40s and Free Agents: Offseason Preview for 12 Eliminated NFC Teams

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27:35Back on 40s and free agents and I heard DJ's coaching from earlier in the show that he wants to speed this thing up. But I just, this is my time of year. By the way, have I told you my news, by the way? No. That you're going back to the Masters this year? You like that, though. I didn't even go. This was sent to me to the tournament itself. How old is your youngest, Greg? He just turned 11. I'm going to have my first grandchild in August. Wow. Congratulations. Which is crazy, right? You and Phillip Rivers. I see us side by side here, and I don't think I look that much older than you, which is kind of...

28:17No, I might have more gray. on the side. It's coming in here. You're not, you can't be that far away from Phillip Rivers. So you guys could just like hang out in the super young athletic grandfather club just down there. I don't know. I don't know if anybody, I love Phillip. He's one of my favorite people of all time. I don't think that that was necessarily the athletic vibe that he was putting out there in those. Well, I mean, he's literally in the NFL at his age. Playing well. Playing well. That's pretty good. That's pretty good. Um, speaking of quarterbacks who get by in this era without necessarily a lot of movement skills, Jared Goff still in, in Detroit and, uh, the lions, they're another team that want to talk to Mike McDaniel.

29:01We'll see. He's going to have his pick of the litter, but you know who they choose as play caller is going to be really important. And they're going to have to reshape kind of who we think of as the lions because Taylor Decker is openly considering retirement. Ragnow is not coming back, even though he tried to come back. Like, he's not going to come back for 26. One story we haven't hit on NFL Daily, which I thought was interesting. Brad Holmes all but said David Montgomery is going to get traded. Or not on the roster if they can't. Like, he said, yeah, we're going to consider trading. I was like, okay, I guess he's gone.

29:33And so they're going to have to kind of reimagine who they are, get better up front, really on both sides. On the edge, across from Hutchinson. And then I think even if Decker does return, you know, finding a tackle and getting better on the interior. By the way, I love that I've got you saying reimagine now. It's been a buzzword that I've just latched on to. I've given you this sickness. I've passed it along to you. My other favorite one is from my time with Brandon Staley, who is just, he's a great dude, but he used to always use the phrase onboarding. Like, hey, we're going to onboard some guys.

30:04And then he would say that. And then I would find myself like randomly saying that, like to the kids, like, are we going to onboard some friends this week? What are we doing? It's very corpo-speak. Is that what it is? Yeah. That sounds like it. We would get that at an all-hands meeting at NFL Media. You're too big to attend those now. I get feedback and see just what I miss. That's my goal. They're a team that can restructure, by the way, pretty easily. They're over the cap right now. But not a lot of concerns in terms of their free agents. It's like DJ Reader, Alex Anzalone. So I actually think they're in a good spot to kind of – I think their coordinator is the biggest.

30:42That's their biggest move that they have to make. It's not going to be a roster edition. It's going to be, can they get the right voice in there? Cause there's still so much explosive talent that they have there. I'll go to my next one here, which is Washington, Washington. They have, I'm looking at this. They are picking in the first round here. And then they picked 71. Is that right? Do they not have a second round pick? Let me check that. Is that? Yeah. Yeah, I think you're right. I was looking that up. Yeah, they picked seven and 71. They're a team that needs picks. They are in a tough spot looking at this roster.

31:20Literally, I wrote in all caps, get younger. They've got a lot of guys falling off the books here. They've been, and I think it's not Adam Peters' fault. I think with what he inherited there, they had to turn over the vast majority of the roster. The only way to do that was on these one-year vet flyers. and they hit gold with it the first time. And you're one of that with Jaden Daniels coming in, surrounded by all these older guys who were able to kind of squeeze the last few drops out of that. And then it all kind of blew up this past year. But new offensive coordinator, new defensive coordinator coming your way in the nation's capital, figuring out what do we need to do to keep Jaden Daniels out there healthy for an entire season is a key part of it.

32:05They do have some cap space with all those kind of veteran guys falling off i think they have like 60 million bucks or so um but i mean edge rush secondary on defense more weaponry wide receiver on offense like there's there's a lot of needs but i think the number one overall thing is to me like trading down even trading some existing players for picks like they need to get younger faster just that they need a whole new vibe here they got real old Yeah, it'll be fascinating to watch them in free agency because they have almost the most amount of space as anyone in the league and one of the worst rosters.

32:41There's almost, you can't find a position that they don't have a need. You mentioned them, but they need them. And they have so many of those older players like Von Miller and Wagner and Debo and Jonathan Jones, all these guys coming off the books. Zach Ertz, it goes on and on. Mariota, Eckler, like it just goes on and on. And so it's just it's going to be calibrate and get the right people in there and being competitive, you know, because they're not going to want they're probably cutting Marshawn Lattimore, by the way, that'll open up another 20 million dollars. Like there's there's just a lot to work on there.

33:13Yeah. And then to me, it's going after a different demographic in the free agent market, trying to find some of the younger guys early, mid 20s, first come right off that first contract, try and get that wave and looking at a group that can grow with your young quarterback as opposed to them feeling. I think they were so ahead of schedule last year that was like, OK, well, let's just try and let's try and use this as our window right now, a narrow window. And I think now they can think a little bit more building approach and a little bit more long term. And Adam did a great job when he was, you know, a big part of the drafting process there in San Francisco.

33:45So they need to just they need to buckle down, see if they get some more picks and and see if they can nail the draft. Tunsil is also making noise that he wants an extension. And they've talked about they've talked about doing it pretty openly. Adam Peters says, so that's something to watch out for. The Bucks are in good shape in terms of cap space. Twenty five million dollars. I like that. You start with the picks. I start with the cap space. It's the yin and the yang. OC is wide open again. They interviewed Zach Robinson, the former Bucs coordinator recently, but they're going to have a lot of interviews.

34:19One thing that's on my eye, and they have a lot of interesting free agents, Jamel Dean coming off his best season, Mike Evans, Hassan Redick, K-Dotten is a good player. I don't think they're going to let him go. Maybe they'll tag him. Rashad White, their backer running. So a lot of players that have really contributed a lot for him and a legend in Evans. But one thing on my eye, will they re-sign Baker? My guess is they'll just let him go into his contract year. He's coming off an uneven season. But for capital F franchise quarterback, usually this is the offseason where a guy like Baker would get a new contract.

34:55So that's just something I'm interested in. I think there's still a lot of belief in him there. And a fondness there that could lead you to go in with the glass half full and thinking we get in front of this, we'll save on it. So we'll see. To me, I could see them talking themselves into that pretty easily. They need pass rush. They need linebacker. Levante David sounds like he might be retiring. And they need guards. They love three of their offensive linemen. It was interesting looking at their roster. They basically don't have a guard, which is crazy. Interesting. They got killed by injuries, and their two guys that actually played are both free agents.

35:33And so like they are going to have to add some real depth there. Yeah. And Jason Light's done a really good job of finding offensive linemen and getting value for him where he does. So I think that's a that's a solve there that they can come up with. All right. This next team, Greg, this is my team of the offseason. This is the team that I cannot wait. Last year, I would have said probably New England just because the resources that they had and Drake May going into year two. Like there was a lot of reasons to be optimistic about them finding the right coach and using their draft picks. and they had a bunch of free agent money.

36:05My team of the offseason this year is the New York Giants. I'm fascinated by it. I'm a dart believer. I thought he played really well, especially considering who was not there around him. I don't love seeing the stuff on Neighbors about him being a little bit slow coming back from that injury that maybe was more than we anticipated. But hopefully eventually you get him back in the fold. But this is a team with, if you look at key pieces in place, they've got defensive linemen, got a left tackle, They've got a young quarterback. They've got a number one wide receiver. That's a lot to kind of build off of.

36:37They've got the fifth pick in the draft and the 37th pick in the draft. They need to find the right offensive voice. It doesn't necessarily have to be the head coach, but find that right offensive voice to grow with Jackson Dart. I mean, I'm intrigued by Stefanski, I think, could be a good fit there, but I also could be talked into, hey, go out and get Shula or Minner and come in there, and they immediately solve your defense and maximize the talent you have, and they can bring an offensive coordinator there. I just think there's some fascinating moves to be made. You look at the draft that they had last year.

37:12You get Abdul Carter, who I thought played better than the stats would indicate, especially down the back half of the year. But when you've got Burns, who has not only the great play but the production, Thibodeau, is this one that you could – can you trade him? What can you do from that standpoint with him? Does that create some more opportunities for you? you know, interior offensive line, more weapons on the perimeter. I don't know. I just this is a team I'm fascinated to see what they do and how they put this puzzle together. I agree that if you're just going off rosters, all the Giants fans who are like, why wouldn't John Harbaugh come here?

37:46And we'll see. They're definitely pursuing John Harbaugh. If you're just going off roster, I get the argument. I think they probably are the best situation because of what you said. all to use a Rams term, all those weight bearing walls that like keep key position, premier talent and a little bit of cap space. And yeah, a lot of needs, though, on defense in general, like linebacker, cornerback, defensive tackle. Yeah. But again, though, that's like the you know, you've got to found the D line is the foundation of the defense. That's the hardest thing to find. They got to get Dexter Lawrence rocking and rolling, you know, because.

38:20Yeah, when you said Kayvon as a trade candidate, I was just writing down some notes for this exercise, and I thought, would Dexter Lawrence ever be a trade candidate? He's coming off a down year. It's a tough one. Yeah, I don't know if it was an in-shape situation or what. I haven't talked to anybody there about it, but he's been dominant at times, and he was not really that same guy this year. He was coming off a really serious injury, as we've seen really at every position, But but Kirk Cousins and Rodgers are even a reminder, like the one year further removed. Sometimes you look a lot better.

38:54There you go. Speaking of Kirk Cousins, the Atlanta Falcons have twenty two million dollars in cap space. They have a brand new team president, Matt Ryan. Will Matt Ryan come in there? And the first thing he does is cut Kirk Cousins. He just signed a new contract, Cousins. He's going to be loose. Yeah, that moves the money around. that makes it easier for him to cut. They have kind of come out, at least Arthur Blank. I don't know what that means. You would think it means a lot that Michael Penix is their franchise quarterback and they have some big free agency decisions. Kyle Pitts is a free agent.

39:29He's going to be pretty high on my list. Other than that, Caden Ellis is a good player for them, is a free agent. But I actually thought, you know, doing this exercise, they're in a pretty good position where you could upgrade at almost every position, like other than running back, of course. Yeah. And wide receiver one, you're feeling good. But there aren't a ton of screaming needs. It feels like you can get better in a lot of places. But I look around this roster and actually think like they have a pretty good baseline that Terry Fontenot left for the next GM. I think it's fascinating for every team in that division.

40:05And that because the division is so average, you have a team under, you know, they have three teams tied. to go to the playoffs under 500 like Carolina Panthers did, is you could say, man, we can just go get this veteran, this veteran, this veteran, this veteran, and we can win the division this year. Or it's like I think the better approach is if we just continue to be disciplined and we're building to the draft and we're targeting the right young guys in free agency, we can build a model and we can win this division for the next five, six years. I think that there's two different ways to kind of look at how you approach an offseason when you're in a division that's just frankly very average.

40:42I know because it's funny you have the three teams that tied for first and then you have the other team who believes they have the best quarterback in the division already and he's only going to be a second year player and shuck and it's not that crazy of a thought I mean I'm not not ready to put him like over Baker but if you're telling me like who would I rather have like indefinitely I think I would take the upside of shuck right now he looked that good. I think the health of the quarterbacks in that division is going to be something to keep an eye on too. It's fair. Your last team. Our last team up is the Cardinals.

41:19Yeah. Last one overall. You're out, huh? I'm finishing this off here. Arizona Cardinals, they are picking 334 and 65. So full allotment there in the first three rounds. I believe about$9 million in cap space, but it's going to be all contingent upon the decision with Kyler Murray and, and I just, it does not feel at all like he's going to be there. It feels like that's a very strong likelihood that he gets traded, but you've got to get the coach thing figured out first. And I don't, you know, I always, I always laugh because I'm like, if you're a coach coming into an uncertain quarterback situation and you're coming into the interview, do you come in there and go, I can fix him?

41:59I can, I can make this all right. I can take all that bad, you think is bad money and I can make it look like good money. Or do you come in there and say, you guys have kind of already figured this out. I've already known this for a long time. This isn't going to work. We're going in our new direction. I have an answer for you. You say whatever you think the owner wants you to say. So last time around, they had just given Kyler that contract. It was incumbent on Jonathan Gannon to be like, I can fix him. The first thing they had Jonathan Gannon and Monty Austin Ford do, I don't know if actually the GM Austin Ford went.

42:30Oh, down in the weight room? Was send him, well, in the weight room, yes. But then they also send him to Oklahoma when they retired his number or whatever to go support Kyler Murray in the middle of the offseason and say like, hey, you're our guy. But now that they've been through that and he's gone, this guy, I think the right thing to tell the owner what they want to hear is we're going to find our new quarterback. Yeah, there's nobody new out there. We'll go locate him. Continue to upgrade the offensive line is going to be a big part of that for whoever's playing quarterback. Paris Johnson's there, but adding some more talent around that front.

43:01Obviously, you've got a big-time tight end. Feel good about that. Marvin Harrison Jr. has been a riddle. Just hadn't been healthy. Hasn't been impactful. Michael Wilson's ended up being a revelation. He's been excellent. I want to sign him to a contract. Yeah, there are some. Is he a free agent? He will be entering his free agent year, but he earned himself a lot of money. The last nine games of the season, DJ, number one, it's Pukanakua. Number two, it's Michael Wilson. And number three, it's Jackson Smith and Jigba. Those are good. Yeah, that's not too shabby. No, so that's encouraging. So there are some pieces there defensively.

43:40Just still a lot of work to be done there. So they're kind of one of these teams that it's like you stack up the head coaching board of the best jobs. I don't know. This one comes up on the high end of that thing. I think that's fair because of the history of the organization in general. And when you go through the roster, right, you're stuck having a coach against these three behemoths and these three well-run organizations. And when you go through the roster, you know, Matias and Fort was a little defensive about it when some reporters pushed him on. I saw that. I did see that. It's not a bad roster.

44:19I kind of get what he means when I was looking at it. I was like, actually, they're in good shape cap wise. They don't have any young free agents like Jalen Thompson and Klaes Campbell are their best free agents. They're in good shape. They don't have a lot of guys who are obvious cuts, but there's just not a lot of sizzle. It's a lot of like, hey, we're the 18th best team in the league at a lot of positions. And we're against these three awesome teams in our division, which is tough. Yeah. I mean, I just think I look at it defensively and say, if you're getting ready to play that team in a playoff game, who do you circle on that defense?

44:49And you're like, oh, boy, we better be ready. you know we got to handle this person or that person i don't know just josh wet at and okay your buddha baker unfortunately when i wrote down possible cuts or trade i had to write down uh yeah it was coming off a tough year but uh so i mean i don't know that's an interesting one this is a fun exercise though like this is like the uh i told you before we started off the air that this is like you know kind of we're in i personally in terms of the team needs and as we get a little bit deeper into it i'm kind of knocking out these draft guys is that i feel like i'm the shallow end a little bit but it's a good exercise kind of getting a little bit of a look-see here at where these teams are no this was a great homework assignment i appreciate 40s and free agents for that and uh look our our producer drew christensen he knows what's up so much so that he got us talking about juan jennings remember yeah on last week's show as a as a four-star recruit quarterback and what happens that next weekend yeah the touchdown is great no that what really happened was i sent out uh an image that drew sent me of the rankings of him ahead of burrow and lamar and darnold and uh and that's a hit tweet 2.5 million views on that did you really wow did you have i stole it any attribution on that tweet drew you want to know i'm doing it now that's why i feel bad about it um it's like sean mcfay says the best coaches are the best thieves um so did not did not use that opportunity to plug 40s and free agency there is drew puts in the chat i'm sure we have i'm sure there's 2.5 million listeners right now that's gonna even that math out as you just uh gave him some credit i mean i didn't know i didn't know it was gonna pop like that if i if i did i wouldn't have had a typo on the first try and then had to man it Maybe I would have edited the picture to take away the skin cream.

46:42Yeah. I'm just learning about this. And I'm in literally within five seconds. I thought, okay, how would I approach this to be like, we had a fascinating chat on forties and free agents this week about John Jennings. Here you go. Look at what he was as a high school quarterback. Boom. Everybody's covered. Like you just totally unselfishly promote our little project we've been working on, but nope, didn't happen. Yeah. Yeah, but see, this is where, you know, you being a grandfather and me being, you know, younger and understanding the kids makes more sense. Like, if you did all that leading into it, maybe it does a million.

47:16You know, but it's like, as discussed on 40s and 40s, you don't need all that. You got to get to the meat, you know. Does it look like I have a dip in? I just popped a recall because we're finishing up here. We are done. We're going to be back next week. I really enjoyed this exercise. So we will do the AFC next week as we start this off-season planning here on 40s and free agents. We will see you then.

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