll is probably still a little too reluctant How does that offense grow? I actually thought that was a great point, going back to the top of Tier 1, where it was Carroll is probably still a little too reluctant to let Russell Wilson go. And if we're talking about the unanimous number two quarterback, which, again, I agree with, other than Mahomes, there's no one I trust as much as Russell Wilson on like a third and seven late and to make some kind of play. And yet Seattle doesn't seem to want to let him loose the way, you know, Houston probably will have to with Deshaun, especially

with DeAndre gone. So we'll see what happens without Hopkins, but it's just so crazy in 2020 to think about NFL teams being reluctant to want to move the football when it seems to be just trying to outpace the other team offensively. Yeah. And Pete Carroll wants to have the game close to his good quarterback and win the game late. And they do that all the time and they have a good record of keeping all the games close. It's one of the highest percentages in the league of not ever losing a game by more than a score, that sort of thing. But I think there's definitely room for them to become more aggressive offensively the way I measure that, so I have this pretty cool statistical tool, and I just look at what's your run pass rate, first and second down,

the first 28 minutes of the game. It takes out the two-minute, the end of the half, and it takes out the whole second half when, let's face it, time and score differential does start to affect people, right? So that's the pure, to me, first 28 minutes is the pure, it's our choice. Early downs, what are we going to do? And a few years ago, three, four years ago, when they had issues at running back Seattle,

Pete Carroll swung more towards the pass, okay? He's always been historically run more towards the pass and he didn't like the feeling. And so two years ago in 2018, they had the most run heavy offense in that situation since the Tim Tebow Broncos. I mean, it was as if they had a quarterback on training wheels. And I actually had a half hour conversation with them at team headquarters about it. I did a story on it. It was like, what are you doing? You know, I mean, and he was like, well, well,

that was a little extreme, you know? And so they were, they, this last year, they came up to not be historically run heavy, but they were still in the bottom fourth of the league. And if you look at those other teams that are there, they're all guys that don't have great quarterbacks. They're all like trying to hide their quarterback. So there's definitely some room for that. I think Pete probably, especially around here in Seattle,

it gets too much of a bad rap. I mean, I think he does have a better feel for how to win the games than the guys on Twitter who have great stats. I do believe that. That includes me, and that includes all of us. Running on first down now, though, is just you're opening yourself up for criticism. If you're built that way, if you're Baltimore, and we'll get to them here in a second, we get to Tier 2 and Lamar,

which may surprise some people but uh i i don't know that you can afford to stay run heavy on first down you know and being that predictable and i would i would think that criticism of pete although i understand it it's ignoring that there's bigger factors that go into play of being somebody like pete carroll who kind of has everybody rowing in the same direction like the stuff that's a little harder to quantify that I feel like those personalities, those coaches that get all of that stuff and run that locker room, like they almost don't get enough credit, enough credit for it because you can't come up with a formula to compare who's who, you know? Yeah. He's a great program builder. And I think he's not a great

manager of the game always, you know, the timeouts on stuff. I think this is one area where a great manager of the game always, you know, the timeouts and all that stuff. I think this is one area where, because he's got this quarterback, he probably should slide that dial and at least be at the league average for throwing it early in the game on early downs. It's a few plays a game. It's not like it's every play. He just shifts a few plays over. Brady coming in at Tier 2. I wonder if he'd be Tier 2 if he were still on New England. Ah, that's a great, that's really a great question. I almost feel somewhat better about him going to Tampa with all the weapons. I know it's a bad off season and a different system. I have concerns about them being able to protect him. You know, if you just think of a Bruce

Arians quarterback, that was one of the things in there, they get hit Carson Palmer, luck, uh, Roethlisberger. That's not what he needs to have happening right now. So I'm a little concerned by that. I think you make a fair point. He probably would have, I think, slid to where he's at because last year they didn't have good weapons and people felt like he didn't prop it up enough. Now, 22 people still gave him a tier one,

but maybe a little revealing. Maybe it's a year early. I don't know. Yeah, maybe it's right. I mean, maybe it should have been tier two last year. That's fine. But, you know, the Brady part that I've done plenty of time, probably too many segments on in arguing, you know,

whose fault is it for the decline? Well, whatever it was, the decline was there. I doubt Bill would be so willing to kind of move on contractually where there really wasn't any negotiation if Bill thought he was like a surefire one and the weapons of situation well let me stop at the weapons the weapons are clearly better but i thought some of the insight was probably i i love the breakdown on brady from your sources on this as much as anybody because we can talk about arians and chucking the ball down the field but that's not really who brady

has been so even though the weapons are better and Brady could be motivated, I mean, look, Cal, this guy wakes up every day motivated. But I don't know that we've spent enough time talking about conceptually how bad a fit it may be for the way a quarterback and his head coach see the game. in the piece from somebody was, hey, who's this James White? Where's that outlet guy, right? That he can get the ball out too quick. I think that's going to be critical and meshing together what he does well and fits him versus just running Bruce Arian's offense.

I mean, those are all things that we're not going to have a field. There's no preseason. There's no training camps. There's going to be training camp, but we're not going to probably see it as well as we might have otherwise. So I think those are all great questions with him.

I do think he still is a good drop back passer. So if he has guys that are open and can drop back and throw it, I think he are all great questions with him. I do think he still is a good drop back passer. So if he has guys that are open and can drop back and throw it, I think he can do that. He can, he can do that effectively. I, what I love about, you know, we talked about, do people read too much into wins or did somebody's pedigree help them? I sort of love the fact that Tom Brady goes to tier two. To me that shows people are not just checking the box on Tom Brady again, and he's a tier one until two years after he's any good.

I sort of like that. I mean, Watson ahead of him? That's pretty cool to me. Yeah, I'm with you there, and it kind of is back to that point. I don't like the – Mel Kuyper's one of my favorite human beings I've ever met at ESPN, but he used to argue every year when we do these radio shows together coming into the college football season that whoever won the previous year should come into the season preseason number one. And I'd be like, what are you talking about? Like if the quarterback's gone, the coach is gone, say they lose 12 guys to the draft, they should be number one. And that's kind of the same thing. And it is funny how guys that run teams can still default to that. I remember, this is unrelated, but it's one of my first lessons in talking to somebody in a front office.

2002, my first year in the business, working for the Trenton Thunder. It was a Red Sox affiliate and all these Red Sox front office guys would come in. And I'm 26. Nobody knows me because there's nobody supposed to know me. And Ben Sherrington would be awesome to me. There was another first base coach for the Sox. And then we became like a scouting guy, Dave Joust. He was incredible. And Doug Melvin, who was the Rangers GM, and then came over after he was out of that gig to like, just be a scouting coordinator with the Red Sox. And I'm so aggressive and excited. And, you know, I'm up in this area because I'm in the stadium every day. That's my office. And I find him and, you know, I wanted to work in a front office. So I'm like, oh, I'm going to, I'm going to pick Doug Melvin's brain. And I was like, so, you know, you're coming

down and looking at the pitching and that double a staff wasn't very deep with arms. I go, is it really about stockpiling arms more and more than ever before? And he just looks at me and goes, well, they keep track of runs. And it didn't matter what I said, because if I had said, hey, it's about building a lineup one through nine, he'd go, still got to get people out. It didn't matter what I said. It was going to be wrong.

And I don't really blame him, but this kind of speaks to some of the stuff that even though you have access to so many guys all these years of doing this, there have to be moments where you go this guy has no depth whatsoever to evaluating this sure after seven years you get a feel for uh you know who you want to have in it or not you know but i you can sometimes start to tell you can almost start to fill out someone's ballot occasionally after you get the first five guys you sort of oh this is kind of how he sees it you know

sometimes you do see that hey guys where's, where's Lamar Jackson, the MVP? All right, we're going to get to that in a second. But sports are back and you can find all the action on FanDuel. I've been watching all the Red Sox games, so my excitement's gone. MLB is here, NBA right around the corner this week. Whether you've been with FanDuel for a while or you're new to the experience, FanDuel has two great ways to win that you won't want to miss. First off, FanDuel is adding $10 in free bets to every account. No deposit required and no strings attached. In addition to your $10 bonus, FanDuel is also

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Gambling problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER. Colorado, call 1-800-522-4700. Indiana, 1-800-9-WITH-IT. And in West Virginia, visit 1-800-GAMBLER.net. All right, so we got to get to Lamar because one evaluator has him, quote, the most dominant guy in the NFL right now. And yet he has 16 Tier 1 votes,

two Tier, excuse me, 31 Tier 2 votes, and there's still three people voting him at tier three. His voting, when I went back and looked at 2019, it was even lower than I thought it would be a year later. I still have some questions about Lamar, but how wide is the debate on somebody who put together an unbelievable leap from year one to two in the MVP?

Well, yeah. So a year ago, he's in tier four because tier four is for two types of quarterbacks. The bad guy, the guy, you know, the veteran Fitzpatrick who you don't think is a great starter or it's for someone who hasn't played a lot. So that's why some of these guys, like even Mahomes a couple of years ago was a four because we haven't seen enough after one start. Right. So don't read too much into that. I think everybody agrees on what Lamar Jackson is. agrees on what Lamar Jackson is. He's an absolutely dominant force who, through an amazingly well-suited scheme that takes advantage of his running and exactly the types of passes that he can do very well, scores a ton of points and is a dominant force in the game. So tier one football player, no doubt about it. What you get into when it's quarterback tiers is the moments we're talking about where you still have to prove when all that stuff gets stripped away. So we're not evaluating him with Greg

Roman. We're evaluating him when it doesn't matter that Greg Roman's there because we're down in the game and we've got to throw our way to win. And so when you strip away all that context that helps make him unbelievably a unique player in the league, do you have, playing, uh, personnel evaluating who will put him a two right now, uh, until that part of it comes along. I think it's amazing that he's a top seven quarterback after one year as a starter. I mean, that's really, to me, that's really great. Um, question is going to be, then does he just jump? Is it a natural ascension? He does it again. They go into tier one. What if they, what if he has the same type of year doesn't win a playoff game again because it falls apart they're behind and he doesn't people don't think he's going to throw in those situations the most revealing quote on

lamar breakdown though really was it was almost as if give baltimore all the credit in the world for creating this scheme where he puts together this year but then that basically got turned into a negative where it's if you have to do this much to get it to work and this is where I can understand like a Ravens fan or somebody that's all in on Lamar like some evaluators that you talk to you have one guy was like look I loved him right out of college because he had the it factor like I wasn't as worried about the accuracy stuff but it's funny that yet this entire year he blows the league away, other than the playoff game, because it was bad,

that that can be held as a negative, as if he's still being propped up more than, say, a traditional tier one. Yeah, that is. I mean, I think there's everyone recognizes, everyone agrees he should be the MVP. I think there's, everyone recognizes, everyone agrees he should be the MVP. I mean, I don't think anyone's trying to, you know, find holes in his game, but the tier one quarterback, quote, can carry his team each week.

Yeah, Lamar does that. Team wins because of him. Yeah, I think that's true. Expertly handles peer pass situations. I don't know that we know that, you know? And so that's a big deal. When you look at those guys in that top tier, I think there's questions on the charm of that too, proving that, but Mahomes, Wilson, Rogers,

those guys can stand back there and throw the football when they have to do it and everything's stripped away. So I think that's just a, how do you, there's a good quote in there. How do you be the position? If you want to have your own tier one and say that doesn't matter to you, fine, but it still matters to enough people in the NFL that they want to see that happen better before they put them up there.

The rest of tier two, we got Roethlisberger who drops down, you know, that to me is injuries. And then coming in at 38. Um, I thought it was, I thought it was basically,

uh, body shaming. One of the quotes where it said he saw him in the tunnel and he had a beard and looked a little heavy. And he's like, he looked like an offensive lineman. And then the evaluation spun into, well, he shaved the beard and he's posting some videos. I'm like, what the hell is that? So I know that's, that felt a little specific and non-essential. I put some entertainment value in there. Yeah. There's non-essential quotes from there, but I think this is fun. You know, I try to be fair. Like if you're going to allow somebody to take a shot, you know,

I try to balance it out, you know, and, and not be just unfair to guys. But some of those things I think are funny. So I think Ben, Ben is very well secure and is probably going to the hall of fame. I think a little joke here.

There's okay. Yeah. I think, well, you never know with Ben, he'd been pretty sensitive on social media, or at least the guy that ran his account. All right.

Stafford nine. That's about right. My guy, Matt Ryan, still some people just, you know, the Ryan one for me is when i read it i go are you guys paying any attention to the injuries like i know it's ridley and jones but you had an unbelievable stat on ryan where the year he won the mvp he had a career low 13 fourth quarter passes while trailing last year he had 102 pass attempts trailing in the fourth quarter uh second most in the league behind andy dalton and i get the ryan

negativity but there's there's like only a line that i will accept for him because i still think talent wise but you know when when you put this list together this is what love about 50 votes. I feel like he kind of lands where he's supposed to. And maybe I'm just arguing against some of the dissenters, the eight votes to put him in tier three. Absolutely. And so like with him, he, his average tier is 2.08. Stafford's ahead of him at 2.04. You know, I don't think we would move him ahead of Ben and Lamar and Brady right now. You know what I mean? So I think he's about right where he should be. I did sense a feeling that people think that there's some physical decline and talking about his athleticism a little bit.

So there's some of that. But yeah, maybe I was a little too glass half empty on the write-up on him. But I think that just sort of reflects how people feel too, that he's still good, but maybe we've seen the best of them when's checks in at 11 still tier 2 he had 5 tier 1 votes 35 tier 2 and then 10 tier 3 votes um he was tier 2 last year but did you get the sense people i don't know if it's getting tired of him but tired of defending him in the way they have in the past. And it's one thing I had said, and Andy Benoit has been on this.

And I think there's so many ex quarterbacks that are on TV that are so blown away with, with physical things that he shows you with some of the throws that they become protective of him. And if you want to talk injuries, I mean, what he had to throw to towards the end of the year is well-documented, but some of the tone of the quotes, I almost felt like people were kind of feeling like this year might be the last year they have his back unless he just

totally breaks through again and bringing up foals, like one guy bringing up foals. And I'm thinking like, all right, we're still doing this. I mean, he lit up a Pat's defense that, you know, whatever. I, you know, I don't think that Wentz would have not been able to light up that Pat's defense at that point. But I don't know. The Wentz thing feels like it's kind of a make or break year for him as far as his status. Yeah, I'm with you.

I wondered if he was going to get downgraded more this year. You know, I almost thought going in that maybe Dak would come out ahead of him and Dak's one spot behind him. I thought Dak would be ahead of him too. Yeah, that's what it felt to me. I feel like I would put Dak ahead of him too. Yeah, that's what it felt to me. I feel like I would put Dak ahead of him. My patience is running a little lower on it. And look, he started 16 games last year.

It's not like he played four games. So he got hurt in the playoffs again. And I think it's a familiar narrative that he just has to shake. You can easily say every year he's played football, going back to high school, he's had an injury, right? I mean, so I think he has to prove it. On the other hand, Dax played every game. So if he misses games and they don't, they're not a good team this year, I would almost guarantee Dax ahead of him unless the same thing happens to that. Two of the worst votes so far. I have like five votes that I think are just atrocious.

Phillip Rivers checks in at 13 i don't have a problem necessarily that that feels kind of high but he got one tier one vote who no i'm just kidding i mean i can't tell i know you can't tell us but that is that is lofty to to keep rivers up there because i think you know yeah that's why you talk to 50 people you may get a guy who just loves rivers, you know, and you know what, if I was just talking to him and doing this, it would be a crappy article, right? He's one guy, the rest of his votes might be good. And yeah, that's the way it works out.

I mean, I think last year, Jared Goff got a one or something, you know, I mean, you're going to get an outlier thing. Look, Cam Newton got a five, you know, at one point, you know, in the process. I mean, it is what it is. It's an outlier vote. And yeah, I don't know how you could say Rivers is a one right now. Top of tier three. Again, you have the description of tier three quarterback, legitimate starter, but needs a heavier running game and or defensive component to win a lower volume drop back passing offense

suits him best. I thought Baker, I have a hard time with anybody just after a year saying, okay, this is who you are and this is where we're voting. And we definitely get excited about newer. I mean, same thing happens in basketball all the time. Somebody flashes you a year, but no one in basketball, like as a rookie really has the role of what a quarterback would have. I think Kyler at the top of tier three, and there's so much I like from him last year, but then one tier one vote, I was really surprised. Not so much that he's in tier three, but at the top of it. And then especially a tier one vote.

Yeah. Some of these, like when I'm tabulating, you forget who the votes are. I'm like, who gave him the one? It's not an Arizona guy. No, it wasn't an Arizona guy. So, but yeah, that seems early. I mean, you're going to get somebody who's excited and occasionally too. Here's what happens sometimes.

You get some guys who have just an easier grading thing, and they'll have more ones and twos than others. I've noticed that. Sometimes you'll get an offensive player, or a great offensive coach, who thinks he can win with almost anybody. Give me that guy. Yeah, he's a two. And that's the outlier, but occasionally you'll get that.

So I can't even remember who gave Murray the one. But there's excitement for him. I think people really, you know, people did not come into this going, oh, he's too small. You know, maybe Russell Wilson paved the way on that, even though he looks smaller than Russell to me. Definitely. But I think there's optimism and good for him after only one year.

Do you see him as what should be lower? No, I guess the tier one vote, back-to-back Rivers and then Murray. 19-2s is good for him. 19-2s is really good, but it happened with Baker last year, and I was more impressed, I think, now looking back, and maybe I'm allowing him, too,

to impact my Baker thing, but I think we got really too carried away with Cleveland beating bad teams and Baker beating bad teams. It's a great point. It's really a great point, yeah. Yeah. And look, I kind of screwed it up. And then when they were struggling, I'm like, let me go back and look at last year. I go, these teams were terrible. And we got so excited off this run. But then you factor in the Freddie Kitchens thing. And I know some guys that know

Freddie really well. And they told me, you'd love to hang out with him ryan you'd love this guy i can't i love him i can't believe he's a freaking head coach in the nfl so yeah yeah yeah it was it was uh put it this way if everything had been great you know everything had been stable for him he probably would have looked better and maybe he'd be you know higher in it but i think you're right that we shouldn't overreact after one year. I would probably say there's a more talented skill set with Kyler Murray, just in terms of his athleticism, probably throwing the football that may validate him a little bit more being up there and to where I feel maybe a little better about it.

Baker seemed to come on, so all of a sudden he was the number one pick in the draft and we're saying he's going to be, he's a two, you know, and I felt like that was fast. I'm just big on like two years of, of sample before I would even take any, I mean, unless it's Andrew luck after a rookie year where you didn't think that

team was going to win any games. I think they won 11 games as rookie year. And you're just like, Oh, okay. I guess, you know, not only is the evaluation,

right? Like he's going to make this big of a difference immediately. I would have a hard time voting anybody tier one or maybe the top of tier two. So let's go to Kirk Cousins because it's my favorite quote. It is a tier three last year, which I said last podcast that Cousins should get tier three tattooed across his neck.

He is 15th overall. That's exactly where he is. I felt like for years, I would argue with Danny Cannell, my former co-host about who Cousins was. And we were probably saying the same thing. And it is summed up perfectly from one evaluator. Oh, wait, you have a defensive coach who says this.

It's perfect. The quote is, you don't ever go into a game going, boy, I don't know what we're going to do about this fucking Cousins. It doesn't mean he's a bad player, legit starter, but need some shit around him.

There you go. That is a, you know, that is a test. Like how much of a defensive coordinator game plan is like, look, dude, you,

we have got to do X, Y, and Z. We're going to put in a new coverage this week. You know? And I, I think that there's a lot of good quarterbacks cousins is among them who you don't do that for. And that's, you know, even we're talking about Kyler a minute ago. I think that there's a lot of good quarterbacks, cousins is among them, who you don't do that for.

Even we're talking about Kyler a minute ago. I think you can see in the next two years, maybe we have to have a special plan for him. Most of those guys at the top, you're going to have a special plan for. We start getting into the third tier, and that's one of the things that came up. One of the phrases a few guys used was,

just a dude. I think that's probably a little derogatory, but it's what tier three means. Yeah. And it's okay if you're a team, especially that hasn't had stability at that position, and you want to pay for Cousins and bring him in. I get it. But the New Orleans win was incredible. But, you know, what he did the game after that and whatever.

It's been over. It's my Jay Cutler thing, where every year we go into another season with Jay Cutler. And because it was usually a new coach, we'd be like, well, you know, wait until you see what Trestman's going to do with this guy.

He's really innovative, you know? And then the next year it's like, ah, we're going to simplify things. Like, ah, they're really going to open it up.

And you're just like, look, Jay's, Jay's not better than these 10, 11, 12 guys. He just isn't. And why we keep arguing against the evidence

never makes any sense. Okay, Garoppolo, I feel like, might be a precursor to some of the stuff that we're already talking about. He's at 17, tier two votes. He got 12 of those, tier three votes. He got 37. He actually did get one tier four vote.

Good, not great season. Garoppolo had a great season. He had the fourth quarter comebacks that you referenced here, four of them, which was the most according to pro football reference but i couldn't stand this quote from a coach saying quote super bowl quarterback he's doing something right his own coach who has no poker face i think told us throughout the year without necessarily like really having to go deep in it, that he just, he felt like his own guy had limitations despite how many wins

they were put together and maybe should have won a Superbowl. And I think it's okay to say, yes, sometimes a not great quarterback is in that position. Yeah. I didn't want to, you know, you don't want to pile on, but I was thinking too, uh, you know, Kyle Shanahan's affinity for the tier three quarterback goes back to the fact that Cousins was his first choice before he knew he could get Garoppolo, right? I mean, he's perfectly comfortable with that type of a guy. And I think in fairness to Garoppolo, though, he's got one full season as a starter. So, you know, we talked about Cutler 10 years or Cousins after five, six years of starting. Garoppolo has one full season as a starter.

And I feel like he's been around more. We've seen more. Maybe this is exactly what he is. But he came in higher this year than last year, a little lower than where he was two years ago when people speculated off of five games or whatever it was. But I think one of the guys sitting there, there's no shame in where he's at and saying what he is.

And let's see if he can do more and grow. Cam, you mentioned this disparity really probably as much disparity as anyone I think that's in this and it's 35 quarterbacks that you have. Cam has 14 tier two votes, 29 tier three, six tier four, and a tier five vote that I like even the most doubtful person about Cam. I have to imagine they just think health-wise he's never going to be the same. Yeah. They thought he was done or something, something you know and so on some of these you know cancel cam gets signed you know i probably had a few ballots in before cam gets signed or whatever you know so we're doing this over a period of time that's possible on him yes and

sorry to interrupt because i actually thought the way because we had been talking about you coming on i i probably jumped it because i thought like oh he'll go up just because the belick thing. And if you were getting some of these votes before that happens, then maybe I just out there. Yeah. I just think there's a really uncertainty. So you'll have some people, you know, let's say you're a GM and I'm talking to you and you could say, you know, and Cam, I just have to go off of what, you know, the last time he was healthy. So I'm giving him a two. I thought he was playing really well. Another guy goes guy goes you know he hasn't been healthy for long enough now that you know i i mean to me he's kind of an unknown i'm going to give him a four put him in that category where we don't have enough information because this is almost like a new player and someone else says well you know i think he's i think it's fair

to give him a three for what he's done i think he's been a solid two but we can't do say that because he's been out for a while so So I'll just give him a three. You know what I mean? That's sort of the range of this. And I think the bottom line is we don't know for sure what he's going to be. I thought it was interesting, the observation in there about his weight. Is he still going to be a big tank who's going to run over people and bring that element of power running?

Or is there going to be a lighter, leaner version of that? Yeah, that was an interesting quote. I don't think he's superman anymore a coach who placed newton in tier three said he said quote remember when kaepernick became vegan changed his body and just wasn't as dynamic of an athlete anymore cam was 265 and bigger than everybody looks skinny now like he's 235 and wants to have ripped abs and that's his choice is going to have that power running element i want ripped abs i know i look we all do but uh i don't know that he dropped 30 pounds that yeah that seems but we don't know the bottom line is we don't know i mean he hasn't been anywhere you

know we're looking at him we're trying to size him up um you know we don't know so i'm fine with where he's at i mean i'm glad he didn't come in as a four or didn't come in as a high two i mean we don't know he's in the middle until he comes out of it. I'm more worried about his weapons lack of than what his abs look like right now as far as what tier he's going to be in. Derek Carr, who probably hates this exercise as much as anybody

after he was seventh in 2017. That feels like, whoa, he's 20th. I don't know that there's a lot more to even go on there. So let's just keep moving. Baker comes in at 21, which is a drop for him. Still six two votes but six tier four votes the rest of them in tier three how much of this do you think is related to his his like we know what i can make the argument of

the on the field stuff and what i saw but it feels like some of this is more personality driven um where you know you'd start losing these games and you have the same personality when you were the next big thing in everybody's headline NFL story because you were so excited about the Browns, but we don't win games and you're young

and you have the attitude that he has, which we can say is, you know, make arguments for or against it. It's going to hold you. It's basically become a negative because the team

was such a disaster. I think there's some of that. You know, I included a little from somebody who had an issue with that. That wasn't something I heard from 20 guys, though. It was just one element that I wanted to put in there, talking about his maturity.

I think a fair criticism was that they were pretty good at the skill position, and if you're all that, if you're a two, maybe he would have persevered through all those things we talked about that were wrong better. I think this year we'll see. Hopefully we'll see if there's a full season and all that and they get to practice with Stefanski. It's going to be a quarterback-easier offense.

It takes some pressure off. Josh Allen, 22 overall. Great number here on his running where he ran it 18% of the time, second in the NFL for quarterbacks, only behind Lamar who ran it 29% of the time. That's a massive jump if you think about running on a third of the time second in the nfl for quarterbacks only behind lamar who ran at 29 percent of the time that's a that's a massive jump if you think about running on the third of the plays i personally don't see it i i understand all the physical stuff but i think he has i'd be shocked if there's there's a lot of progression um and maybe maybe i'm wrong but i kind of think he is who he is.

I would bet more on Buffalo going, maybe we have to replace this guy in two years than it's a massive extension. Yeah, he made a pretty good jump from last year out of the fours into the threes. And maybe what we're saying is we think he's sort of going to be a three. He's limited. What scares me about him is when he runs, he gets blown up. It's like he's a heavyweight fighter swinging

for the fences and doesn't play defense you know what i mean he really gets smashed so how long can you do that and i think that can play into a little bit of just instincts for the position and instincts you know for the for the game that i'm not 100 sure is his strongest suit so um they built up a good team around him you know defensively he hasn't had to do as much they've shown they can win with them. But I think our question is how far can you go? Is he going to hold you back in the end? And maybe this next season they got digs and a little bit more to it.

Maybe it answers some of those questions. This is a interesting one because you look at the two New York quarterbacks, Donald checks in at 24, Daniel Jones checks in at 25. Jones actually got one tier two vote. Darnold had two tier two votes, but the breakdown when you read it, despite the order, I think you leave the piece feeling much better about Daniel Jones. You do Darnold, but Darnold stuff felt very negative. Yeah. Um, the Darnold. Yeah. I think I was sort of asking people who do you like better you know

than foals or jones or i mean jones or darnold and they did go with jones jones is a little bit lower score because he's only played less than one season so people put him in that tier four you know it's sort of a bailout thing if you haven't played enough and so it dragged down but i think with darnold they said hey we've seen him we kind of think he's a three but almost in a bad way because we want him to be a two. I think in fairness to Darnold, this hasn't been a great situation. So let's give him a year where he doesn't have mono. I would love to see them have more weapons for him. I think one of my notes in there, they haven't had a Pro Bowl player in offense in the last four seasons, 16, 17, 18, 19. That's really hard. You need a base. We're talking about Brady and Rogers weapons.

Well, their weapons are probably better than this guy's weapons, you know, and we need to, we need to maybe, uh, be fair to him. Two more things before we finish up. Cause you know, we can run through the Kyle Allen comes in last did him, you know, TBD on that. I thought some of the stuff on Haskins was actually pretty positive despite him being at the bottom here. He hasn't played enough Mitch. I can see people kind of being over although there was still some hope minshu gets beat up pretty bad here more even more so jacksonville um making fun of jacksonville thinking that he could have been the guy but is there one part of this over the seven years that you felt like hey this is a real change where shooting in the nba has been prioritized putting as many scores out there as possible and granted

that's five people but has there been a shift that you see with the way quarterbacks are talked about that kind of stands out in almost a decade of doing this? Yeah, I think we've seen the Peyton Manning age out, Brady starting to age out of Tier 1. So if you really look at Tier 1, everybody but Breeze, who's going to phase out of here, can beat you with their legs too. So if you look at Mahomes, Wilson, Rogers, and Watson,

you sort of have to have an off-schedule game plan for them too, sometimes really prominently. I think that we're going to see more and more of that because there's just more players like that coming out. Look at this. One, two, three of the five Tier 1 or African-American quarterbacks, four of the top seven are. So those are shifts and things that we wouldn't,

we didn't even bring that up because it's like normal now, but I think that wouldn't have been normal at one point. Yeah, I mean, there are times I think I looked at the MVP race this year and I go, I think it's four black quarterbacks at the top. And I don't think there was really any argument about it. And it's awesome that it's, well, I shouldn't say it's awesome. It's happened so quickly because it really didn't happen very quickly at all but then when it did happen

it was like oh okay this is where we're at now in the league because whenever i know is is two white guys sitting around and um you know sometimes doing the show you know i go wait is that really about race is that really about race but then it was like do i ever want to tell warren moon it wasn't about race you know of course not oh exactly i mean what happened six of the top 14 quarterbacks and and you figure brady and breeze are going to be exiting the next couple years you know what i mean uh yeah and look we'll see what happens with kyler and um you know the next the next class that's coming out and i don't know it's it's been rivers will be leaving you know yeah it's been a long time coming and it's been incredible because it's basically you know we're

looking at maybe the top five top four or five guys moving forward for many years is there a story is there a a phone call in the process putting all this stuff together that i'm basically asking for your best story that you got from somebody in putting this together. Because I mean, the great thing about these jobs is some of the stuff that we get. And I'm not asking you, Hey, share the thing that you didn't really share, but the moment where it reminds you like how cool the job is getting everybody's input on this.

Yeah. So I'll give you two. So one of them, the first year I did it, I was going around to teams and I was in a head coach's office and I had the spreadsheet with all these guys and my tears on it. And I was like, I could see the coach was like, Ooh, he was like really interested. He came around and actually took my laptop and he's sitting there with it on my, on his lap. And he's looking at this and he's going through it around like, Oh, kind of onto something here. You know, you know, when a top head coach is doing that. And then in this process this year, I had one guy gave Deshaun Watson a three initially. And I was like, wow, dude, you're the, you know, after it was done, I don't like to influence people's votes.

You know, I don't go back and say, hey, you're the only guy. But I said, you know what, if you're going to, I said, you're kind of screwing up my sheet here because none of those guys have threes that are through him. Um, you better, I want a great reason, you know? And so, uh, he, I don't think his team had maybe faced him this past year, but the guy went back and watched 480 plays or 400 and 500 plays Watson this last year and came back and we had a discussion about it. And he said, you know, um, he is two. Here's why, here's why I don't think he's a one. And, uh, that's awesome to me. You know, that's just a fun part of this thing to, to just get to learn and really make sure that we're getting it right. You know, when somebody has a, uh, like if he could give me a great explanation for why he's a three, I would have included it, you know, but he actually,

we did the work. And so that, that was pretty fun. Um, Hey, that was awesome. Like I said, you know, I was great that this timed out perfectly. You can follow Mike stuff at Sando NFL, and please check out the piece on the athletic, the 2020 QB tears from 50 sources in the NFL. Thanks, man. Thank you. All right. This life advice, we could do this deal where we just keep following up with people that have sent in emails. I mean, the vast majority of them are people worrying about career stuff. And I get it, man, but maybe it's almost like a support group. So we're going to do one of those because the guy's from Nantucket. And I just felt like it speaks to me a little bit. because the guy's from Nantucket.

And I just felt like, you know, it speaks to me a little bit. Even though I'm not a native vineyarder by any means, trust me, they will remind me of that all the time that I wasn't born there. Michael checks in. He goes, hey, I want to listen to last week's life advice.

Did you hear that one, Kyle? The guy said he had eight figures in the bank and he was just sort of bored. That was his advice? Like, what should I do with it? Yeah, no, not. He didn't want my investment advice uh he just wanted to let you know he needs it yeah he was just older he was like you know i'm the opposite of a loser i'm a total winner and then he was like i mastered poker i was sick at golf and now i don't know what to do so i told him to start flipping houses or

something i you know i didn't what i told him him is I thought that it was great that he needed something every day to be driven. I think retirement for so many of us is I want to wake up and never have to think about anything. But there's a lot of people that would be like, I'd rather be unsuccessful than wake up and never have any challenges. So, you know, whatever. Yeah. So Michael checking in, he goes, last week's advice with the older, very successful guy who may be in a rut. I thought it was insightful. Excellent advice.

My reading is a guy like this needs stakes poker. Well, he already did that. Some gambling on the golf course, some skin in the game. Flipping house is going to force him to put enough money in up front to get his competitive juices up, have a long time horizon to stay invested and the potential to get his hands dirty on some level or another. My dad is wired similarly, not quite as wealthy, but similar profile. He gets into volunteer organizations. That was also great because the guy admitted, I'm not saying it's great that he's not volunteering. Um, because if anybody that's ever done it, when you do it,

you're like, yeah, this is kind of why people do it, man. It makes you reset a little bit and appreciate some of the things you have. I mean, it really does happen if you do volunteer. I would recommend it. But our guy was like, yeah, I don't want to volunteer. So this guy emailing goes, his father gets into volunteer organizations and figure out how to be in charge of them and sets high fundraising goals. All right. So that's pretty good. So a little recommendation there as a follow-up.

Okay. Let's do our Nantucket guy here. Phrasing. We'll call this guy Jay. Big fan. All right, grew up on Nantucket, so I feel like you're someone who understands my perspective and can shed some light on some of the issues that have been mulling inside of me for a while now.

Mom and dad went to Nantucket High School. Shout out to the whalers you know some of these guys are so young now it's like is there any chance i played against probably not his mom um but i probably you know who knows i could play against his dad and something i said his dad has a successful kind of family business um and also works as a carpenter in the off season all right money's not an issue uh you know, it can't be said for most of my friends from home, that is certainly the case. No one cares, but, um, it is, it is a very challenging, uh, economic deal to be a year round person without, you know, money and trying to figure out how to do it. Some people would say just move from Nantucket. Um, but you know,

there's also my siblings love the vineyard, uh, except for my brother. I have my other siblings. You know, there's always this thing about places like this. I think there's places like this all over the world. But I see firsthand people that grow up in the vineyard, like they have this real hardcore emotional attachment that's different than maybe just another place that's home for other people. Because the lifestyle is, you know, it's very different. It's different. So, all right. Um, this is cool. He goes, I am someone there. I was a smart kid. I was captain of the football team. All right. Regular parties where I do some off the wall things, Ryan, I won't dive into details, but I was a fucking menace. All right. This guy's real badass. Uh, while most of my friends stayed

on the Island after high school and college, I was determined to make an impact and went to a university where i didn't fit in all summer kids i fucking hate summer kids all right but summer kids can be a lot of fun when they have sick houses and you become friends with them and you get to go to their parties just a tip that's what i did um i got through it and graduated with that's because none of the locals like me when i moved there um i got through it and graduated with a civil engineering degree, a job where I find the work meaningful. Okay. I work for a big company, construction company. That's cool. Overseas budgets, construction and nonprofits and schools and low-income neighborhoods. Wow. Okay. I'm working on a budget for a large homeless shelter in the city. No big deal, but once again,

true. All right. So he's making fun of himself, complimenting the fact that they're doing something really great here. I like the job and really good at pre-construction process or someone who only has one year of experience my boss thinks i have a bright future with this company whatever that means he probably says that to everyone who proves themselves capable or maybe you suck and he's just trying to motivate you don't be afraid of that because i remember yeah no i i don't believe you suck because i could kind of my my sense is is that this is the truth but this is like a side note. Yeah, this guy rules, but this guy sucked, no way.

Not Jay. But I'm just telling you, for the younger folks that are out there, I'll never forget when one of my college roommates, he was working for a startup, and it was one of these classic deals where you'd heard the rumor, like, dude, you hear about his stock options?

Be like, yeah. Be like, what do they do again the rumor like, dude, you hear about a stock options? Be like, yeah. What do they do again? Be like, oh, they're inventing yellow cones because they did studies that yellow actually shows up better than orange. Be like, holy shit. If that company ever goes public. Be like, yeah, dude, he's pretty much going to be like worth 10 million when he's 25. And the rest of us are like, oh, my God, because you just believe it. Like, even if you're smart, you're so fucking impressionable and dumb.

And you actually will then tell that story to impress other people. Be like, dude, you hear about McGurk? Yeah. He's going to be retired at 25. He's working for that new yellow cone company. Ah, shit. No way. Really? Like good for him. But you know, deep down, like you're weird, a little competitive, a little jealous and you don't realize how stupid you all are. You're just like, oh, that's, you know what? Like everybody has that buddy. And a lot of people tell that story. Be like, oh, you know, if we'd ever gone public. Yeah. But you know what? You didn't, you didn't. You're just like, oh, that's, you know what? Like everybody has that buddy. And a lot of people tell that story. They're like, oh, you know, if we'd ever gone public. Yeah. But you know what? You didn't, you didn't. And then you had to get another job like somebody else. Um, and so I had this other friend that we were driving around. I was like, how's work?

I mean, this is early, early twenties, fresh out of the college womb. And he's like, you know, I was with my boss and she was telling me, it's like, you have no idea how much potential you have. Like you're incredible. And like, if you could just tweak this, this, I was like, man, you've only been there like six months and she already sees that. And he was like, yeah, no, it's really good. Like things are great. And then I checked in like a year later, I was like, how's that going there? He's like, oh, I suck at the job. As a parent, she says that to everybody. Like that's her, that's her John Maxwell one-on-one where she'll be like, tell everyone how much incredible potential they have. All right, so that sidebar over.

Back to our man on Nantucket. While I like my job, I don't love it. I work on screenplays on the side. Uh-oh, here we go. 80 pages into one about a heist. Just started another one. Mix of Stand By Me, The Wire, and Hoop Dreams. Hmm.

I don't know what, I'm trying to think what that would be. A bunch of basketball players walking around in the woods, but also moving down. Yeah. Moving dope in the woods by the train tracks. No, that's totally unfair.

I, you know, a pitch elevator pitches can be absolutely torn apart. I love that you're doing it. All right. I love that you're sitting down there. You wrote 80 pages, man. A lot of people talk about it.

They never do it. You did it. You wrote pages down. Feel great about yourself. I've always loved film. And if I go back in time, how old are you, dude? This kid's 23. Jesus Christ.

Wake up. All right. Sorry. If I go back in time to what? 13. Is it also, you talk yeah all right um i think i would have taken that career route more seriously looked into getting my master's of producing in new york or la this could cost some serious cash though actual investment i

also catch myself thinking about going back home becoming my dad in a sense back where everybody knows my name at the same time i don't know if i'm thinking into things too much i enjoy what i do now is the grass always greener you know where the 23 year old kid wants to spice things up and buys the motorcycle out of his price range and only drives it twice oh maybe he's not 23 my bad um but i think he's young um or how a guy tells everyone he knows he's picking up boxing and only goes to one class do you have any thoughts all right don't be um i have so much respect for the guy that goes to one boxing class than the guy that always says he's going to. Okay.

So that's, that's a huge hurdle in not just boxing, but all sorts of stuff. You know, think of all the stuff that you say you want to do and how many of you never, ever do it. Okay. Now I don't know your age here,

but when it comes to Nantucket, Nantucket's always going to be there unless it prices you out and you can't afford to live in a house there. But that's another topic. If you are this young and it is not unique as you'll notice through all of these life advice deals. And, you know, I went through all the same stuff where you're like, I'm just afraid of being average. And one of the harshest things, one of my friends said to me was, you know, what average is right. You know, that means there's other people that are below average. It's like, wait, is that supposed to make me feel better about being average? Because for a long time, I was pretty sure I was going to be below average,

although I had this incredibly misguided expectations of myself despite the path that I was on to Loserville. Again, I don't know how old you are. It sounds like the job thing is going really well, but why can't you do something online for a semester first and see how that goes before you give up on the career? Because if you like the building part of it, it sounds like you do. I would do that for a little while and I would do it for more than a couple of years. I would not be in a rush to go back to Nantucket just because it's where you're from. Now, if you have this emotional tie that I've described before that

I grew up with, uh, with so many of my, my siblings, where it's just like, you always find yourself sort of back on Martha's vineyard. Cause that's inherently what you want to do then fine, but it's always going to be there. So you shouldn't be that young. And man, I'm telling you, maybe you should live on Nantucket for a winter at a young age and then go, all right, wait a minute. What the hell was I thinking here? Because those Cape and Island towns, specifically the islands, are no place any man in his 20s should be if you have these kinds of aspirations. And I'm not saying the guy that's happy there and content and starting a family and maybe works in construction or is a fireman or all that kind of stuff. You just like the deal. You like the way the town rolls, and that's great.

So I'm not dumping on that. But I'm telling telling you if you have big time aspirations when i moved back to martha's vineyard in 1999 out of college and was sending out resume tapes from a beta master that sounded weird um yeah it did to to differ i don't know but it is i know it's not even that weird but it just sounded weird uh i was like you know what's not the hotbed of networking for on air sports television shows, Martha's vineyard in the winter. So I had to get out of there. Like it was a huge mistake for me to even go back. And then I'm like, I just felt like I sort of needed, you know, it was one of those things where I'm like, okay, I'm done with school. I've been in this town a little too long. I've got to move on and I've got to move somewhere else. And instead what I should have done is stayed up there longer, save money, and then move to the next town.

And for whatever reason, I went home to work for my father and swing a hammer for a while because I did kind of like working outside. So it sounds like you're pretty, it may be driven. It sounds like you've done some really great things here, but you have this creative part of you that's gnawing at you. You have to. Not everybody gets to, but if you can pull it off, I think you have to scratch that itch so that you have your answer.

And even if it doesn't work out, it's not going to be something. And this is the same advice I'm going to give to every single person whenever it's that creative thing that you want to try. Most people are telling you to tell you not to do it. I think it's important to try it. It's almost like moving. Hey, move away because then if you don't like it somewhere else, you'll appreciate home more.

It's the same thing with your career. Challenge yourself. Try something outside of the box. But I think in this case, when you have a nice job that you seem to kind of like, the Nantucket business thing, family stuff, feels like that's still an option for a long time. Why not take something online in New York City or go to a quick kind of seminar, I don't know, on a couple of weeks off or something where you can really see if that's something that you want to do. And if you do want to do it and you're good at the job,

you're good at the other stuff, take that risk. Take that risk while you're young and you don't have people depending on you. That's what I did. All right. I want to make those shorter, Kyle, but damn, they seem to go really long. That one hit you right in the heartstrings, though. Yeah. Yeah.

All right. Well, please subscribe, rate, and review to the Ryan Russula Podcast and the Ringer Podcast Network. Reminder, Bill and I back. I don't want to say back and better than ever, but we're back on Sundays for the remainder of this NBA run. So fired up about that.

We'll talk to you on Thursday. Thank you. you