2026 AFC South preview

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2:18Robert Mays: Today, it is the AFC South preview. Let's waste no time. Some juicy conversations about all of these teams. Let's get to me, Derek, and Dave breaking down the AFC South right now.

2:40Robert Mays: It's the AFC South on the athletic football show today. A lot to chew on with these teams, a few teams that we expect, I think, to make the playoffs, one team that desperately needs to make the playoffs, and then a fourth team that I'm not exactly sure what to do with. I mean, I feel like we talked a little bit before the show. I feel like we know what to do with them and we'll get there. I go through my notes in order of how we're going to talk about them. So I did the Titans last before I came into the studio and it left me unsettled. Yeah, I agree. It just not even not necessarily in a bad way.

3:16Robert Mays: I'm disturbed now. Not necessarily in a bad way. I just agree with you. I have no idea what to do with it. I do want to say this. They're a weird team and we'll get to them. Do you think part of it is the fatigue of this being the sixth division preview that we've done? Where when you get to a team that's a little bit lower down the road, it's a little bit harder. Yeah, it's easy to get up with the teams when you have a lot of juice with them. But when there's one that's a little bit confounding, I think it's harder to get into it. Like the Giants and the NFC East, that was what, like our second division preview.

3:40It's like, OK, we're a little bit earlier in this. You got a little bit more energy. By the time you get to a team like that in the sixth one, it's like, OK, we're a little bit lagging. Not wrong.

3:48Robert Mays: Not not wrong whatsoever. Let's dig into the team projected to be at the top of this division. As always, we are going in order of divisional odds with these. Start with the Houston Texans. Our preview for the 2026 Houston Texans. They're offseason in 60 seconds. Signed Wyatt Teller and Braden Smith and for agency traded for David Montgomery. Maryside Reed Blankenship and Logan Hall brought back at Ingram. Also signed Jevian Clowney during training camp, which I don't have in here because it happened late. Lost Tim Settle, Christian Kirk, Derek Barnett in free agency. He's still on the roster, but they also lost Jaden Higgins for the year tour tour in ACL.

4:25Robert Mays: In the draft, Keelan Rutledge in the first round, Cade McDonald in the second round, Marlon Klein also in the second round, I believe. I think he might have been third. It doesn't really matter. No, he was second. Top 100. Those are the top three picks. With each of these teams, we're going to dig into what we are most excited about as it relates to that team this season. Derek, why don't you kick us off? What are you most excited about with these Houston Texans? I think the best defense in the NFL might be better. Like they are bringing back almost every starter from last year. And the only real change they made is bringing in Reed Blankenship, who is better than anybody who was playing that safety spot for them last year.

5:03And I do think he's a really good fit to fix some of the potential issues they have. Like, it's a very small thing, but sometimes you watch them. It's like, when they're in weak rotation, you can run straight at the safety. And I don't think if you have Reed Blankenship on the field, you can do that as much. And so you add him. Even some of the depth pieces they shuffled around, like bringing Clowney for Barnett, I think is like, honestly, at worst, like a neutral move. Like, I think Clowney could even be better than that.

5:24Robert Mays: He was much better as a pass rusher on a rate basis last year than Derek Barnett was. And the hope is the physicality is relatively the same in a run game. That's what Derek Barnett gives you. And Clowney, like, that's what he did for a large part of his career. He's become a little bit more of a DPR guy because he's a little bit later into his career. But I think off the bench, he's going to give that to them. And then they bring in Caden McDonald for Tim Settle. And Tim Settle played fine for them last year. But I think McDonald, if things turn out well, especially towards the end of the year, you expect that to be a little bit more explosive for them.

5:51Can I be a pedantic jerk? Let's go for it. We're just, we're saying that the Texans were the best defense in the league last year? I am. Okay. If I totally get everyone wanting, there were two answers. One of them is obviously the one that won the Super Bowl. There's two answers and one won the Super Bowl.

6:05Robert Mays: It depends on what stat you look at. They were number one in EPA. They won in EPA. Seattle was one in DVOA. There's not a wrong answer, but I don't know. I felt like our aggrieved Seattle fans I had to speak up. They're not watching this. The only reason they are watching this is to find reasons to be aggrieved. It's to hear me say that. The goblin in my heart could not pick any other defense. I'm sorry. There is no wrong answer. but I my note says the only defense that was in the same zip code as Seattle might be better than it was last year and Seattle has more turnover than absolutely they have guys that were highly paid players they're trying to replace and they certainly could but I do think the Texans personnel has been upgraded compared to Seattle's which I think is at best a neutral move so I'm with you on that I think the re-blankenship part of it and then the Cade McDonald part even if Tim Settle was a fine player for them last year Cade McDonald's ceiling as a player is as high or I think higher honestly than any interior player they have ever had during the D 'Amico Ryan's era who else would even be probably true especially as like a three down player yeah or like a can do everything player like Sheldon Rankins can get into the backfield but if you get four hands on him he's you can move him a little bit and the idea is that McDonald can get into the backfield he can hold up against a couple teams and he has a little bit of juice as a pass rusher this isn't what I'm looking for in the first month of the season but I just want to know how quickly that materializes interior defensive line is notorious for being a steep learning curve even for the most exciting prospects i mean i was just listening back to our afc north preview and we were talking about mason graham and how you're still hoping for more that was a guy drafted five overall and this is one of if not the most talented defenses in the nfl still have rankins tommy togei was a really surprisingly good player for houston last year i hope cayden mcdonald kicks ass right from the get-go but on such a good defense I want to know what that looks like it's the exact same conversation we're having about Mason Graham it's the same defensive style it's the same defensive system and I think it's the same sort of ramp up period and and talking to people there that's the thought process is that it might not happen right away but you see the flashes enough that when it does start to click into place which it has for other players in this defense I've used this example many times but Matt Burke was in Philly when they signed Javon Hargrave in free agency and he came from a very different defensive system in Pittsburgh and it took him a while to learn how to play that way, go look at his numbers in the back half of that first season compared to the first half of his first season in Philly.

8:31Robert Mays: Almost all of his sacks, all of his quarterback hits came in the back half of the year. And so they are aware of the fact that it is going to be a, include and require a ramp up period for Caden McDonald. The hope is that when it does click into place, you see the impact be exponential after that. And I think that's a good thing to bring up Because he was playing relatively deep into week three of the preseason because they're trying to get him those reps. Just live reps. None of their other major players were really playing at that stage. And again, I don't think that's because he's looked bad, but it's like you're saying, it's a different style of defense.

9:03If you're going to play that attack-react sort of defense, you need the reps to learn how to be able to do that stuff. Happy birthday to Will Anderson, by the way. It's like 23. This is being released on his 25th birthday. He was third in the league in pressures and led the league in pass rush win rate. He just turned 25.

9:22Robert Mays: He's one of those guys. It reminds me a little bit of guys like Julio Jones, where you are famous from essentially the time you step onto a college campus because of what sort of prospect and player you were as a freshman. You're hyped up to an unimaginable level. You're one of those can't-miss guys that we hear about for years and years and years. And then you come into the league and he's better. Yep. He's better than most people thought he would be because I feel like some people believe that he had sort of a limited ceiling because of what he would eventually be as a pass rusher. He is a better player than I think a good chunk of the draft community thought he was going to be in the NFL.

10:02Robert Mays: And that comes after like one of the most hyped up college careers we have seen in the last decade. I remember taking issue with some of that, the limited ceiling stuff and thinking like Will Anderson's a better player than some people think he is. But I did not see this. I did not see him being on the short list of best defenders in football in his age 25 season. I mean, even if I was bullish on him, it's just it's an insane ceiling. What you're excited about is also the defense as we make that. The Texans might be the most straightforward team we're going to preview. I completely agree. All of the beats, which is exactly how they play defense.

10:41So it's very fitting. But yes, I mean, everything Derek said, upgrading the personnel on what was already one of the two best defenses in the league. I just can't wait to watch him play.

10:51Robert Mays: I also am excited about watching the defense, if you can imagine that. It is the most unhinged defense in professional football. We have a lot of guys that play like they've lost their minds, and I really enjoy that about them. A couple numbers associated with the Houston Texans defense from last season. On early downs, so the time when it theoretically would be most difficult to defend the pass because they can also run, right? I mean, these are the downs where you have two paths you can take. It is harder to be in true pass defense looks on those snaps. On early downs last season, the Texans allowed negative.25 EPA per dropback and a 37 % success rate.

11:29Robert Mays: That is essentially an average Cam Ward dropback from last year. That's insane. So on early downs, every team in the NFL was the Titans against the Texans last year. That's just unbelievable. And the thing is, again, I think what is so beautiful about it, they play two coverages, man. They play quarters and cover three. I will say this. It is more varied on third down than you might think. Yes, yes, on layer in the down. On third down, they play a little bit more cover six. It's more of a Rolodex thing. And I will say one of the things as we're trying to figure out how, and this is actually one of the things I wanted to talk about, Now, within that limited framework, they do such a great job.

12:10Robert Mays: And I think we don't give the coaching staff a lot of credit with this team because it is so quote unquote simple. It reminds me a little bit of some of the conversations that we've had about the Bengals offense over the last few years. When I think some of the tinkering they've done has actually gone underappreciated because they want to exist in a somewhat smaller box than some of these showier teams. But I really appreciate what the Texans staff does in that limited space. they do tinker with stuff every single year that makes it a little bit harder for you to get a beat on them from 23 to 24 they started playing a ton more man coverage because they realized the corners could do that i think the man coverage rates went up from like 22 23 to like plus 30 on third down and they were a fantastic man coverage team there is more rolodex and coverages this year even something small i won't say the player because i feel like it's betraying a conversation, but there was a player that they had in a certain type of coverage that they were like, if we play it the way that it's taught, he's going to be a little bit more vulnerable than we want, but we want to keep him on the field in these situations.

13:10Robert Mays: And they just, they changed how he plays one specific technique in order to make sure they could live in that coverage because it works for the other 10 players. And it's just something they kind of stumbled into last year. Stuff like that goes underappreciated. And I think this year, we're going to see some more of that. The two things I'd be curious about, they put almost no dime defense last year. Almost none. Do we see a little bit more of that this year? Because you can move Jalen Smith outside and potentially move Kamari Waster to the nickel while you put Jalen Petrie at dime linebacker.

13:40Robert Mays: Just a little bit more personnel diversity than we've ever seen from them before. And then do we see them play a few more five down fronts than we've really ever seen them do in the past? Because this team is as static as it gets when it comes to front multiplicity. Because they can be. And it's another area where they know teams are only going to try to run like a few small subsects of runs against them because of the fronts that they play. So they've gotten really, really good at defending them. But I think those are the two areas where I'm curious, do we see some small tweaks in order to keep making sure that they stay a half step ahead of people?

14:12Do you think the five-man front stuff is some more of like true odd front where it's three interior defensive linemen on the field? No, I think it's a linebacker walking down.

14:20Robert Mays: I think it's toe-to-toe walking down the line of scrimmage. That makes more sense to me based on their personal. Walking down and then walking back. Just kind of giving a little bit of indecision about what offenses are going to see. That would be my assumption. That's something that can sound good in August, and then you just scrap it. And then you're like, what's the point of that at this point? Those are the two things. Like, if they want to experiment, do we see those being the areas of experimentation? Let's get to what we're watching over the first month of the season. Just a curiosity, something you feel like is sort of an unanswered question that you want a little bit more information on over the first few weeks of the year.

14:49Robert Mays: Dave, why don't you kick us off? What do you watch in the first month of the season with these Houston Texans? We all understand what's new and exciting about the offensive line. It has to go into practice now. And again, it's incredibly straightforward because it was one of the biggest problems with last year's team, and it's something they spent a lot of resources on this year. Keelan Rutledge officially going to play left guard to start. Did they say that today? That's the word coming from Nick Casario. Did you see what else Nick Casario said? It depends. He said, we think Keelan Rutledge is our best offensive line.

15:22Yes, I did see that. Does that make you feel better or worse? I was asking Robert about this before the show. Better? Okay. Because you spent a big pick on him, and that was the hope is that he was going to be that guy that kind of changed the culture of your offensive line.

15:35Robert Mays: The depth chart we have on the YouTube video that people are watching has Wyatt Teller at left guard because as of this morning, they had not announced what the starting offensive line was going to be when we made that graphic. But it does seem like it might be trending, like you said, Dave, where Rutledge is going to play left guard. And then that means Evan Brown is going to play center. In that iteration, why I think it's important that Keelan Rutledge is their best player, they didn't do anything. Keelan Rutledge is the difference. Or the upgrade from Jake Andrews to Evan Brown is the only other change that you've made if Braden Smith and Wyatt Teller aren't going to be a part of your starting five.

16:05Robert Mays: So in that universe, Keelan Rutledge better be your best offensive lineman. It is funny and a perfect example of how much time we have to dissect all this shit during a nine-month offseason. because yeah right now braden smith is starting the season on ir and wyatt teller is probably your swing interior guy for the time being i don't think braden smith was going to start even if he was healthy you said you said that like halfway through camp that trent brown seemed like he had a stranglehold on that job so probably not what we anticipated throughout a lot of the offseason just because of the money that was spent on the two veterans but rutledge is there evan brown is a name to get familiar with he was in arizona for the last two years not playing center by the way he played center for the 2023 seahawks up and down like i think can be serviceable he's been a swing interior player for the most part over the last few years i'm this is going to be famous last words because this is their biggest problem but i'm talking myself into thinking that this offensive line can be good good running the football like they i think like but ed ingram keelan rutledge being what you hope he is i think this is this is what you want i don't know how good it is in pass protection but i think this can be like a physical offensive line that can move people that's their biggest issue and so if that is the case if that if the offense can be better and its ability to assert itself on the ground i think that goes a long way we've talked about this when cj stride was on the field last year this team was 12th in epa per drop back like that's not the problem the problem is they have not been able to run the ball and i think the question becomes your two-aversary rutledge is that enough in terms of like a physicality boost for you to feel better and i think the other part of this we talk we're talking a lot about the talent upgrade and i do think the talent upgrade matters continuity and stability is the thing that was most important they were at a point last year where there were so many moving parts and it all felt so unsettled that every time they would run something where they had to pull somebody it was a disaster and so it just became a situation where it was like we're uh let's run duo again let's run it again let's run it again because you can't screw that up and so i think the goal is the talent upgrade makes you more dynamic up front but now the hope is if everything feels a little bit more settled down and you know who the five are they get the next couple weeks to work together now you can actually run the variety in the menu of run plays that you actually would like to and i think in all of this and i actually do i joked about it but i do like i really liked keelan rutlidge coming out of the draft and if he is the player that they think he is and he really as their best offensive lineman.

18:34I do think that that might be enough to be a difference maker in the run game because he can move people, but he also is really good climbing to the second level. Like he's a really good athlete, always goes to the right spot. I think too, we can include in this, the tight end additions. That's huge. It's massive. Every year there's one or two teams that it's like, oh, look at how much six offensive linemen they're running. Does that mean something? And it's like, it means they don't have another tight end that they like. If we can cut down on the Blake Fisher snaps this year, that would be pretty fun.

18:59Robert Mays: So just to put that in perspective, The Texans used 198 snaps of Jumbo last year, which was the second most in the NFL. They used 100 multi-tight end snaps all season. 12 and 13 personnel snaps combined. They played 100 of them last year. 10%. That was not the idea. That's not who they want to be. All of them got hurt last year. It's crazy, which we know what it looked like. It wasn't good, but it's just crazy that they lived that way at all. Like when I saw it was as low as 10 % across 12 and 13, you still see that in the NFL. No, especially now. Yeah. As more teams are trying to do this. I mean, now they're at a spot where I actually didn't look at the 53 and see how many tight ends they kept.

19:42They kept four. At least there might be one or two on IR or something like that.

19:46Robert Mays: So they kept four. Brevin Jordan is the one that didn't make the initial 53. I think they're going to try to sign him back. But Brevin Jordan, that was almost entirely as a pass catching option. and what he can do as a receiver. The four that they kept outside of Dalton Schultz, the other three, I think a big selling point is what they're going to be able to give you in run blocking, and they're all of different roles. Like if you watch the touchdown that Woody Marks scored in the preseason game against the Raiders, you see it. And again, it's the Raiders' backup, so you don't have to read too much into it.

20:13Robert Mays: But you watch Foster Moreau on that play kicks out the defensive end by himself, and then they use Kate Stover as a fullback. Both things that before Kate, and even when Kate Stover played last year, he had to be an inline tight end because they didn't have any other ones. And so the variety and what those guys can potentially give you just in a blocking capacity is just so much different than it was a year ago. So much different. I'm nervous about how hopeful I am that this could actually look pretty entertaining. And worth mentioning David Montgomery as well. Like that's one of the first things they did to correct this was trade for him very early in the offseason.

20:49Robert Mays: And I think that there's stuff you can hang on to with the offensive construction with just a normal level of offensive line play. Because that was the other part last year. We talked about this when we were doing the Stroud segment in the Lingering Questions show. They were trying to do things last year just to get by offensively. The line play was so bad, especially early in the year. They're trying all the seven-man pro stuff, and the pressure rate, even on plays like that, was heinous. And so just being in a place where you can play normal football, where you're getting the ball out quickly, just the things they want to do.

21:18Robert Mays: This team last year, there are a lot of things you can attach yourself to. They were eighth in design rollouts, 0.33 EPA per dropback, 57 % success rate on those plays. Like getting to a place where you can just use normal types of play action, normal passing game, not having to sit there and be worried about, can we block this up? Can we block this up with every single thing you try to do? I think just getting to a normal place with this offensive line in both the run game and when you're throwing the ball is huge. And the other, the last that I want to throw out, we're talking about two to three tight ends in the field.

21:47Robert Mays: They were 30th in total dropbacks and an EPA per dropback with two to three tight ends on the field last year. They were just terrible when they did it and they barely did it. And so that should be a very different version of what this offense looks like compared to what it looked like a year ago. What is keeping you up at night, Derek, about the 2026 Houston Texans? I mean, kind of the other side of the coin of what we're talking about. Like the offense still does have a floor that scares me a little bit. And I think if you really ask me like true serum, do I believe the floor is higher and that I have some amount of optimism?

22:17Yes. But until I see it, that floor and what it looked like at some points last year is still there.

22:22Robert Mays: And I don't think you mean in the playoffs in the playoffs. That's what I was going to say. I don't think over the course of the regular season, it necessarily kills this team from being that much worse. No. But this is a team that is like you're playing for football when it matters. Like you are supposed to be a January football team. and I do still worry that this offense has a floor that once we get there, maybe the offensive line is beat up again or just doesn't take the step that we want them to. Maybe the ideas that we have for this tight end room, it just doesn't actually solidify into anything that they want in the run game.

22:52Maybe David Montgomery, like after years of being a guy who's taken a bunch of carries, just doesn't have the same pop that he's had in years prior. And now you don't have Jaden Higgins in the passing game. And he was, I think, primed for a pretty big year next to Nico Collins.

23:03Robert Mays: Losing Jaden Higgins is huge. Humongous. It's huge. Even after trading for Kayshawn Booty, you just don't have that type of skill set within the offense now. I really do think that he was going to have an awesome season. And he is just such a cool complement to what you have in Nico Collins. And Kayshawn Booty is just a very different sort of player than Jaden Higgins is. And so I'm still just a little bit worried that if they run into one or two meat grinder teams in the playoffs, that they still just don't have it. If the offense isn't, I'm not even going to say substantially better, But if the offense isn't consistently at least a little bit better, you know exactly what the ceiling is for this team.

23:39And it's like divisional round of the playoffs probably. I just think like even with this defense being what it is, you're going to run into a team that will get the better review or will force CJ Stroud into another situation like he was in January or will be able to score 23 points on this defense, which would be enough in this scenario. I just, you're not running that gauntlet without the offense being better, even if this is like a 10-win team with a middling offense. I don't want to walk into the playoffs thinking for the second year in a row that defense has to be the one that gets them over the top.

24:16Like, the defense will be what carries them, but I don't want it to be the only thing that is getting them.

24:21Robert Mays: It's extremely hard to do that. Even in a world where the last two teams that won the Super Bowl have been driven more by the defense than the offense. Philly had both of the last two teams that won the Super Bowl finished number one in defensive DVOA. both you got to get that game though but but you you have to have multiple games and even if you look at what those teams were on offense either for the entire season or for stretches we talked about this with the eagles they were able to tap into a version of that offense that very very few teams can reach because of how dominant the offensive line was and because of what saquon was and they quietly have two of the best like the best receiving tandem in the nfl outside of cincinnati during that season you look at seattle last year the seahawks were third in passing success rate over the course of the season and third in explosive pass rate.

25:04Robert Mays: Those are two very good pillars of what you want your offense to be. Like even if a defense first team has won the Super Bowl, you still need to clear a certain bar and a pretty high bar offensively in order to get yourself all the way there. And even if the Texans offense is considerably improved, it remains to be seen whether they can clear that sort of bar. You got to have some degree of confidence that the offense can score 30 plus points on their day you're probably gonna need to do it at least once they have a calling card like because the eagles and the seahawks even if they had some down games whatever they had calling cards like the the seahawk could generate explosives either with ken walker in the playoffs or obviously jsn at any time eagles we know how many talented player they have nico collins to cj stroud down the field i think is great and i think is pretty explosive i don't think it's to the same level that those super bowl teams have been not yet anyway i don't think we really have to beat around the bush with this the quarterback needs to be really really good for them to win the super bowl yeah they need to be a good passing offense like a board bump pumping up against bumping up against the top 10 sort of passing offense i think for them to win the super bowl because most teams need to be that and i think the question is going to come down to outside of the offensive line improving and just the run blocking improving overall do we feel like the quarterback has that sort of gear to him as we get deeper into the season that's that's going to be it it's pretty simple honestly I think this is the easiest team to diagnose in the NFL this year mine is right there with you guys like I just what's keeping me up in it is does the offense get there the Jaden Higgins thing is huge the offensive line is still a theory I think if you're trying to build the optimistic case for the quarterback beyond this being an outmanned group personnel wise on offense last year it's a new offensive coordinator and a new offensive system And I think what's interesting about the pairing with Nick Caley and CJ Stroud, Caley had been a tight ends coach for a good chunk of his career, but he was the passing game coordinator in LA.

27:00Robert Mays: I think this is true, but I'm almost certain it is. The two quarterbacks that Nick Caley had been on offensive staffs with before he got to Houston were Tom Brady and Matthew Stafford. It's a lot of mental acuity. And just age and experience. And I think when you go from that and quarterbacks that know exactly who they are as players, know exactly what they want, have been in the league for a decade plus, it's just different than working with a guy who, how old is C.J. Stroud? Like 25? Yeah. C.J. Stroud is... Last year was his third year in the NFL. Last year was C.J. Stroud's age 24 season. And I just think that's a process.

27:45Robert Mays: And I think that you have to learn how to get players to respond to you. And I think that a year of this group working together, of understanding what that looks like, him finding his voice in terms of how to find command and ownership of the offense, all of those things, I think, have a chance to be much better this year than they were last year. And I think that's, to me, how you start building the optimistic case for how things are going to look drastically different in year two than they looked in the playoffs last season. I'm not overly worried about CJ if the if the ecosystem around him is right which that is it's at least a step of faith I don't know like how optimistic are you about the offensive line maybe it's a leap but you there is an element of believing that this is going to be better but if it is I'm really not worried about CJ and we've just the highs that we have seen from him at points even if the last thing that we've seen from him was the worst that we've ever seen him play we're really good again I think he played really well against the Chiefs the last time he played them in the playoffs even this past regular season the game he played against them the numbers don't look great but it was like a haymakers versus haymakers fight and he was willing to throw them and I thought that that was incredible and so and the other thing that I've said this before like we need to remember that Sam Darnold played like the two worst games yeah that you could possibly play before he went to the Seahawks and then he goes to them and wins the Super Bowl and so I just don't think that the one stretch like that necessarily defines a quarterback especially Especially in CJ's case, where again, it was his age 24 season.

29:12Going back to the theme of the segment, what's keeping you up at night, though, is that the offensive line could be marginally better or not better at all.

29:22Robert Mays: And we're just back in the same spot where this could just easily be the 20th best offense in the league. And all the defensive stuff is for not. That's not a hard thing to imagine. It's a very easy thing to imagine. And that's what would be keeping me up at night if I were a Texans fan. What does success look like? we're gonna do this for every team for the 2026 houston texans dave the offense and cj play well enough to a hold up their end of the bargain be big picture just because we haven't even mentioned it if cj has a good year you quell the questions and uncertainty about his contract situation i think it would go a long way toward reaffirming that the texans want him to be their guy for the long term and if they do that if cj strout on the offense are are good the rest of this will take care of itself this will be a 10 plus maybe a 12 plus win team if the offense is good then the texans could get to the afc championship game or beyond then i think that's a successful season i said afc championship game that's exactly what i said i think like the defense we obviously know is going to be there and kind of like dave is alluding to but for the offense what that's exactly that's why it has to be now like i don't think the offense looking one step better and then you still get knocked out in the divisional i think like for as good as this defense is and for as good as like some of them are young players but there are still a lot of other expensive guys that they're paying and those young players will become expensive like the neil hunter is taking a little bit 2015 yes and hopefully he can keep doing this for a long time but you can't take that for granted and they really rely on those guys and i do think this thing is thin like if you do remove one of those players even if clowny gives you decent depth This defense feels very different without Daniil Hunter or Will Anderson.

31:04Robert Mays: 100%. The entire thing, when you've built it through this type of defense, because even if it's been a little bit more stable over the last couple years, there is more inherent volatility to defense. It's just more fragile. The windows are just a little bit thinner, and so you have to strike while the iron is hot. You have to make the most of these opportunities. And so saying they have to get to the AFC Championship game for it to be successful probably seems like a high bar, but when you have this type of team, that's just the case. You have to do it now. And again, I'm willing to say that for a lot of AFC teams because the AFC is pretty like, it's kind of wide open.

31:37Like if you think you have a unit this good, you should be getting there. We don't have to relitigate the past, but if CJ had just been meh, they might've done it last year. Got into the Super Bowl. That's right. Got into the Super Bowl. Yes. I don't have to worry about it beyond that. But yeah, I mean, the margins are there. You could do it. And with a defense like this, I think you have to do it. All right.

32:01Robert Mays: Before we get to the Jacksonville Jaguars, let's take our first quick break. Are you the kind of sports fan that wants to dig into the story behind the stats? Join the Athletic Live on YouTube to cover all the sports stories you can't stop talking about. On game days, we'll watch the biggest matchups alongside the Athletic's most tapped in reporters. And you can become part of the show in the interactive chat. The Athletic Live is presented by Google Gemini. Subscribe now on YouTube. Football season has arrived, and with the U.S. Bank Smartly Visa Signature Card, you earn an unlimited 2 % cash back on every purchase, including at the stadium or at home watching on a brand new TV.

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35:14Robert Mays: Speaking of the wide open AFC, let's get to the Jacksonville Jaguars. Our preview for the 2026 Jaguars. They're off season in 60 seconds. Traded Mason Smith for Ruka Roro. Signed Chris Rodriguez. Brought back Monteric Brown. Just traded for Daniel Falalele. Lost Devin Lloyd, Travis Achan, and Greg Newsome in free agency in the draft. Nate Borkutcher in the second round. Emmanuel Pregnant and Albert Regis in the third round. Dave, what are you most excited about as it relates to the 2026 Jacksonville Jaguars? In my adult life, I can't remember the Jaguars having competency and continuity at the two most important jobs in the building the way these Jaguars do.

35:54Robert Mays: You didn't believe in the Doug Marone-Blake Bortles pairing? I should believe in this one. Head coach and quarterback. No, I didn't. And I was just curious. The Jags, and the stats are skewed because they got so hot over the second half of the season, but for the totality of the year, they were 14th in offensive DVOA. That's only their second top half of the league finish in offensive DVOA since David Garrard was the quarterback. It was in 2017 they were up there. No, they were 10th in 2022. They weren't even a top half. Really? The first good Trevor year, right? Yeah. The first good Trevor year.

36:25This is uncharted territory for Jacksonville. And to be primed to do it year over year. Like if they're good on offense again this year, putting together back-to-back years of competency in Jacksonville? Are you kidding me?

36:39Robert Mays: I will say this is a little bit of revisionist history. I have more faith in this, but coming out of that first Doug Peterson-Trevor year, I do think we all kind of believe that it was just going to be like the sky is the limit for this offense. I think both things are true. I think, one, we finally thought that after how bad the Urban Meyer thing was, it was like, okay, he has ground to stand on now. That Trevor Lawrence has somebody here. They were so good in the second half of the season. They were so good in the second half of that season. I do still think that there's a level to Liam Cohen in terms of what the ceiling looks like.

37:10That we probably didn't believe with Doug Peterson.

37:13Robert Mays: Maybe not. In the moment, maybe I'm just speaking for myself. I was very excited about what that could potentially look like in the moment. I have much more faith in this than I do in that. No, that's very valid, especially the way they got into the playoffs and the fact that they even gave the Chiefs a game in those playoffs. That Ravens game is burned into my brain. The Ravens game that Trevor Lawrence played in that game is burned into my brain. That Ravens game was sustaining me through like the two years after that when I was, it was so easy to give up hope. I'm going to talk about this later in the segment, but even the year after that, remember the Jags were like on top of the AFC and gunning for playoff positioning halfway through the next year and everything that's happened since soon came after.

37:56Maybe I am tempting fate by saying this feels different, but it does to me.

38:00Robert Mays: I think when you look at what Liam Cohen did in 2024 with Baker and then when you look at what he did last year, that is different. Even with Doug Peterson in Philly, it just felt a little bit different than what Liam Cohen has been able to do. It was very specific in a way that I have more faith in Liam Cohen's ability to sustain this thing. It was an of-its-time offense. It was like everybody, like they were ahead on the RPOs, ahead on the quarterback run game. It was a very like this works in 2017 offense. You could take what Liam Cohen does now for the most part and paste it over like any other point in NFL history and it would probably be pretty good.

38:34Can I just read some stats that I think are flying under the radar as we please do talk about the Jags from week 11 onward last season, which is when things really got rolling for Jacksonville. Trevor Lawrence finished third in the league in EPA per drop back, second in success rate, seventh in passing DVOA. He scored 24 total touchdowns during this stretch, which led the league. And even if you want to be mean and take away the five touchdowns that he scored against the Jets and everything that was going on there, he'd still be tied for second in that stretch, only trailing Matthew Stafford. 29 passing touchdowns was a career high.

39:1038 total touchdowns was third most in the league, only behind Stafford and Josh. And his interception rate and his turnover worthy play rate were both his best since that 2022 season. He was playing out of his mind. and I don't know maybe maybe I'm just in a bubble but I don't really feel like that's getting talked about the way like as as he was one of the hottest and best quarterbacks in the NFL down the stretch of last season he was he was incredible man and I think a lot of it is to me that is a lot of the how the production came out in the end and they were obviously an incredible offense I think what is so inspiring to me is the way that they played yes Trevor Lawrence my favorite part of this from From week 10 on, Trevor Lawrence was fourth in an average depth of target at 9.4 yards.

39:57He had the second highest rate of his completions that went for at least 20 yards. The only person higher was Drake May on attempts without play action. So just their pure drop back stuff. 21.3 % of his completions went for at least 20 yards. Highest in the NFL.

40:11Robert Mays: That's my favorite part of this offense is the gun intermediate. We are slinging this shit around the yard approach to what they were doing. And he's doing it all on time. He had a 2.73 time to throw despite how far they are chucking it, which was like dead on average in the NFL. Like he is getting to the top of his drop and he is chucking deep outs, post routes, go balls, digs. Like he's not wasting time and sitting there behind this like pristine offensive line or anything. He is getting the ball out and ripping it. My most, the most frustrating parts of me about watching Trevor Lawrence over the last few years, talk about Trevor Lawrence games that stick with you.

40:45Robert Mays: That game they played against the Niners two years ago. It was disgusting. It was disgusting. Like how quickly. He turned the ball over like five times. To me it was about how quickly he was getting the ball out. You just felt this condensed offense that defenses could drive downhill on. And I'm sitting here looking at this guy who's 6 '6 and built like a god. That we talked about his physical skill set for five years before he came into the NFL. And I'm watching this offense just massacre the idea of what he was supposed to be. And I'm like this is awful. and watching that version of the offense we got in the second half of last year is such a far cry from those Jags offenses when they were just completely cutting his legs out from under him and this play style was unacceptable for what he is as a player.

41:28Robert Mays: And that's what was so fun to watch. He led the league in Week 10 on in the percentages of his throws that went to the sticks last year. He led the NFL and that's what they should be doing. And what's so exciting about this, sometimes when you look at back half of the year stats, you kind of cherry pick the end points. it can be a little bit all over the place. There's a very actionable reason why it got better in the second half of the season. The personnel changes, and when you watch the personnel change and it all starts to fit together, you understand what the offense is supposed to look like.

41:58Robert Mays: Jacoby Myers, Parker Washington in their roles. Brian Thomas Jr. shifted into the role he should actually play. And then the last part about this, the other guy I wanted to mention, so when Myers and Washington were on the field together last year, the Jags averaged 0.18 EPA per play. that was the same that's the same number as when we were talking about t higgins and joe burrow okay when you put brenton strange on the field with those other two guys it's 0.33 epa per drop back strange coming back to the lineup is a sneaky part of 100 i love what he is in the offense and we talked about all right the parker washington jacoby myers brian thomas parts of this brenton strange was the only guy who couldn't play the role he's supposed to last year because of what their tight end room look like he had 336 inline snaps last year that's not the player that brenton strange should be the borker part of this to me is not just about adding a big bodied why to the offense it allows you to use brenton strange the way he should actually be used which in my opinion i think brenton strange is like one of the three or four best vertical tight end receivers in the nfl if you look at the numbers last year among tight ends with at least 50 targets there were two guys that had a better EPA per target than Brenton Strange last year.

43:15Robert Mays: George Kittle and Colston Loveland. Probably the two best vertical Titans in the league. And so I am just, you talk about what are we excited about? I hope you can feel it. Like I love the pass catching personnel combined with the way that they were playing last year. And I am really excited to see if they can build on it. Going back to the theme of continuity too. I think it's fun that it's all the same for the first time in Trevor's career. This is the first time he's bringing back all three of his primary receivers and his primary tight end year over year. Like there's been so much turnover with all the shit the Jags have gone through.

43:50And that's good for any quarterback. But I feel like especially him, the way he plays, he's got a little bit of the Dak Prescott. I'm throwing the ball. You better catch it. It helps when those guys know. Yeah, when they catch it and they know where they're going to be and they have chemistry with you. because I feel like half of the interceptions that Trevor Lawrence has thrown over his career is to like some wide receiver for who he's like, I will catch the dig route. And he's not going to catch the dig route.

44:11Robert Mays: What I love about this is that Trevor playing the way that he did last year just gives Derek covering fire to be back in a it's never his fault place with Trevor Lawrence. It's a really beautiful synchronicity. The fourth receiver did it again. This is what it looks like when opportunity meets preparation is what Derek is allowed to do with Trevor Lawrence right now. Let's talk about what you guys are watching the first month of the season with the Jacksonville Jags. Derek, what is on your mind as we get into the first month of the season with this team? I'm just kind of curious, like, does this defense have another gear to it?

44:45Because I'm, I think to say it was a mirage is a little bit strong, but it's a little bit like the Chargers situation where you look at the talent on the roster and how good they actually were, and it's like they kind of overachieved. I think it's a fantastic coaching job. Exactly. It's a fantastic coaching job.

45:01Robert Mays: I think they did an incredible job. I loved watching the defense. And I just think sometimes with those cases, and I even said this about Minter, sometimes you want to see that again. And like, can they iterate a little bit? And can they continue to do that? Because they didn't really add a whole lot outside of Travis Hunter hopefully coming back and playing cornerback. Well, my issue with that is I think they've iterated as much as they could iterate. All the weird shit they have to do to get by. All the knobs are turned to 10 in terms of like the things, that the leverage they're pulling with this defense.

45:30Robert Mays: And I think that's why Cam Benillo deserves a lot of credit. But I think the question becomes, can you do that again? Like, if you think about all the run game stunts they have to rely on, all of the weird, just the sheer amount of like blitzing situationally because they were just doing, the blend of everything was so cool. And I think they maximized the talent with that. Can you maximize it even more than you did? I'm not sure about that. And again, I'm not positive. And like, I think some things went really well for them. Jordan Lewis played exceptionally well for them last year. We came into that year being like, can a 30-year-old nickel really do that?

46:01Is he worth the money? I think that's one of those things that like maybe, again, he got banged up a little bit last year. Like maybe this is the year it falls off a little bit. Like Eric Murray is 32 years old at safety. Like there, I know I've had a lot of words about Devin Lloyd not, you know, maybe his season not being as good as second team all pro. He's much better than Ventrell Miller. You're going to be better off with him. Yes, you are. Especially within Robert, you've brought this up a lot. His length in coverage. Yeah. ventro miller doesn't do that he might give you like equal stuff in the run game but that just means i think on first and ten and stuff when he's going to be on the field as a run defender you can probably pick on them a little bit more over the middle of the field and so i'm just a little bit worried about some of that stuff and that's why i'm curious like what do they do to try to iterate and try to make this thing feel a little bit different with like again mostly the

46:47Robert Mays: same players mine was how the defense looks and feels different and i think there are a lot of things you can point to. Travis Hunter, number one. If Travis Hunter is a difference-making corner, and I'm so open to that. That's already a layer that you're adding to the defense that you didn't have last year. I think the corners played well enough. I mean, Montero Brown is a nice story, but having Travis Hunter just give you a little jolts, that's something that I feel is important for this. Do they see the jump they're looking for from Trayvon Walker? That's another important part of this to me.

47:15Robert Mays: And even with that, do we find more pass rush somewhere? Because that's the area of this defense that when we talk about mirages and the things that can be sustainable that's the one that would leave me the most concerned they were bottom eight last year and pressure rate when bringing four per next gen some of the teams below them patriots or excuse me panthers niners ravens what did the panthers niners and ravens do this offseason they said let me go get one of them passers and then the rate the niners got nick bosa back or then traded for like a lot of these teams and then the one just ahead of them that did nothing because my life is terrible as the Bears.

47:52Robert Mays: But most of the teams that were below them. They have motivated Deo O'Dangbo. That's all you need. Most of those teams did something because I think they're probably a little bit itchy about their ability to get home with four. And if Trayvon Walker doesn't take that step, even if he does, what happens when you have to live in a blitz world where they were at the EPA per drop back when they were blitzing last year? Very good. Success rate, middling. And so on a down to down basis, if you have to live that way, is that something you want to have to do over the course of an entire season? And again, Devin Lloyd was a really good blitzer.

48:20And you can convince me that Miller can be fine in that sense too. Again, I think he's like a good downhill, just like go hit people sort of player. But Devin Lloyd was really, really good at it. Because I think an underrated part of linebackers blitzing, when you go and blow up the running back a little bit, you are probably about as close to the quarterback as anybody. Having that little bit of length to get a hand up in their face goes a long way. And like Devin Lloyd, I think was really, really good for that. So you remove that, you look at that depth that they have at edge. I'm just like, I don't know, man, unless you really are like one of the best pressure teams in the NFL, which I'm open to it.

48:53You might lose a little bit of something here. This is the stories you tell yourself in the offseason, for sure. This is offseason copium. But if you were hoping for more contributions from guys that were already on your team because you didn't have the resources to do a lot in the offseason. It's nice to lean on the number one and number two overall pick in the last.

49:16Robert Mays: can we see jumps from guys that were drafted in the top three maybe yeah if anybody's gonna make one of those jumps uh the linebacker off ball linebacker spot the other one next to foy lu count that devon molly was playing that's another thing i'm watching it's it's not about who can take that spot to me it's about how you cobble it together situationally too ventral miller is more of a thumper branson combs is a guy that i feel like you can use more in coverage if they want to play it situationally and then the other part of this you mentioned if one of the dbs gets hurt i actually think defensive back depth is one of the strengths of this team when you just look at right now because ransaw is back and you still have jerry and jones who had to play a lot last year that's not slated to be a starter so if you lose jordan lewis jerry and jones can capably play the nickel if you lose eric murray i think cale bransaw can play safety so with some of that defensive back depth do we see them play more 60b looks this year especially in passing situations the personnel and the question at the other off-ball linebacker spot I think would lead you to believe they would want to do some more of that and they did it in the first half of the year before they got banged up I think that's actually a really good point that if especially on you know second and really longs or on on some third downs and stuff just bring Jerry and Jones on the field instead of whoever linebacker two would be because you're losing the value of Lloyd not being out there I like that a lot actually and that safety depth is decent right if Ransaw can play for you I do think that there's just a little bit more flexibility on the back end for them this year than they were last year because the secondary was quietly pretty banged up and didn't include travis hunter dave what are you watching the first month of the season with the jags as me and derek sit here and geek out about the defense let me speak for all fantasy football players i say jags how are we sorting out this running backs room me and dave uh did a draft last night and i i took chris rodriguez late you didn't you didn't take basal tootin i didn't chris did yeah because everybody in the world is so high on basal tootin because he's so fast And I hope that your faith is rewarded, but we have no idea.

51:09The Jags running back room in its entirety, Chris Rodriguez, Basial Tootin, LaQuint Allen, 330 career touches. That's not even just carries. That's everything. These guys have like 100 of those. These guys, Chris Rodriguez has 198 career carries and 112 of those came last year. Basial Tootin had 83 carries last year. LaQuint Allen, 23. like there are running backs all by themselves who flirted with this workload last year and that's over these guys entire careers chris rodriguez is very interesting just because liam like he's the one guy they identified the one guy that they spent any money on and liam cohen has a history with him but what does that mean it means that chris rodriguez is

51:51Robert Mays: going to be the lead back for the jaguars as the guy who just drafted in all in every league that i i i need it to happen i kind of like earnestly believe that i don't know about i'd be so So happy. I don't know about lead back, but like in fantasy football is not necessarily a perfect representation of real life. But like he's going for yourself. He's going like seven rounds before Chris Rodriguez. And it's like it's more likely than not. It's like a 50 50 situation. It's music to my ears, baby. Not to keep the fantasy parallel going, but I just imagine I I'm following the money and guessing Chris Rodriguez is going to be on the field the most.

52:25and Basial Tootin is just going to have half a dozen jaw-dropping explosives this year because that's his role.

52:33Robert Mays: I really don't know how it's going to shake out. I mean, I think they believe Basial Tootin can take on a pretty huge workload and because his play strength is an underrated part of his game. Even as a smaller player, I think he's a strong back and he's somebody that can handle more than a speed back typically would be able to from both a workload perspective and just the things they're asking him to do. But I think we're at a point where you can flip a coin. I don't I don't I'm not sure we have a lot of clarity on what exactly it's going to look like. I think Tootin is just the more exciting option here by a hell of a lot.

53:03It's very strange to have a whole running back room with this little NFL experience. But the one nice thing is just this wasn't an amazing running game like Travis H. And he got a lot of money and we're all very happy for him. The Jags were bad. They were bottom 10 and rushing success rate. They were below average and rushing DVOA. they were neither good at yards before contact so like they couldn't block anything and they were not good at yards after contact either so they didn't have anybody who could just create

53:31Robert Mays: shit basial tootin was hit at or behind the line of scrimmage on 51 of his carries last year which i believe would have been the worst mark in the league over the course of an entire year that is untenable they were stuffed at the line on 22 of their attempts this is a good transition ninth in the league it's bottom 10 for for perspective this is a good thing to bring up derrick what What is keeping you up at night about the 2026 Jacksonville Jaguars? The offensive line and run game needs like four dominoes to fall in succession for this thing to work out. One, they are they are flipping their tackles.

54:04Anton Harrison is going to play left tackle. Colvin Lennon is going to play right tackle. Colvin Lennon, who knows what he looks like after the season ending injury from last year. He hasn't practiced. Yeah, he has not practiced. Like, I think that that's an important thing to bring up. Emmanuel Pregnon is going to be playing left guard for them. He's a third round rookie. And I think he looked good in the one preseason game he played, but it's one preseason game and he's a third round rookie. Like you just don't know exactly how much better that's going to be for them. And then you add that on top of like, how good is Basial Tootin really?

54:32How good is Chris Rodriguez really? And so I think you just need all of these things to fall on top of, we haven't even really talked about Nate Borkutcher a little bit. Like how can he really be like a difference making, you know, block tight end out of the gate? And so kind of need these like four things to fall in. I think three of them would probably be enough, but I think one or two of them in this run game is just not significantly better than it was last year.

54:56Robert Mays: And I think it has to be. It absolutely has to be. Because it was bottom of the barrel last year. I think they need to get to a place where it's at least passable if the offense is going to be able to sustain the way that we want it to. Because it's hard to run that hot as a passing offense when teams know your run game is that bad. And I think when you do it over a... You have to be the Bengals. Yes. And when you do it over a seven, eight-week stretch, okay, that's fine. To do it over a course of a season when teams are now coming into the season may be thinking he might be that bad, it would be very hard for them to live that way again.

55:23Robert Mays: I meant before last year's Bengals, by the way. The Bengals last year ran the ball well. But for the majority of Joe Burrow's time, you'd have to be those sorts of Bengals teams where we can line up in the guns, slinging around. There's nothing you can do about it. I'm excited about the pass-catching pieces for the Jags. Do we think they're that? I don't think so. I don't know. I mean, it's maybe. Maybe Parker Washington's Jamar Chase. That's going to have to be true. What a find. I'm in the exact same boat with you. It's just what's keeping me up at night, the quality up front. and what it means for the run game.

55:50Robert Mays: 31st in the rushing success rate in the back half of the season, all the offensive line shuffling. The tight end stuff is worth mentioning, not only just adding a Borkutcher skill set, but now being able to use Strange in the way that he should be used as a blocker too, where you're just having him sift, you're doing all the things that you should be doing as like an undersized receiving tight end. He's capable. He's not a zero. He could get by as a Y, but that's not what you have him there to do. And so I do think the two back or the two tight end, multi-tight and running stuff from them last year was really bad and so them being in a place where that can be a little bit better I think is worth paying attention to I'll say even if when you look at Tootin's advanced numbers he had a 47 success rate on those 83 carries last year despite averaging 3.7 yards a carry I think I think he was doing a decent amount with what was being blocked and so if it just can get a little bit better than it was last year I do have faith in him and then we've talked a lot about the success rate stuff from Rodriguez last year within that offense he was is a good get on base sort of back.

56:48Robert Mays: And so there is a path here, but like you said, I think it just requires a lot of dominoes to fall into place. And when you look at the offensive line, I was going to say, would it be the worst offense? Let's say they win the Super Bowl. Would it be the worst offensive line to have won a Super Bowl in how long? I mean, unless Emmanuel Pregnant is a Pro Bowl out of the gate, it's definitely worse than Seattle. Yeah, exactly. Unless he's that great table from last year. And it's fair to think he won't be. Ray Zabel was a first round pick, Emmanuel Pregnant is a third round pick. And so he's it's probably a worse offensive line than what Seattle won with last year.

57:19And even Seattle winning it last year was a little bit of like usually the offensive line of a Super Bowl winning team is better than that. So I think it's pretty good to bring up. That ties into mine, which is just overarching. When you don't make meaningful personnel ads, you're banking on all of your bets hitting in order to be substantially better. And what keeps me up at night is just how much better are the Jags actually from last year's team, which needed a heater to like be as good as they were. And then even still, you run into teams in the playoffs and they, it was such a great game against the Bills, but they, they went out in the playoffs.

57:57wildcard round like they weren't close and how much better is this team from that i mean we don't have to go back over everything y 'all just said but these are all these are all offseason hopes you you hope travis hunter is that guy you hope that you're right that nate bokercher can make your offense a little more three-dimensional you hope that you're right about all of these young running backs and i just i don't trust that anybody is gonna nail everything to that degree And sometimes they do, right? I mean, to keep bringing up Seattle, I mean, a lot of the offseason bets that they made hit like gangbusters.

58:31It's possible. It just makes me nervous when you're counting on being that correct about that many things to take another step.

58:40Robert Mays: And I do think that they were good on both sides of the ball in a way that doesn't take away from how many games they won. But there are still elements of who they were last year that there was a little bit of luck. And they had 31 takeaways last year. That's a crazy number. The only team that had more is a team that is absolutely not going to do that again, that resides in the city we're sitting in right now. And then the other part of it, Barnwell had a really good stat with this, and I think it's something that's worth thinking about, looking at the defense and why it probably has to be better than it was a year ago for them to do this again.

59:09Robert Mays: 41 % of the Jags' defensive dropbacks last year came against quarterbacks who were not their team's primary starter. That's a lot of good stat. Good pull, Bill. And so they're playing a lot of backups, And I think that does some lifting when you look at just the overall defensive numbers that were very good last year. So I completely understand where you're coming from just with the bets that they're having to make and the fact that the margins feel a little bit slim with those. What does success look like, Derek, for the 2026 Jacksonville Jaguars? I mean, it feels crazy to say about this many AFC teams, but like go to the AFC championship.

59:45Robert Mays: You really you really have to go to the AFC championship game. I think last year they played in the AFC championship game. You know what? You didn't say that. That was your take. I did say that, even though it was a wild card. I appreciate, considering that you're the Jags enthusiast, I appreciate you standing 10 toes down. Yeah. And, like, not backing off of your enthusiasm. I don't think that's necessary. Because I think even some amount of regression with the turnovers and maybe the defense doesn't have quite the same teeth and all this stuff, I still think that they're, like, a 10-ish win quality team.

1:00:16And then if some of the things hit, I do think that they're a little bit better than that. And so, again, I think the part of the reason I'm saying AFC Championship is because it does feel so wide open right now. I don't think that they're quite the quality of team that I would typically ascribe that to. But I do think that they have that gear to them. And the way that they were running so hot at the end of last year, I'm like, they showed me that they have that gear to them and just ran into a really good Bills team. I really appreciate the gap between your expectations and mine, because I just want the Jags to establish themselves as a team that we can trust to be in the mix year over year.

1:00:52That's what I want. And this goes back to the top of to what I said at the top of the segment. I want I want the Jags to make the playoffs without any of the patented Jags bullshit. Let's go back and let's revisit the Trevor Lawrence era. This is year six. two of his five previous years they've been just awful doa four wins or less the other three years in 2022 they started three and seven before going on a six and one run to steal the afc south at the end of the year i had such a good time during that run i really enjoyed it in 2023 they were eight and three at thanksgiving and daydreaming about getting home field advantage in the playoffs they went one and five down the stretch and crashed out of the postseason entirely last year they were four and three at the bye the rams ragdolled them in london and they looked dead in the water and then they went 10 and 1 can we just have a normal like 10 and 7 jags season where we don't have to have something historic happen down the stretch for their season to be decided if they have a quiet 10 and 7 season don't even care if they win the division just make the playoffs without being goofy it would mean a lot to me for a team that you really haven't been able to count on year over year i kind of think that's just inherent to who they are and i don't even mean then how can you pick them to reach the afc title game i mean i know you didn't pick them because i still i do think the floor yeah while i think the floor overall here is higher i do just think that they're like a team that there's going to be some weird vacillations that just what happens in northern florida because i think well this is getting out in front of the trevor apology as early as he possibly can but here's the thing about trevor i think at one point was it earlier this season where I was arguing like I swear to god he's quarterback 11 like and that's a totally fine thing for him to be I don't think he's any better than that even despite how well last season went like I'm still kind of like he is what he is I think if they make the

1:02:47Robert Mays: playoffs again exactly what I wrote is make the playoffs again hammer home that this is an offense quarterback and play caller that is here to stay among the best in the league if you can do both of those things i think that's a success they had no resources this offseason they're not pushing their chips in that being said i was looking up their 13 million dollars over the cap next year they paid a lot of guys cole van lanon jacoby myers parker washington needs a new contract there is less financial wiggle room than you want but they'll have resources again they'll have draft resources again i would just like to not be surprised by the jacks preferably for better but like either way, like they're either surprisingly good or surprisingly bad.

1:03:29Just, just do what I think you can do for once and, and get to the playoffs. That would be fine.

1:03:35Robert Mays: I do feel better about the offense than I've ever felt, including going into the 23 season after enjoying that late season run from them in 22. All right, before we get to the Indianapolis Colts, let's take one more quick break. Want to speed up innovation at scale? AIF to leap from data into action and help. teams design and produce faster and smarter. Transform the everyday with Siemens. Hey everyone, it's Chris Guillebeau here, host of the Side Hustle School podcast. This episode is powered by AT &T Business. In my early days, I did some of my best work in parked cars or coffee shops. When I landed my first big contract, I realized I couldn't bet my future on a public connection that cuts out if someone turns on a blender.

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1:05:50Robert Mays: Let's get to the Indianapolis Colts. Our preview for the 2026 Indianapolis Colts. They're offseason in 60 seconds. Kept Daniel Jones. Kept Alec Pierce. Signed Michael Clemens, Arden Key, Keenan Allen very late, and Akeem Davis Gaither. Lost Michael Pittman in a trade. Quiddie Paye, Braden Smith, Nick Cross in free agency. In the draft, CJ Allen in the second round. AJ Holsey in the third round. Jalen Farmer and linebacker Bryce Boettcher. Why that's important is that all of those guys may have to play at some point this year. what are you most excited about as it relates to the 2026 Colts Dave I think Sauce Gardner and Charverius Ward could be really special if they're both healthy and playing up to their potential and it's a fun thing about trades like the Sauce trade I didn't like it when it happened I didn't really think the Colts needed to do it I thought it was a mistake but You're right about that.

1:06:45Now that we're here, though, he's on the roster. Sauce Gardner is a really, really good football player. And last year was the worst of his career. He only played 11 games. He's obviously banged up. He's still in his quote unquote worst year allowed a 49 % catch rate on his targets, which was top 10 in the league. He was targeted on just shy of his just shy of 14 % of his dropbacks, which is in line with name your favorite corner. He's right there statistically in terms of how often offenses are even willing to go at him. And he had eight pass breakups, which is a top 25 number despite missing six games last season.

1:07:22Like he was still a productive, good player. And he's also I think he just had his birthday, too. He's 25 years old. I think Sauce Gardner is still really, really good. Whether that means the Colts should have traded two first round picks for him is immaterial to this year's team. Charverius Ward, my God, he's been through the ringer the last couple years. I mean, multiple injuries. He was banged up last year with concussion problems, very tragically lost his daughter during his last season in San Francisco. So you could understand why his play might have dipped since he was an all-pro in 2023.

1:07:57But in 2023, he led the league in pass breakups. He had five splash plays playing cornerback for the 49ers. and last year despite missing seven games with concussions he was right behind sauce in the degree to which he was contesting the football he had seven pass breakups this is a hell of a cornerback pairing and Lou Anarumo loves to play man defense and do goofy shit and blitz when he's got a great pair of cornerbacks if they're healthy and playing I think they could have a transformative effect on the Colts defense and we'll get to everything with Daniel Jones and the Colts offense But I have a I don't have a high degree of trust, but I have some degree of trust that this offense can still be pretty good.

1:08:42If the defense is much better than we're giving it credit for, the Colts could surprise you. And I think it starts with these two cornerbacks.

1:08:50Robert Mays: In the second half of last year, the Colts played man on 60 percent of their third down snaps, which was the highest rate in the league. It was four percentage points higher than the Cleveland Browns, which when you're beating Jim Schwartz, when you're laughing, Even the Browns in man coverage rates on third down, you are more than comfortable playing that way. And they had a 40 % blitz rate on third down. On third downs where they played man and brought extra pressure, they were top 10 in EPA per drop back in the back half of last year. That's the vision. That is the vision for the defense. That's how they will have to play in order to get by.

1:09:26Robert Mays: I want to let you have the pristine view on that because I'm going to have the pessimistic view on some of that a little bit later. I'm going to save it because I don't want to step on how much you're enjoying yourself. I at least share some of his excitement. And maybe this is closer to what I'm watching. But like the youth movement in the back, you're excited about nothing overall. You're just watching everything. Yeah, I'm just with the Colts. That is how I feel like I'm just monitoring the situation, at least for the first couple months of the season. But I mean, they just have a lot of young guys in the back seven.

1:09:56Like they brought in, they drafted CJ Allen in the second round, who I think they expect to start at linebacker. Bryce Betcher, who you mentioned, who I don't know how much he will play. but I do like he was playing a lot in the preseason. I think there's a chance that he's probably their third linebacker off the bench. A.J. Halsey at safety who they drafted in the third round was getting a lot of run. And so I think he could be interesting. And then Justin Wally, who I know that you mentioned was they were pretty high on him coming in last season.

1:10:19Robert Mays: They were pumped about him coming into last year. And he's the starting nickel now. They don't seem concerned at all that Kenny Moore just left. Like they seem totally excited about Wally. And I think Wally gives you some man coverage stuff as the nickel. We might as well do this now. Here's what's keeping me up at night. Just skipping all the way. Well, because we're talking about it. Yeah. Don't the Colts have like the easiest what's keeping you up at night? No, because to me, it's not even I think the offense still to me like has a relative floor, even if we don't think it's going to get back to the heights of last year.

1:10:47I think that's fair.

1:10:48Robert Mays: What you just are laying out there. We got a rookie second round pick at linebacker. We got a rookie third round pick at safety. We got a guy we've never seen before is now the starting nickel. Bryce Boettcher is going to play. Yeah, because he is right now probably over camp. CJ Allen was hurt for a good chunk of camp. Bryce Betcher was their best linebacker. The only reason that he's not starting right now is that the idea of putting a second and fourth round pick next to each other at linebacker is terrifying. And so Akeem Davis-Gaither is probably going to play just to give some veteran stability.

1:11:18Robert Mays: And he's a guy who's played for Lou Anaruma before. All of that, all of the youth that you're worried about, okay, Traverius Ward has not played football for the most part in the last two years. So this idea that, oh, man, with Charverius Ward and Sauce Gardner, they're playing all this man coverage, and they're just going to blitz the shit out of people, and that's how they're going to get by. What if Charverius Ward gets hurt again? Have you looked at the depth that the Colts have at corner? Well, then I won't be excited anymore, Robert. But I'm saying that's what's keeping me up at night, is that the margins on this defense and all the things that have to go right for you to feel decent about it, the edge rushing group.

1:11:53I was going to say, Art and Key is starting.

1:11:55Robert Mays: They need some of those day three rookies to give them something as pass rushers this season for this defense to be viable. What I said about them being top 10 in EPA per drop back on third down when they blitzed last year, they were bottom four on early down drop backs where they only brought four in EPA per drop back. The only teams that were worse were the Jets, Cardinals, and Commanders. Oh, buddy. I mean looking through the 2D DeForest Buckner even at his age although comes with injury issues of his own after last year just a guy that's getting up there been in the league for a while after him though it's what?

1:12:34No, the all of the basis for Colts optimism on the defensive side of the ball at least is that those two corners are going to play 15 plus games at a high level Yes and I think I'm excited about it partially because you have no choice but to hope that that happens and not only would it have a tangible effect on your defense, but it would go a long way toward making you not feel sick about doing that trade. I don't know if there's something Sauce could do to justify it, but playing like an All-Pro for 16 games this year would help.

1:13:09Robert Mays: We were talking about the defense. I figured this was the time to pull it out, but that is what is keeping me up at night is that the margins on that side of the ball feel incredibly thin. Let's talk about what we're watching the first month of the season with the Indianapolis Colts. Oh, by the way, what I'm excited about, I didn't hit that. This is the best offense in the league over the first half of last year. We saw them do it. It was a real thing that happened. And even if they started to fall off, the quarterback, before he tore his Achilles, broke his leg. That is a real thing that happened.

1:13:40Robert Mays: He played multiple games on a broken leg. It's kind of crazy he did something worse after that that we just forget that he broke his leg. He broke his leg. And so even if we have concerns about them being able to hit the heights that they hit in the first half when they were one of the best success rate teams of the last decade, and we have plenty of numbers you can throw out. The best one to me, through eight weeks, Daniel Jones leads the league in total EPA when pressured, was top 10 in EPA per drop back and success rate. In weeks 9 through 13, he was 30th after leading the league in total EPA, in EPA per drop back on those plays where he was pressured.

1:14:13Robert Mays: At least some of that, you have to tell yourself, is because the man was playing on a broken leg. But it was always going to fall back to earth a little bit. I think my excitement is, even if we can expect a small step back from the offense, he's been healthy all offseason. Like, he played every rep of training camp. They were doing everything with him. Boots, rollouts. This is not a Kirk Cousins, Achilles situation. And so I do think that there is still a version of this offense that even if they're not the best one in the league, I like Shane Steichen. I like some of the pass catching talent.

1:14:45Robert Mays: The offensive line ecosystem has proven to be very good. Jonathan Taylor is a really, really good player. There is a conceivable universe where I really enjoy watching the Indianapolis Colts offense again. And I am excited to believe in that at least a little bit. See, I just feel like it's the flip side of the defensive thing where the ideal version of this would look. But we saw it. We saw it with the offense. I'm not willing. I and I hear everything you have been very complimentary of Daniel Jones's recovery. Everybody that's gone through Indianapolis is like nothing. It looks like nothing ever happened.

1:15:21It's still training camp and they're still not allowed to touch you. And that is something that I've at least got my eye out for. To me, it's movement skills, though.

1:15:30Robert Mays: Like the idea that you're moving. The only thing he can't really do, and he has said this, is when he's opening the throttle fully as a runner. He's probably not 100 percent. How many times is that necessary? How many times does that happen? They didn't actually run him that much last year. To me, it's more about how nimble are you in the pocket? Like, what can you do with quarterback-based movements? And I think the fact that he's not going to be stationary and he's going to be functionally athletic, that to me gives me much more optimism about what the offense can potentially look like. I'm just imagining, you know who they play week one?

1:16:03Do I want to know? Baltimore. Oh, man. I'm imagining Trey Hendrickson tearing ass around the edge and a play where it didn't seem like he was going to have to be at full throttle turns into a scramble for all hell to the sideline. And I'm not like, I'm not saying he's going to get hurt, but like how ready is he for the actual beats of football? Because in training camp, Trey Hendrickson tags him up and he throws it anyway. And everybody goes, those are sick, those are sick. And the play goes on. That doesn't happen in the regular season. And I at least want to see it before I just assume that it's going to be okay.

1:16:37That's where I'm at. like I'm watching like okay they're letting him play full practice and all that stuff and they're letting him do everything they're letting him boot they're letting him do all of it being comfortable with he can do it and him being healthy and good enough that they are the best offense in the league and I think are two very very different things and so I'm just I think I'm just very curious to see how he looks and then to a not I wouldn't say lesser extent but to a different extent can Alex Pierce play there we're gonna get there we're gonna get there so Dave what are you watching

1:17:06Robert Mays: the first month of this this is what you're watching too was daniel jones's health so let's just extend that yours was daniel jones's health yours is what daniel jones and alec pierce okay and then mine is how the past catching rolls shake out so we're just moving yeah okay so let's talk about alec pierce and your concerns potentially about alec pierce i mean there was a report today i don't know if you saw this you probably put this in beforehand that they were like we hope he can play week one we're nine days away and we're at we hope he can play when he's our 28 million dollars supposed to be our best receiver I just think that like I had already expressed concerns that I think they're hoping that the receiver core is as good as it was last year with uh Keenan Allen being brought in for Michael Pimmons and I'm not sure I believe that now if Alec Pierce isn't going to be 100 especially to start the season I would like to see what he looks like when he does play whatever that might be.

1:17:57Alec Pierce has never had a higher than a 16 % target share in this offense, by the way, when he's been health. So now he's coming off of not having a training camp and is going to be looked at to be that guy that's going to get 24, 25 plus percent of the targets.

1:18:12Robert Mays: This would be where some of my concern lies because they were going to ask him by default, by necessity, to expand what he was going to be doing within the offense. Last year, you saw him add to his game. He went from a pure vertical receiver to somebody who was running more crossers, was running more digs, and doing it capably. And very early in the year, that was clear. But now with Pittman gone, they were going to be asking him to do a little bit more stuff, even closer to the formation, working through some of the muck over the middle of the field. Couldn't work on that over the course of the summer.

1:18:43Robert Mays: Like the guy that we saw add to his game maybe more than any other receiver in the league from the 24 season to the 25 season, and you'd think with another full offseason could do it again, didn't have the offseason to do it again. And I think that part is concerning. And the other part is what was so cool about the Colts offense last year is that the pass catching roles were so perfectly tailored to the skill sets of the players. And now even if you like the players individually and you like the talent of the players, you are expanding what those roles look like. What does that mean? Like what do you get from Josh Downs when you've taken him from the very specific way you were using him to now he is your number two outside receiver.

1:19:25Robert Mays: He's now a vertical player in a way he didn't have to be before. He's going to have more sale routes, more crossers, more 12 personnel stuff, asking Pierce to expand his menu. Who knows? Like one of the best parts about the offense is everyone was placed in their little role perfectly. As you change those roles, can the efficacy of the offense continue? And I kind of feel like maybe Tyler Warren could be this guy in year two, and I would guess the optimistic case for the Colts offense is that that happens. It's he's he's not the flashiest player in the league, but Michael Pittman just felt so central to kind of gluing it all together.

1:20:02In my opinion, he was the runaway target leader for this team over the last four years. Warren was the first guy to get more targets than him over. Go back as far as you want. And I said it to you. I understand the financials of it all and how it all shook out but the eagerness with which the Colts got rid of him considering everything he's been doing for them in a non-flashy capacity surprising to me and I'm not convinced it's just going to gel together even let's even say Alec Pierce is healthy I'm not convinced it's going to gel together as effortlessly as it looked at times last year I like the pieces all of them

1:20:39Robert Mays: I like Josh Downs as a player I like Alec Pierce as a player I like Tyler Warren as a player but as you're asking all of them to do a little bit more does it feel just a little bit less clean than it felt last year that's my problem and I think that's important some guys do take to like a super increased role better but I think that sometimes guys are really productive in very specific roles like there's probably a difference in how Alec Pierce plays and produces when he's getting targeted five times a game versus potentially like 10 if things really go a certain way for them and so I just think how some of that looks and how some of that shakes out I'm a little bit worried I feel a little bit better now that they have Keenan Allen to at least replace some of the Michael Pittman stuff but I think Michael Pittman currently is like a tier or two better than what Allen is giving you I think I read a report he's he's expected to be available for week one despite he was arrested over the weekend that feels worth noting at least how they play the two receiver stuff I'm curious about too just who's out there because I think part of the concern is that the reason that Downs hasn't been a part of those looks before is that his limitations in the run game just make it hard to figure out exactly what you can do when he's out there in those two receiver in those two tight end sets and now the the challenge to the coaching staff becomes we have to play with tendencies right if he's out if we're throwing every time he's on the field defenses are going to start responding to that and so how do we have enough runs in the menu when he's out there and we can hide him in on those runs in order to make sure that we're not creating these really really heavy heavy tendency things as an offense and so I think that's the type of stuff they have to be weighing and I think that was the type of stuff they were weighing even in a world where Keenan Allen wasn't a part of this because the Keenan Allen and Alec Pierce I still think you need Josh Downs and some of those looks for you to feel as dangerous as you want to feel as an offense he was a vertical player at North Carolina he can do some of this stuff and in training camp they the best challenge we talked about this with Spencer Fano how there is no better challenge as a undersized play strength questions tackle than playing against Jared Verse every single day.

1:22:41Robert Mays: Josh Downs every day at training camp has to play against Sauce Gardner and Traverius Ward and press coverage and see what he can do. And so they they know exactly what they can get out of Josh Downs as a receiver because they were pushing against the fence every single day over the last month. We'll see what it ends up looking like. Please never give up. I'm never going to give up. I love I believe in the I believe in the Josh Downs experiment. what is keeping you up at night dave about the 2026 indianapolis colts it all we've covered it all but it all rolls together like at some point trying to replicate lightning in a bottle as you start to lose bits and pieces of it just feels like a scary strategy where if it was just alec pierce moving into a bigger role and coming off of an injury that would probably be fine if it was just daniel jones recovering from an injury that would probably be fine if you were just replacing another starting offensive lineman which we haven't talked about by the way tanner bordellini and matt gonsalves really made me eat my words last year because you would have had no clue that they were new to the lineup jalen travis has to do it this year now maybe he will and maybe the colts just have the secret sauce for replacing starters with day two and day three draft picks and it's not a big deal, but that's something to watch.

1:24:02We just mentioned everything wrong with the defense and counting on two cornerbacks to make up all that ground. Is it possible? Maybe? Is it likely? I don't know. We're going to find out. But there's just, there's so much hope with this team. There's so much like squinting to see it that it makes me nervous that you can actually replicate what we saw last year with as much consistency as you need. I mean, I'm in the same boat. I just don't really think the offense, I just don't think the offense can do even like 85 % of what it did last year. Because again, just the accumulation of all these things.

1:24:40It's not just one thing, like Dave said, it's all of it together. And like, I think the other thing that we haven't quite talked about, and it makes sense, but once Daniel Jones got hurt and then went down, like the run game just was not very good. Yeah, it was bad. Like they just could not move people the same way. Like even if Daniel Jones didn't run a lot, a lot of what they were doing was they were at least making him a threat on some of those runs and also through week 10 when Daniel Jones was playing in healthy they were they were calling the offense in a very specific way they were not running a lot on first down they were like one of the heaviest pass on first down teams at a third lowest designed run rate on first down and they threw to the six 38.5 percent of the time which is the eighth highest in the NFL first down was they like we're chucking it sort of down and then second and third down was like get on track and get our explosives once jones got hurt that flipped i wonder now it's like okay if janiel jones is going to be a little bit not healthy do they really want to be one of the most pass heavy first down offenses in the league because the other teams in that stratosphere are like the rams are kind of like this the bears are kind of like this the jaguars are a little bit of this and it's like those are teams that i think have a little bit better quarterbacks and so at least

1:25:46Robert Mays: especially i think like the rams part of me think is just the way you should play offense though even if the quarterback quality isn't quite at the same level i think that's just the way you should approach nfl offense i think the through line between those teams is the quality of the play callers and the approach that they're taking to the process i agree with that i think with them just being so far on the extreme of it and getting away with it with a lesser quarterback than some of those teams i wonder how how sustainable that really is i think that's my biggest question when i said the burning game was bad it was below average successor for jonathan taylor in the back half of the year.

1:26:20Robert Mays: He had a 55 % rushing success rate on under center runs in the first eight weeks. So to go from 55 % to below average is a precipitous drop-off. So that's worth it. I mean, that would have led the league. By far. By far. The best teams are like 49%. I mean, he was... He was MVP. We had a fight about whether he should win Offensive Player of the Year at mid-season. And it just, you know, a bunch of shit happened after that. I pretty much said my piece with the defense. To me, it's the defensive margins. And I don't disagree with you guys about the offense. I think I'm more willing to, I don't think they'll be the best offense in the league.

1:26:54Robert Mays: I think I have enough inherent faith in Steichen and I like enough of the players that I could see them being a top 10 offense again. I can see them being like a back half of the top 10 offense again. But combining that, if they're the eighth best offense in the league with the defense that, goddamn how many things have to go right for them to even be a top half of the league defense, where does that leave you? it leaves you probably on the outside looking in in the AFC. I will say, I don't want to speak for you, Derek, but the Colts are a fun situation where three weeks into the season, maybe all your concerns about this are satisfied.

1:27:30Like if Daniel Jones really does just look like he picked up where he left off last September.

1:27:35Robert Mays: Does the two halves of last season make you think differently about that? Because it could look good for eight weeks. Well, okay, but he got hurt. Yeah, I know. I know. I'm never going to. But with him, he gets hurt a lot. And I do think that that is a consideration. He does get banged up a lot. Hopefully it's going to be better than broken leg and torn Achilles. Right. That was about as worse, as bad as it had gotten. My nice interpretation of this, though, is like if Daniel Jones is healthy and looks similar and the offense is fine, especially this offense. Like if JT is that guy again, you can ball control the shit out of this and run the football and impose your will on teams to mask a defense like that still works.

1:28:15especially now with the way things are trending back toward the run like this offense could mask a lot of defensive deficiencies if it is that sort of unit i don't know if it will be but you can hope

1:28:27Robert Mays: the volatility they just have to lean into the volatility on defense and that has to be it because outside of lots who taking a significant step which i do think he is capable of doing i think there is a universe where he is a you feel him over the course of these games but them missing out on trey hendrickson this spring is is one of the bigger like pivot point like moments of the entire offseason because if trey hendrickson is on this team with latu and you look at the interior then maybe it's a little bit easier to talk yourself into the youth on in the secondary but now i just think it's again so many things have to go right like it's a little bit different when you're banking on trey hendrickson getting you 12 sacks over the course of the season after compared to some combination of like Arden Key and Caden Curry and Michael Clemens.

1:29:11So many things have to go right for this team.

1:29:13Robert Mays: So let's talk about them going right. What does success look like for the 2026 Colts, Dave? Unfortunately for them, nobody wants to hear that shit. Make the playoffs. It's been since 2020. I mean, they must make the playoffs. Make the playoffs. And ironically, this division was one that you could win with nine or ten wins for like five years. Like this, we joked for years about, oh, just pencil them into the four seed that the AFC South is going to get. I don't think that's the case anymore. We're all super high on the Texans. We'll see if the Jags can follow up that success. But anybody in the AFC could be the one seed this year.

1:29:49That's the feeling. Yeah. But this division produced two 12-plus win teams last year. And that could happen again. That's not outside the wrong possibility. This is at the AFC South. It's a different situation. This is a way harder division to win than it was two, three, four years ago. The Colts, they don't have to win it, but they just got to get to the playoffs. And I think that's much harder in today's AFC South than it was. But I don't think anybody wants to hear it. I mean, Ballard himself said during training camp that he wouldn't give himself a contract extension if it was offered because he knows they need to make the playoffs.

1:30:21Robert Mays: He knows that if they do not make the playoffs, he's out. I don't think there's any ambiguity about it whatsoever. And so I think that organizationally there's an understanding of that. If I can spin it positively just for a second, but if we're trying to think about the optimistic multi-year view on this, the oldest player on the offense is 30, other than Keenan Allen. He doesn't count. Keenan Allen is a camp body. He's going to be here for a little bit. The oldest player on the offense is 30. They have$60 million in cap space next year, and they could free up a lot more of it. If this offensive infrastructure proves to be real, there is runway with this.

1:31:00Robert Mays: there is a multi-year potential runway with this and that does if they look even close to what they did in the first half of the season with the quarterback back healthy and you can project that over a multi-year level and you have resources going into next year could we feel decent about this team if they sneak into the playoffs and the offense proves to be that and that's why i think success for me this is kind of specific be the 2024 buccaneers except in their case they would get to hold over the offensive infrastructure that made the 2024 bucks what they were the 2024 bucks they only went 10 and 7 so it's not like they blew the league out of the water but they were fourth in scoring on offense and they were 16th on defense that's probably about what the vision should be for it was happy too yeah the defensive personnel had some huge questions about it but it got you by it's actually a really it's a good comparison so they the 2024 bucks but keep your play caller yeah they would keep their and obviously you know the bucks get to the playoffs and lose a game to a red hot washington team and so i'm not necessarily saying that part, but just like how the regular season felt and why you were the team that you were.

1:31:59I think being some version of that and then you get to hold over what was good about your team to begin with. I'm like, that's not a bad outcome for what this season could be. But that's a top five offense. It was a top five offense.

1:32:09Robert Mays: That's different than, again, finishing 10th on offense this year and being interesting and we like Stike in, but it's imperfect. That's that gap between those two things to me is the difference maker. Because if they're 10th or 11th on offense, which is like a pretty reasonable outcome given all the stuff that has happened. And they are 19th on defense. Is that a playoff team? Probably not. Probably not. Do you think if they don't make the playoffs, it's a house cleaning? Or do you think Steichen could stay behind? It's a great question. I truly don't know. I think that every organization has to decide how they're going to handle that a little bit differently.

1:32:43Robert Mays: Some teams are just going to look at it as an opportunity for a clean break. I will see what happens this year. It would have to be a truly a real step back from him specifically. for him not to have a job immediately. Sure. Like immediately. That's why if the offense looks remotely similar, you could talk me into that. Yes. You know, changing the general manager, keeping Shane Steichen in place, that doesn't seem far-fetched to me at all. No, I don't think it is, but it just depends on how teams want to handle it, right? I mean, everyone's going to do that a little bit differently, and I understand both approaches to it.

1:33:19Robert Mays: Let's get to the Tennessee Titans. Our preview for the 2026 Tennessee Titans. They're offseason in 60 seconds. Robert Sala in as the head coach. Brian Dable in as the offensive coordinator. It's going to take a while. Signed Wondell Robinson, John Franklin Myers, Elante Taylor, Cordell Flott, Jermaine Johnson in a trade for Devondre Sweat, Austin Schlottman, Daniel Bellinger, Jacob Martin. Again, some of those guys a little bit further down are going to start, so that's why it's worth mentioning them. Lost Devondre Sweat, Arden Key, Sebastian Joseph Day in the draft. Cardinal Tate, Keldrick Falk, Anthony Hill, and Fernando Carmona.

1:33:51Robert Mays: Again, fifth-round pick, but looks like to be a starting guard right now. what are you most excited about as it relates to the 2026 Titans, Derek? I'm kind of excited to see Robert Sala's microwaved defense here. They have at least five new starters on defense. You know, Cordell Flott, they signed. Alonso Taylor, they signed. I mean, you just mentioned all of them. And so I think half of them are guys who played in the New York area. Yes, half of them are guys who have played for the New York area. And like some of these guys, yeah, played for Robert Sala. Specifically, John Franklin Myers had played for him in Tennessee for a little bit.

1:34:24And Jermaine Johnson had a really good 2023 season with Robert Sala, made the Pro Bowl seven and a half sacks. The year after that, he tears his Achilles. And then 2025, this past year, he was kind of working back from that. And so I actually have like a little bit of faith that Johnson could be a year after the year sort of player with the injury. I liked Keldrick Falk a decent amount, especially if he can just be kind of like an early down glass eating type so far in this defense. And so I don't think that this is going to be a good defense, but Robert Sala had last year's 49ers defense that had nobody by the end of the year, especially up front, playing incredibly hard.

1:34:57I think that this defense is more talented than that, especially when you have a guy like Jeffrey Simmons. And so I'm just excited to see how quickly they can get off the ground. Between Salah with the Jets, because like Solomon Thomas is here, Tony Adams is hanging out on the depth chart. Salah with the Jets and Brian Dable bringing in former Giants. I mean, that's 40 % of the roster.

1:35:18Robert Mays: You feel good about that? Not really. I feel better about them than I did. Their defensive roster last year was pretty disgusting at a certain point. I don't disagree with that. It's more so just trying to recreate the Jets and the Giants over the last five years. Is that something we want to be doing? The Jets defenses were really good. I'll give them credit for that. Those Jets defenses were incredible. The problem is, even if you make those Jets defenses, which I think you'll have a harder time doing without Sauce Gardner and Quinn Williams, and you make the Giants offenses, where does that leave you?

1:35:48Not in a great spot. Not in a great spot. Probably outside the playoffs. I'm sorry.

1:35:53Robert Mays: I'm taking the wrong tone with the what are you excited about section. Mine is just the remade front four. Just even beyond that. We'll talk about the cornerback signings. Like those are just the types of things where you're throwing around a lot of money to what end I have questions about. But the front four is just drastically different than it was a year ago. We talked about this when we were discussing. I think it was Donald Wilson and just a different level of talent that he's dealing with with the Giants. Jahad Ward led the Titans in edge pressures last year. so having some combination of Jermaine Johnson, Jacob Martin, and Keldrick Falk as your new edge players compared to what it was a year ago, that is a drastic improvement, and the idea of John Franklin Myers playing next to Jeffrey Simmons, I'll take that.

1:36:34I was going to say, have we said Jeffrey Simmons on this segment yet? Because that's definitely worth being excited about.

1:36:40Robert Mays: Even him just having more help. It's just, and literally, what I'm most excited about is John Franklin Myers playing next to Jeffrey Simmons. That was the thing in my notes, but I was expanding it a little bit, So I'm looking forward to that group feeling drastically different than it did a year ago. I remember really liking Jacob Martin as a bit signing. I didn't expect to see him in the starting lineup when training camp ended, but he had some nice moments. Keldrick Falk is a young player with a while to go. He is, exactly. It's going to take him a little bit to get off the ground. But like, it's not even just to the players are different.

1:37:13Obviously, losing to Monaco's sweat is going to hurt, but he probably never made sense for this defense. This is just such more, I mean, it's the Robert Sala way. it is an attack defense. Jermaine Johnson is going to get up the field. John Franklin Myers is going to get up the field. I think having Simmons in a role where like the whole defense is built around him doing that, I'm kind of excited to see. And then like Solomon Thomas and Jordan Elliott, when they're depth pieces, that's pretty good. Like there have been stretches for where Jordan Elliott has been like a starter in San Francisco.

1:37:36And I'm like, I don't know about that. But if he's coming off of the bench, that's actually a pretty good spot for you to be in.

1:37:41Robert Mays: Dave, what are you most excited about with the Titans? I understand that you have to ignore everything that happened in the preseason to still be excited about cam ward but i am i'm choosing not to see it i'm choosing to believe that it's preseason nonsense i remember when jamar chase said catching pro footballs was harder for him because they didn't have stripes on him and everybody thought he was gonna suck and that turned out okay and jury's still out right exactly i'm triple crown you know i'm i'm choosing to be excited about cam ward despite a month of reasons to dampen my enthusiasm. I mean, the preseason was not pretty.

1:38:22The second game wasn't that bad. The Seattle game, he had some moments. The Seattle game, he had some moments.

1:38:27Robert Mays: We got to move beyond has some moments, though. We got to move beyond has some. I understand, but that can't be the conversation about Cam Ward this year. I will get to that. He didn't have a completion that traveled more than six air yards in the preseason. Yeah. He put a number of them on people's hands, which is the problem that it has been last year. but is cam word you're the same division just it's not we already know that one i'm not the sword is drawn for cam word he is ready i'm not trying to bag on cam ward but i mean and and it wasn't just him by the way like carnell tate had a very forgettable preseason the offense just i wanted it to look more put together i wanted it to look more like guys with a plan instead of squinting and saying that was a really cool throw it didn't get completed but look how look how fast that came off of his hand and it just didn't happen.

1:39:17The, and the, the scramble play, was it against Seattle where he got, that was, yeah, that was, that was, that can't happen. We can't be doing that shit in year two, especially having gone through the year that the Titans already went through. So you're right though. Like it, it, it shouldn't be enough to chase us off of being excited about cam ward. So I am still excited about cam ward. I just don't, don't do that.

1:39:39Robert Mays: Have my, no, don't do that because I was about to make a joke about it. Oh, i'm missing something in in our doc where i have the category i have the category answers this is the best freudian thing i spelled titans are tyants like giants t-i-a-n-n-t-i-a-n-t-s you didn't you didn't do that on purpose that was not on purpose i'd been staring at it i was like that looks wrong it's gonna bother me that's that's that's all you need to know about where my brain is at right now they are the tie-ins they are the tie-ins they are the Tennessee tie-ins unbelievable what are you watching the first month of the season with the Tennessee tie-ins Dave well let's just keep that trend going because I was critical of the free agent additions this just felt very much like a team that spent a money on b players like 70 million dollars for Wondell Robinson 58 million dollars for Elante Taylor 45 million dollars for Cordell Flott I just mentioned at least a couple of New York Giants.

1:40:41When has this worked? Exactly. Their starting center is also from the New York Giants. Starting center. Daniel Bellinger. Daniel Bellinger is hanging out here. Like, look through the depth chart, and you'll remember some guys from the last four years of New York Giants football. I will say, I'll try to be charitable and say, I'm willing to keep an open mind at least. And that's why it's something I'm watching in the first month of the season. Wondell Robinson, even if I don't find him a super exciting addition, he's a reliable guy that can probably be a steadying presence in the slot for cam ward.

1:41:15And even if it, you know, thinking about, it reminds me of what we said about Khalil Shakir in the AFC East preview, where it's like, well, what are you getting? Like in terms of explosives and where are we finding these big plays? I care about that less for cam ward. Cause we're just trying to get to a stable floor for the offense. Like we're just trying to look consistent and respectable. So maybe Wandel Robinson can be better in that regard than I give him credit for. Maybe these cornerbacks, if Jeffrey Simmons and some of the other front players that we talked about are on their stuff, maybe that looks better.

1:41:46So in the first month of the season, I just want to see, do I feel about these big money additions that the Giants paid A money for B players and this was a mistake? Or can these guys do more than I'm giving them credit for? And I think for me, the line is like, I think we all understand they overpaid for all of these players. I mean, that's the name of the game. But I think we don't want to be in Halloween being like already looking at over the cap, being like, how can we get out of this? I think you at least want to be like, that's a mini what is success.

1:42:16Robert Mays: Yeah, you want to be like, yeah, we overpaid. A better way to say it. You're like, yeah, we overpaid. But at least Wondell Robinson is doing something for us. At least Alante Taylor is a good nickel for us. When I say when is this worked out, I more mean on a sustainable level. When we see teams throw this type of money around, even in the best case scenario, We've talked a lot about the 2017 Jags on this show in a way that I can't even believe. But in the best case scenario, you get a 2017 Jags season where you spend all of this money and you have this massive leap. They go to the AFC Championship game and then it fell apart immediately.

1:42:47Robert Mays: And that's often what happens. And so even if we know that, that you probably can't build a team this way, you will need a combination of Carnell Tate and Keldrick Falk to start lifting you in order to be a good team over time. you can still have it be one year where you realize the benefits of spending that way so for this year even if we understand they're not prudent financial decisions over a multi-year period and they speak to a lack of underlying roster talent can the microwaving work they that i i do i'm open to that fact that that could be true i came around pretty easily on the idea of wandel robinson being an important player for Cam Ward's development that in a year or two, you're like, okay, now what's the next thing?

1:43:29But he could be very useful and productive on this version of the Titans, and that is worthwhile.

1:43:35Robert Mays: Why do you think we all want Cam Ward to succeed so badly? Do we just think Cam Ward is cool? He's cool as f***ing. That's a perfectly reasonable answer, but it's like you can feel it oozing out of all of us. Why do we want this so bad? Why are you sitting there spending time idly? I can just imagine you on the couch, like looking at the Titans depth chart, being like, man, Wondell just really gives Cam Ward like a reliable underneath option. He really needs that. We're talking about him like he's our child and like we're watching him play football. Why is that? It might just be because he's cool.

1:44:09Robert Mays: Yes. Six times on any Cam Ward tape, he does something that like very few people can do, even at this level of football. That might sound hyperbolic, but some of the throws he made last year are just completely insane. He's a springy thrower. I enjoy watching him throw the football. And also, he needs to clean some of it up. Don't get me wrong. Like the preseason play is ridiculous, but there's a nonchalance to the way he does it. That is just incredibly fun. And mixing those two things together, it's just enticing. And I won't give up. And that's how I wind up thinking Wondell Robinson's going to have a great year for the 2026 Titans.

1:44:46Robert Mays: we'll save my cam more my what i'm watching was cam word related but we'll talk about that with what's keeping us up at night what is your what are you watching over the first month of the season here derek mine is for the second year in a row can this offensive line get off the ground and i and like peter skaronski i think it has really become come into his own as a really good player jc latham i'm still like holding a candle that he can be a really good player and i think you saw some of those moments even in the preseason i know it's the preseason for a third year player but i think i was pretty high on that austin schlopman i know he made the joke that he's coming over from the New York Giants, but that is like, you hope just passable veteran play.

1:45:21And then Fernando Carmona, the rookie right guard, who's the fifth round pick, he did look pretty nice in the preseason. I have like, you know, again, you don't want to put too much expectations on him, but he at least the fact that they felt good enough about him that they could just cut Cordell Volson, who I think was there if we have to start him guy. I do think that that makes you feel a little bit better about it. And then the offensive line coach, They bring in, I think his name is Carmen Brasillo. That is his name. He was their offensive line coach with the Giants. And like that Giants offensive line did get a lot better over the two years that he was there.

1:45:52He is an objectively good offensive line coach.

1:45:55Robert Mays: The way that guys have played under him compared to where they played elsewhere. Jermaine Illuminor is the best possible example of this. Jermaine Illuminor was an afterthought in free agency and is getting paid real money because of how he's played with the Giants. They've done a great job. And he's somebody that I didn't realize. I was starting a conversation with a couple other coaches this year, and I brought his name up, and they were just like, oh, yeah, he's the f***ing real deal. And I was like, oh, man. Like, I just didn't realize that he had that sort of curating among the coaching world, but very highly regarded as a coach.

1:46:26And, like, Illuminor is the big one. And another one, I think, too, like, they brought in John Runyon to play guard for them. And that, to me, is one of those signings where it's like, a guy who's like a mid-level player, kind of on and off the bench for the Packers. those are signings that can go pretty wrong pretty fast. Ecosystem. And he was totally solid for them. Yeah. It depends on what you drop him into. Yes, exactly. And he was the fact that they've got that. I thought you meant Runyon was in Tennessee, and I was like, God damn, another giant?

1:46:52Robert Mays: They'd be happy with that right now. Oh, my God. Rather than banking on a fifth rounder, which who knows, that might be fine. But you're really asking a lot. You're still asking for a lot. Of your offensive line coach. And I do think that that's another part of this. I think if you looked at it from the outside and maybe you weren't aware of what his track record looked like, you'd say, oh man, they lost Bill Callahan. What is that going to be? I think they're going to be just fine with that changeover. The rest of the offensive staff, we could talk about. But the offensive line coach specifically, I do feel good about that.

1:47:19Robert Mays: What I'm watching over the first month is Cam Ward related. We're going to have that conversation, I think, here in a second. Dave, what is keeping you up at night about the 2026 Tennessee Titans? What if all the sick-ass throws in the world don't make Cam Ward a viable NFL quarterback? It's putting a really fine point on it. Yeah. I looked this up. Among quarterbacks who have attempted at least 150 passes since 2020, Cam's 2025 season in EPA per dropback only finished above Zach Wilson, Shadur Sanders, Dylan Gabriel, Bryce Young, and Spencer Rattler. His success rate narrowly edged out Will Levis, in addition to the guys I already mentioned.

1:48:00Like, pretty bottom-of-the-barrel stuff.

1:48:03Robert Mays: I'll give you one. first 17 games epa per drop back per true media wedged between jj mccarthy and deshaun kaiser not good jj mccarthy who like we were talking about maybe he might get cut from this vikings team and deshaun kaiser who was on that was the own 16 browns year some rough numbers with cam ward's rookie year you know what for as much as i love cam ward kaiser is not a bad comparison because Kaiser's three best throws a game were f***ing elected. Don't say that. Titans fans are running for the hills right now. The other difference with Kaiser, Kaiser had talked about on a podcast that he did not love football that much.

1:48:42I'm not worried about that with Cam Ward at all. I think that there are other elements. Cam Ward loves football. There are other elements that make me feel significantly better about Cam Ward than I would have about Deshaun Kaiser. But just in terms of guy who the arm is incredible and makes two really cool throws a game, but the rest is really shaky. They'll just recoil. you can kind of just recoil stared like side-eyed the shit out of Derek I think it will be a lot better than that but like when you are down with a lot of those other quarterbacks like most of the quarterbacks who live in that world of how bad the EPA per drop back was they don't come out of it you get the Alex Smith every now and then you get the Jared Goff every now and then for the most part those guys end up being pretty doomed and again I think Cam Ward is talented enough and if you want to have some copium about it the only guys that really do climb out of it are the first overall pick.

1:49:27Jared Goff and Alex Smith, both first overall picks.

1:49:30Robert Mays: Alex Smith is a very good example. Jared Goff is, but I think Jared Goff is the more telling example. We've seen this happen where Jared Goff, I throw Caleb Williams in there, Trevor Lawrence, the guys who have climbed out of that sort of rookie year, a lot of them have had massive improvements in offensive infrastructure. They have gotten paired with the guy who has helped change the trajectory of their careers. do we think brian dable is going to be that for cam word because i have serious concerns about that kind of stuff and that is what is keeping me up at night can i ask a different question that is sort of on that path we were just talking about trevor lawrence and the jaguars is there a chance brian dable can be like doug peterson ish where it gets off the ground for a little bit and this is not the long-term answer that actually might be a good comparison gets him off the ground enough that we feel good about the long-term runway that like okay this still needs some improvements but you see enough where you're like yes that's of course that's why he was the first overall pick did you see enough with the giants over the last few years for you to believe that could be true i'm not sure i did and my other concern with this and i brought this up the table offense has really only ever worked when the guy can run cam ward is not a runner like that like he's mobile and he has good escapability but in the same way that like baker is an escapable guy but you don't run him like i think that like that is kind of where i put cam ward i understand what you're saying.

1:50:47Robert Mays: I also think a way of framing that is the Dable offenses only worked when Josh Allen was the quarterback. That is another good way to put it. It only worked when they had a superhero. And I know you're talking about the 22 Giants, but even that was the weirdest offense I can remember. That was an offense that you can't do year over year. That's the thing that works once I was going to say. It theoretically worked. It was a remarkable coaching job. I was incredibly impressed. But then when they've had to expand beyond that in any way, it never came into focus ever. And so that's part of it with me is that I just don't know if this is the right crew to get this thing done.

1:51:22Robert Mays: I just don't know how much faith I have in it. Like you look at, I didn't say this in the moment we were talking about the Cowboys, but I wanted to, and this is a good time to bring it up. One of the reasons I'm so enthusiastic about the direction that Dallas has taken is that you look at the staff and every choice they made about how they built the staff over the last two years, two off seasons combined has been, who's the right guy? Who's the best guy? Not who do I know? Who did I work with? Who's the best guy to have this job? And I think if you look at other teams that have done that, Seattle's the best case example of this.

1:51:54Robert Mays: Mike McDonald hired Aiden Durday to be his defensive coordinator. They'd never met before. He walked into the interview. He impressed him. And he felt like a guy that was a really good complement to what Mike maybe didn't have quite as much. He was a player-centric coach. His ability to connect with guys. what his presence felt like at the front of the room. And you have those puzzle pieces that fit together. That hasn't happened here, right? It happened, and the places where that's happening, I think, is conducive to success. Gus Bradley is the defensive coordinator for this team, right? And like, Jeff Ulbrich is not here in a way that he was when he was with the Jets.

1:52:30Robert Mays: There's just so much of this that just feels a little easy and a little stale, and it seeps out whatever enthusiasm I might have for their ability to pull this thing out of a tailspin. And I think kind of to that same point, I think with some of those coaches, you worry about like, OK, if they come over, are they really going to retrofit this thing to the best ability to the players on hand? Or is it going to be their offense? And with Dable, I'm look at the moves they made this offseason. And with Dable, I'm extremely worried that it will be his offense. And I think specifically for Cam Ward.

1:53:02Let me ask you this, both of you guys. Who should Cam Ward play like in the NFL as a quarterback? in my mind it's like somewhere along the like 23 baker mayfield like jordan love like we are

1:53:16Robert Mays: chucking it as a drop back passer i was thinking about trevor lawrence yeah yeah that's like that i was thinking about yes yeah over the second half of his rookie season and what i expect this offense to be now it's a lot shorter adot it's a lot more rpo it's a lot more quick game i'm like that's not that's not why you draft a precision player that's not what you're asking him to be Yeah. Funny that we would wind up in a similar place as the guy we were just talking about 40 minutes ago and how long it took the Jags to put him into a situation that felt conducive to his skill set. I could do, I could do Jordan love too.

1:53:50I could talk myself into that, but again, that's, that's what Jordan love is doing. He gets nothing like what you're describing.

1:53:57Robert Mays: I would do. I would take that even further. I think Jordan love, if dropped in game one of his career would probably look a lot like Cam Ward did last year. Yes, he probably would. I think that that is absolutely a perfect way to put it. And again, Jordan Love, the reason part of why Jordan Love works, he gets a year on the bench and an incredible ecosystem. Cam Ward got neither of those things. I was about to say something really, really fatalistic and mean. Oh, no. Are we already in a place where we're just going to be thinking about where Cam Ward has to rectify, like resurrect his career in three years?

1:54:29I refuse. even if even if there's reason to feel that way I hope not I can't I can't do that we can't we can't pull the I'll cross that bridge when I get there you can't pull the plug before we've even

1:54:38Robert Mays: seen him play I don't want to do that but he is the perfect candidate for something like that if it doesn't work out here I promise you somebody would talk themselves into cam warden a few years it's also it's it's very instructive to bring up the history with guys like jared goff and obviously you get into these you get into such an enviable infrastructure between coaching and the personnel hopefully brian dable can just get cam ward to a baseline similar to like what i'm talking about with wandell robinson if the titans are like the 21st offense in the league this year screw it the 24th offense in the league this year and cam ward just looks passable that is a step in the right direction to the point where you can start to think about a future with cam ward and And it doesn't have to mean Brian Dable is going to be the OC for the next five or six years.

1:55:31So, no, I'm not already thinking that way. I want to at least see what this looks like with a guy who's played 17 games.

1:55:37Robert Mays: I understand it's a ridiculous thing to say, but it is a thought. But the fact that it's like, yeah, kernels into your mind. It's like, I don't think it's unreasonable. It was mostly a product of how many quarterbacks that we've seen. If he does flame out, how many quarterbacks with this level of talent are just hanging out out there. And it's like, because the thought is if Jordan Love had never wound up in Green Bay, what does Jordan Love's career look like? Yeah. And like Sam Darnold, like these guys that are really talented that never found the right circumstance. It takes a second chance to get the most out of them.

1:56:06Robert Mays: And I hope I'll do this way. I hope we don't end up in that place with Cam Ward. That's all you can do at this point. Although the jokes about cronyism with personnel are just funny. Like the memes where people say like, Brian Dable, what if I hired all the guys who got me fired? Like, that's funny. But when you think about it in terms of the ideas coming into the building, that unsettles me deeply. Like if you're making easy, familiar hires and this is the guys that Robert Sala identified in his second stop and it's just not very inspiring, that unsettled me a lot. I think that's, to me, it's a through line of how really good teams operate.

1:56:46Robert Mays: And like even the teams that and again, I think the Cowboys and the Seahawks, there's another parallel with they made a familiar easy choice with one of the coordinators going into year one because it's year one of a first time head coach. They realized very quickly that was incorrect and then went through an incredibly thorough process to make sure they were hiring the right guy the second time around. I can't believe that we're talking about the Cowboys as an example of what to do. But that's why it feels different. Life moves that fast. All right, Derek, what is success for the 2026 Titans?

1:57:16pretty much what we were just talking about, but not feeling that way. Not feeling like this is the end and that we have to like scrap anything or do we want to move on. I think if you feel like, if you make, again, we can talk about whatever the long-term ramifications for signing these defensive players are, but if the defense is microwaved correctly and we feel like Cam Ward should absolutely continue to be the quarterback moving forward, that's enough. Yeah. Be a pain in the ass to play. Cam Ward looks good. solid has the effect you hope he can on the defense you know the titans have finished with a bottom three point differential the last two years they had a worse point differential than the raiders that's not surprising it's surprising to me the raiders are the team we always use as the benchmark for ineptitude they picked number one in the draft i thought at least the time and especially there were a few like cool cam ward games i was surprised to go back and see that they had a worse point differential than the 2025 Raiders.

1:58:11So have a normal point differential. Even if you win like five or six games, but you're a scrappy, pain-in-the-ass team to play and people don't just write the W next to your name before the game even starts, that would be a step in the right direction.

1:58:27Robert Mays: Write the ship with Cam Ward. Have Saul prove that he's a serious defensive difference maker. That's it. All right. That is all we've got for the Titans and for the AFC pre-AFC South preview. We'll be back tomorrow with the NFC North. Until then, appreciate you guys listening. We'll talk to you very soon. Thanks for tuning in. Make sure to hit that subscribe or follow button so you never miss an episode. If you enjoyed what you heard, please like, comment, and leave a rating. We'll see you next time.

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