2026 AFC West Preview

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2:17Robert Mays: Welcome to The Athletic Football Show. I'm Robert Mays. Division previews kicking off today. We are starting with the AFC West. It's not a waste of any time. Let's get right into it. Me, Dave, and Derek previewing the AFC West right now.

2:43Robert Mays: Kicking off one of my favorite stretches of the entire year in the NFL calendar and on the athletic football show calendar, the division previews start today, starting things off with the AFC West. Just a disclaimer at the beginning of all of these, I'm going in divisional odds order. I was wondering what your methodology was here. I took my notes in order of finish. I did. So you're doing future odds. Okay. Good to know. That's you. I felt that was just a safe way to do things. Maybe it's disrespectful to the teams that won last year, but that's how we're going to do all of these shows. So let's kick things off with the Kansas city chiefs, our preview for the 2026 Kansas city chiefs.

3:25Robert Mays: They're off season in 60 seconds. Eric B enemy back as the offensive coordinator signed Kenneth Walker, Kairos Tonga, Lohi Gilman, cater Kohu in free agency, traded Trent McDuffie to the Rams, lost Brian cook and Leo Chanel in free agency, drafted monster delay and Peter Woods in the first round are Mason Thomas in the second round. We're going to kick off every single one of these previews with a conversation about what we are most excited to watch this season when it comes to these teams. We'll have to pick something for all of them, even if they're teams where maybe it's a little bit harder to find an answer.

3:58Robert Mays: Derek, what are you most excited to watch this year with the Kansas City Chiefs? I mean, for me, it's just as simple as like, this is a team that for years has not had an explosive runner and really has struggled to gain explosive plays. And they just signed Kenneth Walker to a huge deal. And that's kind of his whole deal. And I think I've said it a number of different points this offseason. You know, I think sometimes it's hard to figure out exactly how much a running back's value is going to like cascade to the rest of the team. But I think in the case of the Kansas City Chiefs, where they were so like historically bad at generating these field flipping runs and getting these 15, 20 plus yard gains that I think bringing in a player like Kenneth Walker, where he obviously gives that to you, it's pretty easy to see how that actually adds something to this offense and where it doesn't just feel like every single play is them trying to squeeze four yards out of everything in the way that they can.

4:50I think if they can just get one of these field flipping plays a game on top of what I think might be a more aggressive and potentially volatile defense, which we'll end up talking about at some point, I do think that that almost kind of gets them back to the formula that was working for them in like 2019-2020, where they were more explosive on offense and the defense kind of worked because they were like, we're just going to get explosive plays and sack the other team and get turnovers and give our offense as many chances as they can. So I just really believe in what Ken Walker is going to do here.

5:20I'm just going to offer up some stats to agree with Derek. because this is what i thought kenneth walker had 42 explosives in the 2025 season combining regular season and playoffs explosive runs all chiefs running backs combined regular season and playoffs over the last two years had 44 explosive runs so kenneth walker's equaling two years of chiefs production last year alone uh all chiefs running backs over the last two years had 10 combined runs of 20 plus yards. Kenneth Walker had 10 of those last season alone, tying Jameer Gibbs for third in the league. Walker's, this one actually really surprised me.

6:01His 32 runs of 20 plus yards since he got into the NFL trail only Derrick Henry, Saquon Barkley, and Jameer Gibbs. Fourth in the league in 20 plus yard runs over the last four years. The Chiefs haven't had a guy like this in a minute. And even like, even if you include receivers, obviously we know Xavier Worthy's a fast guy, a proven consistent commodity of this caliber just hasn't been a factor for the Chiefs on a regular basis since Tyreek Hill. I would even say like the year Rasheed Rice was really good. I'd still think Kenneth Walker is more explosive than that. So I'm excited to see the Chiefs with a genuine threat that can help Patrick Mahomes.

6:42Robert Mays: They had one running back run of 20 plus yards last year. Yes. Chiefs did. One. Got out over the course of the season. by Mahomes and I think Worthy had one or two as well. How is that even possible? I don't know. And it was by Kareem Hunt. Why is Kareem Hunt taking significant snaps for you in the year of 2025? The Chiefs overall had a 3 % explosive run rate last season. The league average is 6.9%. So you are less than 50 % as explosive as an average NFL team. It is a drastic shift. And I was looking at some of the numbers about specific types of runs because I'm actually curious not only about what the addition of Kenneth Walker will do to the overall explosiveness of the run game, but structurally, how much change are we going to see?

7:25Robert Mays: Because we've heard so much about the under center stuff we've seen from the Chiefs during the preseason, how much more of that is going to happen. Walker's run, Walker's explosive run rate on outside zone runs from under center last year, Pursumer Sports, was about double the Chiefs rate. Part of the Chiefs' issues with explosive runs is that they were in the shotgun on 60 % of their runs, last year, which is the fifth highest rate in the league. It's just harder to be explosive from the gun. We talked about that with the Bengals this offseason. Like, that's just a consistent talking point. So I think that them being under center a little bit more combined with the Kenneth Walker thing, that is the plan here.

8:01Robert Mays: And I completely understand that plan. And it really should be, because too, if you think about even when the Chiefs had been good at running the ball, what was it, two years ago? A lot of it was downhill. Like you're saying, it's either gun like inside zone. They were doing like some counter and stuff, but it was a lot of duo. Like it was like we are grinding teams down and they were still kind of able to do that this year, but they just haven't really had a runner where it's worth running that much outside zone in a long time. Like even when Isaiah Pacheco was really good, I just don't think that that's really like the best use of a runner like that.

8:31Whereas like Kenneth Walker, you're trying to do as much of that stuff as you possibly can. We'll talk about the pass catchers later in this section, but clearly the hope has to be to that Walker has an outsized effect on the favorability of, of coverage looks and the amount of guys that are hopefully in the box. I mean, another thing I thought was really staggering is the chiefs ran into neutral and stacked boxes at the third row, lowest rate in the league last year. And despite all of the light boxes, it wasn't always bad. Obviously, we know for how non-explosive he was, Kareem Hunt's been one of the most efficient running backs in the NFL over the last couple years.

9:09But it wasn't good. And so either being able to take advantage of light boxes and teams dropping guys out of the box on you or loading that thing up and making it easier on these receivers to find favorable advantages. I just feel like that has to be the logic for the Chiefs this year, given what they did or did not do with their pass catchers.

9:32Robert Mays: The thing I'm most excited about, just very quickly, it's on the defensive side of the ball. I knew we were going to hit the Kenneth Walker stuff in this conversation, but I'm really excited to see what a remade defensive front looks like for the Chiefs because this is a team that has been relying on Chris Jones, sort of George Karloftis, and not much else over the last few years, especially in the interior. I mean, this is a team that year over year, we have a Derek Nottie or a Derek Nottie-esque player next to Chris Jones over and over and over again. The leading interior defensive line snap getters for the Chiefs last year, other than Chris Jones, were Jerry Tillery and Derek Nottie, both of whom signed with the Colts this year for the minimum.

10:10Robert Mays: Those are their two other interior defensive line snap getting guys. So now we're in a spot where you've got Kyrus Tonga at nose. You drafted Peter Woods in the first round. R. Mason Thomas is a pass down option with Aston Jelotti hopefully in there on early downs. It's just a completely remade group. Last year, they had Chanel play up on the line of scrimmage because I think their edge depth was so questionable. He played 35 % of his snaps on the line of scrimmage last year per PFF. They had one other defensive lineman other than Chris Jones or Karl Loftus get more than 25 pressures last year.

10:42Robert Mays: One. And so I just think on top of them being a little bit punchier on offense, Derek, there is a real chance that with some of these additions, even if they're young players, even if it's going to take a little time, they're going to be a lot punchier on defense and especially up front than they've been over the last couple of years. And they're young players, but like they were hot. They're all high draft picks like, you know, Delaney, they take sixth overall. And I thought that he was an incredible cornerback prospect. Peter Woods, I realized that some people were a little bit more up and down.

11:08I thought that he was really talented. Our Mason Thomas, I think in the preseason has looked electric. Like he clearly has, I think of the juice that they were hoping for when they drafted a guy like that.

11:18Robert Mays: And then those sorts of guys that those guys have not been here. And because even I think George Karloftis is a good player. He's not like a fly around the edge and get to the quarterback in the snap of a finger type of player. He's a little bit more of like a utility kind of set the edge, push the pocket, hustle sacks player. And I even like Gelati as that. But he's, again, in the similar vein to George Karloftis. Our Mason Thomas is truly like the quarterback might go down in two seconds. And then again, they just haven't had a player like that. And so if you can weaponize that with Tonga can be a piece who can move around a little bit and be an explosive guy Chris Jones is obviously at his best one of those players like it just feels like even though they lose some flexibility with losing Chennault right it just feels like they have more flexibility up front because of just how much explosive they are with some of these players I know he's not new anymore but Felix on you DK Uzoma is interesting to me as well he didn't have a season last year I remember we brought him up in the preview last year because it was still early enough that he hadn't gone out for the year yet.

12:17And in name, at least, like he's the other guy across from Karloftis right now.

12:23Robert Mays: Yeah, I assume that's going to be a mix of Jalati and R. Mason Thomas when it's all said and done. That's how I'm looking at it. I think you're probably on to something there. But year three, coming off of an injury, another highly drafted guy. I get that it hasn't panned out there as of yet. But if you're looking for somebody to help you out with that rotation, it's only 24 years old, despite the fact that this will be year four of his NFL career. I don't have high hopes, but when a guy like that who hasn't done a whole lot misses an entire season anyway, he just tends to drop completely off the radar.

12:58So I think it's at least worth mentioning.

13:00Robert Mays: Next question we're going to ask for all of these teams, and this is slightly different, so bear with me for a second. I want to talk about what we're watching the first month of the season, and this is not necessarily the thing you're excited to watch. We already hit that. This is a curiosity you have, Something that you feel like is sort of a question hanging over this team where I want to see just what it looks like, how they deploy a certain guy, structurally what they want to do. So, Derek, when you're looking at the Chiefs over the first month of the season, what is the biggest curiosity for you associated with this team?

13:28I mean, we're talking about it with the defense, and I think obviously we're excited about the talent that they're bringing. But I think to me, it's like this talent, I think, might inform the scheme being something a little bit different, both in efficiency and in terms of what they're actually doing. One in terms of what I think it's actually going to look a little bit different. And I've talked about this before. I think when you bring in Tonga, you bring in a guy like Peter Woods, who can play kind of anywhere from like two tech all the way out to five tech. You bring in more of a true pass rusher like an R.

13:57Mason Thomas outside land back around the edge. it feels like they're trying to build a little bit more of a 3-4 odd front style of defense and they played a lot of those fronts last year with Chennault down on the ball but I think that this is a little bit more of like a that style of front that can be a little bit more attacking be a little bit more blitz heavy if they want to and actually get into the backfield which that's really I think what Spags wants to do this is also a team that when when the Chiefs defense was really good in 23 and 24 they ran man coverage about 30 to 33 percent of the time and I know that man coverage rates have gone down league-wide in general but that number dropped to about 19.8 last year and I think part of that is in 23 especially you had um you had Josh Williams and Lajarius Sneed as these big outside just mug the shit out of you at the line type of corners and they just have McDuffie in the slot with McDuffie in the slot exactly and McDuffie was a cover guy in the slot who could just run with anybody he could run with slot receivers I think when it became like Chamari Connor in the slot, who can't really do as much of that, and then McDuffie on the outside, who can't really do as much of the press man on the outside.

15:03I think they were just, that part of their game fell away. I think now you have Noel Williams, who I think we're all kind of high on as like a press style man corner. And I think that Mansour Delane can really do that. And so it just feels like this defense is shifting towards, I think, again, potentially a little bit more odd front and potentially a little bit more man coverage, because really at Spags' core, I think that's what he really likes to do.

15:24Robert Mays: There's one more little breadcrumb that I would pick up as it relates to that. Chris Roland Wallace right now is the starting nickel instead of Jamari Connor. And so now you're going from a guy who's a bigger safety body who struggled in coverage at times. There were limitations on what they could do if he was going to be their primary nickel player. And so them going with a more traditional cover nickel body as their main guy in that spot, I think that's something to pay attention to. The number that I thought was really jarring when I was looking back at some of the splits about this Chiefs team last year.

15:54Robert Mays: And again, I think it's maybe a little bit of a signal about them playing a little bit more man coverage last year. We talked about this in real time. The Chiefs last season had a below average dropback success rate when blitzing on defense. The Chiefs, right? It's just not a way we typically think about a Spags team. They were 17th in EPA per dropback per next gen on blitzes overall last year. It was not very characteristic of a Spags defense. The split on that, they were 30th in the league. The Chiefs were in EPA per dropback on zone blitzes. second on man blitzes. And so them getting back to a place where they just want to play a little bit more f*** you ball and having the guys to do it and the way they've structured the secondary, I think there's some signal there.

16:36Robert Mays: I'm very curious how quickly that plays out and how forcefully, but it's something I'd be paying attention to. How well it plays out too. I mean, these are young, unproven players. Even as high as we are in Noel Williams, we mentioned it. No, Noel Williams is already a star. Delaney is an unproven player. No Williams, we're writing that in pen. I'm all set. Okay. The other structurally, I'll throw this in just really quickly. We talked a little bit about Walker, and I think that's part of it. But I'm interested in the structure of the offense as well, because this is a team that was incredibly siloed.

17:09Robert Mays: So beyond running the ball under center, beyond the changes of what running the ball under center could do for their explosiveness, I just think having more optionality and murkiness about what you're doing situationally. A lot of teams in the NFL have done this. They've gone back to an under center world in part because you're giving away no information by doing that while making things easier on the line, on the quarterback. The Chiefs last year were one of the most siloed teams in the NFL. Percher Media, 19.3 % play action rate from under center last year, which was 31st in the NFL. They ran the ball 80 % of the time when they were under center last season.

17:45Robert Mays: That's not going to happen again. I think because of the running back, because they know there are benefits waiting if they diversify that a little bit. So I think there are structural considerations on defense, like Derek mentioned. And I'm also curious what some of that stuff looks like on offense. And then Dave, very quickly, what are you watching the first month of the season? You had something slightly a little bit different, I think. It's more or less the same, just in particular. It's easy to get excited about guys that were drafted highly. Peter Woods and R. Mason Thomas specifically, because it's very easy to envision the role for Mansour Delaney.

18:15But these are highly rotational, highly specific roles. To Derek's point, Peter Woods is a guy that could line up in a variety of different places. Like, I think ideally you would play Peter Woods at three technique. Well, guess who the Chiefs have? The Chiefs have Chris Jones.

18:30Robert Mays: Well, I like the fact that he's not going to have to like eat glass on early downs early in the season where you could probably use him a little bit more situationally as he comes along because you signed Tonga in free agency. And I'm guessing that would happen because, yeah, you gave Tonga a lot of money to be that guy. You have Chris Jones. How does Peter Woods mix in there? It was one snap, but the Chiefs put Woods and Jones out there in the preseason on a third and long together where and Jones was aligned at the three Woods was at the one. I was like, this is very fun. Same thing for our Mason Thomas.

19:01Where is he a DPR? Is he not useful to you on rundowns? Is he a pass rush specialist? Just how three dimensional is his game? I just want to see where they are and obviously how often they're out there in the in the early going specifically. Like how ready are these guys for legitimate action?

19:18Robert Mays: When we looked at these defensive line rotations that have been really well constructed over the last couple of years, there's a variety of body types. You can use guys situationally. We've got some guys that are these bigger body rundown players. We've got some guys that are more of those speed demon third down type players. And you look at Jalotti and R. Mason Thomas and the way that they're built. Jalotti's 270, right? Let's throw him out there when it's first and 10 on the other side of Karloftis. And let's let R. Mason Thomas get going on third and eight. and I think it makes a lot of sense when you look at that room and it's just so much more varied than it has been for this team in a while when it feels like we've had, I think, generously framed more plotting body types overall when you've looked at their defensive line.

19:57Yeah, exactly. Again, I think the juice gives them a lot of flexibility even if maybe they've lost that in Leo Chanel.

20:04Robert Mays: For all these teams, we're going to talk about just the stuff that maybe worries us a little bit. What is keeping us up at night about all these teams but here specifically the Kansas city chiefs, Dave, what about the Kansas city chiefs is keeping you up two weeks before the season gets going here. What if Kenneth Walker's presence in the offense isn't enough to change the fact that this could be like a bottom five receiver core. Yes. And I think it's, I think it's good to put a parameter on that. Like, I don't think anybody is confused that the chiefs receiver core isn't great, but what if it's like a bottom five unit?

20:39Like, what if Rasheed Rice has lost a step for various reasons, be they injury or incarceration related?

20:46Robert Mays: We're what is it's running on Saturday. We talked to Jesse Newell, our chief, our chief strider as part of the beat writer notebooks. And we were just talking. He's like he just so casually was just like, well, yeah, because he was rehabbing in jail. And it just it's just important. I think keep reminding ourselves that their most important receiver was having to do his rehab in jail this spring. Xavier Worthy weighs 165 pounds and dealt with injury last year. He's hurt now. He's not even in contact drills now. We joked about it. We joked about it several times this summer, but, and, and I hope Cyrus Allen is awesome.

21:18But if a fifth round pick is like the talk of camp and there's a genuine panic when he suffers a practice injury, that's not a good sign. If you're supposed to contend for meaningful things. And that's where the chiefs are right now. Like I went, I went through and I was like, who, who do I think definitively has a worse receiver core than the chiefs? And I came up with like Miami and Vegas and the worst teams in the league. Right. Yes. You can't even say Washington now that they have Stefan digs. So, I mean, like this could be a really, really bad unit. And I don't know if Kenneth Walker alone can fix that.

21:57Robert Mays: All the explosive run talk is really fun, but when it's third and eight, what happens? Other than, hey, Pat, bail us out. What happens? And that's the problem. Can Pat bail you out as much, especially in the first like six weeks of the season? We haven't even mentioned the fact that the most important player is coming off of a torn ACL, which I do think is important to bring up in this exact situation. So last year, per next gen, 34 % man coverage rate overall. That was the second highest rate in the league. On third and medium to long, they faced 49.7 % man coverage. they've seen two of the top five highest cover one rates on third down in the league over the last two years since 2022 so two of the top five that's a hundred combined seasons they have two of the top five rates because teams just have no respect for what they can do in those situations why should we have any more respect now like cyrus allen is your answer to that and i think that's been my frustration the entire offseason i understand the kenneth walker part of this but is that enough?

22:59Robert Mays: Like if that's your true difference making move on that side of the ball, that does not address all of the issues that we have seen with this team. And so how are they going to address those issues? And if the answer is just Cyrus Allen, okay, I'm just not sure I'm moved by that. I would love if Cyrus Allen was good. A fifth round pick fixing the biggest problem with your passing game going into the year is probably not a bet I'd be wanting to make. Well, and like a fifth round pick who, again, he might be good. He is also 180 pounds. So he's he's smaller. He's just disgusted by the way they approach this.

23:33I mean, because here's it's not just that the receiving core is not good. Like Vegas is receiving core isn't good either. But at least like there's different body types that like if stuff hits, you theoretically solve a number of different problems. The Chiefs, even in like the best case scenario, still don't really have like a ball winner. they still don't really have a guy that you can just like pin it on his back shoulder and when like it's still a lot of like we've got to deal with your bullshit if you don't have one of those

24:01Robert Mays: by the way he's even giving the ravens the time of day anymore is because jacoby lane is there yeah because jacoby lane is going to be t higgins but i like i do think that there's something to like listen if teams are going to make you throw more of these outside the numbers maybe man you up a little bit more like it's kind of nice to just have a big man who's going to go dunk on somebody and i think even in the best case scenario even if this is you know only the 20th best receiver core if things work out they still don't have that guy at all 57 explosives from the chiefs receivers last year which is a perfectly average number 11 of those 57 came versus man coverage which is 29th in the nfl they were 20th in e paper drop bag against man on third down with mahomes with mahomes scrambling as part of that equation scrambling as much as he ever has in those scenarios over the course of the regular season.

24:48Mahomes, if he's healthy, is a heck of an equalizer, but it doesn't mean we should be asking him. He shouldn't have to be. Yeah, we shouldn't be asking this of him. He shouldn't have to be. Yeah.

24:57Robert Mays: All right, that brings me to my answer to this question, but I'm going to pose it to you guys as well. What does success look like for the 2026 Kansas City Chiefs? This is a naughty question. I'm going to try to be kitschy with most of my answers this year. And my answer, I can define it more clearly if you want to, but a successful season for the Chiefs is if they restore the aura. That's I 100 percent agree. Like that. That's OK. Pretty much my answer. We outlined 10 reasons why you might be mediocre when the division anyway. You're the chiefs. That's that's successful for the and they don't they don't have to get back to the Super Bowl.

25:35They don't have to make a run through the playoffs when the division that you owned for a decade with a roster. we're not 100 % sure about because that's what the Chiefs that I grew to respect so much would do.

25:45Robert Mays: I think a solid playoff showing, winning a playoff game, getting the division around, all that stuff is probably baked into this, but it's secondary to me because I'm 100 % with you. Are we excited about them again? Do they feel scary again? Do they feel like the Chiefs? Yes. Because like winning the division, it's like, well, they won the division in 2024 and they didn't like that. And you know, they get to the Super Bowl because they're the Chiefs and they have Patrick Mahomes, but they never felt like this scary, like, oh my God team. If Kenneth Walker makes them explosive again, if Patrick Mahomes looks 100 % and the defense is like young and explosive and can do all the shit that Spags wants to do, it's like, okay, that feels like the Kansas City Chiefs again.

26:27Robert Mays: Do we have juice? Do teams go into the game against you shaking in their boots a little bit? Because that has not happened in a while. And I would love to see that type of Kansas City Chiefs team again. And if we do, results aside, how far they go in the playoffs aside, I do think that we can start to frame that season as a success. Derek, was your answer generally in that same range? What was yours? Yeah, it was like you need to feel like the team that everybody kind of has, like they're putting a target on your back again. Whereas I just don't think that right now anybody really feels that way about the Chiefs.

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30:42Robert Mays: Keaton Mitchell, Alec Ingle, Dalvin Tomlinson, Los Adafi Owe, Zion Johnson, Benjamin St. Justin, Deshaun Hand in free agency. In the draft, Akeem Mesidor in the first round, Jake Slaughter in the second round, a lot involved there now. Travis Burke and Jenison Smith in the fourth round. Oh, don't leave out Brennan Thompson. Don't do that. I'm so sorry. Brennan Thompson is exactly the type of guy that Chiefs need. You can't leave out the 4-2-8-40 receiver. I'm not doing fifth round picks for every single one of these teams. I'm just letting you know right now. Derek, what are you most excited about watching with the 2026 Los Angeles Chargers?

31:17Justin Herbert gets a play caller that we all know is damn good at this. Like, it's as simple as that. And we talked about it on the play caller show. And so I think, you know, we handled some of the details there. But like, I think for so much of Justin Herbert's career, it's been like this and that. It's been in the offensive line. And even when he's had decent play callers, it never felt like he was still protected by the system and stuff like that. And this feels like the first time where it's like, no, Mike McDaniel, if he could do it with Tua Tungabailoa, I'm pretty sure that he can do it with a quarterback like Justin Herbert.

31:45So just seeing what that looks like and not even just the like, wow, Justin Herbert might go nuclear in this offense. Like it's I'm kind of excited to see like an iteration for Mike McDaniel because he's always had those tweaks to his offense. Right. But the fact that this is like such a just a new batch of ingredients that he's working with, like this could be just the appointment viewing on Monday morning type stuff. I'm frustrated thinking about it because there there's not much else to say I mean we have a host of stats and evidence about what McDaniel did during his time in Miami and we do know he's good at this but how much how much can you extrapolate other than I know that Mike McDaniel knows how to design a really good run game and the Chargers have the personnel to run the ball effectively I don't know I don't know what else to say and I think about how much of his offense there was designed around Tua's very specific skill set.

32:36And you couldn't have a more different quarterback from Tua than Justin Herbert. So just how different it's going to look from Miami is so interesting to me.

32:47Robert Mays: I'll say a few things. First of all, let's just talk about the overall quality of the Dolphins offenses that Derek is alluding to when it comes to when Tua was on the field over the last four years, because I think a lot of people are going to go to, well, there's some stylistic quirks to what Mike McDaniel does and is it built for the playoffs and it's a little bit specific. I acknowledge all of that, right? All of that. But there's no denying that he built something incredibly exciting with a very limited quarterback. When Tua was on the field the last four seasons, per True Media, the Dolphins averaged 0.14 EPA per dropback.

33:20Robert Mays: That would have been fifth in the NFL behind the Bills, the Lions, the Niners, and the Packers. they had a 13.3 % explosive play rate, which would be number one in football over that stretch with Tua as the quarterback. And so I think even if, well, you know, are those teams physical enough, all of that, fine. I'm willing to acknowledge all of that. But the quality of the passing game specifically is really unimpeachable over that stretch. And so I'm very excited to see what Justin Herbert looks like in those circumstances. It's funny that you say that about the passing game because I did want to touch on that.

33:53Robert Mays: And I was looking up some of the numbers around this, and I was going back and re-watching the Dolphins from last year because I don't think we were all super keyed into what the Miami Dolphins looked like for a good chunk of last season. Not after, like, Halloween. It was weird, I'll tell you that. Not after a week of one. Not after the Dolphins game. So I went back and I was watching it in part because I wanted to watch Waddle, as we're going to talk about the Broncos here. Last year, so in 2023, the Dolphins ran 26.3 % outbreaking routes per next-gen. That was bottom five in the NFL. last year was 34 and a half percent which was a top six rate in the league and i think part of that is because the dolphins were seeing so much cover too over the last few years and they were seeing it again a ton of it again last year and so i think they were really trying to design a lot of stuff to get back into those hole shot windows whether all right we're going to snap back across or return route we're going to run some sale type stuff and they were doing a ton more of that and And so I actually think that's the element of the offense where if teams want to play them the same way that they played the Dolphins for structural reasons, personnel obviously is not the same.

34:59Robert Mays: You don't have Tyree Kill and Jalen Waddell. But I wonder, Derek, if some of the reasons that we saw. So the Dolphins last year saw 10.8 % cover one. So lowest rate in the league by a ton. The Chargers saw it 28 % of the time. So that to me is one of the most important considerations is that teams were challenging the Chargers receivers in a way they never challenged the Dolphins receivers. But I think part of it might be the amount of motion that the Dolphins used. And so if you think, all right, even if the receiving talent is different, do teams play a little bit less man because the Chargers are going to use so much more motion than they used a year ago?

35:32Robert Mays: And then do we see some of those same levers that Mike McDaniel started pulling last year with some of those outbreaking routes because you're having to deal with all these cloud coverages? That's a way of kind of squaring the Justin Herbert skill set with some of the stuff we've seen and heard from training camp so far. that actually does kind of align with what the Dolphins were doing more of last season. I think a lot of the motion stuff does kind of inform a lot of the man cover stuff. And again, obviously, you know, you're a little bit scared of manning up a guy like Jalen Waddle in a way that I'm not sure you're quite as scared of that for anybody with the Chargers, even I think in the best version of Ladd McConkie.

36:07But I do think a lot of that is the motion. And I think it's both run and pass. Like, obviously, McDaniel does such a good job of, like, finding ways to get guys out free in the flat or, you know, open up a window so he can throw the drift route. But he's also like, if you're playing any amount of man coverage, he's just going to rip the nickel out of the fit. And then he's going to be able to be able to bend back, you know, a zone run and just stuff like that. So I think that he does an incredible job of that. And to the point of the physicality stuff and Miami being a team that was just so much more speed than it was power.

36:37I think part of that was like some of McDaniel building the offense a certain way. And, you know, maybe some of that was because he had to with Tua. Maybe that's just what he wants to do. but I think him working under the Jim Harbaugh umbrella like physicality and being able to go toe-to-toe with people it's not really something I worry about with that building whether or not

36:55Robert Mays: they have the talent up front it makes it a really interesting marriage in that exact way you know like I mean like a Jim Harbaugh team with like Joe Alton, Rashawn Slater like those guys at you know and all the tight ends that they have I'm like I feel a little bit more comfortable that the physicality will come like it'll be there it's i i thought about that when you mentioned how it translates to the playoffs and things like that and harbaugh you know his calling card is this physicality smash mouth football remember mike mcdaniel contributed plenty to some ferocious 49ers teams that ran through the playoffs too i'm more speaking i think for the the crowd out there that has questions about Mike McDaniel.

37:36Robert Mays: I'm not talking to you. I'm talking to people that might think that, that like the Niners, when Mike McDaniel was drawing up their run game were hell to play. I was at that game where they just absolutely curb stomped the Packers in San Francisco. Man, I can't remember. It was in Santa Clara. I can't remember what year that was. Maybe 2019. I think it was the 2019 season where Raheem Mostert just did horrible, horrible things that entire Packers defense. 2021 Dallas wildcard round, 49ers. just hellacious. So the one last number I want to throw out as it relates to this, I was looking for it when you were talking, Derek, last year per next gen dolphins use motion at the snap on 49 % of their, of their passes.

38:16Robert Mays: It's the third highest rate in the league. Chargers were at 25%. So literally twice as often. And so I think that on top of the areas, the field, they might attack the field a little bit different than what the dolphins had, just how much more movement and how this dynamism we're potentially going to see from this offense compared to what the Chargers were doing a year ago, I think is worth at least acknowledging. Another thing I'm curious about really quickly is just Tua was famous for getting the ball out faster than anybody in the NFL. His average release time is a half second faster than Justin Herbert over the four years that McDaniel was his coach.

38:51Herbert's got a cannon. So I'm like, how do you marry that being such a staple of what McDaniel did in Miami versus having a quarterback like Justin Herbert.

39:00Robert Mays: That is something they've talked a lot about. And that's been from the spring on McDaniel kind of trying to convince him, hey, you need to let this go before you see it come open. Like, I trust me, trust that this is going to be there. And I think I remember talking to Frank Smith for something I was working on a few years ago when two was really rolling about what that process looks like with a quarterback where you've really got to earn a certain amount of trust for that guy to play that way to play the way the two was we were calling it anticipation but in reality it was more so just i'm putting myself in the hands of the offense and i think that's fine right that's not even to take away from him because that's a skill in of itself in order to let yourself go and be willing to play that way there are benefits waiting for you on the other side and i think that's been a process with herbert this offseason and how quickly he's willing to do some of that stuff and what sort of throws he's willing to let loose maybe a half second before he would have in a previous offense.

39:57Robert Mays: I think that's going to be something to watch with this team. Speaking of what we're watching, Dave, what are you watching the first month of the season with the Los Angeles Chargers? It makes a ton of sense to think that Chris O 'Leary is just an extension of Jesse Minner because he, he played when Jesse Minner was his coach at Indiana state. He got his first job under Jesse Minner. He's very intrinsically tied to Jesse Minner, Daniel Popper, our guy who's done so much good work around the Chargers. He's got great notes in his stories about, you know, O 'Leary took menors foundational aspects of defense to Western Michigan ball disruption, tackling effort angles.

40:35Those are like the five pillars that men are likes to coach, even to the point where O 'Leary was just tagging Chargers tape last year and showing it to his Western Michigan defense and saying this is what the scheme looks like at the best possible level. so it's understandable that we think the defense is going to look the same Chris O 'Leary is still a person and he has to call the defense and so he's going to have his own tendencies his own preferences his own ideas of how you know what he might do differently from Jesse Minner or to be blunt he just might not be as good at this at the NFL level as Jesse Minner is so how he calls his defense and the subtle little differences between what it looked like under Jesse Minner and what Chris O 'Leary will be doing.

41:20I think that's a situation where the first four or five weeks of data and just watching their games, I think, will inform you a lot about how he might be different.

41:29Robert Mays: What I think is encouraging, just hearing about his experience at Western Michigan and what that was like for him in his first year as a play caller, which last year was his first year as a defensive play caller, Chris O 'Leary. He did that at the beginning, where they just walked in and he was like, here's the Chargers playbook. This is what we're going to do. And I think he realized over the course of the early part of that season, we can't do this. We just don't have the personnel to play this way. And I think over the course of the season, I don't have any numbers behind it. I don't have any Western Michigan blitz rates for you, which I did.

41:56Robert Mays: But anecdotally, what was said to me is that they really had to tap into a level of aggressiveness we wouldn't typically ascribe to those Jesse Minter Chargers teams. More exotic pressures, a little bit matchier on third downs, some man pressures to kind of force the issue a little bit. We saw a little bit more of that with the Chargers last year, but that's not how you would describe the identity of the Chargers defense. but that's what they needed to do a little bit more of. And I think he was willing to embrace that. And I think he's willing to do the same thing now, where I think the early part of this season, because even the guys, even if they're the same, those guys are maturing, right?

42:32Robert Mays: If you feel a little bit better about Cam Hart this year than you did last year on the outside, can you play a little bit more man coverage, right? Can you play a little bit more dime if Tar Heap still is going to bounce inside and you have Cam Hart on the outside? What does Dante Jackson look like this year after having a really nice season last year. You've got some moving pieces on the interior of the defensive line. And so I think you only know so much about your defense before the season starts. You have to get some information early on about, I think, the categories that I heard about when I was there.

43:01Robert Mays: How can you get pressure with four? Can we cover one-on-one on the outside? And what sort of tools do I need to allow my defensive tackles to hold up against the rung? I think you want to start as simple as possible with all of those answers. And then if you need to get more complex, that's what the process looks like. and based on what happened at Western Michigan last year, it sounds like he's very open to what that process is going to need to be. And I'm really interested to see it because I think Jesse Minter's defense, like to me is, it's not like D 'Amico Ryan's defense necessarily, but like when I watch a D 'Amico Ryan's defense, it's like they kind of do what they do and it's just taught so incredibly well.

43:37And to me, that's what it is with Jesse Minter. It's like when they pressure, when they bring five, it's still just three deeps and three under, like three deep, three under. It's a lot of cover three And they were a little bit more mixed up last year. They threw a little bit more cover zero, but it's still kind of like they run what they run. They run a lot of quarters and they play like off quarters where they're just like, we're going to let you throw in the flats a little bit. We're going to let you get this. We're going to come up and rally and tackle. And so they were really good at that because those guys could come up and do that.

44:01And so I think Jesse Minter solved problems by kind of whittling down the playbook in a way and being like, we teach this incredibly well. Everybody knows all the rules. We're going to do it this way. I just wonder if O 'Leary's way to solve problems is like, maybe he doesn't teach things as well. I don't know. Again, he's a completely different person than Minter. But maybe his way of problem solving is, we're just going to throw different things at the defense and like, or at the offense and make them think a little bit more. Throw some more unique pressures. Maybe play a little bit more man.

44:31Like you mentioned, the man coverage stuff. The only team that ran less cover one than them was the Vikings. And obviously, they do so much weird shit on the other end to kind of make up for the fact that they don't do that. But that's just not really what the Chargers did. So I'm just very interested to see what knobs they kind of turn in terms of the blitz rate and the blitz packages and then maybe the man coverage stuff.

44:51Robert Mays: What I do think is encouraging is that even if we have a new defensive coordinator, one, he's been here, right? He was here on the staff in year one when they introduced the system. So I think there's a little that that doesn't matter. That does carry some weight. But I think the other part of it is these guys have been in this system now going on three years. And some of the things that they were able to build in last year, they just had more optionality pre-snap as a defense last year than they did the year before because you have continuity. So you have a system of kills where, like, you have the right tool for the right situation, whether it's formational, down and distance, all of that in a way that's harder to do in year one because you're just trying to build the bones of the system.

45:28Robert Mays: That stuff you can carry over even if the coordinator changes because all of the communication points, especially in the back seven, are the same. All of them. And so I do think that kind of earned equity within the defense and what that provides you overall with the players does matter in a situation like this, even if you're swapping out the coordinator. I like that point because I'm, and I've said before, I'm lower on the personnel on the Chargers defense. Yes. But you can make up for personnel with a hive mind mentality, and the Chargers have the continuity to perform at that level, I would guess, assuming O 'Leary is not going to drastically change too much.

46:10Robert Mays: Dave, what is keeping you up at night about the 2026 Los Angeles Chargers? I promise I was already worried about this before Tyler Biotish got sent to injured reserve. But I just, I need to see the offensive line be something worth being excited about before I believe it. Screw being excited about it. I need to see the offensive line not being actively terrifying and harmful to the quarterback. To believe it. Tyler Biotish is already out for the year. Joe Alt missed 11 games last year. Rashawn Slater's only played 60 % of his possible NFL games to this point in his career. Just came back to practice.

46:48Just came back to practice. I'm terrified Justin Herbert's offensive line is a mirage again. And even though they've definitely tried, because they'd signed Biotis to a$30 million deal, that's up in smoke, at least for the first year. Jake Slaughter, I guess, if you're looking for maximum cope, at least Jake Slaughter has a chance to play his natural position now. because before that is maximum coping is a thing worth bringing up before this it was well jake slaughter's never played guard in his life but he can do it so now at least he gets to play center

47:19Robert Mays: so i guess that's nice and like it was talking to people there they had examples ready of guys who had done that before they were just like well cam jurgens played guard his rookie year and it's like oh yeah i guess cam jurgens did play guard his rookie year it's a good point that has happened But sure, when you're in the Eagles ecosystem, sure. If we're being thorough, I guess. Jake Slaughter practiced at guard at Florida, but never in a game in his life. So that's terrifying. Left guard, as of Tuesday, August 25th, is a total free-for-all. It sounds like it's going to be Alaseka. It sounds like it's going to be Coyote Alaseka.

47:54It's probably going to win that job. 11 career starts over the course of his career, and then it's a bunch of young guys and guys brought back from a line that was awful last year.

48:03Robert Mays: Yes, he was a spot starter on a terrible interior for the Lions last year. Cole Strange is a guy that was a cast off in New England that only works in this sort of offense. I was going to say he's McDaniel is his sponsor, like so clearly. And then you have Jake Slaughter stepping in here. You talked about this with the Chiefs receiving core. Derek, is there a worse interior offensive line trio in the NFL right now than what the Chargers are trotting out in week one? I mean, I'm sure if I looked at all of them, there might be one or two, but I would be hard pressed to say it's not bottom five. Like, unless Slaughter is just back to his natural position, he looks great.

48:42But I think the fact that they never seen him play an NFL game. Exactly. And the fact that he could not win the guard spot. And again, I know that that's not his natural position, but you would hope that a higher draft pick would be able to do that and like fend off guys who had only been spot starters before. So it is probably one of the worst interior offensive lines in football. And like, I didn't love necessarily like the amount of money the Browns paid to like Zion Johnson, but this is worse than that. And so like, I just have some questions. Yeah. Yeah.

49:10Robert Mays: I mean, at least the Browns threw some resources at it. I don't know how the bang for their buck probably won't be the same, but the collective amount of money paid to Awaseka and Cole Strange, plus a second round pick we've never seen play beyond the over, like the quality concerns, just what you've poured into this without Biotish is going to be one of the thinnest offensive line and interior offensive line investments in the league period right now. You're asking the coordinator to do a lot of lifting to make sure we do not notice these guys. Can't you just imagine too, like I'm holding out hope that the tackles being really good can mitigate a lot of this.

49:46I think they are too. Well, sure. But then week two, I don't even know who they play week two, but the announcer is going to be like, on that's Joe all two looks a little bit nicked up after the play. Don't even do that.

49:57Robert Mays: I don't even want to start. I legitimately lose sleep thinking about this and I don't, I'm not even a Chargers fan. I just feel like they're doomed for their offensive line to disappear in a puff of smoke every September. And I hate it for them, but it doesn't mean I'm not afraid. I'm in a similar boat with this. Like, I just think that we ended up in a place where the offensive line isn't any better than it was heading into the 2024 season when it was an absolute disaster. It'd be better than it was last season because the tackles will hopefully be back. But the interior, so much of the optimistic case to be made about why the Chargers would feel different this year is the upgrade in center quality and experience, right?

50:37Robert Mays: Like it's be being able to just get guys on the right page. And, you know, obviously Bradley Boseman's played a lot of football, but you watched it last year and the interior and just the plan and pass protection was an abomination so often. And the whole argument was that Biotis will be able to get that to a place that you would feel better about it. And now you're putting in a guy who's never played in the NFL to carry that responsibility. And it just, it worries me. That is the thing I'm probably most worried about. And like you mentioned, kind of comping it more to 2024, where it was a little bit different.

51:08And obviously last year, they were so banged up. 2024, they get to the playoffs and just get eviscerated by the Houston, Texas defense, which like that's going to happen because that defense is like that but they just really did not have a chance in that game and so that scares me I think my concern is I guess a little bit related to that but mine is more that like I'm fairly confident this will be a good team that this team can win 9 10 maybe 11 games if things break right I still just kind of feel like they're the doorman for who is like a serious NFL contender because I'm just not sure they have like the star really get you over the finish line talent outside of like quarterback derwin james and i the tackles are great but like they don't touch the ball and i do think that in the playoffs like it that kind of matters that you need guys who touch the ball or touch the quarterback derrick's note was so mean but so true the contender tables doorman that's what they feel like we left them off for

52:03Robert Mays: a reason last few years and i think on defense the most important consideration with that is they played above the they were more than the sum of the parts like they were the classic more than the sum of the parts defense with Jesse Mentor over the last couple of years. I mean, I think they finished sixth in EPA per play defensively last season. And that takes a phenomenal coaching job by a guy who has a pretty universal level of praise. And it justifiably got the best head coaching job that was available to anyone in probably the last 10 years and what he's walking into in Baltimore. That's the type of coach we're talking about.

52:33Robert Mays: Even if you can be excited about Chris O 'Leary's potential as a coordinator, he's stepping into massive shoes without a ton of truly difference-making players. Thule had a really nice season last year. Tyer Tart has been really good for this team. But I think the best part about the Chargers defensive personnel over the last few years is that they've gotten so much more than they've paid for with some of the guys they've gotten off the street. And that's great. That gets you to a level where you're playing top 10 defense in a way that people are surprised by. but does that, is that enough for you to be beating teams in the playoffs?

53:09Robert Mays: Is it not enough for you to be a Superbowl contender? And I think you could ask that same question when Jesse mentor was the coordinator, let alone when we have a guy who's never done this before. And so I think that is a completely reasonable thing to worry about on the offense, Derek. We didn't talk about the pass catchers at all. I'm willing to see this in like the rosiest possible version right now. I can, I can get there with, I think the overall explosiveness they could bring to the table that in my opinion, it's not the same because it's not one for one roles, but as I think stylistically about the offense that feels scary.

53:44Robert Mays: And I think this could be like a version of that, like kind of a fun house mirror image of that is like what the lions have been over the last couple of years where McConkie is like, it's not the same player as St. Brown, but if that's like the best pass catcher you have within the offense, it's not your traditional prototype number one receiver, but it absolutely gives you enough in terms of a guy you can build it around. Quentin Johnston and more of a Jamison Williams-esque role where we're taking drag routes 60 yards. You're getting him on these runways. Trey Harris just having that level of vertical explosion.

54:15Robert Mays: Like even if there's a little bit of guesswork with all of those guys, I see that potentially coming together. Like I think Charlie Kolar can be like a glue guy, tight end, that does a little bit of everything. We've talked a lot about O'Marrion Hampton. And that part of it, even if those guys aren't stars now, I can see a version of the offense because the quarterback can lift it a little bit and the play caller can lift it a little bit where they feel really dangerous and dynamic on that side of the ball, even if there's not a lot of proven star power. On defense, I think it requires more guesswork.

54:47Robert Mays: On defense, it's just a little bit harder for me to get there. Because on defense, it's like, again, they have some pretty good players, but it's like who would take the step into stardom? like maybe this is the year for day on henley and like tarheep still is good over in a playoff game yes who is taking over in a playoff game and i think that is still my question whereas like you say on the offense like there's a chance so marion hampton is just one of those running backs like i do think that he's talented enough that in an offense like this he can become that on defense i think it's harder for me to find like who would that guy who takes that level of step really be i'm sorry for not mentioning brennan thompson is one of the guys who could really give them that year offensively.

55:26Robert Mays: You go ahead. You laugh until... You can be there, Khalif Raymond. Vernon Thompson's going to catch... He's going to catch like 18 passes and average 21 yards per reception. That's my guess. I also did mention Keaton Mitchell. Like Keaton Mitchell also, I think, is one of those guys that we're just like, there's a chance that there are so many dudes on this team with giddy up on offense that we're just watching a really explosive group when it's all said and done. What does success look like, Dave, for the 2026 Los Angeles Chargers? It's time to win a playoff game. It sure is. At the bare minimum, look like you belong.

56:02You know? Oh, no. We got to win one.

56:04Robert Mays: We got to win a playoff game this year. Belonging is whatever. You got to win one. If they pull a Jags and Tredavious White makes the play of his life to seal a hotly contested, entertaining game, it would be disappointing, but I could live with it. What I can't live with is them being the sacrifice of the wildcard round where we just know by the end of the first quarter that this is over. Here's why I would push back on that a tiny bit. I think in a lot of circumstances, I would be okay with that. Where it feels like, all right, we took a measurable step forward as a team this year because we didn't get blown off the field.

56:42Robert Mays: There's progress being made. How long do we think McDaniel's going to be here? Two years max. Assuming that you're making the playoffs and whatnot. And so, and that two years max, if it goes really well offensively and he's just out the door, does this feel like a missed opportunity if you were like, ah, we were plucky in a playoff game? No, you're right. I said kitschy. Win a playoff game, damn it. Sure. I think they have to win a playoff game. And it's probably going to be hard. Like, they're, I don't think they're going to win this division. And so they're going to be probably the underdog in whatever game that they play in the wildcard round.

57:15I don't really care. Like, you've got to go win it. Like, because like, and I guess it would be some amount of measurable jump if they go from getting just absolutely wiped off the face of the earth the last two times they played in the playoffs to at least like, like Dave said, playing that Jags-Bills game. But the difference, like what you're saying, Robert, the Jags were a horrific football team the year before. And so them taking that measurable step to being like, we can go toe-to-toe with Josh Allen and the Bills, that means something. If the Chargers do that, it's like, okay, that's a little bit better than what you had done, but we already knew that you were a good team.

57:46You just reaffirming that for the third year in a row doesn't really do anything for me.

57:50Robert Mays: Before we get to the Denver Broncos, let's take our second quick break.

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1:00:40Robert Mays: Let's get to the Denver Broncos. Our preview for the 2026 Broncos. They're off season in 60 seconds. This is an easy one. Davis Webb is the offensive coordinator. Brought back Alex Singleton and J.K. Dobbins. Traded a first round pick for Jalen Waddell. Lost John Franklin Myers and Drake Greenlaw in free agency. Drafted Tyler and Yottam in the third round. It's a quick one. It takes way less than a minute. What are you most excited about watching with the 2026 Broncos, Dave? the AFC runner up just added a top 15 wide receiver, which I genuinely think Jalen Waddle is. And I've said before, I don't think, I don't think a lot of people recognize that.

1:01:18Robert Mays: It's because the Miami Dolphins, the 2025 Miami Dolphins did not exist. Of course. Yeah. I think that's part of the reason. And if you don't exist for a single year in the NFL, you no longer matter. Justin Jefferson is irrelevant now. Yeah, sure. Well, did you see him, by the way, talking about that where he was like, people forgot I'm the best wide receiver in the league. I will prove to them. I'm like, but that happened. He said, Mike was under attack or something like that, which that's so true. If you can't afford to fall off for even a year or you might as well not even exist. But guess what?

1:01:48He's awesome. I mean, I read all the I read all the stats on a show we did a couple of weeks ago, but Jalen Waddle bring him back over the time over the last four years. He's fourth in EPA per target in the league. He's seventh in explosive receptions. He's 11th in first down first downs per route run. He's 12th in yards per route run. He's, I mean, where else am I going? He's 13th in the league in yak over expectation, which I think is interesting. The Denver Broncos, they have no problem generating yak. Because they throw a million screens. Because they throw a million short balls. They do not generate a ton of yak over expectation.

1:02:25And that is why Jalen Waddell is so fun. Jalen Waddell is the type of guy who can catch a 12-yard in and be in the end zone and from 50, 40, 50, 60 yards out.

1:02:37Robert Mays: And I think that's an important distinction compared to the other created manufacturer touch guys they had. Marvin Mims can take a screen. Marvin Mims is not taking a glance route to the house. Like that's just not the type of player he is. That is the type of player that Jalen Waddle is. Even that short post he ran from the slot in the preseason, he didn't house that. But like those are the types of plays where you see that happen. Like that's just not something they had before. Like that's just not the type of skill set within the offense that they had before. They were 25th in the league, Denver, in explosive play rate.

1:03:06And I have a feeling Jalen Waddle is going to change that for the better. And it's, you know, I think that's really been the only criticism with Denver during these back-to-back playoff runs is they're not a very explosive, exciting offense. And they went and traded for a guy who can change that almost single-handedly. And I think with Waddle, he changes it by what he can do with the ball in his hands. Like you said, he's one of the handful of the guys in the league who can take a slant or a glance or whatever and just make one guy miss. And all of a sudden he's got 40, 50 yards. And I do think that he absolutely has that ability.

1:03:37And even on the screens, like Mims can do it and he can get you a handful of yards. The ones they throw to Waddle are probably going to be even better because he's obviously pretty good at that too. I would also say that he, I think has the chance to bring explosive plays back to the offense just by gravity. Like he's a guy where if he's running the clear out on dagger, Cortland Sutton is going to be wide the hell open. Pat Bryant is going to be wide the hell open. like whoever it's going to be, or if he's just running some of these, if he's running a deep over and the linebackers are like panicking and they want to get depth.

1:04:07Okay. Well, RJ Harvey is now sitting two yards in front of the line of scrimmage with nobody, even in his vicinity, just stuff like that. I just feel like, you know, we obviously know what he's going to do with the ball in his hands, but I think just some of the opportunities he'll create because defenses are actually scared of somebody running by them and making a play. I think that is kind of also what's going to go a long way for this offense. Denver had the, this is another thing that I think Jalen Waddell can do a lot to fix. Denver had the fourth worst starting field position in the NFL last year.

1:04:37Part of that, their defense for as good as they were just had a very surprisingly low number of takeaways. I think it was 14 on the year. They also, which should be better this year.

1:04:47Robert Mays: I mean, yeah, absolutely. Their average drive distance on touchdowns was 68 yards because of that fourth longest in the league and it took them an average of eight plays to get down the field this was a a very methodical team when it was good and obviously we talked plenty about how inconsistent it was just having that guy who can get you in the end zone in one or two or three or four plays like this team did not have three or four play scoring drives and ideally i think jalen waddle can fix that. Tied to everything I just said, they were also 30th in the NFL and special teams DVOA, which for a team with the expectations that the Broncos have, probably something you want to fix this year.

1:05:32Robert Mays: They were 9-2 in games decided by 7 points or fewer last year. 9-2. I thought it was 11-2. I think 7 points or fewer. Reading Barnwell's column right now that he did about the teams most likely to regress this year. But like you said, the fact that the turnovers is something that could be a little bit better if we're trying to figure out what's on either side of the ledger with regression with the Broncos. In theory, if they take the ball away a little bit more often, does that one-score record matter a little bit less? I mean, if this team could have some short fields with a receiver who can do what Jalen Waddell does, I think that could be huge.

1:06:09Robert Mays: Mine was on the other side of the ball, just quickly. I just think sometimes we don't talk enough about the Broncos as one of those terrorizing pass rush teams, like the way we do about the Texans, like the Broncos do have that gear to them. And I think consistently showed that last year. Next gen, third and medium to long last year, when the Broncos brought five, they had a 73 % pressure rate. What? 73 % when they blitzed on third and medium to long last year. No other team in the league was above 67%. Their pressure stuff last year, especially when they started bringing the safeties, And we'll see what that world looks like without Jim Leonard, who I think probably had a hand in how some of those pressures were built.

1:06:53Robert Mays: But Vance Joseph is a really good defensive coach. And I think the layers they added to the pass rush over the course of the year, in part because they had to, in the first half of last season, they had a 55 % pressure rate when bringing four. The Broncos did. It was 37 % in the back half of the year. And so they started blitzing a lot more on third down last year than they did in the first half of the year. But when they had to tap into that, some of the stuff that they're able to pull out is phenomenal. And so that version of this Broncos defense where we're going to run some crazy shit on third and eight and we're going to be able to play man behind it because we have the best cornerback in the world.

1:07:28Robert Mays: I'm excited to watch that again, because that is, I think, my favorite thing about this team. When you mentioned the regression, the fact that they were for most of the year, what, the third best defense in the league? Probably they fell off a tad at the end. But I think you would probably say over the course of the year, probably the third or fourth best defense in the league and didn't really generate turnovers. If that flips at all with as much as volatility as they bring with all the crazy stuff that Vance Joseph is doing, like they just get a couple more fumbles, strip sacks, whatever it's going to be like this team.

1:07:56That's how they fight off the regression of, you know, winning a lot of close games the way that they did.

1:08:01Robert Mays: What are you watching the first month of the season, Derek, with the Denver Broncos? mine is kind of specific and I think part of that is just this roster is like really good like it's just a really good and clean roster so it's kind of hard to figure out like and it's a lot of bringing back a lot of the same pieces I think for me though I am curious about what does the rotation at running back look like um because I think you know they brought in uh RJ Harvey last year and I think expected him to or wanted him to be a huge part of the offense and he scored a bunch of touchdowns but I think they probably want to get him a little bit more work in the passing game but can he really hold up in pass protection I think them trying to sort that out is interesting.

1:08:40And then Jonah Coleman, who they drafted this year, has been pretty good for them. But they also still have J.K. Dobbins, who started and played fairly well last year. I think, you know, is a little bit banged up this camp, as he often is, unfortunately. But I think they still expect him to be a pretty big part of this rotation, too. So I think just trying to figure out how much they want to lean on different parts of this rotation. And like, can R.J. Harvey be a little bit more consistent? Because I think it's very obvious that he is a good explosive player, and he can be a decent pass catcher for you.

1:09:07But I think part of why the Broncos run game feels a little bit lacking is that for as efficient as J.K. Dobbins can be, he's not maybe as explosive or as elusive as you want. And R.J. Harvey is the opposite, where he is pretty explosive, but he's just going to get you three yards when seven is blocked sometimes, just because he's a little bit blind with stuff like that. So I think just figuring out how this rotation works out, I think is pretty interesting to me because it could go a number of different ways, I think. Going back to the defense, Mine is just acknowledging the elephant in the room, which is don't 100 percent for sure know what's going on with Jonathan Cooper right now.

1:09:41And actually, as we record this, he's a week away from an arraignment. He was arrested twice in June over a variety of charges stemming from a domestic dispute with his girlfriend. So from what I understand, he enters a plea in a week. From there, he gets a trial date that might not even come till 2027. So no idea what's to come with the legal process, but then the NFL's system for determining the personal conduct policy is its own world. So is that something that hangs over Cooper and the Broncos all year? Is Cooper facing a suspension before the season starts or during the season? How all of that plays out is something I have a close eye on and doesn't feel like it's being talked enough about.

1:10:25And then on top of that, I have no idea if this will happen. But if Jonathan Cooper is unavailable for the Denver Broncos, what you just talked about, like when I think about Denver, obviously Nick Bonito is an amazing player and you still have Zach Allen. But the thing about Denver is it just feels so overwhelming with the number of guys they have that can generate pressure. Jonathan Franklin Myers is already gone. So if you take Jonathan Cooper out of that equation, sure, you still have your two top pressure guys. But three and four are now removed. and does the Denver defense feel lacking compared to what we got used to, if that's the case.

1:11:04I'm getting way ahead of myself because we don't even know what's going to happen with Jonathan Cooper, but when one of your best defenders' status is up in the air, I think that's worth highlighting. I mean, he's got, he had 51 pressures last year. He has 112 over the last two years. That's top 20 in the NFL over the last two seasons. He's been a very meaningful piece of this, even if Allen and Benito rightfully get more publicity. And so I'm curious about that. You mentioned Onyatum. Not surprisingly, in the preseason, he's looked like a rookie defensive tackle. He has one pressure and 30 pass rush snaps.

1:11:38So I don't know if it's realistic to think that he can step in and be a meaningful piece of this right away, or maybe that's something worth watching over the first month. But just all the young guys,

1:11:48Robert Mays: I mean, they're just going to be relying on more of those in-house draft picks from the last few years in a world where John Franklin Myers isn't playing, I don't know how many snaps exactly he played last year, but obviously was a very key part of that rotation overall. And you're not going to have him to rely on, and you're going to have to lean on some of those young players on Yadam and the other guys they've drafted over the last few years more than you would. And that's in a world where they have Jonathan Cooper, which they might, like I said, it's impossible to speak confidently about what's going to happen there, but it just feels like a potentially tenuous situation.

1:12:21Robert Mays: John Franklin Michael Myers played 516 snaps last year and had 39 pressures. And so that those have to get replaced somewhere along the way. It was fourth on the team after Nick Benito, Zach Allen, and Jonathan Cooper. And so you don't get to 68 sacks with two guys. Yeah. Like the Broncos have had four and at times even six. And it just starts to feel a little thinner. That's it's not quite keeping me up at night, but I do think it is a reservation to at least bring up. This team added no one to its defense. No. And so it's a little bit, I mean, again, they only really lost John Franklin Myers.

1:12:55Robert Mays: Dre Greenwald didn't play last year. So it's not as if they lost his production. But I do think that it just feels a little bit more fragile than it has in years past, in part, because they didn't really add any depth. They are banking on a lot of those in-house guys. And I'll say this, the defense last year was phenomenal. And it was, the numbers are fantastic when you actually look at how well they did when playing base defense, which when you think about the linebackers and the safeties on this team. I, even with those numbers, I still think there were moments when teams were really trying to isolate Jones and Hufanga and the linebackers and coverage, the Giants game.

1:13:31Robert Mays: I keep coming to that Giants game where the Giants were able to get in some of those heavier personnel groupings and get explosive against that collection of players. That's the area of this, of this defense room. Like, can you still pick on those guys enough in coverage if the pass rush isn't that hellacious group that we're talking about? Well, and this is always such like like a shitty thing to have to bring up, but like we're talking about some of the regression points. This was for the most part, like a very healthy Denver defense last year. Yes, and that's the fragility part. That's kind of what I have in the back of my mind.

1:14:00Robert Mays: I think they were third in adjusted games lost on defense last year. Just looked it up. Yes, they were third. And like, you know, I know Patrick Chetan wasn't fully healthy towards the end. You know, he got banged up, missed a couple of games, and I don't think he was fully himself by the end. And so that's certainly part of it. But again, like sure, their top 11 guys, like whoever their starters are going to be, are going to be really good. And they weathered some stuff at safety last year. You know, PJ Locke had to play a handful of games, but for the most part, they were very healthy. And so if Cooper is going to miss games, you pull John Franklin Myers out of the equation.

1:14:30I know that people are like, oh, you know, Dre Greenlaw missed a lot of time last year. And it's like, sure. So then Justin Sternod is coming off the bench for you to be a decent spot starter. Well, now he's just a week one starter. What if he gets hurt? Now you're starting maybe Red Murdoch, who's a seventh round pick for you. It's just like, it's just one of those things that even if they're just average-ish in terms of games lost and guys going down, it does start to chip away at a team that, you know, they've got depth at certain spots. Like, obviously, if Cooper misses time, they're not going to have the same level of pass rush, but, like, their rotational guys are fine.

1:15:00Like, Jonah Ellis can make some plays. Jonah Ellis, you can be not Jonah Ellis in those situations

1:15:02Robert Mays: and be okay. Yeah, but it just won't feel the same. Like, they won't be the fourth best defense. They might be the 11th best defense if they've got to weather some of this stuff, and I just don't know if that is enough unless the offense really takes an insane step for that to be the team that they really want to be. All right. Well, that brings us perfectly to our little transition here. What is keeping you up at night, Derek, about the 2026 Denver Broncos? I think the QB as an individual is kind of just OK. And he's coming off of two ankle surgeries. And I'm a little bit worried about that. And I'm a little bit worried about that specifically because a lot of the stuff that he even does well is banked off of him being mobile.

1:15:44It's being outside of the pocket. It's him being rolled out. but it's him being a designed runner, being a really good scrambler. I just worry if any of that is 5 % to 10 % kind of diminished and maybe he doesn't have the same, like, being able to step into some of his throws that he wants because maybe the ankle is hurting him a little bit, that you just don't get as much the efficiency and consistency as you really would have wanted from what this offense should be now with Jalen Waddle. Maybe you didn't hear it. Jalen Waddle's here, though, Derek. Maybe you didn't hear that part. It's all going to be easy.

1:16:15every slant's going to the house if he can get him there wow we we alluded that we alluded to this a

1:16:23Robert Mays: little bit earlier in the week when we were talking about just teams where the passing game consistency is an area of concern for me and that's where i land with the broncos last year next gen stats 44 and a half percent passing success rate for bonex last season it was 19th in the nfl it was behind michael pennix and tua and the epa numbers look better because he's giving you some explosive plays. He's giving you a lot as a scrambler. And I think the other part of this, Bo Nix is the only player in the NFL last season that had a better mark when you combine the sack EPA and the scramble EPA was Patrick Mahomes.

1:16:58Robert Mays: It was negative 10 overall for Bo Nix last year when you combine the sacks and the scrambles. That's a phenomenal number. And he doesn't throw that many picks. And he's not turning the ball over. And so the value, like the expected points part of the Broncos offense, you understand why they get there. But down to down, the lack of consistency down to down is, I think, what leads to some of the frustration. And so the fact that, again, 19th in passing success rate last year, you can square that with really good efficiency numbers in part because they're not taking a lot of negative plays and there are valuable plays they're creating with some of the scrambles.

1:17:32Robert Mays: So I get that. But down to down, can I rely on this passing game in the biggest games of the year when some of the teams are throwing some of the junk at them they're likely going to? It was funny looking up some of the numbers on this. They weren't necessarily surprising when I think about how I consider Bo Nix and some of the quarterbacks I would compare him to. Last year, the only quarterbacks in the NFL that saw more zone defense than Bo Nix were Tyler Shuck and Tua. We talked about the two apart. That's a Mike McDaniel receiver motion thing. And it kind of reminds me of how teams used to play against like Russell Wilson.

1:18:09Robert Mays: Yeah. Where I'm going to make you read this stuff out. I'm going to make you, I'm going to take away the easy decision for you. When Bo's at his best, we're doing sluggos outside of the numbers. He's throwing go balls. Like he is making quick decisions. He's accurate with the football. And you're combining that, like Derek said, with some of the both off schedule and on the move stuff that he gives you. But when you're making him chew on things a little bit more, what does that look like? And the numbers against zone coverage last year lead you to that place. The only guys with a worse success rate versus zone coverage last year than Bo, Bryce Young, Tyler Shuck, Geno, Aaron Rodgers, Jalen Hurts, Joe Flacco, Cam Ward.

1:18:53Robert Mays: The only guys with a lower explosive play rate against zone coverage last year, Joe Flacco, Aaron Rodgers, Cam Ward, and Geno. that's the step that I think needs to happen. And like Derek said, where he can hurt you is in a specific enough way where I think we need a little bit more breath to that for you to feel like the Broncos passing game is ready to get them over the top. I feel like a protective football coach protecting the quarterback because the thing I'm losing sleep about is not Bo Nix getting better, which everything you just said is totally fair, but I am sitting here losing sleep about wanting more from the run game.

1:19:32Like, how can I help Bo Nix be better without Bo Nix actually having to be better, basically? And it pisses me off that we know how good the Broncos' offensive line is. Derek mentioned that they've got a pretty solid stable of running backs.

1:19:47Robert Mays: The running game's not bad, but it's not good. It's not good. It's always been a little bit middling considering how good the offensive line is. One of my consistent frustration points with this team. Across two years with Bo Nix, they are firmly in the middle of the pack in any metric you want to look at. They did have 51 explosive runs last year. A lot of that was Bo. 34 explosive runs by running backs, which is 20th in the NFL. And that's not to penalize Bo Nix for being athletic. That's a good thing. But A, he is coming off of an ankle injury. You probably want to protect him a little bit.

1:20:21And B, take some of the load off of him to be that playmaker. Like let's pop some big plays in the running game. Dobbins. I think he can do it. He was actually, he was one of only eight running backs to carry the ball a hundred plus times last year and average five yards per carry. It's just that he has durability issues. There's no way around that. I mean, he's, he was done for the year last year on November 1st, I think.

1:20:44Robert Mays: And so he pinky promised us though. He pinky promises season. He's going to play 17 games this year. We're holding them to that. I hope he's right. I really hope he's right. Another fun stat I wanted to share with y 'all. I think it gets lost that RJ Harvey scored 12 touchdowns last year. Yeah, Derek alluded to that. A lot of touchdowns, not a lot of else, not a lot else. The only, okay, but the only rookies that scored more touchdowns than RJ Harvey over the last decade are Zeke, Saquon, and Alvin Kamara. I just think that's crazy. Like, you do not think of RJ Harvey as having a season like that.

1:21:15This is a talented backfield, but Jonah Coleman, I mean, he's been my guy since last college football season. Harvey you hope's got more to show in year two and if Dobbins is healthy this is a good stable of backs the offensive line is good I would like to think that this could be better than a middle of the pack running game and if it is on top of adding Jalen Waddell to the mix maybe you don't need Bo to be that much more than what he was last year and I I think that could go a long way it's

1:21:44Robert Mays: Jalen Waddell and it's the there's a new play caller right and so I'm curious like how much about the offense changes. Jalen Waddell came from a place where they use more motion than any team in the league over the last few years. The Broncos were 30th in the NFL in motion rate. What does the Davis Webb offense look like? Is there a little bit more movement? Does it feel a little bit more dynamic? Does Jalen Waddell really kind of fill in some of the gaps we've seen from this passing game? Pat Bryant, we have not mentioned yet. Like Pat Bryant being like a big physical presence in the middle of the field and being an inside-outside flex guy that you can use with Jalen Waddell.

1:22:14Robert Mays: I'm open to the idea that the passing game can get better in a world where Davis Webb is calling plays at that. There's a smooth transition there. We add Jalen Waddell to the mix and the quarterback takes a step, but we talked about a little bit earlier this week, two teams in the last 10 years have won the Superbowl with a passing success rate outside the top 10 to get inside the top 10. You usually need to clear like 48 % and usually get up near 50, 44 and a half percent for the Broncos last year. That is a big gap, like to be the sort of offensive to be the sort of passing game that typically can win a Super Bowl that is a big gap that you have to fill in there are reasons to believe that can happen with what they've done this offseason and some of the in-house improvements that you might see from the Pat Bryants of the world but I think we have to see it for you to feel really good maybe not for you to feel really good about them counting coming out of let's call a normal AFC because I think that would be a retort from people well they almost won the Super Bowl last year it was weird last year yeah last year was you can acknowledge that it was weird It's going to be less weird this year.

1:23:13Yeah, last year was like historically bad Chiefs season where Patrick Mahomes gets hurt. Josh Allen by the end is throwing to Brandon Cooks in the playoffs. Lamar Jackson's team like completely explodes because he's not healthy. Like Joe Burrow was basically never healthy the entire like.

1:23:26Robert Mays: They needed Josh Allen to turn the ball over 17 times in order to win that game against the Bills. And so, again, I think we can see a scarier version. Broncos offense that has more teeth than it has had over the last couple years. But I think that version needs to emerge for them to be the sort of team they want to be this year with the sort of aspirations that they have. David, what does success look like, speaking of, for the 2026 Denver Broncos? Prove it's not a fluke. And I don't care about the win-loss record because 14-3 is a hard thing to do year over year, even for somebody like that.

1:24:04Robert Mays: I don't think they're winning 14 games again. I think that's okay. No, that's my point, though. You don't have to win 14 games. win 11 and look for real and win the AFC West again. And, you know, I think people talk about them as being prime for regression because the one score games and, you know, how consistent is this? How much volatility is there? Prove that you can do this again and be one of the league's best teams, you know, I get two years in a row for sure. And then, I mean, three straight playoff trips is a hell of a statement as well. I think it's get back to the AFC championship game, but have a real shot this time.

1:24:38yes I was just gonna say like I think final four is that's what you should be aiming for and like I just think that if you have what could and should be a top five or six defense in an offense that you're hoping makes the jump into the top eight I think if you just paste those numbers on top of any team any logo any helmet that should be a team that should be in the final four yeah I

1:25:00Robert Mays: think that's that's a high bar to clear but I would like to get like six beers in a Broncos fan and ask them if you guys didn't make the AFC championship game, would you be disappointed? I think the answer would be yes. A hundred percent. Because again, I think, again, I can quibble about whatever the quarterback is and all that stuff. I think if we remove the quarterback from the situation, this might be the best roster in football. That should, you should probably get to the AFC. Obviously the Rams are up there. The Eagles and the Rams have a case. But they are like, they at least have an argument that this is the most complete.

1:25:31They're probably more complete. I think some teams like the Rams, like maybe the absolute, and the Eagles, like the absolute star power is a little higher, but I think completeness, like the Broncos are a pretty like holistic roster. It feels like the Broncos have Walmart money. So they're a little bit immune to this. Like, I mean, they can pay whoever they want and they can do shit to make their lives easier, but it's always easier to just get the trophy before you have to pay the quarterback. Like there's an, there's an urgency to get that done before you have to worry about Bo's money, even though the Broncos can afford whatever they want to.

1:26:04Robert Mays: Let's get to our last one here. The Las Vegas Raiders. Our 2026 Las Vegas Raiders preview. Their offseason in 60 seconds. Hired Clint Kubiak as their head coach. Retained Rob Leonard and promoted him defensive coordinator. Signed Tyler Linderbaum for just an insane, obnoxious amount of money. I'm so happy for Tyler Linderbaum. Quiddy Pay for three years. Quay Walker and a Kobe Dean. Jalen Naylor brought in Kirk Cousins as the, let's call him temporary starting quarterback. lost Jamal Adams and Alandon Roberts in free agency in the draft. Fernando Mendoza in the first round, Treyden Stukes in the second round, Kieron Crawford and Trey Zune in the third round.

1:26:40Robert Mays: And we'll mention Jermon McCoy in the fourth round because that is not a normal fourth round pick. What are you most excited about watching with the 2026 Raiders, Derek? Brock Bowers and Ashton Gentry with an NFL play caller. I know that I did this last year where I was like, oh, I'm excited to watch Ashton Gentry and Brock Bowers. that was ready to be heard again i am that i literally i have somewhere in my own notes that like i'll slip on the banana how are you doing on sunday night when the genti practice injury news hit that freaks me out but was also like the most misleading initial report ever like it seems like they're like he's not gonna like miss the season or anything but when it first came out is everyone made it seem like he died i think i think it was hayden wings tweeted it which was very funny he's like the injury has just gotten lower and lower on his leg as we've gone.

1:27:28Robert Mays: Now it's a low ankle sprain. At a certain point, it'll just be like he stepped on a nail. They said on the afternoon that there was a prayer circle involved and I just, I wrote him off for the year. So that was, they said everybody like stopped practice. And I was like, shit, it sounds like the Teddy Bridgewater thing. Like, is he okay? And it seems like he'll be fine. So as long as we get to, if they can get to the season week one, we'll be good. Like I just, and Bauer should be healthy this year. That was the other thing is obviously going into the last year, Bowers I think was healthy, but by week two or three, he was already getting banged up and he still had a pretty good season.

1:27:58So I just think him being healthy, Jensie having a chance behind, again, what should be like an NFL adult offensive line and, you know, play calling situation. I'm just excited about what those two can look like, because I think talent wise, it's not even just that they're good. I think we talked about this last year. If you have an elite tight end and one of the top, let's say 10 running backs, you know, maybe Jensie's a little bit better than that. It's just kind of a unique identity as an offense. And I think I'm just excited for what that could look like.

1:28:26Robert Mays: That's that is my answer is Clint Kubiak having an encore as this difference making play caller the way that he was last year. Can he sustain that as a head coach? Not everybody can. And what does that offense look like when you're channeling it through these players? I feel like we've never really seen that before. And so I was trying to, first of all, the first thing that's worth mentioning here, I'm already more invested in this Raiders team than I care to be. I swung a trade for Brock Bowers in my like long time keeper league and I I'm very excited about the prospect of what could be waiting for me as part of that but it also puts a real deep fear into my soul we're just dogs chasing cars I'm not I'm not happy about it but I think it was the right choice but in order to kind of build the excitement for that I'm trying to figure out like all right yeah what does this role look like like this type of offensive system channeled through a tight end have we ever really seen that before where like the tight end is the most important pass catcher on this type of offense it's at some point george kittle with the niners i think that you can make that argument but they're such different players but they're very different players exactly like kittle is a true inline why like part of why he works is that you're always scared of what the run game is going to look like when he's on the field and when he's on the ball and like bowers is an acceptable blocker like i don't think he's like a guy like and Isaiah likely you just can't put him out there at all but he's not the best blocker even on his own team at that position so I do think it is a little bit different I actually Robert I had a thought about what his role might look like and we did this after the we were doing research for the play caller show and stuff like that I almost feel like they should draw a little bit of inspiration from what the Falcons were doing with both Kyle Pitts and Drake London like letting Bowers be like some amalgamation of both of those players that's interesting I landed on an amalgamation behind some of the things they were doing with JSN last year and the way that they deployed Elijah Arroyo within that offense.

1:30:22Robert Mays: Yeah. So, and that's what the JSN stuff. It's a combination of, I went back and I was watching so many of JSN's catches last year. And I think I forgot how many manufactured touches they created within that offense for JSN, whether it was just access throws, screens, stuff out of the backfield, like the, all of that stuff is applicable to what Bowers can give you. He can't give you the vertical stuff, but he can give you all the manufactured stuff. And so I think there's some of that. And then you go back and watch some of the ways they're using Arroyo. When he was in line, it was all vertical stuff off play action.

1:30:54Robert Mays: Like we're not asking you to do anything as a blocker, just run fast. Let's be explosive. Bowers can do some of that slide routes just, and they were lining up Arroyo at number one in some of those situations. And the other part of this that I find really like, okay, how can we create opportunities for an unconventional player, the amount of empty that the Seahawks used last year and being able to kind of put any guy at any one of the five spots, Seattle had 81 empty dropbacks for Darnold last year. That was third in the NFL. And so that allows you to kind of tweak roles and use them in unconventional ways because you can truly blind him up in any one of those five positions.

1:31:31Robert Mays: And so I think there's more evidence for what it can look like than I probably thought there was when I was thinking about this offense over the course of the summer. But I still think think there's enough of a mystery where I'm really excited to unwrap and see what it looks like early in the season. Y 'all are such nerds. Yes. Well, even as Robert was saying the empty thing, I was like, man, Michael Mayer is like a credible receiver. Gentry can actually line up outside. Like they've got the dudes to do this. Your biggest sicko awards are in the mail because I can't believe we just did six minutes on all of that.

1:32:02He's such an incredible player. Like what it looks like is very important. The most exciting thing about the Raiders is when we get to see Fernando Mendoza full stop. I don't care if that's basic. Brock Bowers is awesome. With all due respect to Brock Bowers and Ashton Gentile and Colton Miller and Max Crosby and a bunch of other really, really talented professional athletes. Can you hear the drums, Fernando? Like that's what I want to know about the Las Vegas Raiders. And I'll say this. He had his growing pains in the preseason against the Texans. I don't care. This guy doesn't need to red shirt.

1:32:37He arguably doesn't need to sit at all, in my opinion.

1:32:40Robert Mays: I think we just do the Drake May thing where he's on the bench to start the season. Throw him in there week six. Or just, let's just play it out. Let's just see how it goes. When they feel it's time. Exactly. There is no urgency here. I think Kirk is going to give you enough where it's not going to be embarrassing. You're not lying to the locker room. And I think that Fernando's presence there, I think has been good for Kirk and just like the urgency that he's played with over the course of the summer. And so the same way with the Patriots, part of the reason he did not play early on, and I think this is a reasonable concern if you're the Raiders, it's not about him.

1:33:16Robert Mays: It's do we think the rest of the offense is in a place where it is responsible to put him out there in week one? even if I think Clint Kubiak can account for some of the systemic concerns up front. And that offensive line will look significantly better independent of the talent than it did last year because it's more under center play action. It's heavier personnel groupings. The number I looked up last year, DJ Glaze finished fifth in the NFL in true pass sets. Fifth. That's not happening this year. I'll tell you that right now. You look at those numbers for Charles Cross and Abe Lucas last year, it's down near the bottom.

1:33:51Robert Mays: 51 % of DJ Glaze's pass blocking snaps last year were in true pass sets. It was 41 % for Charles Cross. So even beyond Tyler Linderbaum, that group is going to be lifted in a way schematically it wasn't last year. But we're still talking about talent-wise, a bottom 6 '7 offensive line, a group of receivers where the best one is Trey Tucker, Jalen Naylor. There's a lot of uncertainty. And so let's just see what the team is over the first month. Let's just roll the ball out. Let Kirk take some lumps. And naturally, this will figure itself out. I think that is the approach I would take if I were the Raiders.

1:34:27I have some thoughts that I will save for the successful season portion of the segment. I think the thing I want to say about Kirk, and this is not even to say that this is going to mean anything in terms of him staving off Fernando Mendoza. but I do legitimately think Kirk Cousins is a better quarterback than most of the guys who are placeholders for X top five pick. Like Kirk still gives you like not good NFL quarterback play anymore, but like acceptable in a way that like when the Patriots were rolling out that roster with like Jacoby Brissett, like Brissett can do stuff with a decent roster.

1:35:03That roster just had nothing to do and he's not going to give you that. Whereas I do think Kirk Cousins is like a rung above that. And so I think it at least, and I think because of that, you will get a clearer look of like, how ready is this offense? Like, I think when it was like Jacoby Brissett with the Patriots, it was like, they've just got nothing and he can't move. So like, I have no idea if this is any good. I think if Kirk looks acceptable, you'll be like, okay, I think this offense actually has what it needs that week seven Fernando Mendoza can come in and he's going to give us something.

1:35:34Robert Mays: I'm with you on that. And again, I do think the floor is considerably higher because of the systemic things an offense like this is going to give you. That was not the case in New England two years ago. There was nothing to, there was no floor created. I think there will be a floor in this situation. The famous last words, I think we've said that before and been truly burned by it, but I'm going off of what Clint Kubiak did last year. Like I was talking to somebody in Vegas this week and we were just talking about Clint and his personality and him being a head coach. And I was, we were just going over like how impressed I was with the job he did last year, because we talked about this a lot.

1:36:10Robert Mays: There are two different buckets when you're an offensive coordinator, but you're the figurehead of the offense. There's offensive architecture, which that's the marriage of the run of the pass, all the play action, helping out the offensive lineman. That's just by design. There's also the play calling stuff. He was such a good play caller situationally, some of the wrinkles that they had. He is one of those guys that I'm excited to watch. And I think that being the starting point does give me a certain level of confidence about the floor of the offense. And I think that gives me a certain level of confidence about what it will look like when they decide it's time for Fernando Mendoza.

1:36:46I will say the Drake May experience helped teach me not to sweat it too much, like when and how Fernando gets in there. Just let it happen, man. I have more to say, but we'll save it. We'll save it for the end.

1:37:01Robert Mays: What are you watching in the first month of the season, Dave, when it comes to the Las Vegas Raiders? Outside of Fernando, if I'm looking elsewhere, all of a sudden the Raiders' entire secondary is just full of young players. Like the whole thing, really. Other than, obviously, you have Eric Stokes, and they traded for Teron Johnson. Jeremy Chen is still there. You're not going to roll the ball out there with rookies playing everywhere in week one, but Darian Porter is a year two player. You draft trading Stooks 38th overall fun as hell, by the way. Go watch if you, I'm sure I was, I liked him as a prospect.

1:37:38He looked good Raiders preseason snaps.

1:37:41Robert Mays: It's very, very encouraging stuff. Well, in the depth chart, you guys are looking at for the Raiders defense right now. We made this when Isaiah Polamow was still taking a lot of the snaps with the ones trading Stooks. Apparently this week, Sam Warren, Sam Warren, He was working with the ones. And so that's already outdated in the most fun way possible that we're going to get a rookie, essentially getting a little bit more run in that spot. What I really liked in the preseason was Trayton Stukes is, I mean, incredible athlete. The range he brings to safety, that's the calling card. Yes. The physicality you saw from him in that preseason game.

1:38:13Robert Mays: That to me was, can he play safety in the NFL after playing nickel at Arizona? And he's flying downhill. He's a fun, exciting player. He delivers a thump too. Like he's he you can feel him on tape and he's he's been really fun. And Derek, I saw you had the same note when we compared notes before the show. Hezekiah Massis has been turning some heads at Raiders training camp as well. So I don't mean to suggest that they're going to trot out there with five rookies in the secondary in week one. But they have young, intriguing, exciting players on a team that's been lacking talent in the first place.

1:38:49This is a situation where if those guys take the baton and run with it, you can experiment with those things. So how Rob Leonard is the DC in Vegas. How does he tune those dials and what sorts of looks do the rookie DBs get and the year two guys? How does it all come together? And from week one until week six, what does that look like? Hopefully trading Stooks and maybe Hezekiah Massis. I would assume Jermod McCoy is not in this place, but if he really grows by leaps and bounds and looks like that crazy talented player that people that he was in the pre-draft process, this could be a situation where your secondary in week 10 looks so much different than week one and week two.

1:39:34And so that's that's something that I have a close eye on. I just like that they've so clearly built this room now with the resources where it's like they can arrive at a point in December where they're pleasantly surprised by how this thing has turned out. Like Stooks really gives them something. And maybe one of those young corners is able to give them something. And like, I just think that they've made this in a spot where not all of these rookies are going to, you know, steal jobs in year one and do all this stuff. But if one or two of them can be like, this is a guy we want to give continued snaps to and be a part of our long-term process here.

1:40:05I think that that is absolutely awesome. And then mine is kind of related to just like all the rookies on this team like they drafted keyron crawford who is probably going to be on their second wave of pass rushers he was the guy that i kind of liked at auburn and we talk about fernando mendoza on offense but they draft mike washington as the second right i think he's going to be the second running back he's looked very explosive in the preseason and if if genti has to miss any amount of time i mean i just assume that he's going to take a lion's share of of the load there

1:40:31Robert Mays: trey will and i think he'll be a part of this plan even if genti is healthy because of how good he's looked early on and he's just a different kind of runner right like I mean he's big but he's just like straight line north south crazy speed and like gente's got some pop to him but it is a little bit different with uh Washington I think and then Trey Zune them just bringing a third rounder where it's still a very unsettled offensive line and I think that there's just a chance that he's a guy who I think coming in out of the pre-draft process part of his appeal is that he's got a little bit of flexibility in terms of can he play tackle can he play guard can he even move to center and so I think that it's such an unsettled offensive line really outside of I think center and left tackle that them just having that built-in flexibility there I think is really nice for them as it currently stands the way that I understand it four spots on the offensive line should be relatively set based on how camp is gone Cole Miller at left tackle Spencer Burford at left guard Tyler Leonard Baum at center DJ Glaze at right tackle right guard I think is the spot that still needs some answers about it and I think the two guys that are mostly in line in that competition right now are Jackson Powers Johnson and Caleb Rogers, who's the third round pick from last year.

1:41:39Robert Mays: And then it sounds like Trey Zune could potentially get in the mix over the course of the year. But right now, I think four of those spots are kind of held down as we sit here on August 25th. All right. That's a lot of, I think, optimistic framing for what the Raiders season could look like. We have to talk about the other side of this. Dave, what is keeping you up at night about the 2026 Las Vegas Raiders? I'm going to look in my one shot over here when I say this, if you're watching. Raiders, Clint Kubiak, don't you ruin Ashton Jenty's career for God's sake. Please. We already talked about the injury scare on Sunday and fortunately it sounds like he dodged a bullet.

1:42:26I don't have a timetable of when they expect him back, but he's going to play this year, which on Sunday afternoon I was not convinced but that just throws into stark contrast for me just how bad it was for Ashton Gentry last year which it's funny it's funny to talk about this because I was just talking with a friend about the Gentry injury on Sunday and I was like I can't believe how poorly his career has gone to this point and this person my friend was like he had a thousand yards last year what do you mean and i was like no no no no no running through a brick wall for the entire season which is impressive to an insane degree i was just curious i wanted to look at over the last this decade from 2020 to 2025 over those years 282 running backs have carried the ball 100 plus times in a season ashton jenty ranks in the fourth percentile in epa per rush sixth percentile in success rate and in the first percentile in the percentage of negative and zero yard rushes that he had 27 of his rushes last year were for zero or negative yards it's the third worst number since 2020 just abysmal shit and by the way his 321 touches as a rookie only trail Najee Harris for running backs in the 2020s like they gave him the ball a shitload of times

1:43:53Robert Mays: They had nowhere else to turn. Okay, and that's fine, but for what? And what does that do to a young running back's career longevity, hopes to be an explosive player deeper into his 20s and potentially into his 30s? I have a high degree of confidence for the reasons you outlined earlier. Clint Kubiak's not going to let that happen. I think he's really good at his job, and I think the infrastructure is better. But I can't say I fully trust the Las Vegas Raiders either. and Ashton Jinty is way too good to be 26 years old. And we're like, oh man, I thought that was going to be a lot better. Like his college tape was incredible.

1:44:34He was a singular player at Boise State and I don't remember anything cool happening in his NFL career. That keeps me up at night and I hope it doesn't happen to him.

1:44:44Robert Mays: I think we could have the exact same conversation about Brock Bowers. Don't you keep Brock Bowers in a cage. That's right. You added him on your team. I now it matters to me. It wouldn't matter to me as a general NFL fan. Now it matters much more. Now me and Derek are brothers in arms here. We're in this together. Brock Bowers is future. Yeah, I basically would have done like the exact same spiel that Dave just gave about Gentry about Bowers. Like, I just think that if Gentry was singular at Boise State and he was what Bowers was at Georgia and even in his rookie, he broke records as a rookie tight end on a not very good team like that guy is just incredible.

1:45:19So they have these two beautiful, incredible talents here. Can we just make the most of them? I think that that is important. And then honestly, talking about the best talents on this team, what's keeping me up at night, and really not a lot of it is related to success with a team like this, but is Max getting traded again? It just kind of feels like where... The fact that they already did it, and it kind of feels to me like this is just they're waiting for whoever the right target is going to be by the time the deadline comes along. So if we're talking about like what is keeping you up at night, especially the early points of the season, I'm just like, is our only really, really good defensive piece going to be gone by the time we get to Halloween?

1:46:01Robert Mays: That leads me into mine. The quality of this team's fronts on both sides of the ball, I think, is what would be keeping me up at night. We talked about them being able to paper over the offensive line part of this a little bit, which I think is totally fair. But if you just try to isolate the individual talents, Spencer Burford is probably gonna be a starting guard on this team. He got beat out in San Francisco and before getting back into the mix on a team that wasn't exactly flush with great offensive line talent. If Caleb Rogers ends up winning that right guard job, he played 285 snaps last year.

1:46:32Robert Mays: DJ Glaze has struggled. And so even if we think it can be a rising tide lifts all boats situation because of the way they play, I still don't think the talent there is very good. And if you look at the defensive side of the ball, For all the guys they added in the secondary, and they added Kieran Crawford as a pass rusher in the third round, the interior defensive line rotation on this team is the same as it was last year when they had to play a very specific way defensively with Patrick Graham as the defensive coordinator. This team in Las Vegas last year, per NextGen, played with eight guys in a box on 48 % of their runs.

1:47:05Robert Mays: That was 10 percentage points higher than any other team in the NFL. the gap between them and the Browns at two was bigger than the gap between Cleveland and the team in ninth place. Cause they had to play that way. It's all the same guys. They're better at linebacker, right? And a Kobe Dean and Quay Walker should help with this. But I still think that interior defensive line rotation is a little bit scary to me. And how are they going to be able to hold up? Especially Rob Leonard, I think is going to want to do a lot of McDonald's Seattle type stuff. He was on that Raven staff in 2022. to obviously Quinn Kubiak just came from there the bones of the defense I expect to be that can you imagine or picture a more different collection of interior defensive linemen than what the Seahawks have and what the Raiders currently have I can't even picture it because again think of all the teams even in that bucket like what Fangio's defense is what Minter's defense is the defense the interior defensive line talent on those teams is just or even what the Ravens were at that at those eras like it's just so much different and like honestly I love Adam Butler as one of those just like kind of like mid-tier NFL players I think that he's great and he gives you some explosive plays but he's a player who tries to win with quickness and he's 32 years old this year like I just there's a certain point where maybe that falls away and like you mentioned all the loaded box stuff not only were they loading the box last year the linebackers were like Jamal Adams and Devin White and guys like that and they were just firing them all the time.

1:48:33Like, N 'Kobe Dean and Kwe Walker can do that, but I think you don't want to have to do, that doesn't want to be the only way you want to live. So I just think, unless, like, a lot of these rookies, and again, they didn't even really add that many young guys, but unless, like, Quidipe and Kieran Crawford are just nails out of the gate to somewhat make up for your interior issues, I mean, this could be one of the worst fronts in the NFL. They just said, Kwe, N 'Kobe, you want to make 200 tackles each? Does that sound fun?

1:48:59Robert Mays: And 15 or$12 million a year, whatever they paid them. I think it's just a reminder that as there are exciting elements to this team, there are things worth being optimistic about. New era, really fun skill position players, number one overall pick quarterback. This is still a team that's paying for the sins of its inability to find talent at a lot of position groups over the last few years. It is a thin, fragile football team in a lot of important areas. And I think ultimately that will hold them back, even if there's stuff we can get excited about. What does a successful season look like, Dave, for the 2026 Las Vegas Raiders?

1:49:32I don't see how this can be a successful season if you don't have a really clear picture of what Fernando Mendoza is by the time it's over and I think like really yes you need you think

1:49:42Robert Mays: you need a really clear picture of what a rookie quarterback is I sure do I think if he's just pretty exciting that's probably enough for me okay do we think do we feel like he's the right guy this is like Clinton and him are the right guys but it's worth bringing up and I get your point that it's going to take care of itself but remember we started training camp with the whole bit about the Raiders had been making noise that Kirk might play the whole season. And I don't genuinely believe that. And I never did. But I don't want the weather to be cold here in Chicago before I'm seeing Fernando Mendoza.

1:50:14And it's not just because I think he's exciting and I think he's better than he gets credit for. This guy's got to play. Rookie quarterbacks have to play. And Tom Brady's there. And that's where that whole Jordan Love, Patrick Mahomes. Okay. I was going to say, I actually. No. I don't think they have to play. No, I disagree. The difference is to Dave's point. First overall picks do play.

1:50:36Robert Mays: Yeah, like they do play because the team feels compelled to play them because your team is bad. You need to win games. There's pressure from the outside. Do they need to play? I think is a different conversation. What we don't have to have now 100 minutes into this podcast. Jordan Love joined a team that had a Hall of Famer. And I know Rogers wasn't playing like an MVP at the point. but Jordan Love was brought there to succeed a successful quarterback on his way out. The Kansas City Chiefs nowhere near as successful as they became, but they were a successful franchise with a quality quarterback when they drafted Patrick Mahomes.

1:51:11Alex Smith was five years younger than Kirk Cousins is now. If like what happens if Kirk Cousins plays most of this season and the Raiders are even like entertainingly decent, like who cares? So what? That is not informative enough for me.

1:51:25Robert Mays: I think we don't and where causation comes into this is difficult to pin down. But I also think the Chiefs and the Packers were able to operate in ideal circumstances because they weren't pushed off a timeline. I think you can make an argument. Teams should operate that way if you're if you're trying to do it in an ideal way. But but teams that are bad and draft a quarterback first overall, don't approach it that way because they don't feel like they can if you want to get and i know we don't have time because we're yeah we're 90 minutes into this thing it worked out obviously it worked out jordan love whatever you think of him is a good quarterback and and it all worked out for green bay but like it was objectively unideal the way that all that worked and they had to arrange a special special contract with jordan love because three years for fernando we'll see him next year no we need i want to see fernando now I think we're going to, by the way.

1:52:17Robert Mays: I know. I agree. Anyway, I think we're going to see him like six weeks into the season. You have three years with which to decide on a quarterback before you have to start thinking obviously about the option and then also earmarking money for a potential extension. And considering that the alternative is Kirk Cousins, where he is in his career, both age and ability wise. I just I don't see the upside, to be honest with you, especially for a guy that was drafted number one overall. I think it's about the downside. I think you're trying to mitigate downside, which is probably we're probably overstating that.

1:52:49Robert Mays: We said the same thing about Drake May. And I was probably the same thing about Drake May. Even his rookie year wasn't even good. But Caleb Williams seems fine now. We're not worried about Caleb Williams. I was Joe Burrow or his knee up because the Bengals infrastructure was so bad his rookie year. And he's fine, too. Like they're not they're they're they're they're big professional athletes. They can get out there and take some licks. And it was a big boy. He's huge. That's people don't talk about Fernando. Like he's six, five to 30 because he comes across like a choir boy on the microphone. He's a big physical quarterback.

1:53:26He should play football. And I think he's good enough to weather whatever's coming his way. So I, I I'm on a soapbox, but I think if the Raiders are going to have a successful season, we need to get to the end of it and be like, Fernando's exciting and we can add some stuff to make him look better.

1:53:43Robert Mays: That's part of it. I think we get to the end of the year. Bowers looks like a monster. Gentry looks like the guy they drafted. Fernando and Klint are both the right choices in franchise-altering choices. Hiring a new head coach and drafting guy first overall. Those feel like the right guys. And we get some flashes from this rookie class. That's enough. I think, yes. I think if next year we are going into the March free agency period or the draft period or whatever, and being like, man, if they get one more offensive lineman and one more pass catcher, like that's the team I want to bet on. Defensive tackle, but yes.

1:54:21Well, the offense. Like I'm saying like if this is the offense that I think it's like they could, you know, Fernando looks good and the offensive line is better than it should be because of, you know, Kubiak raising it and Bowers is healthy and Gentile looks good. It's like, okay, that becomes an offense that I want to bet on to be the one that takes that superstar jump. And so to Dave's point, like some of that is probably a little bit dependent on seeing whether or not Mendoza can play and me wanting to feel that way. Because if he doesn't play at all, I think I would have like slightly tougher time making that bet if we hadn't seen him at all.

1:54:51But if he plays half the season and he looks about as good as we think he's going to be and he looks pretty good. And again, to you guys' point, like Fernando Mendoza is built like he's closer to like Justin Herbert talent wise than I think he probably gets credit for. And so I think if he looks good, he plays good and the offensive line looks better and they are one or two pieces away from being like, I want to bet on that in the offseason. That to me is success. I don't really care about the defense yet. That to me is like 2027 consideration. Yeah, that's right. Like when when did when did Tyler Shuck take over last year?

1:55:24It was week eight. It was the Rams game. game yeah spencer rattley like exploded versus the bears and then they put him in it's fine half the season your role half the season will be fine but i think it should be more that's fair

1:55:35Robert Mays: give me a larger that's fair i think i think if he plays eight games and those games look okay you're gonna feel all right i think it should i think it should be 12 and fortunately the raiders schedule is gonna keep me from stressing out about this because they open with the dolphins and then it's just murderer's row for like two months after that like i said it's gonna figure itself out sorry i think i think we're gonna be okay i feel passionate about the fact that we have three playoff teams with super bowl aspirations and we spent the most time on the goddamn las vegas raiders this is gonna be a fun couple weeks for katie that is all we've got for the afc west preview we got seven more of these coming it is one of my favorite stretches of the year really looking forward to it appreciate all of you guys listening that's all we got for today.

1:56:20Robert Mays: We will be back tomorrow with the AFC North. Talk to you guys 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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