40s and Free Agents: The NFC South's 5 Impact Additions and Rookies

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2:31Welcome to 40s and Free Agents. I'm Greg Rosenthal. I am with my friend Daniel Jeremiah, Maya, and we are talking about maybe my favorite division in all of football. I did a whole episode, DJ, about why we love the NFC South on NFL Daily, which is a great podcast. And I have a feeling people listen to both. Do you love the NFC South? I have to love the NFC South because Jason Lytle giving me a hard time if I somehow disrespect the team or aren't including them in some discussion. Is that your buddy? They're always front of mind. Yeah, I've known Jason forever. So there was, I don't know, this happened maybe like 10 years ago or something, but I, some list or one of these conversations and, and he gave me a hard time about it.

3:14So then now, anytime a discussion comes up, I always still kind of think about the bucks. Like, am I forget? Because you just kind of, they're never, that division's never really front of mind. They don't get a lot of buzz or a lot of attention. And then you kind of look up and a team like Tampa has been very consistently good for quite some time now. So on top of that, I think there are Super Bowl contenders this year. So I'll start there. And if you're just joining us here on 40s and free agent, what we're doing, we're doing two shows a week leading up to the NFL season. We're going through every single division.

3:46And we're talking about the top five impact players added this offseason in terms of veterans and then the top five rookies. And we'll apply what we've heard and seen so far in the offseason to that, too. And then we're going to have a couple of fun episodes previewing the season right before that as well. I'm going to start with the Bucs then, because Hassan Redick to me was the type of signing, Daniel, that like that's the type of signing is maybe the cherry on top for a potential Super Bowl contender. I really believe the Bucs are that good. I think they have a lot of room for improvement from where they were a year ago on defense.

4:22They have the right coach for it. And I think Redick, who just had a totally lost year with the Eagles, I mean, with the Jets rather last year, it's so forgettable you almost forget he was there. I think he can give them what they need, which is a little more juice off the edge in terms of their pass rush. Yeah, I like that fit there too. You know, seeing this team last year live, it was one of the most physical teams that I saw the whole season. And when you have Vita Vea, who was just a dominant player, And then you got Kansi who can get up the field as an inside rusher. Those are hard to find.

4:55And now you're able to complement them with kind of a fastball with Hassan Redick on the outside to go along with, you know, Logan Hall, Elijah Roberts, who they drafted are more physical kind of base players. So and then Diaby's a freaking explosive, another explosive player. So they've got guys they can throw at you. But to me, I think that we don't necessarily always talk about them as the physical teams. But when you have an offensive line like they have with Wirfs and company, they move people on offense on their front and defensively. They can reset the line of scrimmage. So I'm a I'm a fan of how they approach the game there.

5:30Here's what I know about a Todd Bowles defense. You know, he's always going to bring the heat and that if they're coming off a bad year, he almost always rebounds. If you look at his history as a coordinator, as a coach, and you look at the rankings in terms of his defenses, it's not perfect every single season. But if he has a bad year, he doesn't stay bad for long. And I think they got younger in the secondary. And then I think some of the additions they made, you know, in the draft and then free agency. And then I do think Redick is just a great candidate to bounce back because he was one of the most consistent pass rushers in the league for about three years before that last year with the Jets.

6:07All right. Give me a rookie. All right. I'll stay with that squad and I'll go to Emeka Buka. First round pick wide receiver out of Ohio State, who is just to me like ready made. There's some prospects when you draft them. Here's our development plan, and year one's going to look different than year two and year three. He is ready-made. This is a clear packaging. You know exactly what you're getting with him. When I pull up my notes on him, to me, and everything out of training camp, you tell me what you've read and heard, but everything, the feedback I've gotten is that he's been excellent in camp thus far.

6:40But he's a little under 6 '1", 200 pounds. He ran 4 '4", 8". Strong, mature, physical. Those are the first three words that I wrote down. He can work in traffic. He's tough. He tracks the ball well down the field. He's really good with just, you know, with late hands. You see guys put their hands up early and get themselves in trouble with pass breakups. He's really just instinctive and natural feel to it. And my comparison was his former teammate in Jackson Smith and Jigba, same school. So I'm really excited about him. I think he's ready to go. Those two receivers have played at such a high level for so long.

7:13Can't do it forever, Greg. And I'm excited to see this next wave of guys they have. And he's going to be the leader of the class. I don't know if there's a single rookie in the entire NFL that has more uniformly positive praise preseason camp reports than him. And I think it starts with Baker Mayfield. I mean, he was on. I forget which podcast it was. I think it was Boston the Boys. And no, it was it was New Heights. And, you know, they asked him about camp and like unprompted. He just said, Agbuka is such a dog. I'm so excited to play with him. He's so smart. He's so physical. And it was just an open-ended question about anything that stood out to me.

7:51And he was just like, I can't believe we got to add this guy to what is already a really good room, which by the way, has a nice young player in Jalen McMillan who played really well late last year. Suddenly touchdowns when Godwin gets healthy, he's the four like that. That's what you want. And you have a good tight end Kate Otten too. Like they they're, they're cooking with gas to me. I think they are right there behind the Eagles as, as like in the lions are in that group too, with as the favorites in the NFC. Yeah. He's just a, he's a really good player. And I, I, if you look at receivers are going to make an impact right away.

8:26It's the guys who are smart. Like you start first there. If you can't learn it, you're not going to be able to either be able to swallow all the information to get on the field. Or when you're on the field, you're not going to play fast because you're trying to process and think through all this stuff. The smart guys tend to have an immediate impact because they can, they can play at full speed. So that's that's a book. I don't know why these types of guys tend to fall in the draft. It's like the receiver that just, you know, does everything well, but isn't like quite as exciting. And there's so much uncertainty in the NFL draft that like I know even these players sometimes don't work out, but he just seemed like worst case scenario.

9:02He's going to help a lot. So I'm excited. And the comp, you know, for him, other than Jackson Smith and Jigua could be Chris Godwin. And that's going to be my second guy I mentioned. So we're going really bucks heavy here. But I just thought it was worthwhile to point out that he had options to leave. And so to me, he was a free agency signing because we heard the offers that he was getting. The Patriots were reportedly willing to go much higher on Chris Godwin. And there were other teams, I think, that were going to give more. Tampa Bay came up. They're paying him$22 million a year. It was a great story of a team really earning a player's trust and vice versa, because he's coming off a really serious injury for the second time in his career.

9:44He's a little older. And I think with Ibuka to kind of connect the two, they can be a little more conservative with his recovery now, DJ, because he doesn't have to go into the lineup right away. And it does not sound like he's going to be ready for the start of the season to me. No, he's playoff. I mean, to me, his value is let's just let's get to the meaningful games at the end of the year. let's get into the postseason I don't think they necessarily need him um which is uh a nice luxury to have but all the different guys you mentioned including an underrated tight end in odd and so to me take your time absolutely no rush whatsoever to get him back out there right and uh the reason I went buck savvy was just all right prove me wrong rest of NFC South when I'm thinking impact players I'm thinking all right who's gonna really matter in some big primetime games late in the season in the playoffs I think the bucks are gonna be in those games and so that's why to me Redick and Godwin really stuck out.

10:34But maybe the Falcons, maybe the Saints, maybe the Panthers will prove us wrong and they'll be in that mix too. I'll just throw one thing at you. Which of those three teams do you think has the best chance to make the playoffs other than the Bucs? It's too early for Carolina. I would say, you know, Atlanta is, there's a lot of talent there. I would probably, I'm probably going to lead towards Atlanta on that one. I don't know if that's... Feel the enthusiasm, Falcons fans. I mean, I fired up. No, I, you know, I don't think they'll do anything when they get there, but I could see them pushing for it.

11:09And every time I talk about that, didn't they sweep the Bucs last year? Did Atlanta beat them twice? These are the Falcons fans. Yeah, they did. They had that Kirk. They hammer me. I'm just not. 500 yards. I can't. I'm just not enthusiastic about them and I can't fake it. So they, you know, they always come out. Hey, we swept them. We're right there. Okay. All right. Well, you did. I can't. I can't refute that. I just don't share quite as much of the optimistic view there. So, and the saints are, saints are not going to be good. So, but again, Falcons are the best of that group. To me, I was just looking this up and I didn't have a chance to pull this final number, but the, I'm putting these two guys together, the two first round edge rushers for the Atlanta Falcons and Walker and Pierce.

11:53So I think both these guys are really, really talented. Last year, the Falcons had 31 sacks. I was curious to see, and I don't think Walker and Pierce get to that 31, but they came close to putting a dent in that with what they did in college last year, just compared to what they've had. And we've been begging them to take a pass rusher forever. Every year we think they're going to do it and they never do. And this year they actually did it. And then they came back and got another one. So they paid a steep price to do it. But I'm fascinated to see these guys who add a lot of speed and athleticism to go along with guys that know how to rush.

12:26So there'll be there'll be guys I'm definitely keeping an eye on this year to see how quickly they get integrated and how they use them. So far, the reports are there's been ups, there's been downs. I don't think anything has stuck out like Jalen Walker sounds like a guy. He's got to show that he can play on the base downs and maybe he'll be ahead there. But he has more to learn in terms of the pass rush moves, whereas Pierce has got that juice. And you could see it in the preseason, them kind of setting him up where they got three guys on one side trying to create havoc. Walker's one of them.

13:02And then Pierce is all one on one on the other side. It's almost like they're setting up Pierce to make that draft pick look good. It's got to look good, DJ. They gave up a first round. I know. I know. That's again, add that into the intrigue here of what that looks like for this team. But I can't I can't blame them on. I thought they got tremendous value on Walker and everybody's been begging them to do something and they hammered it. They doubled down on it. So this is a, it's an important year for them. They, that pick is a top five pick and that goes down as an awful trade. So they, they need to have a good year.

13:33Yeah. I mean, even top 10 is questionable. Now, Pierce is a great player. Then no one's going to complain, but it kind of reminds me of Marcus Davenport in new Orleans. Yeah. Always got stuck with that. We paid two firsts for Marcus Davenport and he got hurt a lot. But if he hadn't been hurt as much, big if, like he was actually a totally solid first round player, but people thought of him as two firsts because that's what they gave up for him. It's not really his fault. And James Pierce is going to be that player for the Falcons. All right. I'm going to pick my enthusiasm up right now. I just feel myself got to get more excited about this, this NFC South.

14:11So that's a challenge to myself. You got to coach yourself up sometimes. So are you up now? Are you up next? Okay, I thought you were firing yourself up. Maybe just more coffee. Just get a little more coffee here. Okay, okay. I will not go with the Falcon, by the way. I guess since we're here, I'll just bring this up. You're not on this show for me. You didn't make any moves. What are you going to, you know? It's a little weird, actually. It's actually a reminder to make a real point about it. This regime has been there for a minute. They made a lot of moves last year. Like, this is kind of a go-time year.

14:40They're saying they like this roster, at least in terms of adding veterans. Like, Leonard Floyd. Or Kirk took all the money. that's that's part of it too so i got no falcons i do have a couple panthers and uh i'll give you one here trevon morig is a mike mayak special you know we love mentioning mike mayak on this show uh drafted back with the raiders the number one guy dj where i send out a rough draft of my top 101 free agents to a few people in the league or or smart smart writers analysts i should do a to you but i just figure like you're kind of busy you don't need you don't need any more extra work uh morig who i had pretty low on my initial rough draft i got back more than any other person like oh you got to move him up he's a good player he's going to get more than you think he he's maybe the best safety that that's available in this class and i was like okay i'm gonna i'm gonna listen to you all and they made me look smart because he got a lot of money and he's gonna try to upgrade this Carolina secondary.

15:43So if you go back to that draft, they took Alex Leatherwood with the 17th pick and Merrick with the 43rd pick. And I remember on draft night saying, because there was a lot of criticism about the Leatherwood pick, but I said, if they would have just flipped those, Merrick to me was a first round player who fell and Leatherwood was a second round player or a third round player, one of the two who got pushed up. So to me, it's kind of where you were picked, but I thought he should have been picked as a first round player. And if he just had that background of as a first round pick, the way he's played, especially as of late, we would be talking about him a lot more as one of the better, better, not just young states, one of the better safeties played really well.

16:22It's a good point on attention, like guys who get taken later. Not only do they tend to suffer in terms of contract renegotiations, although more got all the way to free agency and then he got paid well, like he really did get top safety. It kills him in awards. It kills him in Pro Bowls and all right and all that stuff. Yeah. And partly it's because, yeah, it's hard for the national media out here. I do my best. But to follow all 32 teams. I mean, sometimes you see some of these all pro votes. I was doing some research on Justin Fields earlier this week, and I learned, I don't know if you're aware of this, TJ, that Justin Fields got a fifth place MVP vote a few years back when the Bears and I had to go check.

17:02I was like, was that the year he had all the Russian years? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. um they went 3 and 14 that year someone who should have their vote taken away uh voted him fifth for mvp so not everyone is covering the league uh really completely or people are just homers i just know we're going to uh all this you know all the stats and analytics and and all this formula we've got ai all this stuff i think you're in you're gonna end up losing your vote greg this thing's gonna end up being computerized i want it i've been pushing i I deserve a vote. You got Tom Brady and Teddy Bruschi voting for Joe Tooney, offensive player of the year last year.

17:39Cause he was a teammate to take their votes. Oh, do you not, you do not have a vote then? No, no. For some reason I thought you did have a vote. I'm not allowed. I believe as an NFL employee. That's right. You're right. Or maybe that's hall of fame. They wouldn't, they wouldn't give it to me to, to make one last point on the Panthers and more. Actually I'll combine my next one. Tershawn Wharton is a defensive tackle that they signed. and I can talk about him a little if you want, DJ, but my overall point is this Panthers defense needs to get a lot better. There's a lot of believers in the league.

18:08I know you know this, that Ajiro Evero is a good coach, but they were not a good defense a year ago. And Panthers fans will say, look, if we can just improve to average on defense, this team could be pretty frisky in 2025. I remember talking to somebody there in that building before the season, and it was like, we got a great corner and a great defensive tackle. and then he's just like outside of that like we're we're trying to piece this thing together at this point in time so um yeah a lot of moves were made there and we'll see how that defense comes together they are going to be fun offensively can that get me to my uh next one here no i want to say one nice thing about tershawn wharton because i think the average fan is like who is tershawn wharton he got paid a lot of money first of all he was kind of the backup plant to milton williams but he reminds me they thought they were getting milton williams they thought that was done yeah they did and that's that's disappointing for them but wharton is a guy and i gotta admit i watched more of the like the playoff film because you have more time there's less games wharton popped throughout all last year's playoffs kind of like milton williams like he is a big boy who can move people around and they have some big guys there up front derrick brown who you alluded to their defensive tackle is outstanding and then they brought in patrick jones from minnesota bobby brown from a sean robinson these aren't household names but just a lot of big defensive linemen that if nothing else can help them stop the run which was disastrous a year ago so warren just keep an eye on him if this defense gets good they could be a very frisky team this year we'll see how they do uh i go to the other side of the ball with them for my next one because their first round pick and and ted aroa does not like tet i've been told numerous times so ted aroa mcmillan tmack he's okay with tmack so you can go that route but you've already seen early in the preseason um bryce likes throwing in the ball he gives him some catch radius and room for error down the field.

19:56So you're going to be able to just put some balls up and trust that he can go up there and get them. I still have some concerns just with press, like how he's going to do against physical press coverage. I'm sure he's going to see a lot of that early on to prove he can handle that. Not going to wow you with separation down the field, but someone who can win in tight areas. And with Bryce, he's someone who's comfortable in his accuracy and his touch and saying, And I'll give you a chance, man. Go make a play for me. And I think you'll give him those opportunities. What do you think of that wide receiver room in general?

20:30I know you weren't low on McMillan. You had him in your top 20. Yeah, he just wasn't all the way up there. And there was some urgency concerns with me. I just didn't think he always dialed it up. And I thought there were some loaves. And I didn't think he necessarily played to his size. He is a big guy. I don't think he necessarily played quite as physical as that. He's just got unbelievable body control and, and the ability to, to, to make contested catches. But to me at the line of scrimmage was a concern and some of the urgency stuff was a concern. You had them behind golden, but then again, you had them in the top 20 receivers.

21:07I mean, 20 players overall. Yeah. Yeah. No, in a draft that's kind of, that's totally normal to have guys in that range go where he went. It's a, it's a weird room. So it's him. it's laget it's adam theelin who still can play it's hunter renfro who looks pretty good jalen coker is a young guy who made some plays one thing with mcmillan they drafted terrace marshall pretty high i know this wasn't the same regime they drafted laget pretty high those guys didn't show up right away in practice and preseason and camp and everything and kind of just stamp themselves that like, Hey, I'm a starter. We're counting on you, everything, you know, it's not perfect, but we, we like what we see like right away.

21:53And it seems like McMillan has like, they are counting on him a lot. I think he's got, he's a better football player than those guys. Those guys were, you know, in Leggett's case, a little bit tight, but height, weight, speed, a little bit raw. Marshall just, you know, wasn't a featured player there in the group he was at at LSU. So, you know, this is a more accomplished players, just a better football player who I think will have an impact. Okay, so that is our Panthers section of the show. Get ready, Saints fan. We'll talk about you after the break.

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25:59we are back on 40s and free agents and it's daniel jeremiah's favorite division the nfc south you are up my friend for an impact rookie well you uh got a chance to see this guy live uh week one i guess right not the i did hall of fame game so yeah the second game for me but week one of the preseason tyler shuck quarterback for the new orleans saints uh played well in the game we were at greg um had a pick six and that you don't want to see that but i thought he bounced back well screen game he was comfortable with that kellen more did a good job of kind of giving him some controllable plays got him on the move a little bit he's big he can move around he's got a live arm there's gonna be to me i think it's a it's kind of funny because he's a more athletic version to me of jamis but there's like there's there's a chance he could be a strong double agent like he could run up both sides of the scoreboard.