Can you actually find success chasing a trend in today’s NFL?

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2:09Robert Mays: Welcome to The Athletic Football Show. I'm Robert Mays. Another Mailbag Monday here on The Athletic Football Show. Me, Michael Bauer, Derek Klassen. Some really good questions today. Some very good hypothetical questions. Like, if we change this part of NFL history, what would this look like? Or if we change this one rule, what would the downstream effects look like? Enjoy digging into some of those today. Let's get to that conversation with me, Beller, and Derek right now.

2:46Robert Mays: It's another Mailbag Monday here on the Athletic Football Show. Before we get started, Beller, is that a peanut punch t-shirt? It is. It's like Mike Tyson's punch out. If you're looking on YouTube, Peanut Tillman's Punch-Out. Where did you get that, and how do I get one of those? I have. I honestly, I've had this shirt for, I remember having it watching Wisconsin lose in the final four to Kentucky in 2014. Right? Yeah. It was probably after the 2012 season. So it's at least that old. And I've never seen it since. I don't even remember where I saw it. I just saw it and immediately grabbed it. And I've never seen anyone else have it or anything like that.

3:29It is my favorite shirt. I will be devastated if anything ever happens to it.

3:33Robert Mays: I have some of those, right? I just don't know where they are. I once loved them. People of the internet, if you can find a place where I can get that, please let me know. But, yeah, I assume it was made after the 2012 season when he had, like, 12 forced fumbles. Yeah. That's the second time that team has come up this week because Barnwell and I were talking about Tim Jennings on his show. So it was real, real, real, real good stuff over there this week. There we go. So let's get into the questions. Let's do it. All right. Rabble rouser getting us started here. You are the GM of a team that lost the Super Bowl in the last 20 years.

4:04You can draft one single non-quarterback who is in the league at that time to try to reverse the result. Which team do you choose and which player would you take? An important note for context here. This was on Discord. So someone asked rabble rouser this question and he clarified that guy exists no matter what. So, for example, if the Bengals took Aaron Donald from the Rams the year they played in the Super Bowl, it's not like aaron donald's not on the rams anymore there's just two aaron donald's so you can't take him away from the team that beat you in the super bowl both teams just get to have the

4:32Robert Mays: guy that their discord is uh policing time travel rules when it comes to these hypotheticals i really do appreciate that somebody's got to i had a couple of these uh the first ones that immediately came to mind just give the patriots a different right tackle in each of their two super bowls like whoever it was going to be like let's just make it andrew whitworth for both of them we can make it easy he was in the league for both of these and he played a little bit all over the place and so putting like joe thomas over there feels cheap like at least whitworth played a little bit of guard he put a little bit on the right side like so i think whitworth is my answer for that the one i felt best about just because i think one player would have made the difference in that game put 2016 ezekiel elliott on the 2016 falcons he's picking up that dante hightower blitz man wow he's picking that thing off see i was trying to find one for the 2016 falcons because like that that game truly feels like the most like they won and it slipped out like who's just one player who could change it that's a great one zeke does not mess that up that's really that up and i think he closes out the game you you give the ball to 15 times in the second half and i think that thing is over and so that was the one I felt best about and the last one I had was throw Lane Johnson on the 2015 Panthers get Mike Remmers out of here give Mike Remmers a break and see how that game goes Lane wasn't like who he would eventually be in 2015 it was his third year but still it's I think it's he's better equipped to handle Mike Remmers in that moment than Mike Remmers was see I like this because you it seems like you mostly picked offensive guys I ended up picking a lot of defensive guys and some of them were like in my mind it was not really patching up a weakness for all of them it was taking a a defined strength and just making it better like the 2014 Seahawks if you put JJ Watt on that team they just would they just win like they are just such a dominant unblockable defense that they just win that game and so that's kind of the approach I took with some of these like a cheap way to go after this question it's like let's just take the best player in the league and put them on an already good team and see if that makes the difference i mean i guess that's that's the question yeah exactly like the other one i had too that is exactly in the same vein the 2023 uh 49ers if you put like any all pro pass rusher obviously the pick is going to be miles garrett but if you pair him and nick bosa they don't lose that game like there's no shot they lose that game so derrick's answer to this question is teams would win more super bowls if they just had better players that's the question revolutionary isn't that the question is like just like because like because i took a more specific direction than that like what was your actual weakness in that game and why but how would you potentially rectify it but i i don't think winning super bowls is necessarily always about hiding your weaknesses i think it's about defining your strengths and so that's why i picked a lot of these players simple game just comes back to the best players it's really all it's about but I thought what's next one.

7:24All right. Coast trash. Interesting discord handle there. Coast asks us, how would you rank the best pass blocking running backs in the league? How do you identify these guys while studying, studying film, situational snap counts, observable, technical skills, vibes. Derek, what do you think here? So I don't think I've ever like definitively ranked them. There are a couple of guys in my mind that over the course of, of history that I've always thought that we're really, really good at it. Le 'Veon Bell at his peak was incredible. Ezekiel Elliott at his peak was incredible. CMC is really good at it.

7:54And I think he's actually an interesting case because generally I do think pass pro volume is a decent way to get a gauge a guy. Like if they're letting start,

8:02Robert Mays: I think it's a good way to like you sort it by that. If a guy is never allowed to do it, he's probably not good at it. Right. That's, that's the thing. It's like the volume gets you to a certain point of like, these are the guys that might be good at it. And then you have some guys who do it a lot and are not necessarily good at it. CMC is an interesting one, but that's because he's awesome at it. He only had 46 pass blocking snaps, but that's because they just get five out all the time. 80 % of their plays. They do it more than anybody. And some teams will do that to protect the running back, right?

8:30Like they will do it in service of making sure like, ah, this guy's not very good at that. Like Travis HN early in his career was exactly like that until Liam Cohen got there. They were like, we're just going to get him out because he's not very good at this. And so I do think volume is generally a good one. but sometimes even that is not good because like the Houston Texans backs for example pass blocked a ton like Woody Marks was out there a ton pass blocking Daria Gubale came onto the field a lot as their pass protecting back they were awful at it but that's just like the function of the offense right they are not like a big checkdowns team and if they are it's the tight ends and so I think volume is a good place to start but then you do have to watch some of these guys like again CMC I think is really good at it Javante Williams and Kyron Williams are both guys who are very good at it.

9:16Bajon Robinson, I think, is pretty good at it. Jameer Gibbs is a guy who's gotten better at it. He was one where early in his career could not do it. Like, that was why they needed a David Montgomery, right? And that's why the Texans currently need David Montgomery. Yes, because their guy was, yeah, Woody Marks and Daria Gumawale were not really equipped to do that. So volume's a good place to start, and then you just got to watch him a little bit.

9:38Robert Mays: I think that's, yeah, I would sort it by volume and then actually start watching guys. Kyron Williams is going to be one of the guys that I mentioned. The guy that I think is really under-talked about in this way, Ramondre Stevenson is a fantastic pass blocker. And he was actually one of the guys I was going to talk about on our Players Who Quietly Defined the League in 2025 show because of how good he is in pass protection and just how much meat he was getting off the bone. Like, when you look at it, I think he had the highest percentage of rushes in the NFL last year that were over-expectation, Ramondre Stevenson did.

10:09Robert Mays: So just having somebody who's really efficient on the ground is a good pass blocker. Like, I understand that everyone wants Travion Henderson to play more because Travion Henderson is very exciting. But the positives that Ramondre Stevenson gives you are very real within that offense. And I think pass blocking is one of them. It's we do this all the time, right? With exciting players like this, like Zeke and Pollard is always the one that I go back to where it's like Pollard was this exciting, like bounced every run and had all these explosives. and he was the pass catcher and it was like yeah but that stuff is only really as valuable as it is because when zeke is on the field you are guaranteed to get a nice play out of it so he's one of them and the guy that i would throw out when this is just purely based on like i'm watching the team and it just jumps off the screen the dude who is ascending and like we'll see how many chances he gets just because of where he is in the pecking order laquint allen was amazing in pass protection last year for the jaguars that was the most random one i can remember because you have a rookie mid-round pick coming in who just very randomly when you watch his snaps and pass protection is really really good at it and that one's actually a good one in terms of where the volume is misleading if you look at like overall pass block snaps for that team Travis Achan had more but that was because he was on the field more on early downs and they would still throw a lot and they were more comfortable letting him block early than they were earlier on in his career but when it came to third down it was LaQuint Allen who they would put on the field And so that I think is a really good call.

11:37I will say quickly, too, in terms of like, what am I looking for when I look for pass blocking? The first is just like, do you know where you're going? Do you know where the threats are coming from? Because like, if you can at least be a speed bump in the way of a guy, that's a good starting point. And then I think the guys who do a really good job of just making sure their base is under them and like their feet are under them upon contact. Like that to me was always what made Ezekiel Elliott so good is like he knew where guys were coming from. But when he was taking on contact, it looked like a tackle.

12:10Like he just did such a good job of playing with his hands, playing with his base. And so those I would say are like the two primary traits.

12:17Robert Mays: I can't remember which team I was watching when we were doing the rookie quarterbacks, but it jumped out a lot. It might have been the Saints last year, actually. Watching the Saints and even the Saints did a really good job. And we didn't talk about this on the show, but they were down near the bottom of the league in unblocked pressure rate. So when you watch the Saints, there were not a lot of free rushers all over the place. I think they did a really good job and are coached well enough where they're typically going to the right spots. But even when the back was going to the right spot, the back, whoever it happened to be, was getting pushed back into Tyler Shuck very consistently.

12:45Robert Mays: So that knowing where you're going is half the battle, but really maintaining ground and not getting pushed back into the court. You don't have to like deplete guys in order to be good at this. I think it's just making sure the quarterback still has a little bit of breathing room if you're stepping up into the A-gap and taking on a block. All right, Baller, what's the next one? Okay, Jemfie's got our next question. Jemfie says, bit of an odd one, but I'll give a little background first. We've recently seen the NFL move to being much more aggressive on fourth down, as dictated by analytics. Now we've reached the point where teams are getting criticized for not going for it more on fourth down sometimes.

13:18It's seen as dumb, conservative, or archaic. what are some things what are some of the things NFL teams routinely do that may be seen like this in the near future what do you got here Robert it's a great question and I think what makes it

13:30Robert Mays: unique is that the fourth down movement is one of the only things that since I've been covering the NFL now for almost 15 years the progression of how we think about fourth downs has moved into linear fashion right there's no like coming back around there's no schematic cyclical element to the fork downs. So this is one of those where I think as we move further and further, we'll have a better understanding of this is the optimized way to approach fork downs and we'll criticize teams that don't do it that way. With scheme stuff, I think it's much harder because things that seemed like they were on their way out eight, 10 years ago, that stuff tends to come back around.

14:11Robert Mays: So I think there would have been a moment, let's again, say eight, 10 years ago, where the way you would pay certain positions would be seen as archaic if you were over indexing for running backs or safeties or linebackers or whatever but because it's always kind of inevitably going to come back around there's probably going to be a moment where it no longer feels that way so i think it's harder with the actual like nuts and bolts football stuff than it is something than it is with something that's more like isolated incidents in the way that something like a fourth down is you can treat fourth downs like baseball in a way that you can't really with all the other different moving parts associated with schematic changes.

14:48Robert Mays: My answer to this is kind of specific, but I'm going to say that it's teams that are willing to give away information before the snap on offense or defense. That is something we'll look back on maybe in five years. I can't believe this team did that. And there are a bunch of different examples of this. Teams just lining up in single high and playing single high, right? Like we're going to give you the answer as to what the coverage is, bucketed it before the play even starts and what that allows an offense to do. On offense, just lining up in the gun 85 % of the time and giving away little tells about where the back is going to be, what that means, the fact that you can't really run the ball in a multifaceted way out of those looks.

15:29Robert Mays: And so getting to a place where anything could be anything, offensively and defensively, we've already really trended that direction in the last five years. And even as the league changes and what works and what doesn't and what's valuable and what's not, I think that idea of let's be as hard as we can possibly be to pick up on before the play even happens, that to me, I think, could continue in a way where if you're not doing that, you might be getting left behind. I think defensively, I can totally see that in a world where we live where you kind of just have to load more into too high stuff and then either get into the box, you know, after after the snap or don't.

16:05offensively with the shotgun stuff like I agree that like it really pinches what you're allowed to do in the run game and I think some people this is even a a learning that I had to take early on like early on in my like football learning career I was like well then just get in the pistol it's the same as it's the same as being under center it's not like the timing is just different defenders can see the ball differently like it's it just does not solve as many of the problems as you think it does and so being in shotgun and pistol does limit you I just wonder how much that can change until like the high school and college game changes because like that's all these quarterbacks know like at a certain point like you're kind of just dealing with the players that you have and like if these guys can't really fully live in like an under center world until year three year four it's like I feel like that one is just going to be a little bit harder to to like fully instill.

16:52Robert Mays: still potentially and i also think there's a world where we get back to a place where like the quick spread out passing game is the way to approach the league like i could see that coming back around like if the nickels are going to be 225 are we going to be at a place where actually having like 180 pound scat wide receiver these like little quick slot guys is the way to attack those players and the game starts spreading back out again even if we're living in more of a too high world so i'm i'm open to the idea that the shotgun actually might come back for those reasons but right now it just feels like we've swung so far the other way like Washington making such a demonstrative point about like we're not going to do that anymore like we're going to make sure that we're more like some of these other teams I do think we're kind of coming back to a place where teams are really realizing the benefits of lining up under center using a lot of play action and it's solely because it keeps the defense off balance where any play could evolve could express into anything, I think being able to do that on offense and defense really does make sure that you're giving yourself the best possible chance.

17:56Right. You can hide stuff better. Whereas, yeah, 10 years ago when you kind of knew what you were getting and everything was preloaded, you could just have this fast slot receiver. And it's like, it didn't really matter if we were showing anything. We just knew that we were quicker than you. I, one in terms of like the decision-making of football that I did have was, I feel like we are getting more and more towards like, if you don't understand the two point math of being down eight, like your head coach is losing it a little bit, which I think is in a similar bucket as like a lot of the four and down stuff.

18:24So like when you are down 14, you score a touchdown, that gets you six points, then you are down eight. It makes more sense in a lot of cases to go for two. And if you don't get it, then you can still have another chance to go and tie the game. And the reason that it makes sense is like it opens up an avenue for you to actually win the game by just converting that first one. And then you get the PAT the second time around, you can actually win the game. Obviously the reason a lot of teams are scared and there's a lot of, I think it's a little bit slow to get there is because it also opens up a quicker avenue to lose if you fail both of them.

18:55But that was the same argument we made with the fourth downs, right? It was like, oh, well, if we just miss a bunch of them, then it's harder for us to lose the game. But it's like, well, yeah, but if you scheme up the right stuff and you get them, then you win the game. And I do think that that is one that we're probably moving towards.

19:09Robert Mays: The idea of, well, you know, when you go forward and should you go for two in that moment, is that the right time to do it? Like that's usually the pushback on that is all like human element stuff where it's, you know, when you're only down one score, you know, does that keep guys more engaged later in the game than if you go for two because it's actually the best avenue. But then you're down two scores like I for the most part when I hear that stuff, I'm kind of like, I don't know about all that. But I do think it's I don't want to dismiss it totally. Like, I think that's actually worth the conversation.

19:41Robert Mays: Like what are the human elements of the two point stuff late in games that maybe we should be thinking more about rather than purely looking at it as a math equation? I agree. But that was also we did that with the fourth down stuff. And I do think that there is still some human element to that. Right. Like there are still I do think that there are cases where you can go against whatever the numbers might say. But I do wonder if like in five years, every team gets better at doing the two point math that we kind of stop thinking about as much of the human element thing. and just becomes a kind of normalized for every player and stuff.

20:11Robert Mays: That's my instinct is that that is correct and that we do get there, but I think it is at least worth the conversation. I don't want to be totally dismissive of it at first glance. And I actually think I want to do something a little bit later in the summer about some of the overall like structural decision-making in the league, like the two-point stuff, what forked downs mean in a world where the kickoff has changed. Like I do think that there's enough of that that has shifted over the last few years that it's worth like sitting in some of it. but I generally am with you here. The other thing I'd say from like a decision-making standpoint, I think this is already starting to happen.

20:45Robert Mays: You can't call a timeout to save five yards. That was the other one I had. Yes. Like, especially, especially in my opinion on first down. If it's first and 10, dude, you're going to get three, maybe four bites at the apple if you get it to fourth and two. Why are we burning a timeout for this? And we're seeing fewer and fewer coaches do that. I do think that has shifted pretty quickly, but that to me is similar to some of the fourth down and situational decision making. All right, let's take our first quick break and then come back and get through a bunch more of your guys' questions. All right, we've made it.

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24:33Robert Mays: All right, buddy, what's next one? Okay, Durs asks, obviously, the NFL is cyclical schematically, and part of that comes from one team solving a problem and others following suit. How often do the teams that chase a trend meet or exceed the success of the team that started it? Are the first movers often doing so because they found a player with a somewhat unique skill set and or a market inefficiency before the broader league-wide trend makes the schematic tweak hard for others to fully replicate? At what point does it become more productive for teams to find their own unique solution rather than chasing what led to another team's success?

25:05Derek, you take this one first. To me, it actually depended a little bit on whether it's an offensive thing or a defensive thing or like what the trend is exactly. I think defensive trends are a lot harder to follow because I think defense, while like whatever Mike McDonald does is like super interesting and spags and all that stuff. I think defense is so player driven, like so talent specific driven. Like think about what Brandon Staley did with the Rams, where it was Aaron Donald and Jalen Ramsey. And it was like, oh, this is going to revolutionize defense. And then you go somewhere else where you don't have that talent and it's hard to do it.

25:41Whereas I do think with offense, while that's obviously true, right, like the Shanahan offense doesn't look the same with or without Julio Jones. But I do think that when you have offensive principles and offensive systems and you are the one wielding things with the ball, it's a little bit easier to kind of insert and then like take out different offensive pieces and iterate a little bit. Whereas I do think defense to me is a little bit more specific and player driven.

26:06Robert Mays: disagree with that but i actually think my examples of when the second wave in a trend has been more effective than the first wave actually came on defense and that 2020 rams team is the team that i was going to mention those ideas had existed previously right like he just brandon staley took a lot of the fangio ideas and brought them to la the players were just better So because defense is so player driven, I think when you can take like the overall bones of a schematic trend and then filter it through better players, you can get better versions of that trend. And I think that has happened a couple of different times on defense with offense.

26:48Robert Mays: I think it's harder to find those examples because I do think on offense, the first movers tend to always be the best ones because they're finding the next trend. that's actually a good a good point about the defensive thing I guess in my mind I was thinking about like the big one is obviously like the legion of boom right it is like teams seeing what they were doing and trying to copy that you just can't do that because because the reason that worked is because of the talent that those teams had so I guess that's kind of the more the way that I was thinking it but like what you're saying about like those defensive principles does make a good point because like Mike McDonald even was doing similar ish stuff to a lot of that stuff but then you know my other example but you go to the ravens and you have roquan smith and kyle hamilton and it's like well okay i mean i guess you can just get away with different shit when you have those guys and so i guess that would be the thing to me is that i think the the iterations and changes that you make to kick things into high gear as a defensive trend or whatever is the players whereas i do think on offense like you can kind of get to those avenues without it necessarily being the superstar player that is like being the thing that makes you iterate or change i i would 100 agree with that and i do think that's why we've seen some of the second wave teams on defense actually have the best versions of this and i actually think the mike mcdonald teams are really good for this example mike mcdonald if you look at the overall like again bones and skeleton of the defense it does look similar to what a lot of those fangio teams were doing, but now you have like this Ravens-esque pressure DNA that's also been incorporated into this.

28:21Robert Mays: Like if you look at the amount of Seattle played more two high snaps than any team in the league last year, Seattle with their coverage menu is a lot of these like Fangio world coverages where it's a lot of quarters. It's a lot of cover six, but they're injecting something new into it. And so I think that happens more on defense, either with the players or with just like one different thing you can kind of add on to it. With offense, I had a harder time coming up with examples of that because I think that the guys who've, I think for two reasons. One is similar to what you said. On offense, when you have better players, the game gets simpler.

28:54Robert Mays: So you're not trying to iterate onto these like really kind of crazy schematic things. If you think about the teams that have been so talent driven, the Bengals are a perfect example of this. Okay. So Zach Taylor goes to Cincinnati from LA. And if you look at the way that Bengals offense is structured with those guys, really one of the only similarities in terms of the overall plan is that they played a lot of 11 personnel. Other than that, it doesn't look a ton like the L.A. teams did, because why would you do that? You just have these like two monsters out there, so you don't have to do that.

29:28Robert Mays: The Eagles are another really good example. When they had those two guys, it was pretty simplified. but so on offense i think that the guys who are starting the trends for the most part are the ones getting the biggest advantage out of them because even when you're filtering better players through those trends they don't always look the same right like it morphs in some way away from what it originally was based on who the players are to a point where it's like not even that comparable anymore that's a really good point i think the other thing too in terms of like which parts of this are like of trends are actually chaseable it does feel like if we're chasing specific player archetypes you are probably late which leads me back to like the legion of boom like those corners the ways that teams are trying to do that i think even teams like i understand why teams are probably going to chase more big nickels like kyle hamilton and nick aminwari it does feel like if you're getting to the point if you're getting to the party now you're probably going to be a little bit late um i honestly wonder if teams like in two years like are going to be like so the tight end movement i think is really important but i i think it's kind of crazy that as many of them got drafted as they did because it just doesn't feel realistic like that that many of them are that good and valuable we're just chasing there's no shot there is absolutely no way that all the teams that drafted those tight ends are going to be able to get the most out of that way of playing offense there's a zero percent chance that works i now i wish i did the research for this want to go back to see like how many six foot two corners got drafted from like 2014 to 2016 in like the second and third round that were just completely awful because it's probably going to be the same thing because again it's not like like again I know that like Pete Carroll likes his guys that are bigger like that but like you kind of stumble into a Richard Sherman and players like that like it just doesn't it's not really something I don't know the fact that everyone thought that they could chase it there's only so many 6-2 corners who move like that there's only so many like kyle hamilton six foot three 215 bound guys who move like that the only example i had i had offensively and i'm sure there are others i just couldn't think of them in preparing for this where you're taking a certain batch of ideas and you're filtering them through either better or different talent and it comes out on the other side of something that may be even more dynamic and dangerous than the original version.

31:48Robert Mays: Mike McDaniel putting Tyreek Hill and Jalen Waddell through the 21 personnel fullback filter and seeing what that looked like, I do think might be an example of this, where you're using a decent, and again, it was unique in all his own, like the endpoint of what that offense looked like and what the creation was. But that idea of like, we're going to play with a lot of 21. We're going to try to access the middle of the field. We're going to use a ton of motion. Like a lot of the baseline DNA that you take over from what he did in San Francisco and then what they made it in Miami. That to me feels like an example on the offensive side, similar to the defensive ones that we had.

32:27And see, that's a good one, too, because I think if we lived in a world where Shanahan and McVay weren't as prominent as they are as offensive play callers and like McDaniel, maybe you could make the argument was like the best in the league and people wanted to chase that. people would probably fall into the trap of being like well speed is the most important thing and it's like yes speed is a big part of their offense but it's like those guys are a unique kind of speed that is really hard to find and are also really good at a lot of other traits that make the speed good like it you would just end up chasing a lot of players who are you know 190 pounds and fast and are not good football players you just have a bunch of track stars drafted in

33:04Robert Mays: top 100 for no reason which would just disgust you i think your reaction to that version of the nfl would just be like visceral and just sickening all right what's the next one all right kid colacanth hope i'm getting that one right says was thinking about kalajah cansey as i'm want to do and was frustrated by the fact that his status as often injured makes the bucks d line feel lesser than it could be at full strength my question based on that is what teams or position groups have the largest delta between how good they are when taking injury concerns into account versus if you didn't have to worry about injuries at all.

33:38Robert Mays: Robert, you got this one first. Number one with the bullet, Niners go position players. That was the first one I had. The first one I had. And that one's going to sound like, like, honestly, even if a couple of them get hurt and miss some time or whatever, they'll probably still be a very good offense. But the best version of it is a firework show. And I just don't know if we're ever going to get it. This is I've made this joke many times, but the Ricky Pierce all thing to me is it's the Tracy Morgan joke from 30 Rocker. It's like, I think vampires are the best golfers in the world, but they'll never get to prove it.

34:09Robert Mays: That's how I feel about Ricky Pierce all and the overall, the, the scope position players to the Niners. So that's the first one that I had. I had several offensive lines. I think the Eagles offensive line is like this chargers offensive line after this year, we'll see what direction that starts trending. Minnesota's offensive line was a good example of this last year. and the other non-offensive line example I had was Lions secondary. I also, yeah, Lions secondary I also had because they're, because like the corner room I think still has some questions regardless, but the fact that we don't know if either of their very good safeties are going to play at all is pretty scary.

34:43So those were a couple that I had. Another offensive line I had actually sticking to the team in question, the Bucs offensive line. They were a team that was banged up pretty bad last year and have had some guys who have been in and out of the lineup consistently. But, you know, we talked about this a little bit on our supporting cash show when that group is healthy. They've got dudes who are like Pro Bowl or knocking on the Pro Bowl level at just about every single spot, if not better, obviously, in the case of a guy like Tristan Wirfs. And so that was one I had another one I have that feels like cheating a little bit because it's literally one player Packers defense with Micah Parsons.

35:19The the impact with him on and off the field is massive. and so like him alone kind of carries a lot of weight here yeah the Niners and the Lions I think

35:30Robert Mays: were the two easy ones but I think the rest of those are good all right what's the next one here okay Joe the NFL establishes a new rule once you draft a QB you forfeit the rest of your draft picks during that draft you can't trade future picks for a pick to get back into the draft so if you take a QB in round one that's your draft class obviously it depends on what QBs are available in a given draft but let's just use the last few drafts as examples what QBs are still first round picks how far did the other qb slide when our mid-round quarterbacks drafted derek you got this one first this i honestly believe is among the best hypotheticals that we've ever gotten it's an amazing question it is an amazing question because we've done so much talk over the last five six years maybe of like ah the second round quarterback is gone and if you're going to take one of these guys you got to trade up to him in the middle of the first round all this stuff but But it's like, I don't know, man.

36:24Like, Kenny Pickett, Jackson Dart, like, even like a J.J. McCarthy, Bo Nix. I'm not sure those guys go in the first round. Because I just think if you're going to say, that's my entire draft class, I don't know if teams are going to want to do that. I think a lot of those guys end up falling.

36:41Robert Mays: I went back through the last 10 years. 10 years. Wow. Okay. How many did you end up where you said that guy for sure goes? He still goes. I thought the answer was yes for a lot of them. For a bunch of different reasons. It was easier for me to find the guys who were either a no or I was on the fence about it when it came to first-round picks. The guys that you said, 100%. Pickett, Dart, Jordan Love, and then I also included second-round picks. Jalen Hurts, Tyler Shuck. None of those guys are drafted where they're drafted if this rule exists. Just because those are more Dart throw type of picks.

37:16Robert Mays: You could maybe make an argument for Dart simply because he was the second first round pick and that team was in a little bit of a desperation point. But I think the general idea of late first round picks, probably not that all of those guys are a yes to me in the twenty twenty four draft specifically. I actually think the one that's the easiest no of all five of those guys who went in the first round is Penix. There's no way the Falcons draft Michael Penix in the first round because they had Kirk Cousins. So there's just no way he goes there. We'll see how far he actually falls, but there's no way he gets drafted by Atlanta.

37:52McCarthy and Knicks are interesting because the McCarthy,

37:56Robert Mays: the Vikings were so desperate. And you think about what they traded away all their picks anyway in that draft. So I think that's one where the quarterback maybe is a no, but the circumstances make it a yes. And I think the two other ones that are similar to that to me, Goff and Wentz as prospects are probably no's. But when you think about the fact that both the Rams and the Eagles traded away a ton of capital, I mean, they traded away entire drafts, essentially, to draft those quarterbacks. So even if they're probably not worth it as prospects compared to other guys, I think situationally both of those guys are probably yeses.

38:38Well, and those two are actually a good example of I think there are probably a couple of quarterbacks here that maybe they went top five in the way that we normally do the draft, but maybe in this style of a draft, they actually do fall more towards 30. And a bad team actually does trade up and is more willing to be like, okay, well, I guess you can't trade picks to go up and get it because that wouldn't make any sense.

38:59Robert Mays: You can trade picks to go up and get it if that's your pick. I guess that's true, yeah. Yeah, you just can't trade picks afterwards. So yeah, more teams doing the Jackson Dart thing would maybe happen. But I think it would be quarterbacks who are like in the middle of that, like clearly good. Like it would be like the Jared Goffs and Carson Wentz style of quarterback prospects. It's like they're probably first round quarterbacks in a lot of ways, but not not always top five quarterbacks. And so I think those would be more of the guys that like fall to potentially like the teens or 20s in drafts like this.

39:32A very specific example of this that I actually do think is interesting to a because in that draft, the Dolphins had three first round picks.

39:41Robert Mays: So if they know they can't make either of those first round picks, if they draft Tua at five, do they try to wait and maybe draft him wait like 18 or 25? Because I think based on who, how we talked about him as a prospect, it felt like an easy yes in that draft. But at the same time, it's like, well, they have two other first round picks. Like, would you be willing to roll the dice or would you be too afraid that somebody else would take him in the top 10? That's probably my answer based on, again, how we talked about Tua as a prospect. that one is that one is tough I still feel like because of how he was talked about as a prospect like somebody would have taken him top 10 whether or not yeah whether or not it would have ended up Miami and I guess if they were scared enough of it they probably still would have done it um who were the most fringe cases to you and I actually actually before before we answer that question JJ McCarthy is an interesting one because I think if teams know that the draft works this way wouldn't they just sign sam darnold yes and like that that's actually one of my other ones does trubisky go with the second overall pick because mike glennon was already on the team yeah so if you can sign these like mid-tier quarterbacks like do you end up drafting one of these guys and so trubisky was one on the edge for me the other fringe ones that i had Daniel Jones?

41:01Robert Mays: Daniel Jones probably doesn't go sixth overall to the Giants in a world where you don't get to make any other picks. They were so early in their team building process at that point. Like, do you want to give away an entire draft for a quarterback that, I don't know, were you really that excited about him or did you draft him because you needed a quarterback? I don't think most teams, it did not feel like Daniel Jones was going to go that high going into that draft. That felt like a Giants specific thing. So that one to me was a fringe case. the Mahomes one actually I think maybe this is just be completely colored by how we talk and think about Mahomes but they traded away a future first to go get him and they were a playoff team already like the idea that the Chiefs would just say it like we're coming away with this from this draft with this guy a quarterback we don't care about the rest of the draft they did trade away a future first to get him so even if some of that is probably us with revisionist history looking at what Mahomes became, I do think you could potentially make the argument for him for that specific reason.

41:58Robert Mays: And Josh Allen's the same way. Even if Josh Allen was an imperfect prospect, the Bills had two first round picks in that draft. So maybe that's another thought because they'd also draft the Tremaine Edmonds in that draft, but they really did maneuver up to get Josh Allen in that draft. Like that was a very purposeful thing they did in that moment. So I think even with him going at seven, that's still probably a yes. And I think Darnold and Baker are automatic yeses in that draft. Yeah, definitely. But I think Allen and Mahomes are good markers for what I kind of wanted to talk about. Another one of this is I do think veteran quarterbacks would probably get like a little bit of a longer leash.

42:32Like if you had a guy who was quality, but maybe not special. I think teams would do more to just like find ways to build the team around them rather than like, how can we upgrade the quarterback via the draft? And so I think that is one. I also was wondering, too, would teams be more willing to trade around draft picks for guys who have been in the league for a couple of years and are backups on other teams? Like, would they be more willing to give up other or more capital to do that and give those guys chances rather than I take this guy at 12th overall in my entire draft class as nuked?

43:05Robert Mays: Yeah, because the downside of even if you're taking a quarterback in the first round, there's still there's still like a dart throw type element to this. Right. And so if the downside to that dart throw is you lose an entire draft on top of that guy failing, I think your dart throws become a little bit different. They start to manifest a little bit differently in the exact way that you're talking about. So I think there'd be some of that. And the other just big picture thing, I don't think we would ever see a quarterback drafted between. unless a team traded back into the first round, I don't think we ever see a quarterback drafted between like 30 and 100.

43:43Robert Mays: That just wouldn't happen. No, why would you do it? Yeah, there's just no upside to doing it. At that point, you've already kind of accepted that, you know, we live in a world now where second round quarterbacks sometimes can become starters, but I feel like in this world, if you're not taking him in the first round, like you're so sure, then you're just like, ah, we'll wait and we've got a starter on hand. We'll kind of let it rock. And so I do think that that would probably happen more often. And again, I actually think rather than teams drafting mid-round picks like this, I think you would get more times where like somebody is throwing a third round pick for Davis Mills and is just like, can we get the 19th best quarterback out of that guy?

44:20Like, I think you would get more of that because then you would still have the rest of your draft class to work with instead of, you know, spending the first, you know, your first round pick on a Jackson Dart or whoever it's going to be in that range.

44:31Robert Mays: So I'm going to go through them all real quick. but Winston Mariota. Yes. Goff Wentz. Yes. Mahomes. Yes. Deshaun Watson. Probably. Yes. Bears. We talked about. I don't know how that would go. Darnold Baker, Josh Allen. Yes. Josh Rosen. Probably. No. Lamar is a really interesting one. I think Lamar probably still goes in the first round based on where the, where the Ravens were at that point. Man, that one is a really tricky one, but that one was such an obvious pivot point for that team that maybe but would they try to hold on for like one more round and one more pick but he was he was too like high profile that I don't know if you could have gotten away with that again that was now that's a really tough one I think uh Kyler is a yes 100 % Daniel Jones probably not Burrow to a Herbert I'd say are all yeses and we talked about the two a thing uh Trevor automatic yes Zach Wilson is a yes.

45:30Robert Mays: Based on how we talked about Zach Wilson, what he was as a prospect, I didn't love him as a prospect, but how other people valued him as a prospect and how much he was talked up heading into that draft process and how much the Jets loved him, that's a yes. I think almost anyone who went top three in a normal draft probably still goes that high. And again, the Trubisky one was weird because they did have Glennon, but most of the time the entire league views them that way if they're going that high. Yes. So the Jets, maybe because they had two first-round picks in that draft, do they try to wait?

46:03Robert Mays: But that's one where I think Zach Wilson gets picked before they pick at 14. He'd still go in the first, just maybe not at two. And then Trey Lance is an obvious one. The Niners traded away three drafts to draft Trey Lance. So I think they were ready to roll with that one. They were ready to do that, yeah. And then they don't get Brock Purdy. Oh, wow. Yeah, it's true. Bryce is a yes, right? You think about all the things that the Panthers traded away. I think that's a yes. Stroud would go number three instead of number two. So Will Anderson could still be on the Texans. That's the only thing that would change.

46:38That's really funny.

46:40Robert Mays: And then Caleb is a yes. Eileen, yes for Jaden and Drake. And then we talked about McCarthy. Knicks is an interesting one. My instinct with that is still yes. Because, again, I think the Broncos were in a place where they needed to start something at quarterback. Like that was the year to start something at quarterback. And maybe they go for like a mid tier veteran option. Then just say like, we're going to roll with this and see what happens. But that one's one where I could still see them taking Knicks in the first round based on where they were overall. So that's the thing with that one. That's just like, they were clearly done with the rust thing.

47:13And I understand how they arrived there and might've still arrived there. That one, you just wonder like, yeah, would they have, maybe they were a team that tried to sign Sam Darnold that year, whatever it was going to be like, would they have investigated the veteran market a little bit more? but like where they were, they were clearly ready for a quarterback move, yeah.

47:28Robert Mays: We would see more Darnold's, Malik Willis's, Justin Fields' contract from last year. That would be like one of the downstream effects of this, is that we would just see a lot more quarterbacks in that general range signed. All right, we're going to take one more quick break, and then we're going to come back and hit a few more of these.

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50:01Okay, Sam Bornhurst brings us out of break with this question. With the increase in 13 personnel, I feel like I've also seen a rise in jumbo packages using a third tackle or guard at HBAC. is this just the natural evolution of defenses getting smaller or are we seeing swing tackles getting more athletic and athletic enough to justify these sets robert what do you got here i think this is mostly over the last couple years twofold i think that it is a way to attack smaller

50:29Robert Mays: defenses ben just by we talked about this a lot in the tight end show but just what you have on the edge and like widening your edges and making just your overall blocking quality in the edge is better I think is really important and adding a sixth offensive lineman can do that for you it also is a way to guarantee base defense like what are the ways you can easily guarantee base defense this is one of them but I also think most of the teams that have leaned into this over the last couple years are the teams that don't have a quality blocking tight end in order to play three tight ends at the same time like the bills is the best example of this in 2024 they were the heaviest jumbo team in the league and then they drafted Jackson Hawes and then they didn't do it anymore because they didn't have to do it anymore.

51:08Robert Mays: Like we have now, now we have an extra offensive lineman who could actually catch the ball. So that is more valuable to us. And if you look at the teams that really leaned into the jumbo stuff last year, either in comparison to what they used to do, like the Eagles, where the Eagles weren't near the top of the league, but they started doing it a lot more than they had previously. They don't have blocking tight ends. The Cardinals last year were one of the biggest jumbo teams in the league. Tip Ryman got hurt. So they needed another blocking tight end. The Texans last year were really banged up a tight end.

51:37Robert Mays: So they were one of the heaviest jumbo teams in the league. So I think this is kind of something that happens by necessity. If you don't have the personnel to play the way that teams are ideally trying to play right now. That's the perfect way to put it. Like it's there is some element of like, yes, getting bigger when defenses have been typically a little bit smaller over the last year. Last handful of years. That's part of it. but the six offensive offensive line thing so often is like a band-aid or a quirk for a lot of these teams like again like the houston texans doing as much as they did didn't have great blocking tight ends and their offensive line in general was just not good so i think their idea was just like put another one out there get as beefy as we can run duo and pray to god that it works um the steelers like their band-aid was like well we just don't have wide receivers so we're just going to get as big as we possibly can and do that um the jaguars like you mentioned blocking tight ends like brenton strange had missed a lot of time early in the year and they were putting cole van landen out there as like a sick guy before he took the starting job i mean we could draw a direct line between that and our buddy borker it's very easy to piece those things together so yeah yeah that's where i land on this one i think that it's the jumbo thing to me I would say I would assume we see less of it this year than we have over the last couple years because teams have over leveraged themselves in so many different cases to try to find that tight end that they can put on the field in those situations.

53:03Robert Mays: All right, what's the next one? All right, Reese Dobigin Reese says short question. Is there a relationship between this booming cap era with the recent success of defensively dominated championship teams? I've recently read an article from friend of the show. Deontay Lee. We should text Deontay. Let him know he's got a shout out here. He made the argument that the Meryl's Garrett trade is signaling a new defensive revolution in a sense. He argued the last three Super Bowl winners, Chiefs, Eagles, Seahawks, have largely revved off of great defense. Dan Pazuda made the argument on the show that sustaining a high-level defense from year to year when the rule has been offenses are better at this is not necessarily the case any longer.

53:38This made me think, with every article about how the cap has boomed in recent years, is there a historical trend here? Does cap room correlate with a model that defensively built rosters are greater title threats and tighter cap periods favor offense. Robert, what do you say here?

53:52Robert Mays: I think they necessarily are tied together. The overall point about defense is obvious and I agree with, and we may or may not have an entire show about that later this summer because I think it's a really important point to be hitting about where the league has been and where the league is potentially going. But I don't necessarily know, even if that's true that it has to do with the cap. If you look at it, the Eagles and the Seahawks were both bottom 10 in defensive spending over the last two years. And then the Chiefs were middle of the road. Chris Jones had a$30 million cap hit in 2023 when the Chiefs won the Super Bowl.

54:25Robert Mays: That's the only reason they were middle of the road. It was the highest of any defender in the league. I think in terms of just big picture movement, this is more about defenses just catching up to offenses overall than it is about how we're allocating money and what the cap looks like. Like, I think the argument that defenses is no longer harder to sustain is an interesting one. Like, Dan's point to you on the show was from 2024 to 2025, seven of the top 10 defenses were top 10 defenses again, which that's a lot of carryover from year to year. But the previous year was only two. So is this a one-year blip?

54:59Robert Mays: Is this something that we can rely on? But I think undeniably defenses have just caught up to offenses because a lot of the buttons that offenses could just smash over and over again, again, eight to 10 years ago, you can just no longer do that anymore. Like defenses are no longer in the back foot on the back foot. They were like they were a decade ago. I think it's mostly that right. The schematic stuff, because, again, it's two teams that came from like similar buckets of defense, the Fangio world and the Mike McDonald world. And then even before that Fangio, like those defenses were pretty good during that era.

55:31But also like that is still ultimately the Patrick Mahomes Chiefs dynasty. Like that is still driven a lot by what he can do for you on that side of the ball. And so I think it is probably more driven by what teams are doing schematically. And I do think this sustainability of defense has probably bled through that. And then again, those teams like the Seahawks and even like the Eagles, a lot of it was driven by like players that they just have on rookie contracts, like Devin Witherspoon being what he was, Byron Murphy being what he was, obviously. And those guys coming in immediately.

56:00Robert Mays: those guys immediately the the the and memory even like the fact that we had these like finishing pieces on rookie deals that without them i think the seahawks probably still win the super bowl without nikki manwari but the eagles i don't think win the super bowl without cooper dejean or quinnon mitchell no absolutely not the whole thing was that they could just lock down anybody the way that they were doing and obviously the pass rush was good too but what good as a pass rush if those guys can't cover. And so I do think that like a lot of it was, it was a little bit of right place, right time with they are on top of the schematic trends and also had these draft classes within the last couple of years leading into their Super Bowl that were just like absolutely nails perfect.

56:42Robert Mays: You look at the multi-year element of this, like Milton Williams was cheap. Jalen Carter was cheap. The rookie DBs were cheap. Zach Bond was cheap for a different reason, but they had a lot of cheap players on those defenses. And with Seattle, We talked about Byron Murphy this week. Devin Witherspoon still on a rookie deal. Eamon Worry. So I think hitting on the right amount of cheap guys combined with being at the top of the schematic cycle, I think those are probably bigger drivers than being able to throw around some money. All right, Ballard, let's hit these last couple here. Cool. Tony Thompson has a question about Bryce Young.

57:15Is the Bryce Young contract extension the most important contract discussion in the NFL? It seems that there is a general consensus that if the Panthers were to extend Bryce to a long-term deal, it would fall in the$35-45 million average salary range. That would fall in this almost accidental middle-tier quarterback market that has emerged from the retread success of Baker Mayfield, Daniel Jones, Sam Darnold, etc. But Bryce would represent a first-round, quote, franchise quarterback that got an extension and didn't end up setting the market or even coming near the top of the market. When is the last time this has happened?

57:45And would this truly solidify an established middle-tier QB market in the league? It feels that this would be a paradigm shift for NFL teams drafting franchise quarterbacks and not either giving them the highest contract in the league or just starting over. Derek, I mean, Tony also threw out here, like, can Derek say five nice things about Bryce Young as part of his question that I actually deleted from our sheet? But you can at least take this one first. I that might be hard to get to my stance on this is probably that I do think in general there is probably a little bit more room for wiggle room in terms of like what the money looks like at the very top of the quarterback market like having more quarterbacks where if you are quarterback 14 you are paid closer to something like quarterback 14 I totally understand that I just think that I have a very hard time unless the Panthers just absolutely kick ass this year which is maybe possible, I have a hard time seeing teams look at about what the Panthers offense is and what they've invested in it.

58:44And at them signing that quarterback to, let's say,$38 million a year and other teams following suit and being like, that's what we want to pay our quarterback for that level of offensive production. Like, I just have a hard time believing that that wouldn't be an anomaly in terms of what you are paying for per dollar in terms of like, because I think even the best outcome for Bryce Young right now is like individually probably like quarterback 2021 I just have a hard time believing that teams want to pay 40 million dollars for that

59:13Robert Mays: yeah and even if there's one guy that does it is that enough when we have so many other examples like if Baker Mayfield gets 50 million dollars a year from the Bucs and Bryce Young gets 38 million dollars a year and one of these guys comes along I'm trying to think of like who the next one potentially be that agent's going to look at the Baker Mayfield contract to be like, I want that. You know, there are so many other examples of that rather than, you know, yeah, this one time that it happened, let's use that as the precedent. And it really would be the one time I went back through, like essentially since the rookie salary scale was put into place, how many times this has happened.

59:47Robert Mays: The weirdest one is Alex Smith with the Niners. He signed like a really tiny two-year deal with the Niners as his second contract, but that was in like 2008 or 2009. And so that one really was all on its own when it came to examples. Matthew Stafford's second deal was interesting. It was actually QB7 when it was signed, but it was for less guaranteed money than the deal he signed when he was the number one overall pick. So it actually was kind of like a step back and it was like a reasonable contract based on like his starting point and how he got paid on the second one. The actual examples of this were the last time this really happened that I could find going back to like 2010 was Andy Dalton.

1:00:30That was the only guy I had. Yeah.

1:00:33Robert Mays: Andy Dalton was quarterback 18 on his rookie extension. And Kaepernick and Ryan Tannehill were like, they were, if you look at the pecking order, they were like down at quarterback like 12 or 13. But they were making 19 million bucks a year, which was closer to quarterback one than it was to what Dalton was getting paid. So the Dalton contract is really the best example of this. And I assume my first thought about that was, well, Dalton was a second round pick. Well, Carr and Jimmy G in back to back years signed quarterback deals that were in the top five at the position as second as former second round picks.

1:01:09Robert Mays: And their overall production like wasn't that much more impressive than what Andy Dalton had done by the time he got his extension. And so to me, it feels like in some way, and this may be overstating it, but I think the car contract and like the resulting Jimmy G contract are kind of the tipping point of this, where those are the guys where it was like, well, if you're getting an extension that you're just one of the five highest quarterback, highest bid quarterbacks in the league. Those are the two I would come back to if I was trying to find like a patient zero of how we arrived in this moment.

1:01:41I mean, that's how you end up with the car continuum. Like we wouldn't have that discussion about him if you weren't paying him what you were paying him. over that stretch, obviously. And so that's that one's a good one. Dalton is interesting, too, because I do think if you're trying to find someone who like talent wise and in terms of like untapped potential potential, like, you know, that argument is similar to Bryce Young. It probably was Andy Dalton. Like Dalton was a little bit bigger and I think a better athlete than people probably realized. But like that's probably the closest that you're going to find in terms of like Bryce Young's talent level and like untapped potential before signing that contract, because I imagine he signed that Dalton signed that contract before the insane 2015 season.

1:02:20He did.

1:02:21Robert Mays: He did. He signed it in 2014. So, yes, it was before that 2015 season. But I still think if you look back on it, I mean, I'd be curious about this. We'd have to do this in real time. But I wonder, I have to imagine that. And again, the circumstances were better. He had, you know, AJ Green and the talent level on those teams was very good. But even if we go back to like the 2013 season, right, and we look at what the Bengals offense was doing compared to the rest of the league, eh, the Bengals offense was 15th in EPA per play in 2013. And so that's better than what the Panthers have been over the last couple years, but it's not like significantly better.

1:02:58Robert Mays: And then if you look at 2014, because I don't remember exactly when he signed the deal. Yeah, in 2014, they were 17th. So that actually is probably like a good analog case for like an analogous case for what you would be thinking with Bryce Young. But again, the fact that that's the only time it's ever happened. I'm just not sure that we're going to start seeing that. All right. That is all we've got for today. Sincerely appreciate everyone who spent the time to send in some questions. Got some really good ones today. I love doing these. I truly do. It's like a fun thing to do in the offseason.

1:03:35Robert Mays: You guys make it worth it. And so we record these on Fridays. And I enjoy the process of getting ready to do it every single Friday before we get going here. So it's been a very fun part of the offseason. That is all because you guys put so much thought into these questions. So sincerely appreciate that. For now, that's all we got. Appreciate you guys listening. We'll talk to you 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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