The Ryen Russillo Podcast - NFL Quarterback Tiers With Mike Sando, Plus Why We Overhype NBA Draft Picks and Cap Space

Episode Date: August 3, 2021

Ryen opens with why we sometimes put way too much stock into draft picks and cap space in the NBA (00:27), before getting a new Magic Minute from Ceruti (11:30). Then, he chats with Mike Sando of The Athletic about his annual quarterback tiers piece, including why Tom Brady isn’t higher, the wide range of opinions on Lamar Jackson, and why evaluators seem worried about Tua Tagovailoa (18:08). Finally, Ryen reacts to some listener-submitted Life Advice questions (1:08:58). Host: Ryen Russillo Guests: Mike Sando Producers: Steve Ceruti and Stefan Anderson Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

great podcast for you today mike sando qb tears from the athletic 1 through 34 i can't wait to do this and the nba open on how much cap space and draft picks can actually really bum people out. What's up, everybody? A couple days removed, although normal schedule here, but it was a weird schedule last week because we did like four NBA draft podcasts all in the same day. So I want to touch on a little of the free agency stuff

that started up on Monday. I do have a little draft stuff for you. And one of my favorite podcasts of the year, Mike Sando from The Athletic, his QB tears. So that'll be the plan for today and some of my favorite podcasts of the year mike sando from the athletic uh his qb tears so that'll be the plan for today and some life advice at the end i want to start with the draft not because it's days later but just a reminder and it's a bummer reminder i almost did it on draft night and i decided not to but it's kind of like hey here's your new top 10 pick enjoy it because history tells us, recent history especially,

is you shouldn't get that excited about it. Now, I've said now for years, especially when you look at the back end of the first round, like when you trade a guy who's an expiring contract, and you go, oh, they want a first, they want a first. It's like, do you think he's good? Does he give you a chance to really play? Is he going to play playoff minutes?

Is he going to maybe even be on the floor to close a game then give him a pick in the 20s who cares because when you look at the drop off of actual real production whatever your your version of a win is as a player drafted in the first round um there's just not a lot of wins in there yes there are exceptions but you know that's why i used to always laugh about all the media members that would worship sam hinkey for stockpiling second rounders. And you'd just be like, do you go through those? Have you looked at all of those? It's actually, I think, at times, a waste of time. Because the other thing, too, is when you have all these picks over and over and over again, and we'll see what happens with Oklahoma City,

other teams usually don't give you nearly what you think you're going to get for the picks when you want to start moving them out. You start flipping them and you're like, all right, we have three next year, so we'll move one of them or whatever. And it's like, actually, I don't want a million rookies on the team. So I've said this now for years, again, depends on what your version of value is. But when you start looking at the second half, like if you pick a rotation guy in the teens, somebody that makes it to a second contract, that's a really, really big win. So yes, there's some superstars along the way, but it doesn't really happen that often. And most every second round pick is flamed out. But let's talk about the top 10 because that's where the money

is supposed to be made. That's where you're supposed to be getting somebody who's potentially an all-star, at least definitely getting to that second contract and the core of your team, your franchise for the next at least seven years, right? Seven, eight years. Well, that's not what's been happening. Let's go back to 2014. This can seem like I'm going back a little too far, but I'm doing it for the purposes of players that are still somewhat in their primes. And I can't start at 2020 because that would be a little soon here in this exercise.

We're going to go top 10 picks. How many guys are still with their team? This is going to kind of, you're going to go top 10 picks. How many guys are still with their team? You're going to be surprised by this. Eight of the top 10 picks from 2014 are already gone, and Bede and Marcus Smart are the only ones remaining, and Smart can be on the way up. 2015, nine of the top 10 picks are gone from the team where they started their career. I'm not getting creative here by saying, oh, the team that drafted them, because we have guys that were drafted by a team

and their draft rights are traded. So I could do that to make it look even worse. I'm not going to do that. We're going to do like the normal thing here. Who did you start your career with? Are you still on that team as a top 10 pick? So eight of 10 gone in 14. 9 of 10 gone in 2015. Carl Anthony Townsend, the only guy that's still with it.

2016, 7 of the 10 top 10 picks are already gone. Jalen Brown and Jamal Murray are the only two that remain. And I'll tell you the third is Buddy Heald. But who knows? Because it could be 8 if Buddy Heald is on a different team than Sacramento. 2017, you want to start playing the name game with this? Fultz, gone. Alonzo, gone.

Josh Jackson, gone. Laurie Marketing, gone. Neil Aquino wasn't tendered. Dennis Smith Jr., gone. Zach Collins, two-year deals, San Antonio. So that's seven of 10 players from really like three drafts ago, gone. 2018, these are three drafts ago, gone. 2018. These are recent drafts.

Again, this one's actually like three years ago, not including the new draft. Marvin Bagley, who knows what's up. Mo Bamba's, I mean, if he's not gone this year, I don't know. Wendell Carter's already on a different team. Colin Sexton's rumored that they don't even want to pay him. Kevin Knox is completely out of the picture. So, again, 21 draft, whatever, 20, 19, 18.

18 draft, it looks like five of those 10 guys aren't even close to being in the future plans for your teams. So it's something to remember. It's happening more often. But as excited as you may be about the seventh and eighth pick what it's supposed to be the math on these have become really bad as well let's talk a little free agency uh the headline part of it i would imagine is chris paul he had a 44 million dollar option it felt like he was going to opt out for months, going back to even pre the finals run with it. And it was because at 38, let's see what happens, opt out and hope to get three years in the 90s. Then the headline comes in that he opts out for the $44 million option

and then signs a four-year deal for $120 million that's going to take him through to what, 40 years old. So yeah, 36 now, excuse me, take him through to 40 years old. I'll admit that one surprised me based on just conversations about where the landing spot was going to be. But this story got a little weird for a couple different reasons. One, Sarver, the owner of the Suns, who, let's face it, hasn't done a very good job, has always been considered cheap. But maybe we give him the benefit of the doubt here. I don't know. I mean, he was asked about the tax moving forward by local radio in Phoenix. And he said, hey, it's going to come with the territory.

We want to bring a championship back to Phoenix. We're going to be paying the tax. I don't think anybody would say like, you know what? Actually, I don't think I want to pay the tax, even though I have to worry about these four core guys. He was asked about if there was anything that would prevent the Suns from keeping Paul. He said, quote, eh, I don't know.

I'm sure there probably is, but I think our first priority is to try to get him back, but that'll depend on his agent and general manager James Jones and him and me and all that kind of stuff. So I don't know. We'll see next week, I guess, right? So it was, there's other quotes in there. When you read them six days ago, you're like,

wait, is this actually, could this actually happen? Could Sarver say, you know what? Why do I need to pay you 90 million to a hundred million over three years? Like you do get hurt. Like, who am I competing with here? Now the problem was people thought there was a chance the Knicks could get into play there. Like, Hey, Chris Paul, come save the franchise a little bit. Chris Paul didn't want to play for the Knicks and go backwards with an organization. The New Orleans thing I don't think was really a realistic landing spot, even though there was some interest. I don't think Chris Paul wanted to leave Phoenix.

So if you're the owner and you're the one cutting the check, it's like, well, if you don't want to leave, what am I supposed to do? But it's kind of like the quarterback math that I always talk about, where once you become a starter, you just make make 25 million a year at least okay we don't actually think you're better than half the league yeah but i'm starting you know it's like the kirk cousins deal it's like we don't really want to pay you this but i guess this is what we just pay you because you play the position and you're there every single week so i think that was what was going to happen with paul he wasn't going to come back at some weird discount but when it was

announced four years 120 i'll admit i was man, and then guess what happened? The lesson with NFL contracts is let's give it 24, 48 hours before we start acting like we actually know what the numbers are. It doesn't happen in the NBA as much, but it appears to have happened with this one because the stuff I was reading and we still, I don't know, know yet, but the fourth year isn't guaranteed. So there's partial guarantees in the third year, then it may land kind of exactly where we thought it was going to land, opt out three-year extension somewhere in the 90s, meaning 90 million bucks. And it could even come in with the averages, maybe even a little bit less than that. So we'll see. But that fourth year,

the reaction of that fourth year was like, you've got to be kidding me. And now we're not sure. Jimmy Butler got the extension. He's going to be, what, at 50 million at 36 years old. But you just do it. I know it sounds stupid. And anybody that says like, hey, that'd give me real concern. Cool. Have your concern.

And now we have to do this because you pay the player. The Lowry deal to Miami, that came in at a bigger number. He was asking for two for 50 for an extension in a trade. He ends up getting three for 90, but we'll know more on that final number because maybe that's one of those deals where the agent, like there's a lot of stuff going on in the reporting now too, where like the agent's getting a shout out on every single deal. So the agent isn't going to correct you. The agent is going to say like, hey, actually it's a little bit less because this is what these guys get off on. Free agent, frenzy, hey, here are the biggest numbers. This

is going to be worth. Here are all these incentives. And again, it's been happening in football for decades, but basketball, it was definitely part of the story there yesterday. I'm not going to sit here and break down 48, but remember this with cap space. The problem is when you have it, you have to use it and much like the nfl draft or excuse me the nba draft top 10 picks that i went through and how it can be wait a minute that was kind of disappointing um as i think whatever i told you at the top of this podcast is pretty disappointing especially if you're a fan of one of those teams but cap space is probably even more disappointing all right because you sit there and you make moves

and you take on something and you trade this and now you start. I used to fall for it all the time. I'd be like, oh, that's a great deal. Look at their cap sheet in two years. This could be incredible. There are more fan bases disappointed by cap space in the NBA

than maybe any single mechanism in sports. Maybe college football fans are the playoff committee voting. But when you have it, and then you have to use it, and there's not anybody that's awesome that wants to come play for you. And I'm not even knocking the Fournier deal. It feels a little high when you're touching on 20 mil a year for him. And especially when it's like, okay, does this fix all the problems all the problems or hey the knicks want to shoot higher we're the knicks we're the knicks and the knicks have been doing some good things with this organization

but you know those are the kind of deals where you're like oh we got we got fournier awesome that's what we did we're the knicks that's what we got with our cap space and you know when i looked at some of those Wizards deals, they're like, oh, in a couple years, you're going to have all this cap space. Be like, why? Oh, wow. Uh-oh.

Put the league on alert. The Wizards got cap space coming in 2023. You better start planning your, come up with some different blueprints for your roster build. Wizards got cap space in 24 months. So just little lessons along the way of doing this a long time

to always remind yourself that that league is brutal when you're trying to make your team better in a very short amount of time. Coming up next, we're going to get the magic two minute from Cerruti because we haven't done anything

off of last week and kind of where they're at. And then we'll get to Sando. Cerruti used to have the Magic Minute back when we were on ESPN. I think he deserves a little bit more space here with Jalen Suggs and Mo Wagner. I know you saw the old school Jalen Suggs jersey. We're in talks with the Orlando Magic

To try to figure out some way to get a Cerruti one here I think you just want a Suggs one You don't want your name on it So where are you now with a couple days To regroup and hose yourself down Yeah you know As an Orlando Magic fan I think in every draft

Essentially in recent history You're just kind of dreading the worst Expecting the worst thing to happen But I had this weird feeling the entire time that Suggs was going to fall to five. And I don't have any real factual basis behind it. I mean, you read the tea leaves and people are saying, oh, Toronto kind of likes Scotty Barnes. We talked, though.

I think that probably had something to do with it because I was like, hey, one name I do hear in front of them perhaps is Barnes at Toronto. But it was just a rumor. I was reading articles, listening to you. But it did kind of feel like Scottie Barnes was more of a Raptors-type player. But he also kind of felt like a Magic player. But the weird thing with Scottie Barnes, I feel like,

is he's probably thrilled that he's going to Toronto. Because if he goes to Orlando, that's just the wasted land of players like that. Guys who have all these skills, but can't necessarily shoot, or need to be developed. You don't want to go to Orlando if you're Scottie Barnes.

But I think the Jalen Suss thing completely changes the outlook of the entire franchise. Even going back to the Vooch trade, which looks like a great trade now, you say, okay, this is an outdated roster. They've got their best player is a big who is okay defensively, has kind of developed a three point shot, but is in his 30s.

And where's this team going? Plus, they've got a bunch of other guys in the roster that can't shoot. I love that they blew it up, but it was like this roster is pretty bad going forward. And now you add Jalen Suggs and you add Wagner, who I, you know, I actually have kind of grown to love now in this draft, like 6'11". Apparently grew two inches now, kind of a wingish player, but can playmake a little bit, decent shooter. I'm talking myself into him thinking potentially he could be an all-star too. And I know you just went over about how basically most of these guys are disappointing.

So you'd have to figure at least one of these guys is going to bust out. Yeah, one's not going to be good probably. Yeah, but I think you're 100% right in what we talked about before the draft. Suggs feels like a guy that cannot miss. I don't know if he's going to be a transcendent superstar type player, but I think it's almost guaranteed he's a borderline also. The guy could play in the league. Plus, he brings toughness. And overnight, this Magic roster went from this weird,

sort of antiquated bunch of long guys that can't shoot, no direction, not a modern roster, to a pretty modern looking roster with a lot of playmakers. They're loaded at guard right now. I actually kind of like the Suggs-Foltz fit in the backcourt. We'll see what he comes back from that ACL injury. And I also like the roster now around Jonathan Isaac, who still is probably their best player. I think if you surround him with guys that are playmakers and shooters where he doesn't have to do all that stuff on the offensive end, he could be more of a defensive stopper

and just kind of glue guy. They went from one of the worst rosters in the league, probably before the draft, to now saying, hey, the Magic might be going somewhere in the next couple of seasons. They're the team to look out for. They have options of hope, I think is the best way to put it, because it's not a roster that you love. Kiki, he's going to be playing.

Like him, too. But again, he's probably like a, you know, fourth best player on a good team. But if Suggs is the guy, you have a guy who can be your, hey, when she hits the fan, this is my guy creating the shot. When, you know, when you need a guy to just go up and do whatever and be that dude, be that all-star, they just didn't have that guy before. Even, you know, Boots was that guy, but he's not your traditional guy guy in that role and everything that we've heard about Suggs is he wants to be that guy he is that guy and I don't know if you saw on draft night Ryan but all the Orlando Magic

fans are losing their minds over this when Scotty Barnes got picked the camera went to Jalen Suggs and he was like fist pumping almost like I wanted to go to Orlando and apparently he's boys with RJ Hampton too and they were talking about playing together beforehand. So there was a ton of like friendship, camaraderie stuff going on in Orlando where it's just good to have a bunch of guys that feel like they want to be there because Orlando has been kind of like this wasteland

of places where everyone's like, oh, Orlando, why would you ever want to play there? It seems like they have a roster of guys that actually want to play for the Magic. The excitement in your voice is very clear. Yeah, I mean, well, I was texting about this with Simmons because he texted both of us actually, what was it? Saturday night, I think, or Sunday night. It was the night of the USA win over Mexico in the Gold Cup final.

And it's been a big summer for your boy. Italy wins the Euro. The US beats Mexico in two finals over the summer. And then the Magic get Jalenalen sugs like this couldn't have been a better summer for your boy yeah what was the other one too we had an italian win so yeah the simmons this one in there the italian guy who won the 100 meters which apparently that guy's from texas too so it's an italian texan like what a time to people yeah people are still working on the background uh on that one all right look uh i think the best part about sugs going to orlando is he has a chance to like if he's really this guy it's tough as a rookie or whatever but he has he has a chance to be like all right i'm i'm taking this thing over and this is this is

who i want us to be we're in toronto it's established enough that one he didn't have to do it and there's other guys there like like Van Vliet, Siakam. They're not going to defer to him. Orlando's like this opportunity. It's an opportunity to have somebody come in and have the mindset of like, all right, enough of this shit. Like whatever's going on. And unfortunately, too, a lot of it's really bad luck with the Magic.

And it's unfortunate because Clifford's a really good coach. But everything I've heard on Jam jamal the new guy coming in is that they're like this guy's energy and i mean people are really really fired up about it but i think sugs now you have a chance and who knows in a year we'll go man that guy can't shoot a little overrated oh two years like it's all a possibility all right it's the draft it's evaluating human beings and trying to predict the future. It's a really hard thing to do. But this week, as opposed to last Wednesday, you now look at your roster and go, okay, we have somebody who has a chance maybe to turn this thing around,

which is all you're hoping for. They haven't had a ball-handling playmaker like that since Hedo Turkle. They haven't. They just haven't. Or Jameerelson going back to the to the 09 finals days when they were actually a good team with dwight howard what about what about game one dj augustine that's true game one that's only in game one though and i thought that guy was going to be mario hazonia for a while and i we obviously failed miserably there but

i still hold my hope for my boy even though he's back in europe that did not work out all right there you go your magic minutes plural it's one of my favorite pieces that comes out every year if you're an NFL fan even if you're not it's actually that kind of excitement we have the eighth year now of the QB tiers uh and it's Mike Sando from the athletic and he started doing this back at ESPN and it's something I look forward to so let's do it again so it's eight years now right it is this is the eighth year so it's really uh it's something I look forward to. So let's do it again. So it's eight years now, right? It is. This is the eighth year. So it's just really, it's rounding into form. Okay.

So for those that don't know, Mike pulls 50 coaches and evaluators around the NFL. There are five quarterback tiers, one through five, one being the best. And there's a couple of things that jump out. One is factoring in the dropouts because we get to the tier two guys pretty quickly where i know my reaction when i'm reading is like wait a minute that guy's like that high this guy's a top 10 quarterback and then you go wait a minute like who are you putting ahead of them um these are 50 evaluators too so it's a good average and when you lose breeze when you lose rivers when you have rothlisberger jumping out I mean luck's been gone now for a little while there's a there's a pocket of guys that were always in this this top

10 that now we have more invitations out because of kind of the way it's gone for some of those guys at the top so the tier one I'll just run through it it's Rodgers who had 50 votes as a tier one guy so not one single tier two Patrick Mahomes 50 votes for tier one Brady actually had nine tier two tier two votes uh Russell Wilson 40 and 10 and then the last tier one guys Deshaun Watson who was kind of all over the place for obvious reasons there all right so give me your reaction as you were polling guys um because I always feel that tier one should be four or five quarterbacks there should be no debate it is kind of funny some other guys get some grades there. There's other quarterbacks.

I'm like, why did he get a tier one vote? But give me kind of the sense of the top five. Yeah, I mean, I think Rodgers and Mahomes we knew would probably be unanimous, so I think there's no surprise there. Rodgers had a couple tier two votes over the last few years when their offense wasn't as good, but everyone's always thought he's tier one anyway. Brady Wilson fell off a little bit.

I wasn't sure what would happen with Deshaun Watson. You know, I'm not sure he belongs fully in tier one. And he's got a 1.5 average. So he's kind of got a foot in each side, right? And we'll see what happens this year. He was relatively unchanged from last year. You know, I think I'm with you. When I look at it, I'm like,

wait, you know, Stafford is top seven or whatever, but then you realize Rivers retired, Breeze retired and Roethlisberger plummeted. Those were three guys that were sort of always in the top 10 or right around it, um, that are gone. So everyone else take three steps forward, right? The average for the whole group, uh, was I think a little bit worse than it was last year, you know, just a little bit. So that's where we're at. I think there's still excitement with some young guys coming up and we'll just see what happens this year. Yeah. Some of the Brady stuff was more critical than I expected. What did you think of the reaction of Brady? Well, you know, people are always looking at the context that you go into and they know that it was a little

rocky for them for the first half of the year and even in the championship game I mean there were multiple interceptions they had great defensive effort their defense really carried them in the Super Bowl so I think you know it's less pure of a one than you know Rodgers or, or especially my homes, just guys who are, uh, maybe my homes, especially just carrying it to a greater degree. I think he's still a one. I mean, I think it's underrated to go into a place that hasn't won and just win the Super Bowl.

It wasn't like they just had a good year. They won the Super Bowl. I don't think that happens. I don't think you can just plug in, pick your guy in Tier 2, and that happens. I think he has a greater effect and has effects in a different way than Mahomes who can beat you with his legs, beat you with his arm, can make a wider array of incredible throws from multiple platforms. There's just some acknowledgement that, hey, the defense and how they played

probably helps him at this stage of his career. Yeah, because whenever, I guess as I was reading it, know the defense and how they played um probably helps him at this stage of his career yeah because whenever i guess as i was reading it and then throughout the year with the criticism um and i'm not telling you like this is prime perfect brady i'm blown away by his arm strength yeah the juice on his arm still is the carolina game was a game where i just remember watching it be like look at this guy and how he's throwing the football like this is this is insane um the 12 picks you know sometimes people would look at that and go oh well you know it's is it the offense is it that he's having these bad stretches I always felt like that New Orleans game in the middle of the season was very misleading because they were getting

their asses kicked so bad that I thought he just started being like, whatever, you know what I mean? Like I'm throwing it just to get it out. Like he, he no longer cared about, uh, risk avoidance. He just didn't care. So sometimes the numbers I think for him can look worse. And then it turns into this whole thing that he's actually, he's actually more turnover prone or it's this offense. I'm like, I don't know. When I think about game situation that might have more to do with his picks than just something else. Yeah, one of the interesting observations was, if you look early in the year, remember there was pick six, there were just some throws.

You're like, oh, that doesn't happen to Brady. And some of that, according to a couple coaches I talked to who looked at it, just said, you know, he was running more of the Arian stuff early in the year. And if you just think of Jameis Winston hanging balls out to the sideline and then someone's running it back in, that was happening to Brady a little bit earlier. And maybe they worked their way through that. I'm with you on the arm. And I also have one of my guys that I've had in multiple of these quarterback tiers that I talk to

regularly who has been, or at least has watched the AFC East a lot. He was telling me even in New England, he's like, this guy's not, hasn't dropped off. Brady's still a one. He still throws the ball incredibly well. Don't be fooled by what's happening around him, even the last year in New England. So I've sort of kept that in the back of my mind. I believe that to be true. I think he's amazing. And I don't know how he does it.

It certainly helps nowadays that these guys don't get creamed. You know, he doesn't take huge, amazing hits. That's a big part of, I think, being able to do this at a tier one level at age 40 or 42. I think it's a huge part of it. Did you get any sense that somebody was kind of tier two on him because they may have passed on him? No, no, not at all. You know, I think one of the things that would surprise people about, you know, the way this works, not, not necessarily you, but most people come at this with an emotional investment, um, component to the, uh, to the tears. Sometimes I'll hear from, uh, fans of a team. I can't believe my guy, our guy is this

low. And in the back of my head, I'm thinking, if you only knew what the guys on your team thought, like they're rating them lower than you do. You know what I mean? People in the league know what they have. Yeah. There's people in the league. I would guarantee there's people on guys teams in the tier one who aren't sure that those guys are at tier one. You know what I mean? That's just the reality of the way people, tier one who aren't sure that those guys are at tier one. You know what I mean? That's just the reality of the way people, because in the NFL guys bounce from team to team to team,

you know, they, and they know what it's like when they have a real guy. Yeah. Well, that leads us to the head of tier two, Josh Allen, who I think is one of the single most impressive improvement quarterback stories I think I've ever seen.

I'm serious about that. Like when you, I don't know that there's many quarterbacks that struggle the way I thought he struggled to start his career and then is now legitimately somebody who's an MVP candidate and someone that you're going to go, wait, like, is this guy going to run his division for a decade? But he had 20 tier one votes. He had 30 tier two votes. Um, so an average of 1.8 were people on Allen. Yeah. Uh, basically I think everyone thought he played at a tier one level last year. And for some of the voters, the 30 that put them in tier two, it's really not disputing that. It's just saying, all right, let's see him do it again. You know, this is an exalted group at the top that has

proved it for more than one year. When you have that earlier context that wasn't as good, it takes probably a little bit longer to shake that. And then as one of the guys pointed out, if you look at them, even in the playoffs, they're barely beating the Colts because somebody on the Bills recovered a – he's fumbling the ball on an 18-yard sack with the game in the line. And they got it back. And then the next week they play,

I think Baltimore, they scored 10 points on offense and they lose by two touchdowns in Kansas city. So I, I actually think that, you know, if it had been a little smoother, probably in the playoffs,

maybe it's 30 and tier one and 20 and tier two. That's just my own feel on it, but he, he's going to be there. He plays anything like that next year. I think he's going to be a one clearly. And he got more tier one votes than all the guys below him combined. There's no one even close.

So every other quarterback in this exercise, so seven through 34, he had more tier one votes than all of those guys combined. Yeah, he had 20, and I'll just sort it right now. The rest of them had 15. So that shows where he's at and, um, you know, we'll see. I mean, Lamar Jackson creeped up that crept up that line too, you know, after winning MVP, he had more. Um, in fact, I'm, I'm,

I just want to look, um, and see what Lamar had coming off of his MVP season. He had 16 in tier one and 31 in tier two. So, um, you know, it's a little bit stronger for Alan right now, but, um, I, I think like you were kind of alluding to there's typically even four or five guys in tier one and there's kind of a rotational guy each year that goes into that slot. You know, remember Matt Ryan wins the MVP, Cam Newton wins the MVP. They don't really go into Tier 1, but they're sort of that first guy in Tier 2. I think the difference with Josh Allen is he's much earlier in his career or is earlier in his career than maybe those guys were.

Maybe there's a better chance he stays. Yeah, no, that makes sense because there's a reaction. Like, Lamar's a perfect example. He's next. He's tied with Stafford for seventh, which I'm because there's a reaction. Like Lamar is a perfect example. He's next. He's tied with Stafford for seventh, which I'm sure there's all sorts of reaction going like, how could Stafford be seventh? And how could Lamar is interesting because I feel like guys are way more critical about him privately. And I'm talking about NFL people, guys that I talk to that are like, I don't know, man.

But then he wins the MVP and he puts up the offensive numbers that they did as a team two years ago. And you go, wow, there's almost this weird Lamar cycle of I was wrong. I feel guilty. I'm going to say he's awesome. Or I was right because I thought he'd be okay. But the MVP thing is totally not who he is, which is the first line, which kind of is like, look, this is probably who he's going to be. And depending on the playoff outcome, which we saw firsthand now twice, which again, may be a little unfair. It feels like the conversation around Lamar is all over the place. Well, his play might be the steadiest part of the Lamar story. If that makes sense.

I think in general, people feel like he's a top 10 quarterback and that's probably where he's going to be. I think the quote unquote negative part is people don't really see him realistically getting better in the pure passing component that sort of is important at a certain point, you know, whether in the playoffs or just to beat the best teams and really become a true one. just to beat the best teams and really become a true one. But I think there's high regard for him. Most of the harsh criticism of him coming out wasn't necessarily wrong. People didn't know the Ravens were going to absolutely transform their entire organization to make it work. People thought that he wouldn't work in an office. The mistake people made was they didn't think that he would be a star in a traditional way. They have changed absolutely everything.

They've got Greg Roman calling the offense. They're running 13 and 12 personnel all the time. Incredible run packages. They are putting him in the absolute best possible situation, which is coaching. That's just really good coaching. I think he's being coached better than he could have been. You could make Lamar Jackson not look good by putting him in a different system. That would be harder to do with Pat Mahomes. You could put him in almost anything, right? He's going to look amazing. So it has to be tailored a certain

way for him. And he's tied for seventh best in the league. And on any given day, he may be the best player on the field. So it is a little bit, not everybody fits the descriptions neatly, but I think he fits the high two description really well, which is, you know, may have a hole or two in his game, but may only handle the pure pass component in doses, but has other elements of his game that are so outstanding that he's certainly higher than a tier three guy, right?

I mean, that's obvious. I think he's about right where he should be. And there's nothing wrong with that. Everybody in the league, 25 teams in the league would love to have him. Yeah, tier threes.

I'm, you know, I'm not. I mean, he had eight tier three votes, but yeah, I think he's tier two. But to see him, to go into the season being like, is he the seventh best quarterback in the NFL? But then again, I don't know. Like Dak, I should probably put Dak ahead of him. You know?

Go ahead. Yeah, I would. Well, so who that's above Lamar, would you put Lamar over? You know, I think off of last year, we wouldn't put him above Josh Allen. Deshaun Watson, let's just put him off to the side. Who knows? But you wouldn't put Lamar would you put Lamar over? You know, I think off of last year, we wouldn't put him above Josh Allen. Deshaun Watson, let's just put him off to the side. Who knows? But you wouldn't put Lamar above Wilson. Yeah, but the players, you know, there's no way I would have him ahead of Deshaun or Russell Wilson. Right, or Brady,

Mahomes, Rodgers. So, to me, he's exactly where he should be. Yes, you could make an argument. If you want to make an argument of Dak, I mean, I think it's a little harder to do. I mean, Dak hasn't been MVP of the league. Dak isn't a game plan consideration to the same extent as Lamar Jackson. Dak is coming off a really bad injury. So I think Dak's fine exactly where he's at. And maybe he ascends towards tier one this year. Maybe he was going that direction last year before he got hurt because it was

certainly on his shoulders. Yeah. Dak's ninth. Here's my question. Playoff game, two minutes to go, down four. You got 80 yards. There's no one who's picking Lamar. I'm with you. So how is he seven? You know what I mean? I'm not pushing back on seventh, but I think if any of us were asking this question,

you'd go, like, I think more people in that situation would be scared to death because of Lamar's limitations on the football, which we've seen now. But, but you might take, but let's just, let's just extend that out. You might take, let's just name guys lower. You might take Derek Carr or Kirk Cousins in that situation. I definitely wouldn't take Cousins. I know what you mean, but you know what I mean? There's clearly lesser quarterbacks than Lamar who might be better in that situation in certain cases.

But Lamar also might run for 80 yards in that situation. He might. And he might complete him. I mean, he has led the team down the field before. I'm not saying he's – I just think in that spot because of some of the throwing stuff. But I'm turning this – I'm sounding too negative towards Lamar here, and I didn't necessarily want to go that way.

Yeah. Let's touch on stafford because i was actually surprised that he did tie for seventh but stafford and matt ryan are very similar conversations as you point out um the expected points added numbers i just think it's kind of funny that a lot of times nfl people can be just like your local talk show host who thinks stafford and Matt Ryan suck. And you just go, well, I mean, how often, how often, like the support part of this, when we start to get to this group of quarterbacks tells more of the story than just the extremes. And I think you do a terrific job of pointing that out. Yeah, I do. I think the criticism is correct that if he were truly a one, not just a guy who has one

talent, he's truly a one. There probably would be a breakthrough season in there somewhere, despite all of that, right? They've had three years in his career where they were good on defense, or at least decent on the defense, especially in the corner, and they won nine, 10, 11 games, but didn't really advance beyond that. And so I love this season for Matt Stafford, Carson Wentz, all these guys who've changed teams, those narratives, those sort of reasons why you haven't done it aren't there anymore. You know, it's just time we get to actually, how many times in the past did you really get to take transport a guy from his

specific environment? You know, maybe Carson Palmer leaving Cincinnati and then seeing what he did with Arizona ultimately. But I just love Stafford going to a different environment so that we can settle some of these things and see how different it will be for him because golf is somebody too coming off an mvp conversation season i guess it's probably the best way to put it when they went to the super bowl you know golf has um what was what was his overall because he ended up 19th yeah so he he's 2.94 appropriately tied with wentz so he got his five votes in tier 243 in tier three and two in tier four what was his what was his best finish do you remember ever in the thing yeah yeah let me uh i have an all-time year 12 i'm sorry i just found it i think is it 12 16th and 19. Is that the best he's done or was he?

Yep. I'm, I'm scrolling to it right now. I've got this thing for the whole, uh, the whole history of quarterback here. So, okay.

So, so he was going into the 2019 season. He was 38 votes in tier two and he was a 2.27. So he would have been 12th overall is the highest he's ever been he's actually been as low as 32nd off of his jeff fisher first season but he's kind of other than those two outliers the 12 and the 32 he's been between 16 and 19 okay all right so the reason i bring this up because i'm not skipping through some of the other guys that i still want to touch on here um you get a quote and i i always keep like a collection of a couple of quotes that i think are the worst no offense to your sources here

where i just go like you gotta be kidding me um quote he may prove he's a two and better than the rams let on dot dot dot if the rams had him in house this long and they were like we're good after they gave him all the money and they said all the right things they didn't need to pay him as soon as they needed to pay him. They justified it by saying how he carried himself in the press conference after losing the Super Bowl, which was ridiculous. Of all the Patriots Super Bowls, for the people that I talked to being from the area, I'll tell you right now,

it's the most confident the Pats ever were in going into any of them because of golf. They're like, this is going to be – and honestly, the Rams defense held them into that game. there was still a chance there but the pats were like overwhelmingly confident to be like man when you really break down the film here on golf there's just not there's not that much there i can't believe that nfl guys who do this for a living would still try to justify when the franchise again who had him in-house was like, we're good. And they did it for Stafford. Yeah, well, but think of that franchise, okay?

That franchise is one man on this decision, okay? It's Sean McVay. Yeah. That's the only reason they did this. It wasn't like there was necessarily, I'm not saying there was or wasn't, a consensus throughout the whole building that we can't do this. There's a lot of people in the league who feel like Jared Goff was never that great and never that bad. I mean, when they had a good offensive line and had it going with Gurley, he could make

really great throws, but it fell off around him as much as he fell off. And maybe Stafford can make that up. This is really a case of Sean McVay having all the juice there and being the driver of the quarterback. And he got tired of Jared Goff for whatever reason. It sure felt personal to me by the middle of last quarterback. And he got tired of Jared Goff for whatever reason. It sure felt personal to me. By the middle of last season when they played Miami, I mean, he was saying things you don't say.

And I've been around up close. I'll tell you, I covered Mike Holmgren when he had Matt Hasselbeck and Trent Dilfer and he acquired Matt and then he benched him. And it never, it didn't, maybe it felt to Matt, but it didn't feel that personal like it did with McVay. I feel like McVay, whatever reason, something happened, like something happened to me, like more than what I saw in the field. It just felt like all of a sudden, not only was he

down on him, but he was done with them. And I don't really remember that happening in the absence of a guy being hurt or just playing horrendously you know what i mean he was not as good but goff wasn't just like the worst quarterback in the league was he no i'm not saying that now you're you're really getting me interested here like do you think i mean everybody just trusts mcveigh from an offensive standpoint they feel like he was basically the puppet master you know just basically controlling golf's eyes and arm you know with the way they ran this offense but but you're almost making it out like you're you're the sense i'm getting from here is you're leaning that this might have been a mistake by mcveigh which i guess i hadn't really even thought of no i don't i'm not

sure i'd have stafford i think i would rather i would rather have stafford i'd rather do what they did than not do what they did because I'm anxious to see what it can be. But I think that, I think that he dumped on Jared Goff to a level that was alarming or surprising to me and reflective of somebody who is in complete control. You know, remember McVay comes from John Gruden. Think of John Gruden's handling of quarterbacks, right? Yeah.

It's always, let's get the next guy. Unless it's a veteran. Unless it's Rich Gannon, Brad Johnson. Otherwise, you always get that feeling that you're not entirely happy with Carr, right? Don't you get that? Isn't that sort of the feeling in a league that, if they just didn't have Carr. Now, that's flipping a little bit this year.

People are like, geez, Carr was the least of their worries. But I'm interested in just how that happened. How it got that sour. We never heard a story that Jared Goff was missing all the meetings or Jared Goff offended him in some way. It just turned in a way where during the year, I felt that I was like, what's going on here? Like he was just done with them. So did he go overboard

in the down? Put it to you this way. They won a playoff game last year. If you could take the over, under, or even, do they win more than one playoff game? Do they advance further

in the playoffs this year with Stafford? Well, it's a, I mean, I i don't think people like we kind of forget how hard it is to actually win a playoff game so i would defer to the math of like yeah the better bet would be no i don't think they're going to win a playoff game but um that was that was such a weird deal with that playoff game too. It was. Their guy played with an injured thumb, right? Right. I mean, and he wasn't good.

I liked the move. And Russell Wilson, who's a tier one who I loved, and then so many of your people were actually pointing out, like, did you see the drop-off? I think there was so much going on with Russell Wilson, the Seattle thing, but he stunk in that game. I mean, he was 11-27. I agree. And I'm not going to – gonna yeah like I wouldn't then take that game and go oh well Russell Wilson isn't that good look what he did in the playoffs when we have so much evidence of

him being this guy and honestly the first half of the season it looked like he was gonna be MVP I would say his camp it felt like I don't know what how his camp works Sandoz so maybe you can help me with this did they just decide hey we're letting everybody know that Russell Wilson's never had an MVP vote. And therefore like, let's get this message out there. Are there PR people involved with this? Cause they did a great job.

And by the way, he was at that level. He was deserving of it. Um, but then once it turned away from everything that happened, it was kind of a mess, but like, I don't really,

Russell Wilson has given us plenty of evidence that that was sort of a weird stretch and I wouldn't hold it against him, but it appears some other people did. So, uh, yeah, I mean, I think, I think, you know, they played tougher defenses over the second half of last year. Um, look, Pete Carroll ended up firing the coordinator. There were some things beyond Russell Wilson there, but I think for the first time in a while, um, there were long stretches. he didn't look good for whatever reason and one of the concerns that was raised is when you start talking about your protection and not wanting to get hit and remember he's talking about he wants to be brady and lebron remember he's mentioned

yeah yeah yeah um that was alarm bells for a couple people. Not most. Obviously, he's still in Tier 1. But that was just not what people... There's people who think that's a sign of bad things. Like when a quarterback starts worrying about getting hit, it can be representative of a shift in mindset that doesn't necessarily help how they play. Yeah, I'll be looking for it. I mean, it's a smart thing to look for

because I think we can get caught ball watching and be near the point where you're watching the offensive line. But that's – I mean, he's always taking horrible sacks. And whenever he makes the argument that it's like, oh, I'm getting hit all the time, it's like, well, come on, man. You've got to be somewhat honest, even though I would defend Russell the quarterback. What quarterback complains publicly about his offensive line? It doesn't happen. It's just a no-no

it was weird yeah you're just not supposed to do it i mean it was kind of like their offense what offensive line wasn't that wasn't terrible last year it has been terrible at certain points but it wasn't terrible last year he um you know him doing that like one of the other times when the pittsburgh steelers were anti-on Bell, that was all I needed to know. When they had guys on his team start knocking him a little bit. And again, it's not everyone. You've got like 70 guys who have pads running around. So you're going to find somebody that has it.

But that was – I mean, it's a great point about Russell Wilson where you go – you're going to start shitting on your offensive line when, again, half of these are on you. I mean, every other part of his game I absolutely love. I'd love to have him. Sign me up for the next five years or whatever, but it's just a flaw. It's just something he does that is just a part of his game.

I don't think that's ever going to go away unless he just decides he's never going to get hit anymore. I don't know. Yeah, and I think we're conditioned to Tom Brady or standing up there and saying, I got to play better. You know what I mean? I got to play better. It's on me. I'm the quarterback of this team, and I'm taking too many sacks. I'm doing this or that. I've got to get this thing fixed. And then the rest of us go, wait a minute, the scheme they're running, oh, the protection, we're the ones who bring it up, it was just a different thing it may not mean anything I mean I think he's still a great player I think the scheme change is going to help him maybe he even gets an MVP vote or two this year but I think it's just an interesting time to watch him yeah because watch is Disney backsliding a little bit here yeah that that's fair but I mean

I think a lot of this is motivated by like branding and bigger market stuff and the wife influence i think the wife part of this is is really big deal so it was kind of like he doesn't want to be a bad guy ever he cares so much about being light i mean and that's the part with his personality and i've been over this before so i'm just a broken record about it where you're like i don't know man so much of this seems calculated and it's just kind of i don't know it's a no i find it annoying all right so yes yeah he gives that impression that it's not always genuine, right? Right. Well, yeah.

He just doesn't feel genuine. It'd be impossible to be like that. Like, I don't know. Anyway. So my point is, is that. If I said go the athletic at the end of every podcast, people would be like, okay, you know, we got it. You know what?

All right. All right. So if it's, it's kind of weird that he was like he's like do i try to see how this goes by being like a guy who wants to force his way out like can i actually do that like can i and then it's like oh wait like people get mad when you hint at not wanting to be here anymore and i mean and then he started saying that like nobody did it's like dude, dude, you said you don't want to go anywhere, but here's four cities that would be cool. Come on, be better at doing this.

And so it's all cool now, but I wonder if he'll take another swing at it, like an offseason behind him where he goes, okay, here's what we did wrong tactically. Here's how we force our way out now after the 21 season, depending on what happens. Absolutely. I think watch just how far they go and how he's perceived his role in it, right? Because I would be shocked if they lost in the wildcard round and Russell Wilson said,

my bad, I've got to do better. I think there'll be some similar sort of narrative around what the reason was. That's what i felt like it happened after the year was just so right after the super bowl we're hearing about the offensive line and i want to be tom and lebron it was just like wow um so i think it's not done i think but i think it's he's i think it seems good now and i think it will be good but if they fail i think then it could be bad. All right. Let's run through a bunch here a little quicker.

And that's on me. I think we have to mention Justin Herbert now. He is the highest debut ever. Is that correct? Yeah, I believe that he is. Yeah. I can't think of anyone that would be higher than. Yeah, no, he's the highest.

Yep. Four Tier 1 votes. He averaged a 2-1-4. I'd like to see a second year. Yeah. This is also in a new system and all these things. But Mike, I'll tell you, the pre-draft on him is hilarious because he regressed.

He wasn't as good the second year. Some people think, you know, look, if you pay attention to the coaching staff stuff that was happening in Oregon that's exactly why it happened I think the personality part of it we're like hey man is this guy even gonna make any noises like what's yeah what's up is he actually a leader of men or 10 other guys gonna look in his eyes in the huddle and it was like I don't think so I mean all this stuff was going on depending on who you talk I'm sure you know obviously you talk to way more people than I do. And then he just comes in and seems like he has every physical attribute. And now maybe that perfect demeanor, that's not too hot, not too cold,

which is the exact same demeanor that he had, that everybody was questioning. But that was an incredible rookie season, especially when you consider the circumstances. I just, there's no way I would ever give anyone a tier one vote after one year, except for maybe Andrew Luck. I agree. I think there, I think there's some projecting, but it's only four out of the 50.

So, you know, is what it is. I'm with you. I think it's hard though, to find, uh, when you watch him, it's hard to find anything specific to him. That's going to be a reason why he's not a good quarterback for years to come. Right. From anything you watch, you don't, you're not like, you know, the thing I'm concerned about is his ability to handle X, Y, Z. There's really none of that. It's more like you can come up with, hey, there's a change of coaches. But, okay, was the Anthony Lynn offense, was that the key to Herbert? You know what I mean? You'd almost say, if anything, put him in a different offense.

He might be better, right, than that. You could find, like, one of the studies I did last year was third and long was off the charts production for road quarterbacks. And he was number one on that. He just lit it up on third and seven to 10. I love that stat. I love that. Yeah, because it really changed in the league how easy it was to be in that situation. But you know what? That's going to affect 5% of his production, right? It's not going to expose him as a fraud.

It just means when you go to Denver or you go to Kansas City, maybe you throw a pick on that play or take a sack as opposed to throw a 75-yard touchdown like he was doing last year. So it's hard, though. I mean, what would be the case against him other than i want to see more yeah that's it that's it that's all i would say because i mean even the clip that we saw from camp when he throws that bomb into the right corner yeah you know and then it was a great camera angle to make it look even more impressive okay let's uh

let's get to a few more and feel free to throw in anything else because the Tannehill quote drove me crazy too he ends up 13th here um overall he had zero tier one votes but he had a quote that said he's a two for sure he may be verging on a one I don't know that there's any maybe I'm too Dilford out here I don't think there's anyone from the offensive side of the football that thinks Tannehill's knocking on the door of a one despite the production and the athleticism and he, like he checks a lot of those boxes. I don't think anybody thinks that's exactly what he's doing. The offense, um,

Kirk cousins has long been someone that I've not been a huge fan of. Um, you have an amazing stat as he checks in at 18 here, because this is, it's such a great observation. Um, this is a head coach saying, quote,

I feel like his good games come when they're getting the shit kicked out of them. So you check on it. And Sando includes this. Cousins led the league last season in touchdown passes while trailing by at least 10 points. He had 12 while ranking third in those situations yards. And that's the other thing is if you want to start sorting the stats a certain way for Kirk Cousins, you'll be like, when's he getting into the hall of fame um and how do you how do you fit his jacket and then you have garoppolo checks in at 21st who i've never been a fan of um i think he's

so overrated and i also realized that last year the niners had a million challenges beyond what garoppolo is and then they decide to go ahead and invest in a number three pick and a quarterback that people are probably more um split on and trey lance than any of the top prospects and so like look i almost there's not many people are going to say i respect what the washington football team did but when they said hey we got kirk cousins in here and we don't want to pay him that much we know what the going rate is we don't want to pay you so we're not going to a weird way that respected it in a weird way. You have San Francisco who's like,

actually, we're going to spend a number three pick on a guy. Like there are things that tell us when I have doubts about like, and again, I'm not saying they shouldn't play the position. I'm rambling here a bit, Mike. But the organizations a lot of times will kind of tell you exactly, like confirm or deny how you feel about certain guys. And for me, Tannehill's not in the, the Garoppolo cousins group.

But when I look at the comments and I look at some of the stuff here, although cousins is so hard to figure out because you're right. You sorted his stats a certain way where you can't believe how well he's done compared to other guys. Yeah, absolutely. But remember also on Garoppolo, Kyle Shanahan told us in the Superbowl by how they played that end of that situation, right?

Those are the clues we're looking for. So my favorite, you listed the, I like that stat you listed. So my favorite sort of paragraph in this, because whenever I'm writing this, I know I'm going to hear from people who point to stats. And I love stats. I mean, I look at them all the time, but they don't tell the story on how a quarterback plays.

So this is my favorite part of it. Tannehill leads the NFL in yards per attempt over the past two seasons. He has 55 touchdown passes and 11 rushing touchdowns with only 17 turnovers. Stats can mislead. Tannehill, Garoppolo, and Kirk Cousins, those are the guys you just mentioned, outrank Patrick Mahomes in yards per attempt over the same span. They're comparable to him in EPA per attempt, but they're not even close to inhabiting the same planet, you know? And so that's where the stats let us down. The context of how you get your stats is everything. And then

the eye test is part of this too. You watch Kirk Cousins and you're nervous for Minnesota. You know what I mean? And they put him in the play action and there's a lot of ways to sort of game it up that is different than how the really top guys do it. So I'm fine. We mentioned Tannehill. I'm fine with where he's at.

I don't think he's verging on a tier one. And I bet you 49 others in the panel agree. Those Tannehill. I'm fine with where he's at. I don't think he's verging on a tier one and I bet you 49 others in the panel agree. Those Tannehill numbers are nuts. So I don't even put Tannehill in the Garoppolo. Like Garoppolo is TBD

to be replaced here. But he's like 24 and eight as a starter or whatever. You know, that is, I mean, you can find good numbers for Tannehill. Garoppolo's led the league or been at the top

in yards per 10, but you're right. Tannehill's numbers are unbelievably good, and they're good enough to be in Tier 2. Didn't Garoppolo throw like 8 passes in a playoff game? Yeah, exactly, because what does that tell you? Do you think they thought he was a 1,

and they really wanted to write him? Yeah, I just want to double check that, but I just... It was like 10. It was not more than 12. And again, they won the game, so the argument would be, well, why are you criticizing it? They didn't need him to be anything more than that. And you're like, yeah, okay, but that's 6 of 8 against the Packers.

Yeah, that's like Bob Greasy, early 70s, when he ran the ball 50 times to Larry Zonka. You know, that's not how the game's played. No. And the Niners beat the Packers in that one. Cousins, to be fair to Cousins, I think if you're in that bottom third or you're constantly trying to figure out the position,

if you... Cousins is the idea of a quarterback. We haven't had stability now. If the Broncos had Cousins, they would extend them and make sure they had plenty of jerseys at the team store because he would have solved all of their problems and that's the part of cousins that to be fair but like you know i don't know let's keep running through some of the stuff like cousins too you know just as uh they don't want they don't see yeah what's up with that like there was you were hitting at that but people don't want him leading their team

just the feel of it just the way watch the guy i mean you're not seeing a bunch of guys lining up and defending him all the time you know when you talk about the great quarterbacks i mean the whole organization rallies around that guy mike zimmer sitting there going god i wish my guy'd get a shot so we could pass the tests yeah no it's no, it's a good point because I'd heard stuff out of Washington too that he just wasn't one of the guys the way other quarterbacks are.

And there's definitely hinting at that a ton on the Cousins part of it. Alright, we've done enough on that. Daniel Jones checking in at 22. The turnover numbers are astonishing and I felt like all of the information that you were getting and again there's more this is what you used versus what you didn't use

like i get it man he can run like you know what i mean like when i read the daniel jones breakdown i'm like all right nfl source you're right he's really good at running fast and what what about all the other stuff and the fact that the turnover numbers aren't even in two full seasons correct i mean some of these numbers this last year so i was uh yeah i looked at that it was really horrific his first year and it wasn't quite as bad this year it wasn't like the worst turnover rate guy but there's a huge shelf if you look at the averages i've got them like stacked where it's kind of color-coded. There's a huge gap between Garoppolo, who's the next guy above Daniel Jones,

and the final two guys in Tier 3, which is Daniel Jones and Ryan Fitzpatrick. They're almost Tier 4s. I'd probably put Daniel Jones. Daniel Jones, to me, is right between a 3 and a 4. He's probably right where he belongs.

Wouldn't you agree? He's a 3. He hasn't right where he belongs. Wouldn't you agree? I mean, he's a three. He hasn't fully proven he's a four yet. Yeah. That's just because he hasn't played more. He may be a guy who the more he plays, the less people like him. We'll see. The other thing that's crazy about this, too,

is I felt like we were heading into this stretch of really good quarterback depth. And we realized, too, because of the way the game is played, more guys' numbers look better than ever before which then you have to kind of factor in like well wait a minute this guy's throwing for this many yards like is it really that big of a deal it's 3,800 yards that big of a deal now if your team's somebody yesterday on twitter was like james winston is one of eight guys to throw for 5,000 yards i'm like great because playing today neil lomax would have 6,000 yards. So there you go. Although I thought the stuff on Taysom versus Jameis made a lot of sense. I don't get the Taysom thing for the life of me.

I play Winston all day, every day. Do you get any good, funny reaction on that? That Peyton's obsession with the Taysom Hill deal or no? More during last season. You know, people felt like over the last couple of years, people felt like Sean Peyton, you know, maybe arrogantly was going to prove to the league that he could do it with this guy, Taysom Hill.

But I was feeling less of that. Like as you get closer to having to actually decide that, declare that's going to be our offense when you have Winston. I think most people now feel like it would be stupid to start tasting hill you lose all your tasting hill packages right and you've got very little chance that he's going to become you know more than that or lead you deep in the playoffs uh whereas winston shoot it may be a it may be a disaster but you got a chance of it not being one and maybe Sean Payton can influence that and and structure the offense in ways that are a little less risky for him and and see where they go I still think they're going to be looking for quarterback in a year yeah that's kind of where this starts to to break down again which is probably worth me updating I

mean we used to do it like multiple times a year on the radio show where you'd be like all right how many teams are stable and I remember at one point it felt like, Hey, there's only like five teams that have a question now. And now it feels like it's happening over again. But again, the NFL eats the position. They eat the position.

There's, if you don't figure it out within those first two years, the first round pick, you're done. And I feel like, I feel like there's half the league, half the league is set. So if you select,

if you look at the top 17 in the league, okay, that includes Roethlisberger. So let's just take him out of there because he's going to retire at some point. I believe through Mayfield is about where they're not looking for a guy, right? So Rodgers, Mahomes, Brady, Wilson, Watson, Allen, Lamar, Jackson, Stafford, Prescott, Herbert, Matt Ryan. I mean, the age thing is the only reason. Kyler Murray, Tannehill, Burrow, Carr.

Nothing would surprise you, but Mayfield, Roethlisberger, Mayfield, except for the old guys, Roethlisberger, who could retire at any time. I feel like those guys are all guys their teams, for the most part, want to have unless there's a Carr surprise. Wouldn't you agree? Yeah. The Carr thing, you never know um i think this is go ahead and then after that we're getting into cousins golf wentz garoppolo daniel jones it's patrick darnold winston bridgewater newton isn't that totally different that half the league is all like besides you know unless you're just drafted you're like they either already have a guy they drafted

or those guys aren't the guy, right? Yeah, I mean, the Bears, the Pats, you know, Denver is just hoping Bridgewater is anything that, I mean, because Locke is just a turnover machine too. Half the league has a guy they like. Then of the remaining half the league, maybe five of those teams hope they have a guy machine too. Half the league has a guy they like. Then of the remaining half the league, maybe five of those teams

hope they have a guy they like. They think they might have a guy, right? And then that leaves 10 or 12 teams that are in some form of trouble, maybe, or looking. No, you're right, because I'm going through it along with you here. Um,

there's probably in that bottom group, there's probably five teams that are hoping they may have the answer on the roster. Like you mentioned, new England, obviously Chicago would be the case there too. Sure. Uh,

give me, give me a tier four story. That's worth telling the two of stuff. Maybe. I mean, I think the two of one is fascinating because there's a whole lot. There fascinating because there's not a whole lot of body of work of playing. And I don't remember people killing him coming out, necessarily. But what's the truth on Tua?

What's the fair assessment? I feel like the comments trended too negative on him. Like the feeling on him felt too negative on him, but I wouldn't want to be running to the betting window and putting anything on him either. I sort of like feel like they're probably going to be right. But for somebody who hasn't played a whole lot, was drafted that early without everyone saying it was the worst pick ever, that's one where what is real with Tua? Are the Dolphins looking in a year? If you had to bet, looking in a year,

standing pat for another year, all in in another year? This is where I would sound like other people. You go nine starts in that kind of season under those conditions. And it was very clear, the coaching staff with the play calling, something I pointed out. Whenever you watch the red zone stuff from him, they're like, they don't trust him at all.

They don't trust him at all. Maybe just having a little trust. But I'm very worried because sometimes it's as simple as, yeah, we already saw it, we don't trust him at all um maybe just having a little trust but i am i'm very worried because sometimes it's as simple as yeah we already saw it we don't know um especially if miami was kicking the tires and some other options this soon but i would hate right i would hate writing off this guy that i saw make some special plays in college after nine starts what concerns me is that i felt like the coaching staff clearly would have gone with Fitzpatrick and that there were some instructions to play the other guy.

That's what this situation feels like to me, where they're rolling along with a defensive minded coach in Brian Flores and Fitzpatrick's playing well. I mean, he's leading the team. The team responds to him. You have a top defense, special teams component. They could have advanced in the playoffs. You don't just change to Tua in that situation unless you feel like this guy's letting up in practice. We never felt that or heard that, right?

There wasn't some internal organic wave. It felt like a forced change to Tua. And then they took him out for some of it, right? Like when you're actually in the game, the coach can do what he wants. They took him out. And then they part with Fitzpatrick. And it just doesn't feel like love to me. It feels a little disjointed.

It's just, you know what I mean? Who's the advocate for Tua right now? You made a great point, though. Like, usually we're used to just being lied to about what the guys are seeing in practice like oh man this guy's slinging the ball everywhere you guys could only see it you know and yeah unbelievable this guy's my home it's like you know what i mean and then so then when you look at him you say where's the special trait what's the thing that he does that's going to make him be good even if it's

not great around him could be unfair this early in his career it really could be but those vibes are like wow you got 44 votes in tier four which you can give a tier four for there's not enough information but it kind of felt like as much a tier four of none of these are none of the information but the information i have is not exciting to me. And that could be completely unfair for not for nine starts completely. I'm fascinated by him as much as anyone I want to see this year. Yeah. That's the,

that's the kind of scary. It's not the headline. It's the last line of the piece. You go, it's only nine games, but we may already know which sucks. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

And if they are looking at – I mean, it's not like they're just looking at any guy. We're hearing Watson. So I guess a lot of teams on here should be looking at Watson if he's available and depending on what you think or know about the off-field stuff. Yeah. Hey, this is terrific, man. Thank you for reaching out. And thanks for doing this every year because I love it.

Honestly, when you really do step back and look at the bigger picture of it, it plays out. You're like, yeah, that makes sense. Then you also have to remember, 250 people, you're going to have tough graders, you're going to have easy graders. Who's the guy? Well, not who, but

what's the most tier one votes from one of the 50 voters? Like, is there a guy that gives you 10 tier one guys? Yeah. I'm going to scroll, scroll through here. There are some people that are easier graders and have a bunch of higher at one,

two, three, four, five, six, eight is probably the most. Um, uh,

and then that guy's just going to be higher on everybody. Um, sometimes this is interesting in the, in the thing too, like most of the 50 voters are people that I, uh, know pretty well, but sometimes when you rotate a new person in, um, they could possibly be, oh, I don't know, uh, less, um, brass tacks than they will be once they know you better. You know what I mean? Yeah. So you know what I mean? Like there's a process here. So if I did this with all people that I didn't know, then there might be guys who are like, Oh, I don't know that I want to, you know, kill this guy or whatever. So there could be, as I work some guys in that I'm getting to know that I want to, you know, kill this guy or whatever. So there could be, as I work some guys in that I'm getting to know better,

you know what I mean? You might have, I feel like that sometimes. And I also feel like offensive guys will skew higher sometimes. Defensive guys, defensive secondary guys, like if we were to assemble

a bunch of cornerbacks in the league and just grant them no tier one and have a panel, they'd be like sean lawson man this guy don't scare me you know or whatever yeah right player like they would have if jalen ramsey it would start at tier three oh yeah they'd be because but they really there's a truth to that too like if you can't win from the pocket consistently as a passer, you can't be respected by a secondary coach or a DB because they realize the game can be reduced to that.

And when it is, we find out what you are as a quarterback, a quarterback has to handle that peer pass situation to get respect of the coverage players. There's always a quote every now and every year it comes out. I'll think like, okay, that coach is a defensive coach and then he's in a different conference and he hasn't played this guy

in like three years or something now i know you probably don't want to be using quotes for unless the quote's a money quote but there's just there'll be times where i'll think again knowing that i have to full-on refer to the guys that do it for a living, but I'll, it'll sound like a talk show host more than it sounds like a football coach or personnel guy. Cause I'd be like, has he not seen this guy play? Has he not like Ben Roethlisberger got a one from somebody that like, like people in media,

like hold up as you know, hold in high regard, you know, um, would not be seen as just some guy who's way past his prime and isn't isn't studying all the tape and i was like you know when i get one like that like sometimes guys will just send me their ballot then we talk later and i'm like all right you guys what are we talking about here you know you're the only guy sometimes i hate it too when there's just one guy i'm like oh

they get to the end like what one year like the last guy i talked to gave rogers a two you know i'm like oh yeah that's you know what i mean it's like this was pristine you just put mud in the water you know so it's i love it it's fine i love talking to all the guys and the true beneficiary is me and us you know we we may disagree with the guy here there but we learn a lot about how the league sees it and i've learned so much about the game from even the worst voter even the worst voter knows way more about this stuff absolutely yeah i mean without without question hey that is mike sando it's at sando nfl and it is quarterbacks 1 through 34 cheers 1 through 5 check it out on the athletic and there's the no spoiler alert you

can see who came in 34th who was ranked last in this year's qb tears thanks as always man thank you they say money can't buy happiness look at the fucking smile on my face ear to ear baby you want details bye i drive a ferrari 355 cabriolet what's up i have a ridiculous house in the south fork i have every toy you could possibly imagine and best of all kids i am liquid so now you know what's possible let me tell you what's required Now you know what's possible. Let me tell you what's required. Life advice, rr at gmail.com.

Let's get to it. Here's a gym one. I know this shocks you, but it's an important one. Six foot, 185, 265 back squat. Australian. Okay. His fake name is Greg. I started the gym about a year ago.

My brother's been helping me learn the power lifting ropes. We have just started a new which includes machine work which i'm totally new to it's fine machines um people that dump on machines i don't i don't really get that machines are fine while repping out some leg extensions the weight started slamming into the stack at the bottom of each rep i wasn't aware this was a gym faux pas all right so wait a minute you were doing leg extensions you were just letting the plates on the rack just slam down? We're talking about like the pin thing, right? You put the pin in and he's just dropping all the weight. That's a terrible idea. Yeah.

Yeah. I wasn't aware this was a gym faux pas, but the gym's resident personal trainer, let's call him Daniel, was sure to let me know. In the middle of my set, he stops me and says very aggressively, listen, mate. Should I do an accent? Yes. I don't know. I don't know. It's says very aggressively, listen, mate. Should I do an accent? Yes. I don't know. I don't know. It's early for me.

Listen, mate. There's no need to be slamming the weights down. Fuck's the machine. And it's just no need. It's the best thing to do right now. Shocked that a gym employee would speak to me like that. I complied, finished my workout, and left. Fair. Fair. to me like that i complied finished my workout and left fair fair i wouldn't expect someone at equinox to be like hey you idiot you know

although there's some times where i'd want to say it's somebody else at equinox um shocked at a gym employee would speak to me like that i want your advice on whether or not i should complain to the gym i understand that i was using the machine wrong but i'm worried to let this trainer keep going around menacing people and cursing them out he could really put someone off of training altogether and the vindictive part of me wants to go back at him have you ever had something like this happen i'm surprised you want to show up again after letting the leg extension plate slam down you're totally wrong here man um and even though i understand your point you're just gonna eat the loss on this like just don't do that it looks stupid and it usually means you know um you just shouldn't do

it you shouldn't do it look my dad did it once i worked out with him once and he was like doing the lat pull down thing i was like what are you doing man he's like it's too light and i was like all right relax i'm like you actually, you should have lighter weight that you're controlling a little bit more hair pops. And he was just like, all right, which is really funny because I love my dad. I thought it was funny. But I would suggest, I think you just take the loss.

First of all, you're not going to complain to the business about him. Like your ego's a little dented here. I know exactly what it is. Like you want to say something. It's a little bit like the car thing that I always talk about the four-way stop sign, where even when it's on you, you'd never want to take accountability for it. But it's like when there's some sort of car thing and you kind of know deep down, it's your fault, but the person in the window looks next to you and gives you the finger. And you're like, well, yeah, but what, but what but the fuck but what about and you know and everyone in the car is like dude you were wrong um and then maybe

you tone it down the adrenaline's gone and five minutes later you're like yeah that was totally my fault like i shouldn't have changed lanes the way i did that but it's hard so i know you're kind of going through that in that moment but if it's still lingering to the point we're sending the email i would just say look you did something that is like out loud, a bad look at the gym. And you don't like the way he said it to you, which is fine. He could have handed a little differently, but it's Australia. So I assume you guys are all in jean shorts, beating the shit out of each other all the time anyway. So I think you got off pretty clean here anyway. I thought everybody in Australia would know how to lift. I mean, I don't even lift a ton.

And I know that you don't put the pin in and just slam the weights down in the rack. If I'm the guy working at the gym, stop breaking our equipment. So I hate to break it to the listener because we're pumped that you're writing in and you're listening to the show. But you're 100% right. It's an ego thing. There's nothing else other than this being an ego thing. You were 100% wrong. And you don't want to break the gym equipment.

I don't understand why you'd be mad about that guy getting mad at you doing that. Yeah. I wonder if he did it like was he around his friends or were there people involved that he embarrassed him in front of a bunch of people or was this just kind of a one-off thing? Maybe he could have handled it a little bit differently but you're wrong, dude. I'm sorry. Yeah.

You're just wrong. Okay. We got a guy here hey ryan long time fan 61180 residency in residency training after medical school i met the girl in my dreams the problem was i was married and so was she nice it sounds like it might be a gray's Anatomy episode. I didn't see it. I developed a close friendship with this girl. We would often joke about how our spouses were jealous of our friendship. We eventually started hooking up and talking about leaving our significant others for each other. It all came to a head one night when her husband actually showed up to the hospital to confront me about some texts.

Well, if he only confronted you about the text, you cut off unless you're just a crazy badass. He's super intimidated by not only your success, but stature. After that, me and this girl had a heart-to-heart. In the end, she chose her husband and told me we can never talk again. I had to watch her get pregnant the last year of training while my marriage dissolved and I got a divorce. Oh, wow, so you still were working together. Our man got a divorce.

Fast forward five years, I'm happy, have a good job, an amazing wife whom I love, and a beautiful daughter. Unfortunately, doctor circles are small, and I'm constantly reminded of my previous fling by professional connections. Trying to know exactly what that sentence means. Does he mean just in circles, he'll hear about her? Yeah, I assume they either work together,

or they come in contact with each other, I would assume. I imagine that's what it is, not that other doctors in circles he'll hear about her yeah i assume they either work together or yeah they're they come in contact with each other i would assume yeah i imagine that's what it is not that other doctors and be like man remember when you used to hook up with jane i don't know it's been a huge dick like hey man yeah hey dude suck to suck see how hot jane's husband is getting blue shoes with you uh all right maybe we shouldn't do that to our guy um here's my question i want to reach out to her now that we both have stable families and new lives just to say hi and acknowledge what happened before and that she'll always be a huge part of who i consider my current self i genuinely miss her friendship and know that'll never happen again

it's just a major loose end for me is it a good idea and if yes how should i do it uh the thing about closure usually means the person who wants it um still likes the person that's that's kind of in my experience with it like whenever you're like i'm just looking for closure like now you just want to talk to someone again um and i'll admit like even a couple times like i i thought i wanted it you know I thought I needed it and then I got it and was like oh what the hell like that didn't there's not some great epiphany I mean maybe for some of you there is and so I don't want to act as if my perspective is is absolute but closures I think pretty overrated um so you have this lingering thing i think look i think it's very normal most of us will have that one person um the connection maybe you know throughout different stages of life depending how long you've been single you could there's a couple people that you get a little

twinkle in your eye when you think about right from the past um but you're also in a weird way like time traveling not to sound really weird here but there could be something about that moment in time that she represents i mean although it sounds like your marriage and other stuff is falling apart there could be a time in your life that you miss so much and she represents that so that could be this thing that you're missing um you know i'll admit like i don't know what's going on the last couple years but, but like, I'll hear a song and I'll remember the stretch that I had in Burlington, Vermont and that stretch, I was a loser. I didn't have anything going for me at all, but I, I've lately had this stretch of really

missing it a lot, like a lot. Um, and I lived out there for three weeks and I don't know if I was trying to recapture something cause it wasn't going to be the same. It's just not gonna be the same 20 years older. Now I don't want if I was trying to recapture something because it wasn't going to be the same. It's just not going to be the same. I'm 20 years older now. I don't want to be the same, honestly. But I'll have these moments like, oh, wasn't it so great? I'd just drive around in my beat-up pickup truck and I'd go find a pickup hoops game and then I'd go bartending. It was like, well, no shit. It was fantasy world, man. You didn't have any responsibilities. You weren't older. You didn't have to worry about stuff that you have to worry about now but i'll have triggers that will trigger a memory from that time and i can even like get a little bummed out for 20

minutes and then you go like all right snap out of it because that's not it's not real and if you are being totally honest about how you felt 20 years ago or how you felt in that time, you are glorifying it for certain reasons that are ignoring all the other stuff that was going on. Like the first time I caught myself doing this is when I had a moment where I missed Trenton, New Jersey. And I was like, what the fuck was that? I'm like, what? You missed that? You're like, you don't miss that. You didn't, there's nothing you miss about any of it there was none of it that went well and that is your brain playing tricks on you now that's a further discussion about the process of of having these things but it you have to like you may still just care about this person right you may need this final conversation because it got broken off it was a dramatic it was like a

a puck going into the net and overtime in a playoff game like all of a sudden you're like oh my god this thing's over from the sound of it like that's it um honestly credit to her for straightening it out and credit to you for like doing some really good things and now this is where your close friends would say hey why do you need this why do you need to talk to her why do you need this closure you just said you have a great wife. You've got kids. It's been years. Why do you need this? What is it? Is it your ego? Do you want to know if she misses you? Do you want to know that she regrets it? And that can be part of it too. Closure can be like, I don't want the person back. I don't really want closure. I just want them to acknowledge that they miss me somehow so I feel

like I won which is super fucked up but I think it's also something that happens um so look I'm not going to tell you you can't reach out and if you were I would I would headline it if it's a text or if it's a dm or something again, if she's still with the same guy and you DM her, you're kind of an asshole. So I wouldn't necessarily do that. There has to be a neutral, non-threatening way to the husband that probably still hates you and would love to beat you up. There has to be a respectful way to do it, to figure out whatever it is that you're seeking. But I would headline it first and be like, this is simply about me saying how thrilled I am for you, how everything worked out. But don't start doing shit where it's like, I think about you all the time because now you're

going down a road that you already did with her and she was mature enough to to call it off and and get things back on track but like it sounds like you kind of even with your happiness and the success and all the stuff on paper that looks really good i think you're probably hoping that she says to you like oh yeah i do think about you often and now now you're starting to invite yourself into a conversation which can get kind of dangerous and it sometimes can be fucking pointless. So be careful. I would just say, if you really care about her, leave her alone. Um, wow. It's pretty. No, I just, I just think it's really selfish to feel like, you know, you want to say how, how happy you are for someone else when you don't have to do that. Like you had this thing,

it didn't work out. She chose this other guy. That's a bummer. You talked about closure being overrated. I don't think closure is overrated. I just think it's circumstantial. If she ghosted you, then yeah, you'd want to know why or what went into that decision. There'd be a lot of lingering questions that you would have, but you know exactly what happened. She chose to stay with her husband. You have to accept that. So I just kind of feel like you going out of your way to even just give her a compliment or tell her how happy you are that she has this happy life. It just kind of strikes me as a little bit selfish because you're only going to probably create problems within her relationship again. I think you're right,

Ryan. You're sort of secretly, subconsciously hoping that she says, actually, maybe I made a mistake or I still love you or whatever. And I don't know, man. I think you're kind of setting yourself up for disappointment. And I think it's probably going to bum me out more if you go say hi to her or catch up with her and she kind of reiterates the original decision that she made and that she's just not that interested in you right now. So I think for a million different reasons that this is just a bad idea and you should just leave her alone. Yeah. No, I mean, look, for the people that get ghosted that want closure, I mean, why would you really want to spend a ton of time talking to somebody that doesn't have the respect for you

to even talk to you? No, no, but I get why you just want answers. Even if there aren't answers, even if the answers aren't satisfying, you want the answer to why something happened. But this guy, he knows the answer. Think about what you just said. You're like, you want answers even if they're not satisfying so it's like all right let's make sure we sit down and have some conversation i do i remember i remember the girl that i proposed to after we

didn't talk for a while and then i was back up in burlington and my friend owned a bar and he was like hey you two and then it was weird because she was saying to somebody else she's like sent a spotter ahead of time she's like hey he's back in town he's across the street and then her friend came in and was like hey she wants to come over and see you and i was like are you serious like fucking last call and like all my buddies are here like there's a way better time to do this and then my friend who owned another place was like well let's just go to my place after hours and then you know you two can talk and we sat there and we talked and she was getting blown up by some dude that was trying to find her to hook up with her on her phone while we sat there and we talked and she was getting blown up by some dude that was trying

to find her to hook up with her on her phone while we sat and talked and it was the fucking worst and it was basically the last time we talked and i was like well that and we we experienced some like the closure was this sucks yeah it was way worse in that sometimes you need that but that probably helped you though right you're like okay i'm done like this is yeah i was like all right i was like i already felt bad enough about this whole deal and i was like i didn't come up here to see you i didn't reach out i don't call i don't do any of that shit i was like i'm just i'm in town because it's it's kind of you know i'm not gonna say my town it's not but this is where all my boys are and then they knew the deal because they're like all right how's this gonna go and they're like why'd she show up now like she shows up now like everybody knew he was back in town and she waited

it out she waited it out she sends a friend over to check and see if it's okay and then you know ryan was like cool like yeah all right cool let's talk but i'm like there definitely was a way better time to do it and then i remember just sitting across from her at this table in this place and it's dark it's like 2 33 in the morning and i'm like what's going on with your phone she's like well do you remember and i was like yeah i remember i worked with him and she's like well you know i was like so wait what i'm like you came she's like i just wanted to talk i was just jesus christ i was like this is way worse i was like like, this was stupid. So anyway, good luck with all that. Thanks to Saruti

on the podcast. Kyle Crichton off this week and did not make the flight and it's 100% my fault because the last draft file. He missed the flight. It's my fault because the last draft file the last draft file

didn't go through like 10 different times and we sat there trying to figure it out and we had to change the way we download it and send it out and he definitely missed the flight because of me and i feel terrible about it so we'll see what happens we haven't talked all right we'll talk to you uh what do we get jerm your main O'Neill Thursday? Your main O'Neill Thursday and possibly Kevin Herter. Oh, that's right. Look out. Kevin Herter.

Mama mentality. Thanks. Please subscribe. Great. Review. The writer's little podcast ringer and Spotify. Thank you. you