Half-baked takes for the 2025 NFL season

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0:44Robert Mays: Welcome to The Athletic Football Show. I'm Robert Mays, one of my favorite shows of the year today. It's our half-baked takes for the 2025 NFL season. These are things that we're marinating on. You know, takes that maybe aren't fully formed, but we're slowly getting there. We've been sitting there ruminating on them. I've had a lot of time in the car over the last couple weeks, and so I've just been sitting here like workshopping all of these. Me, Dave Hellman, Derek Klassen, the stuff that we're not all the way there on and we can't be held to, but these are some stray thoughts that we have about the 2025 NFL season.

1:16Robert Mays: Really enjoy this conversation. Hope you guys do as well.

1:25Robert Mays: Very excited to be back on the athletic football show today with my good friends, Dave Hellman and Derek Klassen. I'll be honest with you guys, Dave, when I was listening to the DNA changer show, I can't remember where I was driving. It's all running together at this point, but I was listening to it in the car. I think I was going from Philly to New Jersey, and I very deeply had that feeling of Squidward looking out the window, looking at SpongeBob and Patrick playing, where I just felt very left out as you guys were having a good time. I really appreciate you helping us out as I'm on the road, but there was some real fun going on as I was listening to you guys do the show.

2:01Derrik Klassen: That actually brings me full circle because that's how I used to digest the athletic football show. Like I used to listen in my car and want to chime in and be part of the fun. So that's gratifying to hear. And yeah, that's I'm excited to be here. I'm excited to contribute. And yeah, it'll be fun to have all three of us on a show.

2:18Dave Helman: I tried my best to like spiritually get you in there. You know, there was a Will Fries mention. You were kind of big on the Andre Sisco signing when that happened. So I was trying my best to like make it feel like you were kind of in there.

2:29Robert Mays: You will be a little bit disappointed in me though, Derek, because there was a lot of Brandon Stevens optimism when I was talking to Zach Rosenblatt. on the Jets part of our training camp podcast, because I believe in Brandon Stevens. I believe that Brandon Stevens with Eric Glenn can be a thing that works. And so as I'm trying to build my Jets optimism, yours is entirely rooted in Armand Membu, and mine is at least partially rooted in Aaron Glenn and getting the most out of Andre Sisco and Brandon Stevens.

2:56Dave Helman: Okay. See, when you spin it through the Aaron Glenn lens, then I can be like, okay, maybe you got me.

3:01Derrik Klassen: If he can do it with Ken Crawley, you know, he can do it with anyone. Is this podcast about to be like really pro jets in 2025? Cause Derek and I have talked about that in the last one. I know it's very, it's, it's disconcerting. I can't say that.

3:14Robert Mays: I really love it. We'll get into that because I do think that there are some points to be made in their favor, but I always come back to what is the quarterback? What is the quarterback going to be? We have a first year offensive coordinator. This is not a show about the jets though. I mean, I don't know. Maybe it is. You guys might have some half-baked takes about the jets, but today we are digging into our half-baked takes about the 2025 NFL season. Dave, you and I have been doing this show since before you were a part of this show. We've been doing this pretty much every summer around this time, early in training camp.

3:43Robert Mays: And this is a way to get some thoughts off that we don't necessarily want to be held to. These aren't fully baked take. These are things that we're slowly workshopping. Maybe we'll eventually get there. Maybe we'll be ready to take them out of the oven. But right now we're not quite there yet. We're still workshopping a lot of the stuff that we're going to talk about today.

4:06Derrik Klassen: It's one of my favorite things. I love doing it with you. I love thinking about it. Yeah. My favorite thing in the world is just to throw some shit out there and not really get a lot of blowback for it. If I'm wrong, like this is, you know, like the classic, like the The joke is that you want a podcast to just be like you and your friends spitballing at a bar. Like that's this show is you just throw some shit out there and you can blame it on on the beer later. You know, and that's that's what I'm going for here for sure.

4:36Robert Mays: A lot of mine are pretty positive. I saw Derek's. I got a peek at Derek's before we started recording. Derek shows violence this morning. There is going to be some stuff being spit on this show today.

4:47Dave Helman: Listen, when I have to record a podcast on a Monday at eight in the morning, it's going to be a little fiery. I am sorry about that.

4:54Robert Mays: It's going to be a little punchy. You can blame the Cleveland Browns for that because I did not think they had practiced today.

4:59Dave Helman: Oh, I'm going to talk about the Cleveland Browns, so that's very easy to do.

5:04Robert Mays: Before we dig into the takes today, I want to talk about something that has obviously dominated in the news cycle on a Monday and has over much of the weekend. we've not had a considered Micah Parsons discussion since the trade request happened and we're not going to have a considered discussion about Micah Parsons this idea that he's going to be traded is ridiculous he's not going to be traded he's one of the best players in the league he's going to get a market setting contract on the eve of the season just like it happens every single year for the Cowboys all I have to say about this is that Jerry Jones on multiple fronts consistently makes it harder for the Dallas Cowboys to win football games and the idea that winning is the priority in that building is a farce.

5:40Robert Mays: And it's insulting to the fans of that team to pretend it's any different. And I think they're starting to get tired of this shit. And I think the rest of us should be tired of this because it's absolutely ridiculous. I said it during the Brian Schottenheimer head coach process, and I still believe it. If you took 31 other owners and you asked them, are you trying your best to win games? I think most of them can conceivably say yes with a straight face. I don't think the Dallas Cowboys can. And I think that's kind of ridiculous. And I'm just totally fatigued of this entire charade, David.

6:14Derrik Klassen: Fatigue doesn't even begin to do it justice. I mean, there's there's a million places we could go. And to be honest with you, I think you're right. I think the best way to play it is to give it as little oxygen as possible because it's it's year after year with this thing. And it is interesting to see the way that Cowboys fans react to it, because it wasn't always this way. But you look at Cowboys practice and you see people holding signs that say sell the team. That is that's a crazy thought, because you typically associate sell the team with like a cheap owner who doesn't put any interest into it.

6:49Derrik Klassen: But nothing about the Cowboys like image projects that right. Like they got the ritzy facility. They got the best TV ratings. They got this, this amazing stadium, but that is the reality. And that is the world that we've lived in for, I mean, longer than five years, but I think it's been especially obvious in the last five years that this is what the Cowboys are willing to put forward and to play these games with Micah Parsons. And look, if it annoys you that the guy has a podcast, fine. But when you've got a player that is achieving things that only, Reggie White has done and you're playing these sorts of games with him it's it's laughable it's not worth giving oxygen to because it's the only that is the only thing I can think of is that the Cowboys really do just love attention that much that they want to draw this shit out with one of the best players they've had in recent memory uh and you speak for me man like it's it's been hard to take this team seriously for quite some time and this is probably the most egregious example of it.

7:53Derrik Klassen: The other one being that they just did this with CD Lam a year ago, by the way, like they're doing this with unquestionable top three, top five players at their position. And there's, there's no justification for it. And yeah, I'd rather not talk about it in depth, to be honest with you.

8:09Robert Mays: It's unserious. It's deeply unserious. Everything about it is deeply unserious. And this idea that, well, they do it for the attention. That's crazy. Like they should be skewered for that if that's what they're doing right now as all these other teams try to win yes you're already the Dallas Cowboys it the entire thing is just it's completely bonkers and I cannot believe that there isn't more people just coming down on them for how they've operated over the last few years just just how unambitious and unserious the entire enterprise is I'm done talking about it well let's do the takes because I don't want to talk about it for any longer than this.

8:44Robert Mays: They don't deserve any more time or energy than this. David, let's start off with you. I'm curious what your first half-baked take about the 2025 season is.

8:55Derrik Klassen: So this is the time of year where this is what you do. You're formulating takes. You're trying to predict the upcoming season. You can get very, very deep into the weeds with it if you want to. Like we have all the advanced metrics. We have all the stats. You can get real myopic with it if you want to, but my half-baked take is that I'm just going to stop overthinking it, stop worrying about it, and just pencil the San Francisco 49ers in for like 12 plus wins. And that feels half-baked to me because if you want to get into the weeds, you can come up with a lot of reasons why that's not a good idea.

9:32Derrik Klassen: There are some aging players on this team. There's an injury history with this team. There's been a lot of attrition. We saw it last year, right? And people saw that coming, by the way, like a lot of people looked at the 49ers and they were like the cliff could be coming for San Francisco. And last year was a disaster. But the more I look at it and the more things that I find to be worried about, I'm just like, no, the schedule is really forgiving. There's a lot of talent on this team. I mean, with everything that's gone on with San Francisco, you realize this is still a team that plans to start six all pros on opening day.

10:08Derrik Klassen: And that's not including Brandon Ayuk, which, you know, we'll see when he comes back and what he looks like when he does. But the lesser version of the 49ers is going to play six all pros in week one. They've got Robert Salabak. They don't play a ton of great teams like most of the marquee teams in the league are off their schedule. There's a lot you can concern yourself with if you want to look at it, like the receiver depth and the veterans and how how's the injury history going to be for these guys? how how how are the rookie pass rushers gonna play I don't care I just look at it and I'm like yeah no this team can win this team could win at least 11 but probably 12 or more games that's how

10:47Dave Helman: I feel so I love this take because I like for me this is not a take that I'm like half-baked I've been like slow roasting this take where I think like two months ago I looked at everything the Niners were doing and I looked at their roster and I was like I don't know dude like last year It was so bad. All this stuff.

11:04Robert Mays: You've got some rough stuff on tape, by the way.

11:06Dave Helman: I know. I know. It looks really, really bad in hindsight. And it's probably the stuff I feel the worst about. But now that I get closer, I'm like, I don't know, man. I'm kind of with you. Robert Sala's back. I like a lot of the pieces up front. Fred Warner's probably going to be healthier this year. The offense, like as long as the two best players are out there and the quarterbacks out there, it's probably going to be fine. I just I'm getting to the point. The division, I think the more I look at it is not as good as I think I thought it was a month ago. So it's just going to be a good team again.

11:34Robert Mays: I'm kind of here with it. Here's where I'm at with this. The arguments to me, and the defense is one thing, right? There's so many questions about the defense. There's so many young pieces about the defense. And I think skepticism about the defense is probably warranted. But I look at the offense, and I think about the arguments against them being a really good offense. Brandon Ayuk isn't playing. Brandon Ayuk is going to miss a huge chunk of the year. The offensive line is a concern. Look at that offensive line. We should be worried about this. The receiver depth, like Dave mentioned, that's something we should worry about.

12:02Robert Mays: all of that was true last year. Brandon Iyuk missed most of the season last year. The offensive line was a concern last year. Christian McCaffrey didn't play football last season. The Niners were ninth in offensive DVOA last season. They finished ninth. In the season from hell, they were still a top 10 offense. And now we'll see. You know, McCaffrey's getting a little bit older, but he's coming into the season healthy. He's practicing. there isn't really any reason to believe he's more set up for injury now than he would have been in previous seasons last year he was hurt coming into training camp trell williams is getting a little bit older i get that there is no iuk but ricky pierce all is now healthy he's practicing again i think there's a lot of reason to be optimistic about what he can be in a new version of that drop back game for the niners so i'm kind of with dave here even if i have questions about the defense i just think that the offense is going to be really good again because they still have a lot of really good players, even with some of the holes, even with I you out, I still feel okay about the pass catchers because Jennings and Pierce all and all the 21 and 12 they're going to play probably insulates them.

13:09Robert Mays: And Kyle Shanahan is still one of the best people in the world at what he does last year was kind of a weird transitionary year where I think they were kind of figuring out what the next version of this was going to look like. And there were some fits and starts with that. I feel much better about them understanding how to live in this new world, more split safety, et cetera, going into this season than I did last season. So I wish I had more pushback to you here, Dave, but I just really don't.

13:34Derrik Klassen: I'm about to reveal how terminally online I am, but you know, the, you know, the meme with the bell curve and there's like the simpleton is on one side of it. Yeah. And then like the Jedi masters on the other side, that's the 49ers where like, you can be in the middle and just be freaking out about all of these things. But then eventually I just come down on the other side where I'm like, no, they don't play anybody good and they have a lot of talent. They're going to be really good. And I know analyzing the schedule can be such a mistake. But you look at it and they get to play. They get to play so many of the league dregs like there's games against the Browns in there.

14:10Derrik Klassen: They get to play the Saints. They get to play the New York Giants. There's just it's a very manageable schedule. The closest thing to playing like league heavyweights that they do. obviously you got two games against the Rams and then the Buccaneers and the Texans like that's it when you're talking about playing like league heavyweights and so those heavyweights I think there are reasonable questions about all of those things at this point they do not play I mean if you're really talking about the league's elite they don't play any of those teams and so even if some guys get hurt even if it's not as good as it was a few years ago I just think like 11 wins is the bare minimum.

14:52Derrik Klassen: And I really think they could do like 12 or 13, even this version of the Niners.

14:56Robert Mays: Derek, what's your first one here? What's your first half-baked take about the 2025 season?

15:01Dave Helman: Mine is in the complete opposite direction of potential team success. Instead of a team going from, what did the Niners win? Six games last year to potentially winning 12 this year. My take is kind of the opposite where I think the Vikings who won 14 games last year, I kind of feel like they're going to finish last in their division. And I know that sounds weird with as much shakeup as we're going to get in the division, like with the Lions. We have no idea what the Bears are going to be. The Packers remain to be like a decent but still young team. We don't know how good they're going to be. But even for as much as I love all the stuff that the Vikings have done along the offensive line, and I trust Kevin O 'Connell, I think we are putting a little bit too much faith in Kevin O 'Connell's ability to like get a lot out of a young quarterback immediately.

15:45Dave Helman: Like, I think we're just so used to like, oh, yeah, of course, a young rookie quarterback can come in and just be really, really good. I think we're a little bit too used to that. And I think we would point to some of the ones from last year, the, you know, guys like Jaden Daniels and Bo Nix being really productive. But it's like, yeah, those guys were 25 years old, you know, 23, 24 years old and have played a lot more football than J.J. McCarthy has played in McCarthy is coming off of an injury. So we have all of that. And then I just continue to have this creeping concern that I really don't think that secondary is going to be that good.

16:14Dave Helman: Like, I just think that there's like there's a world where they can be fine. And I think there's also a world where they can be a unit that is just getting gashed all of the time. And if the front's not quite as good as they want it to be, that's going to cause a lot of issues. So I still think they'll be competent. I think it's more of like a, you know, sometimes the Niners just have these seasons where they win seven games. I think it's more like that than like, I believe the Vikings are headed in the wrong direction. I just I just feel weird about them this year is the best way to put it.

16:41Robert Mays: I have a question for you. Where do you think the Vikings finished in passing EPA per play last season, Derek? like 13th they were 15th and i know that the the stats are gaudy right and the stats are gaudy in part because they throw the shit out of the ball i mean they throw the ball at an astronomical yes it looks extremely cool yes exactly i think that kevin o 'connell has done a very good job of i mean 15th with a guy who was an afterthought it was a one year 10 million dollar stop gap contract that's pretty good especially when you throw in some of the offensive line concerns into there But this idea that the Vikings, just by virtue of Kevin O 'Connell and Justin Jefferson and the ecosystem being there, are going to be one of the best passing offenses in the league or like a top 10 offense, even with a first year quarterback.

17:29Robert Mays: We're getting a little bit ahead of ourselves there. I think that maybe there's a reason to have a little bit more optimism because of the offensive line. But Sam Darnold played pretty good football and Sam Darnold had played a decent amount of football before last season. So I don't think it's unreasonable to think J.J. McCarthy could be a noticeably worse quarterback than Sam Darnold was last year. And if that's the case and the defense isn't this game changing unit, it's merely very good. Where does that leave the Vikings in a really good division?

18:00Dave Helman: That's exactly like he J.J. McCarthy could be a perfectly acceptable first year starting quarterback and still be like a tier below what Sam Darnold was last year, which puts you at like the 17th best passing offense. And also, by the way, they're probably going to miss Jordan Addison for the first three weeks of the season, if not more, like it's, that's another thing to like throw into this. Like it's just, again, there's just, it seems like the more I look at it, there are like more things that I just don't love about this team.

18:25Derrik Klassen: Where are you at? I really love where I came down on this, which, okay. I didn't wind up using this as one of my takes. I ultimately, I thought it was a bridge too far, but I'm looking at it in my notes. I wrote down as an idea for a take, uh, How far can we push the discarded quarterback narrative and just forget J.J. McCarthy? How good could Sam Howell be in the Vikings offense? That I just got past J.J. McCarthy and was like, how good could Sam Howell be? Because he was a four thousand yard passer in on a bad team with Ron Rivera as his head coach. What could he do in this Vikings offense? That's how highly I think of Kevin O 'Connell and the Vikings.

19:05Derrik Klassen: To be clear, I I decided not to use that take. But that is where I'm at with the Vikings. My only thing is the only thing that doesn't like I can't push back that hard because this is the toughest division in football or it was last year anyway. I mean, yeah, I mean, it's completely logical. The Vikings could finish last. They could do that while still being a really good team, by the way. I mean, it's them or the Bears, right? I don't think anybody is willing to suggest that the Lions or Packers could finish last in the division unless I don't know. Oh, oh, no.

19:39Robert Mays: I'm not, I'm kind of kidding. I just, I've thought a lot about where the lions are right now. And again, I think it's the quality of the division that makes it feel so up for grabs where any of these teams could potentially be a little bit worse or a little bit better than we think. But the lions are swapping out a lot of component parts of that offense, man. And we'll talk about the lions a little bit. Derek, the show Derek and I are doing tomorrow. I think I want to have a real considered conversation about the lions offense, but I think there's a chance that they take a significant step back.

20:10Robert Mays: The Vikings, where I sit with this is that I think if you're a Vikings fan and you're trying to spin this optimistically, your hope has to be that if JJ McCarthy is a little bit worse than Sam Durland was last year, the quality of the running game and the quality of the protection make up for whatever that step back looks like. And you're just as good as you were on offense last season. I'm open to that, but I still think if they finish just outside the top 10 or in the middle of the pack offensively. And that defense isn't one of the best in the league. And I think there's a path to that happening, obviously, based on what Brian Flores has done.

20:43Robert Mays: But they signed some aging interior pass rushers. There's still some questions about the secondary. Like, I don't think this happens. I think the Bears are still probably the worst team in that division because I have to believe that. But I don't think it's the craziest stance for Derek to have.

20:59Dave Helman: saying the Vikings are last is also like very quiet bears optimism but I'm gonna I'm gonna

21:05Derrik Klassen: push that to the side for now I'm choosing not to have that right now let me just ask y 'all this and this can serve as my form of pushback we say last place in the division but what is like what does last place look like to you is that nine and eight but somebody has to finish last or is this like truly a finishing last type of season where you win five or fewer games.

21:29Dave Helman: I don't think it's like five or fewer games where they're picking, you know, six in the draft or anything like that. But I don't think sub 500 would shock me that much. Like if they were a seven and 10 or eight and 19, I don't think that would be that weird.

21:41Derrik Klassen: Seven and 10 is about as bad as I'm willing to accept the Vikings could be. Like, I just think I think that highly of their roster. And yeah, I mean, if if JJ is not good, then, yeah, seven and ten is definitely on the table. But even if they finish last, I see this as more of a yeah, maybe seven and ten, maybe eight and nine, maybe even nine and eight. But out of the playoffs that I can see, but I can't see the Vikings just actually being bad, like really bad.

22:10Robert Mays: What do you think the Vikings over under us?

22:12Derrik Klassen: I think we looked at this, isn't it? Like, yeah, I think it's eight and a half.

22:16Robert Mays: Eight and a half. Yeah, that's what the Bears is, too. and both the Packers and the Lions are projected to win more games than the Vikings are. So the idea that if the Bears win nine and the Vikings win eight and they finish last in the division, it's not a crazy idea.

22:30Dave Helman: And it's just there's all there's always one really good team that just sucks the next. I mean, not like terrible, terrible, but it's just not nearly as good as they were the year before. And the Vikings, to me, just feel more than the other teams in that range like that team.

22:44Robert Mays: Well, I think we're going to talk about that in a second, because I think Dave has one that he wants to throw out eventually about some of the movements we may see with some of the playoff teams. My first one is kind of similar to Derek's in the same vein as Derek's, but I think I'm a little bit safer trotting this out because I think their fan base is much more pessimistic than the Vikings fan base is right now. What if this is the year the Steelers just crash out?

23:07Dave Helman: I hope it's not, but I'm... Why do you hope it's not? things well I like Mike Tomlin man I think he's really good at his job but all of the things I don't disagree with that I know that you don't I know that that's this is not like an anti Mike Tomlin thing um I for one think it's just one of the funniest and coolest records that anyone's ever upheld but given all of the things I've said about Aaron Rodgers and what they've done with their receiver room over the past four months I'm open to this we just assume that there's going to

23:39Robert Mays: be a floor for the Steelers every single year. And for good reason, there has been a floor to the Steelers every single year. Here's where I sit with this though. We do this too often with defense first teams where we assume a certain floor. And then every once in a while, the bottom just drops out of it. The jets were like this last year. Guess who the quarterback was for the jets last year. Guess whose impact on the jets went beyond how not good of a quarterback he was last year. The counter argument to this is, well, Mike Tomlin is there. The jets quit. The jets quit because they fired their coach in the middle of the season.

24:12Robert Mays: That's obviously not going to happen in Pittsburgh, but they're the Steelers are insulated from this because of the quality of the coaching and because of the buy-in. Did you watch the Steelers play defense against the Ravens last year? Like the idea that the rate that the Steelers are beyond rolling over. If things are going a certain way. I'm more open to that path than I probably have been in the past based on how the last couple of seasons have ended. And the other part of this is the defense being what they're going to hang their hats on DK Metcalf said yesterday, it's the best defense he's ever seen, which, you know, great.

24:47Robert Mays: I'm so glad to hear that. This was the fifth oldest defense in the league last year by snap weighted age. They got older. They got older than they were last year. They have Darius Slay and Jalen Ramsey now. And Darius Slay played really good football for the Eagles. Darius Slay is 34 years old. Beller, you can check that. I believe he's 34 years old. Jalen Ramsey is on the wrong side of 30. There is a cliff for guys at that position. And I don't think you can necessarily bake in injury. Any team, if they get hurt, they're obviously going to take a step back. But when you're that old, I think you're a little bit more susceptible to injuries, to season-changing injuries.

25:23Robert Mays: So if this defense goes from being a back half of the top 10 sort of unit to the 17th best defense in the league because they're a little bit banged up, Darius Slay is 34. And the offense struggles, which I think it absolutely could. I have serious concerns about what Rodgers has left. I was talking to a coach, Dave, over this trip that was in the quarterback market this offseason, and they were like, yeah, we just had no interest. We just don't think he's able to play within an offense anymore. Like what he wants to do is access throws, slot fades, one-on-ones, quick game. And that marriage with Arthur Smith, I have serious doubts about how this will go.

25:59Robert Mays: And I know DK Metcalf is there and they have a young, decent offensive line. The Jets had a young, decent offensive line and Devontae Adams and Garrett Wilson were there. They were still like the 25th best offense in the league. The offensive line is an idea. It's a theory. They were 25th in rushing success rate last year. Broderick Jones is moving back to left tackle. Fonu hasn't played yet. I just think there are so many more questions about this team that we typically ascribe a lot of certainty to that. I am open to the idea that this can just take a very hard left turn.

26:30Derrik Klassen: The Steelers tackle situation scares the shit out of me. And it's a funny it's a microcosm of how hard the draft can be because they've put so much resources into their offensive line. And some of it looks really good. Like the guys they've drafted on their interior look like really promising young players. Zach Evans, Mason McCormick, but then you use back to back. Zach Frazier. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. You use back to back first round picks on offensive tackles. And we don't know if either one of those guys is worth a shit. And now you've got 41 year old Aaron Rodgers standing behind that. I was going to ask you this, though, and please don't laugh at me.

27:12Derrik Klassen: Do we think Rodgers is just beyond buy in? Yes. Yes. OK, because that's. I think he can still do what is asked of him. Like there were moments last year, like physically, like he, all I'm trying to say is I don't think Aaron Rogers looks like 40 year old drew breeze out there where like the ball just looks like a duck. The minute it goes more than 12 yards downfield, but you're saying you, we just cannot count on any sort of offensive buy-in from Aaron Rogers.

27:42Robert Mays: We're now two stops into this problem. This is how it was at the end in green Bay. And this is how it's been. When he was with the jets, The arm is still alive. There's no denying that. This is closer to me. And I don't think it's all the way here. It's closer to me what Brady felt like at the end where the physical skills were still there, but he was really skittish in the pocket. And when that starts and you don't want to get hit anymore, it bleeds into everything else that you want to do. I don't think we're quite to that level, Derek, but I think the way he's playing leads me toward that direction in a way that's a little bit frightening.

28:12Dave Helman: and I do think a thing that you see with a lot of these older quarterbacks I think it was true of Tom Brady the last year I think it's been true of Aaron Rodgers the last handful of years I think it was true of Peyton Manning at the end in Denver they end up because they're not as mobile they don't want to be under center as much so they end up being pure shotgun guys but also they're completely useless in the run game because they're 40 year old pocket passers so the the offense ends up being this like weird disconnected you end up in these weird buckets in terms of how you have to do things.

28:39Dave Helman: And I think that was that was part of why the Jets run game wasn't very good last year is they just couldn't tie stuff together as much as they wanted. Now that I think about the marriage with Arthur Smith and him wanting to be an under center, we run the ball style of offense. Well, that's just not what Aaron Rodgers wants to do. And that's not what I think he physically is capable of doing at this point in his career. So it's just I think the offense could be a disaster. I think I'm probably more optimistic on the defense. Getting things back together and like playing at a really high level again.

29:08Dave Helman: But the offense, if they're the 26th or 7th best unit, I don't think I'm going to bat an eye about it.

29:14Robert Mays: If the defense is healthy, I do think they have a certain floor. I just think that they are more susceptible to a steep drop-off than a lot of other good but not great defenses in the NFL are right now. Alex Hitesmith is already hurt. He's dealing with the groin. I do think that there is a path for them to be really good. I like Harmon. The front is still hellacious. The secondary, I do think they've plugged enough holes with how they've built it. But I just think that there is a possible path where they are average or slightly below that. And if that is the case, combined with the downside case for the offense, I don't know, man.

29:48Robert Mays: I don't think like a six and 11 season is unthinkable with that version of the Steelers if it plays out that way.

29:56Derrik Klassen: I'd be a lot more all in on this if last year hadn't happened. Because I wrote the Steelers off last year as a distant afterthought, especially in that division and it wasn't pretty but they won 10 games now do i think do i think the steelers are going to win 10 games and make the playoffs this year i won't be betting on it but i'm a little more hesitant to write them off when they just did this and i mean it's not a one-to-one comparison but they just did this in similar circumstances all right we're going to

30:28Robert Mays: take our first quick break and then get back with a few more half-baked takes hey everyone michael Beller for behind the scenes at the athletic football show here.

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32:30Robert Mays: all right Dave what's your next one here your next half-baked take about the 2025 NFL season

32:35Derrik Klassen: you hinted at it and my take is that I think particularly in the NFC we might be due for a really insane amount of playoff shake-up and this is just the way that I look at the league when I'm trying to project things in the summer and we know the cliche right I mean, it's not a cliche because it's backed up by data. Like half of the playoff field turns over every year. You can pretty much bank on that. We have five years of info now that they've expanded to a 17 playoff, which just as an aside, I can't believe we've had five years of a 17 format. That's beside the point. But for the most part, that holds true.

33:15Derrik Klassen: even with the expanded field over the last five years, we're averaging six new teams in the 14 team playoff field every year. So slightly less than half. Now we go back to 2024 and it was pretty surprisingly chalky, like only four new teams made the playoffs. Now it's worth pointing out that they were Cinderella stories. They kind of came out of nowhere, you know, Chargers, Broncos, commanders, Vikings, all teams that not a lot of people were talking about during the preseason still can't change the fact that 10 of the 14 teams had been in the field before, which when I see that it starts setting off alarm bells for me that things are going to change this year.

34:00Derrik Klassen: Like when you have an aberration like that, where a lot of stuff holds true, I think it sets you up for a lot of turnover. Like I said, the AFC, it's harder to project this because who's going to pick against the Ravens, Chiefs and Bills making the playoffs? Not me personally. But in the NFC, look at this. We already talked about the NFC North. It was the most competitive division in football last year. We already talked about how the Lions are dealing with a lot of attrition as the reigning division winner. NFC East has not had a repeat champion in 20 years, guys. That's just worth pointing out.

34:34Derrik Klassen: Even the Eagles look very, they look very strong. They look likely to repeat as division champions, but we felt that way in the past and it hasn't borne out. NFC South, sloppy dogfight. It has been for the last four years. NFC West, very competitive division. Add in the fact that San Francisco, again, we talked about it. That looks like a team that has a chance to rise above last year. And I forgot to mention the Cowboys as well. That is another team. It's always interesting where you have, you know, a team that has a terrible injury year like the Cowboys and 49ers did last year where they are much, much better than their record and their draft positioning reflects.

35:16Derrik Klassen: So I look at all of that. I went through the NFC, the Saints and probably the Giants. I as we've discussed, I'm a little more bullish on the Giants than some other people. But those are the only teams that I have a hard time envisioning a playoff case for. I really think 14 of the 16 teams in the conference have a shot at making the playoffs. I think the Eagles, I will happily say the Eagles are going to make the playoffs. And one of the two of Green Bay and Detroit will probably make it. But that's five spots up for grabs. Like I could easily see five new teams making the playoffs in the NFC alone.

35:57Robert Mays: I think it's pretty simple to make the argument. The Niners are an easy one. The Cowboys, I think there's absolutely a path for them to be a wildcard team. I think Atlanta could win the NFC South. I think that is on the table because I just, I don't know. I think there's enough shakiness about where the Bucs are. New offensive coordinator, Tristan Wirfs, Godwin being hurt, even if a Bucca looks good. Like, I think there's enough there where they can maybe take a small step back. I think so. I think the Bucs are going to be a solid team. But if you told me Atlanta was a 10 and 7 champion of the South and the Bucs were 9 and 8, I believe you.

36:25Robert Mays: I think Arizona is fascinating. I have concerns about the offensive ceiling, but the defensive talent they've added. If they were a 10 and seven wildcard team, I believe that. So, yeah, I don't think it's hard to get there. It's actually funny because the teams I want to have as my surprise playoff teams are in the AFC. I don't want to start getting into that quite yet because I'm going to be I'm going to wait to spring that as we start making predictions. But I do think that there's possibility for a lot of turnover in the NFC.

36:50Dave Helman: I'm I was going to ask you, Dave, like which were the the if you're predicting at least five new teams, like who are the two that are staying? So it's it's interesting you mentioned the ones that you did. I think for me, it's it probably is just. Weirdly, the Packers are the ones I feel the best about, and then probably the Eagles still getting in, at least as a wild card. But then after that, I'm probably open to like literally anything could happen.

37:12Derrik Klassen: If you want me to get spicier, I could you could talk me into saying like the Eagles are the only team that I can really confidently write in Sharpie right now. like I'll do that today and everything else feels on the table again we we we made the case for why this could be a surprisingly bad year for the Lions it's hard for me to imagine the Packers

37:34Robert Mays: falling out of the playoffs but they have the most continuity of any team when you when you look and especially in the NFC North they have the most component parts coming back like there's the most stability in Green Bay compared to every other team the lack of stability in Chicago is going to be spun as a positive thing like the environment is supposed to be getting better but But that doesn't change the fact that the Packers are the most stable situation in that division by far.

37:56Derrik Klassen: I will say this, though. I mean, again, I like everything about the Packers. I would not pick them to fall out of the playoffs. But you got six games against what we just spent 10 minutes extolling as the toughest division in football. You got to deal with that. They do play some of the league's elite, whether you want to talk about going against the Ravens, whether you want to talk about playing the Eagles are on their schedule, the Joe Burrow, Cincinnati Bengals, like that is a tough slate for them to deal with. I would be shocked if they missed the playoffs, but I'm not willing to write it in Sharpie in August, at least.

38:35Robert Mays: All right. I have a Packers take. Do we, should I just unleash this now? Just do it. That's why we're here. That's what we're here for. I kind of think this could be like the nuclear Packers season.

38:46Dave Helman: Yes. They're the best team in the NFC. I love this take. I love this take.

38:50Robert Mays: I kind of think this could be like the nuclear Packers season. And I'm so scared to do this because I want to improve as a person. I want to learn from my past mistakes and I want to get better. And I look back at some of the things I did last year. And I think that too often on this show, and I'm fully willing to admit this, we get bogged down in the granular bullshit. And we forget about the fact that sometimes the best players create the best teams. More often than not, the best players create the best teams. And I think that the Packers, for all of their positives, lack superstar talent compared to a team like the Eagles, compared to a team like the Lions.

39:28Robert Mays: I'm fully willing to admit this. But I do think there's plenty of reasons to believe that they can be more than the sum of their parts to such an extent that as they all come into their own, this very young roster, this can be like a 14-win team this year. When you look at some of the underlying numbers from last season, there were 26th in the league and totally paid on third down. There were 28th in success rate. That stuff tends to normalize from season to season. I think they're going to get better there as the quarterback gets healthier. And I look at the offense specifically, and I think about the lack of star power on offense.

39:57Robert Mays: And I don't think Jordan Love is Josh Allen. I don't think that. But this blend of we have a good offensive line, like one of the best offensive lines in the league, maybe a tick down from Buffalo, but still very good. We have a really good play caller, like a difference making sort of play caller, one of the best in football. and the weapons collectively fit together in a way that makes sense. I think the addition of Matthew Golden, I don't think he has to be a star for everything else to make sense because he's there. And I do think just because Jordan Love didn't take that big step forward last year we expected him to and banked up, Derek, that it's not on the table this year.

40:32Robert Mays: Like, I don't think he has to be the MVP of the league, but can he be definitively at the top or near the top of that second tier of quarterbacks outside of the big guys? If that's the case, this could be the best offense in football. And the defense was a top 10 unit last year as they were still young. The pass rush didn't do nearly as much as they thought. They fired their defensive line coach. It's like, oh, they don't have Jair Alexander. They didn't have him last year. Like, I just think this could be definitively two top 10 units. As like Dave just alluded to, there's so much turnover with so many of these other teams, both in the division and in the conference at large.

41:07Robert Mays: so I do think it's possible even if they don't have superstars lining the roster that this could be like the 14 and three Packers year I think it's on the table yeah I think people don't realize

41:19Dave Helman: how good the defense got towards the end and also how banged up the secondary was for a lot of the year like they were doing some weird stuff at safety and nickel and the fact that hopefully those guys will be healthy I think is going to go a long way and then to me the offense it's as simple as if Jordan Love doesn't tear his groin in week one and the receivers just don't drop passes at a rate that is as bad as any other team in the league on the drafts are another huge thing to mention they just become the best team and they just become the best offense in the league almost like overnight based on that stuff and also like maybe the offensive line is better despite not knowing who's going to play where like it's just it's hard for me to not get incredibly

41:54Derrik Klassen: excited about this team I would love to throw cold water on this but actually here's here's my takeaway from that rant most of which I agree with Robert question that I've had for a while and maybe y 'all can shed some light on it why don't we consider josh jacobs a superstar

42:13Robert Mays: caliber player i think he's a very good player i don't think he's on that transcendent like electric saquon barkley derrick sort of level yeah he's not i think not as explosive is a good way to put it he's not a home run hitter the way that those guys are

42:30Derrik Klassen: I think that's completely fair. And I don't have a lot to argue about that with just when you think about the stuff that they're capable of doing. But 1300 yards and 15 touchdowns, even if it doesn't look as sexy, is really, really damn good. And I think if that is something you can rely on from this Packers offense and we just did a show about this, Derek and I. you just need one of those pass catchers to level up into something more than some of the parts but like if you have a pass catcher that you can lean on with that running back I think there's I think there's more potential for superstar talent on the Packers roster than maybe people would give

43:12Robert Mays: them credit for I guess I just think there are a lot of very good players and like first I think people misunderstood the conversation we had about Zach Tom last week like I think Zach Tom is a really good player. And I think, I think he's a really good player. I think Elton Jenkins has a chance to be a really good center. I I'm excited about Matthew golden. They have like the fourth

43:29Dave Helman: best tight end in the league. Like I'm probably higher on Tucker craft than like I should be, but he's freely, really, really good.

43:36Robert Mays: But even the combination of craft and what Musgrave can potentially give them, I think they have so much personnel variety. I think the skillsets all blend. I think I'm not, again, Matthew golden doesn't have to be a superstar for him to make everything else make more sense. And I do think that is on the table. And Jordan Love is 26. He started 33 games. Like the idea that he can't get better and add layers to his game. Maybe he does more as a scrambler. And this team is likely to be better on third down. I think there are just so many quiet ways they can improve on top of just built in improvement and built in development from what is still a very young team combined with like a top three or four play caller in the league.

44:18Robert Mays: And the defense is good. The defense is already good.

44:21Derrik Klassen: I love this take so much. I was going to, Derek is the Packers guy. Like that much has become obvious to me in just three weeks of doing the show.

44:30Robert Mays: And I wish I wasn't doing this because I feel like I should be learning more lessons about teams with really good players just being better than I think. But as I just sit here and think about it, I just see this potential path for this team. And I won't say any more because I feel like I'm already getting myself in trouble when this goes horribly wrong. And they're like a nine and eight team that gets beat up by the Lions in both of those games. What's your next one here, Derek? Your half fake take about the 2025 season.

44:56Dave Helman: So this is like halfway about the Cleveland Browns, but not really. And this isn't even necessarily a 2025 specific thing. But I so I think there are so many reasons to abolish the draft, right? Like it rewards bad teams, which is stupid. you get these like generationally talented quarterbacks who just end up in terrible spots you know the Andrew Lux you know what we got with Caleb Williams last year Trevor Lawrence you get all of that stuff it's also just in terms of like if we had more of an open market the best players would get paid probably what they deserve in terms of the guys who are really at the top of the draft so there's all of that but I think what has really gotten me over the top with why we should abolish the draft is Miles Garrett is too good to be stuck on this team forever because I know we had this whole thing of like oh this offseason he might get traded a player like that is never getting traded it is just not happening so you're gonna get miles garrett stuck on this team forever would you like to hear the list of players who in the modern era like past like 1990 to now who have had more sacks in their age up until age 29 than miles garrett it's probably not one guy it's jared allen and he's done it he did it he has like two more sacks than than miles Garrett has in through his age 29 season.

46:11And I think Miles Garrett, on top of being that

46:14Dave Helman: productive that early and being such an obvious guy who I think coming out of the draft, we all knew was going to be that level of talent. His game is going to age incredibly well. He's a 275 pounder who is just stronger than everybody else in front of him. He has an insane array of moves. If you need to kick him inside more as he ages, like you can obviously do that. Like he is just he to me is the best pure edge rusher I've ever seen and I think when we saw him coming out of the draft we all knew that and I know we say that about like quarterback prospects all the time but quarterback is always going to be more flimsy than I think these other positions when you have an alien type pass rusher it's just like the fact that that guy is going to get stuck on a team that we don't give a shit about the entire time that he is there it's just we shouldn't be doing this He should at least be on like a semi-functional franchise.

47:02Robert Mays: Counterpoint. Okay. You can say no to the money.

47:06Dave Helman: I don't, he's, it's not, but then they're just going to keep him there.

47:10Robert Mays: What you, we've seen guys do this. You, if you want to play out the string, you can play out the spring. Miles Garrett is so good that he is the sort of player that if he wanted to get tagged twice and get to the market, why couldn't Miles Garrett do what Kirk Cousins did? And even this offseason, he was pissed until they gave him a ton of money. So I think Miles Garrett and like the two hundred and fifty million dollars in career earnings that he's going to rope in at the end of this. I think he has some say in whether or not he ends up or continues to be on the Cleveland Browns.

47:42Dave Helman: He has some. But like, that's what I'm saying is like, this should not be a thing of a point of contention, like six years or six, seven years into a guy's career. Like they should. The good players who are so obviously the best in the league coming into the draft should get more of a say where they don't have to be locked into some of this stuff and make these

47:58Robert Mays: decisions that is fair the fact that you are if you are miles garrett you automatically have to be on your team for seven seasons i think that is a reasonable argument because it is seven years it's two years after the fifth year option because they are going to tag you twice because you are

48:12Dave Helman: that good and by that point for most players and i i know i just said that miles garrett's um game could age really well but like that is your entire prime for almost every nfl player ever like that's just I I don't think that that should be how that works I'm trying to formulate thoughts

48:28Derrik Klassen: that don't get too political but it is I've always thought it was really interesting that the very successful billionaires in our capitalist country have created this system that rewards poor performance and like brings everybody up to the median you know they're like oh no it's not surprising at all let's think one layer deeper about this well you can't because that's why the

48:53Robert Mays: nfl is king because you can turn it around in two years every fan base is constantly engaged because of the levers the league has built in to create this amount of parity hope is the ultimate capital

49:07Derrik Klassen: i don't that's what the draft is for so i don't think the issue is with the draft right because for every miles garrett and while you were saying that derek i was just thinking about joe thomas too. I mean, a guy that's widely regarded as one of the best to ever do it. Good Browns. I mean, truth hurts sometimes. I don't think the issue is with the draft, though. I maybe maybe the answer is to build in some sort of safeguard of like a good faith effort to build a winning team where you can get out of there if you are stuck in a situation like this, because for every miles Garrett, I can point you in the direction of a draft pick that changed a franchise.

49:52Derrik Klassen: I mean, Peyton Manning, look what he did for the Indianapolis Colts. Look what I know that I know that the Bengals haven't won a Super Bowl, but don't forget that people were debating whether Joe Burrow should refuse to play for the Cincinnati Bengals. And that is a city currently, But, you know, hey, the guys made a lot of money and won a lot of football games. And I think it's worked out well for both parties to this point. Joe Burrow might regret that at some point in his career. But the Bengals have been a good team that has been to a Super Bowl that has changed the way we talk about that franchise after making that pick.

50:30Derrik Klassen: So there are plenty of success stories and the randomness of the draft. Yeah, like it generates interest. It generates hope. It gives all 32 fan bases a reason to be invested in it. I do think it sucks that you can get stuck in a city where you'll never have a chance to play truly meaningful football. And like I said, maybe maybe there are some safeguards there. I don't know, but I don't think the answer is to get rid of the draft because it's far too compelling and it is successful in a lot of other ways.

50:59Dave Helman: Oh, I do think that they're never going to actually get rid of it, especially with this popular it's as it's gotten over the last 10 years. That's the issue. I think 15 years ago, you could maybe make this case right where it wasn't as much of a TV product. Now they're definitely never going to get rid of it. But I just.

51:14Robert Mays: The automatically hypocritical here, we have two live shows for all seven hours of the draft over the first two nights.

51:21Dave Helman: And listen, I love drafts work as much as anybody else, and it is a fun time. I just think in these very particular cases where we get the unicorn players stuck on the Browns, it's just like, man, it just feels dirty.

51:34Derrik Klassen: I am with Robert, though, like Miles Garrett signed that contract quickly. Like that was not a story for that long relative to NFL contract negotiations. Like he went from I want out of here to not only did I resign, but I feel good about the Browns quarterback plan that they told me when I agreed to the contract. Like he did all of that really quickly. If he really, really wanted out of Cleveland, I'm not saying he definitely could have pulled it off because that is hard to do, but he could have tried a little bit harder than he did.

52:07Robert Mays: I want to be clear about this. I would do the exact same thing as Miles Garrett. I would take the money immediately. I'm not trying to pretend I wouldn't. I am a coward. So I'm just saying you could show a little bit more fortitude when it comes to something like this. All right, Dave, what's your next one here?

52:24Derrik Klassen: As long as we are doing highfalutin way out there, changing the very structure of the NFL takes. This is something that I've actually been thinking about all off season. I love this one so much. I don't know if y 'all are into soccer. Are y 'all soccer people at all? No, I would be if I didn't live in California. That is a very good point, Derek. And it ties into my anecdote here. I love soccer. I love getting up on the weekend. I feed my dog. I make coffee. I used to live on the West Coast, so I had to get out of bed at like 615 and and I turn on soccer and I'll watch that until like nine in the morning.

53:04Derrik Klassen: Well, every so often I forget to check the schedule. Forgive me. I'm I'm inattentive to detail. Sometimes I get up at 615. I turn on the TV and there's no soccer on. There's no games. And I'm left wondering why I got up. And the reason is, if you don't follow soccer, they bake weekends off into their schedule to accommodate the international side of the game. So, you know, if you've got players that play for the French national team and they're doing a World Cup qualifier, there are like six weekends throughout the year where none of the big soccer leagues play so that all of the international guys can go play.

53:48Derrik Klassen: And in the interest of fairness, you know, every team's got at least two or three guys that are going to play these international games. So in the interest of fairness, they just take the weekend off. They're like, we're not going to play any games. Go enjoy your international stuff and everybody else will just see you next week. How insane does that sound in our more, more, more NFL culture? The NFL is looking for any reason it can to play on as many days of the week as many times as possible. We're going to add an 18th regular season game at some point. Like there is no doubt in my mind. So I really have no faith the NFL would do this.

54:27Derrik Klassen: But I think this would be a phenomenal thing to do in the NFL. Obviously, there's no international part of it. We don't we're not doing that. But a weekend where you just didn't play NFL football and let and like, you know, we have our rotating buys. You can keep those, but you just bake in a weekend off for every team to take the weekend off. You rest up your injured players. You get a little R &R and you resume the next week. I think it would do wonders from a health standpoint. I think I think it would generate more interest like the classic less is more adage. I think there are so many benefits to this.

55:07Robert Mays: The less is more and generating more interest. I do think that there's something to that because just as somebody who's gotten used to the rhythms of the NFL schedule and as somebody who has to be attuned to what the audience is like over the course of an NFL season, when we get to like November 10th every single year, there is a little bit of a dip. Like teams start falling out of it a little bit. And I also, this is like a very stupid reason to care about this. I have a lot of conversations with coaches where they have these light bulb moments. in bi-weeks or mini bi-weeks coming off of Thursday night games.

55:37Robert Mays: I actually think it would be good for innovation in season. I think we'd actually see some cooler stuff because teams would have a break where they got to do a little bit of self-scouting. So I'm open to this. I think that there are some people who would mutiny and cause a riot if they didn't get their football on a Sunday in the fall. But I think there are some benefits to this.

55:56Dave Helman: Can I propose a particular week for this? Yes. Because I think I have an idea. It should be the week before Thanksgiving. because we're going to play more of Thursday games on Thanksgiving because that's the way that we do this. And so it gives those teams a little bit more time. But that's also like week 11, which is kind of like a perfect midpoint break between if you're considering the entire NFL season that like stretches all the way out to the Super Bowl, which is like week 21 or 22, however you want to do it. It's like a perfect midpoint. That to me seems like the perfect break to do all of this.

56:26Derrik Klassen: So I actually thought this out because I wanted it to be as realistic as possible. Like I said, we're not getting rid of anybody's rotating by week. My idea would be half the league takes its by week between week four and week seven. The other half of the league takes its by week between 11 week, 11 and week 14. And then probably week nine would be when the whole league is just off. That's like the end of October. You don't play any games. And yeah, Like there could be some fun carry over there where maybe a team gets like two weeks off in a row. I'm sure that would really piss off their fan base, but at the same door, the team,

57:03Robert Mays: I think if you having two weeks off in a row and not having two real breaks, like other teams got, I think that's part of the problem here. And I'll admit that I have not thought, I do think we'll have to add like real a second buy. If we had an 18th game, I have not thought about the mechanics of that whatsoever. I know a lot of other people have.

57:20Derrik Klassen: My biggest gripe with the NFL today is the the bullshit talk about player safety while doing all of this shit, like playing Wednesday games, playing Saturday games, greedy and self-interested. It is shameless. The very least you could do is give them another bye week. And like I said, if we want to add an 18th game and give everybody two buys, I'm open to that. But I think this would be it would be a fun way, I think, to generate more interest and just give these guys a break. I mean, they put their bodies on the line from late July until Valentine's Day. In some cases, the teams that go all the way, the least you can do is give them that one more week off.

58:04Derrik Klassen: And that would make me feel a hell of a lot better. And there's stuff we could do with that weekend. I know not everybody's a college football fan, but you could move like you could turn that weekend into a college football showcase. You could play some college games on Sunday. You could come up with a way to have football on both days of the weekend. If that's not your cup of tea, that's fine. You can use that weekend to go on a trip. Or if, you know, people that want to have fall weddings, you could plan your fall wedding on this weekend without worrying about pissing the football fans in your life off.

58:36Derrik Klassen: I just think there's a lot of fun stuff you could do with it while also giving football players a break. And that's that's my real emphasis here. That's what I'm trying to accomplish is actually giving these guys a chance to rest more than one week a year.

58:52Dave Helman: That actually selfishly also is like the perfect time to do it, because like week eight to 11 is really the busiest time in the schedule for us, because by that point, like every team in the league still matters. by like week 14 you can you're just checking teams off of the off of a list at a certain point you only have to watch about half the league but like by week 10 it's like technically everyone still matters they're still in the race even the worst there's 10 games you can go back and watch for

59:16Robert Mays: every single team as you're trying to figure out what they are exactly like there's just so much

59:20Dave Helman: of it so to get a week to breathe would be absolutely delightful not only that i'm just

59:26Derrik Klassen: i'm thinking this stuff up off the dome but we like the nfl loves to like they're gonna come up with drama and content any way that they can. You could set let's say they take the break week nine. You could turn week 10 into like the reboot, you know, the same way week one is full of juicy matchups. You could turn week 10 into like a reboot with a bunch of division rivalries or, you know, the the big game that's circled on the calendar. Maybe maybe Bill's Chiefs is the centerpiece of the week 10 schedule. There's a lot of fun stuff you could do here. And yeah, some people are going to be pissed at the idea of not having football for a weekend, but I think we can come up with enough ideas to mitigate that.

1:00:09All right.

1:00:10Robert Mays: Well, as we give the NFL a break, we're going to take one more quick break and get back with our last few half-baked takes.

1:00:30Derrik Klassen: in purchases. That's 5 % cash back at different places each quarter, like grocery stores, on gas, and at restaurants. It pays to Discover. Terms apply. See discover.com slash five for details.

1:00:47Robert Mays: All right, Derek, what's your last one here?

1:00:50Dave Helman: Yeah, my last one, again, like we said at the top of the show I woke up a little mean today so um I think we all got very excited about last year's quarterback class and for good reason a lot of them played well they were very productive um all of that jazz realistically one of them has to be not as good as they looked last year like that's there are plenty of cases where like rookie quarterbacks look good and then ultimately flame out for one reason or another if I had to pick one I feel like it's Bo Nix right and that feels weird because it runs extremely counter to all of the violence I just love all of the other this is why I hate quarterback discussion sometimes and why fan bases can get mad at you I love every other part of the Broncos offense I'm like I'm a Cortland Sutton guy I think the offensive line is really good Sean Payton is a delightful play caller but every time I watch Bo Nix even if I feel like he's a better player than he was in like week four week five I just get this what is potentially an irrational feeling that he's just kind of getting away with it a little bit and part of part of what I mean by that is like it just feels like they put so many guardrails into the offense that I just wonder if that's something that they can continue to do like they sprinted out more than a lot of rookie quarterback I know but it just the particular ways that they were doing it just felt like it just there were a lot of screens in the offense the offensive line was the way that they protected him I think is what it ultimately comes down to he was let me pull this up really quickly there was one quarterback in the NFL last year that if you take out screens had lower than a 30 percent pressure rate but higher than a 2.9 time to throw it was Bo Nix

1:02:32Robert Mays: oh and Lamar's probably right in that same conversation Lamar's like close-ish yes he's

1:02:36Dave Helman: pretty close um actually Lamar's pressure rate if you take out screens was closer to like middle of the pack. It was like 37, 38 percent. But he does hold the ball, obviously, for a long time. So he's inviting his own pressures. But in terms of guys who did not get pressured but held the ball a ton, it's pretty much just Bo Nix. And a lot of that was like they just whenever they called a lot of this their deeper play action stuff, it was incredibly well protected. Again, they sprinted him out a lot, so he's not getting pressured. And even just on a lot of their normal drop back stuff, he's just holding the ball and they're just not getting into him until four or five seconds in the play.

1:03:09Dave Helman: And credit to him. He's obviously a good athlete and a good scrambler when it comes time for that to be the case, but it just, it feels like there's more room for this to go wrong next year than I feel like I thought initially.

1:03:24Robert Mays: I guess I understand that, but this is another moment where I was yelling at my car play while I was driving from place to place. This was in LA when you guys were talking about the, is the arrow pointed up for last year's surprise playoff teams? And you guys were talking about Bo Nix and it's just like Bo Nix is what he is. It's like, I understand he was a little bit older of a prospect, but he's played 17 games. He was a first year quarterback. I'm open to the idea that some of Bo Wicks and Bo Nix's relative weaknesses last year can get a little bit better. Isn't that a possibility? I don't disagree with some of the stuff you're saying, by the way.

1:03:58Robert Mays: I think that is what I'd be worried about when it comes to Bo Nix's development. But I'm also open to the idea that there can be some development.

1:04:06Dave Helman: I think there could be like again I love Sean Payton and if Sean Payton you know he's talking to Drew Brees and all that and trying to get Bo Nix to be Drew Brees whatever all of that stuff he could get better I'm just saying like it is more likely than not that one of these guys that we're really high on and seems promising just doesn't end up being that good in the long term by the time we get to their rookie end of their rookie contract I just feel like it's probably

1:04:31Robert Mays: Caleb Williams who wasn't good last year it might be Caleb Williams but I just

1:04:36Dave Helman: everything I've seen from Kayla. I like, okay, I know what the numbers were. I still take Caleb Williams 10 times out of 10 over Bo Nix. Like I, it's not even like a thought in my mind right now.

1:04:46Robert Mays: I think that as someone who's ceiling pilled, I can understand why you see it that way, but Caleb Williams was not good last year. He wasn't, but Bo Nix on that bears team would have been terrible.

1:04:58Derrik Klassen: I don't disagree with that. That's the thing, Derek. He wasn't on that bears team. And that that's really my entire stupid. It's my entire argument against you in this point is what if and I don't I don't have a firm opinion on Bo Nix yet. And it goes back to what we said about Jaden Daniels, where it's like as good as it looked, it's OK if we just want to wait a year and see what happens. But let's just assume Bo Nix doesn't get any better for some reason, even if that's the case. What if he's just in an environment that let lets him, quote unquote, get away with it? Like, what if the offensive line stays good?

1:05:35Derrik Klassen: The receiver talent? I mean, it there's so much room for improvement with the talent around Bo Nix. He's got Sean Payton doing what Sean Payton does. And for at least the next couple of years, hopefully longer than that, you have an incredible ace up your sleeve in a defense that's going to make life easier on you. That's when we talked about the Broncos so much about what makes me excited about the Broncos is the infrastructure. And that's without allowing for the possibility that Bo Nix gets better. So all I would say is it just it seems like he is set up for success, even if he doesn't appreciably improve.

1:06:11Derrik Klassen: And if he does, then it could be very interesting.

1:06:14Dave Helman: Well, so I think that's fine. But I think that's also why, like with quarterback specifically, I don't think success and production are like a one for one for what the quarterback is doing. Like to a tongue of my low has put up some of the best offensive numbers that we've ever seen. And at no point did I really think he was ever better than like an average NFL quarterback. And I think Bo Nix more than likely just kind of falls into that bucket for me. And again, there is a chance that two years from now he is really good because I do think he's more toolsy than guys like Mac Jones and Tua Tungabailoa for sure.

1:06:41Dave Helman: It's just maybe I'm still too like Auburn Bo Nix-filled or something. I don't know. I just feel like I've seen him play a lot more football that I don't love for a very long time. and even parts of his season last year just gave me a little bit of an ick. Like I just would be surprised if they can sustain it as the particular way that they were doing it for years over years.

1:07:04Robert Mays: I think some of that pre-draft stuff is probably creeping into your mind a little bit too much. And I listen, I have my questions about Bo Nix's ceiling because of some of the creativity stuff that we've talked about. He's athletic, right? There's no denying that. It was a really good scramble last year. Can do some stuff outside of the pocket. We talked about this. He led the league in passing yards outside of the pocket per next gen. I think there's a lot of elements to his game that are not that of a limited quarterback athletically, even if he's not a creative player. I think that's where he has to take a small step.

1:07:34Robert Mays: I do think there is like a Baker-esque path for Bo Nix. I think that's very much on the table. And that, to me, still is a player with a decent floor.

1:07:43Dave Helman: Do you mean Baker like stylistically or like quality-wise, like where he can be quarterback 14? I kind of both. I don't think he's nearly as psycho as Baker. I think Baker is a psychopath the way that he plays. And I think that that's part of why I struggle with Bo Nix. I just don't know. I think there's a little bit of psycho to Bo Nix.

1:08:04Robert Mays: I don't feel that. I don't think he's quite as ambitious on some of the intermediate throws. But again, you're a rookie quarterback. You're trying to protect the rookie quarterback. I'm sure Sean Payton is in his ear about taking a certain amount of chances. They have a really good defense. Like I'm just open to the idea that he can improve from where he was last year. I don't think he'll ever be a top 10 quarterback just because of some of the limitations. And I think that's probably unfair to say about a first year quarterback. Bo Nix is eight months younger than Trevor Lawrence. Which seems crazy, but he's eight months younger than Trevor Lawrence.

1:08:43Robert Mays: Trevor Lawrence is 25. Bo Nix is 25. So I do think there's a little bit less of a runway for somebody like Bo Nix, but I still feel like he can be a definitively above average quarterback. And the floor on something like the Mac Jones scenario, I think it's just harder for me to imagine with Bo Nix, even conceding how good the environment was last year. And it was very, very good from a protection standpoint.

1:09:04Dave Helman: Yeah. And I want to be clear. I'm not saying I think Bo Nix is going to suck. I just, again, if I had to pick a guy where I feel like we're going to think about him differently at the end of the rookie contract than we did after his first year, to me, it's probably Bo Nix.

1:09:19Derrik Klassen: We definitely see that all the time. So like, that's a fair point. And we get, you know, these, these conversations get crystallized and then we just sort of forget five years from now, like, oh yeah, remember we used to argue back and forth about Carson Wentz like all the time. And you just sort of like, let it, you just sort of let it fade away. So I, I will acknowledge that that is a fair point that probably one of these guys is, is going to dip or not be as good as we think he is right now. But the lesson that I'm trying to take away from last NFL season is, look, I get it. I don't think wins are a quarterback stat.

1:09:55Derrik Klassen: There is more to playing the quarterback position than than winning games. But the goal is to win games and potentially win a championship. And the Eagles just did it with Jalen Hurts playing solid but not elite football. And so, like, I'm trying to keep that in the back of my mind at all times. And when I look at Bo Nix, I'm like, yeah, like, You can build a contender around this guy if he plays at a similar level or potentially better than what we saw. That's all. Yeah.

1:10:24Robert Mays: Bo Nix isn't as good as Drake May and Bo Nix isn't good enough to win with or will be Mac Jones. I think are two different conversations.

1:10:32Dave Helman: Yeah. Framing it through the Mac Jones thing, I think it was like intentionally mean on my part. For that, I more meant like guy has insane rookie year and we think he's going to be a top 10 quarterback. And then it's just like, I don't know. Yeah. I'm not there with Bo Nix. I think there's still enough gaps to be filled in Jones. That's where I'm at. Yeah.

1:10:49Robert Mays: I still think Bo Nix needs to fill in a lot of gaps for him to take a step forward to be at a different class of quarterback. But I think the floor is high enough that I feel pretty good about the downside case being kind of remote. All right. I've got two. I'm going to lump in here and talk about rookie quarterbacks. This is partially tied to rookie quarterbacks from last year. I kind of think Zach Robinson is going to be this year's Liam Cohen.

1:11:11Derrik Klassen: That's a good one. That's a banger. Well, can you elaborate? because you were just at Falcons camp.

1:11:17Robert Mays: Yeah, so I was just at Falcons camp. And I just think that this Falcons team has a chance to be one of those units where we're talking about that offense in that way by the time we get to like week six or seven, where it's like, oh man, did you see the shit the Falcons did last week? And part of that is driven by, and I know this is going to upset Derek, me drinking the Michael Penix Kool-Aid. Part of this is me just drinking the Michael Penix Kool-Aid. This is on a lot of different levels. This was true last year. I was there after the draft last year and talking to them about their process for drafting him.

1:11:48Robert Mays: Stafford's name came up. And when you're there now, his name continues to come up. I think that there are elements to his game that are scary. And if he has a 59 % completion percentage at Halloween this year, I'm going to feel very silly. But the gaps in his game that we've talked about, Derek, touch throws, accuracy, they've really honed in on some of that stuff in terms of how he can improve. And I missed practice that day because of travel nightmares. but I did get to watch some practice tape afterwards. And there were a couple reps where very intentionally, they were like, look at the layering on this throw.

1:12:20Robert Mays: We're working on this very intentionally. So I'm hoping that he does improve in some of those areas that did hold him back last year. But them talking about the aggressiveness that the offense can play with because of him. And then some of the stuff he's doing mentally, where we talk about this with Stafford all the time. And Jared Goff said this to me last off season, we were talking about the rise of pocket quarterbacks as reclamation projects. and why guys, as they get a little bit older, are able to live better in that space. He said, if I'm not going to move, I have to move them, right? With your eyes, you have to be able to play that way.

1:12:51Robert Mays: And Michael Penix is doing that consistently. Like the way he sees the game is very advanced for a young quarterback. And so I just think that there are enough Stafford-tinged elements to his game that I'm excited about what he can do within this offense. And then I think about some of the layers design-wise that they were able to do last year. it was really cool. I mean, I think that the way that they played with some of the bunches, the way they play with some of the motions, some of just the passing concepts, some of the run game designs, Dwayne Ledford is their offensive line coach. And I think that more teams have diversified their run games and he comes from a more dyed in the wool outside zone sort of world.

1:13:29Robert Mays: But I think if you watch how they were using Charlie Warner last year, and literally it's a carryover from San Francisco, the, the run game, the Niners had where it was still pretty zone heavy and they had compliments off of that, I think that's what the Niners or excuse me, the Falcons run game can look like. And I think that there are McCaffrey-esque deployments of Bijan this year in the passing game that they were not able to explore last year for a few different reasons. So I just think there are a lot of component parts here, Derek, that I believe in what this offense can be. I think there are a couple of things that'll hold me back, which we was enough momentum for me to start building the argument for why this could be the unit schematically stylistically.

1:14:14Robert Mays: We're very excited about over the first half of the season.

1:14:17Dave Helman: I think I agree with almost everything, except that I'm just in more wait and see mode with Michael Penix, but everything else I'm just as excited. Like I'm, I mean, we talked about this last year for sure. I'm like the Drake may or Drake London is like, he was fourth, I think in the league in receiving yards last year and that was like without michael pennix not playing most of the season in which michael pennix when he was on the field only threw a drake london so i do think that like that part of the offense is nice like i just he has a chance to have an astronomical season like absolutely completely nuclear season if if michael pennix is who we think he is darnell mooney again was really good i still think kyle pitts is better than people continue to say that he is it's just we're tired of doing the like is he going to be the fifth best tight end in the but like he's a useful player that i just i can't do it again and i i just think i'm not even saying he's gonna be that but he's a functional starting tight end like that part i think is pretty

1:15:13Robert Mays: objectively but he's not that's the problem is he's not a functional starting tight end because he can't play an 11 personnel like his skill set is so specific that i just kind of true yeah i just i worry about how often he can play and like charlie warner is a more important part of their offense full stop and so i just walker yeah i just worry about what the pits role looks like but i think all of that is true i think that there's a couple other things one last year they cannot push the ball down the field for most of the season because so they had 26 completions of 20 plus air yards last year which was seventh in the nfl over the course of the year pennix had seven in the final three weeks seven okay that's hilarious they were 14 play action with pennix last year, according to PFF, which was just below Kirk at the bottom of the league.

1:15:59Robert Mays: I think that is a product of not being able to change your offense midstream. I think they will lean into that more. I think they will be more explosive. So I think there are a lot of different elements here. And I think the other part of this, and it's rooted in my visit there, is that I think some of the wrinkles and some of the evolution with elements of the offense, the play action part of it is one element of this. I think that their headspace is, I think they're in the right head space with like, how do we need to get better? How do we need to add layers to this? I was encouraged by some of the answers.

1:16:27Robert Mays: The one thing that will hold me back here. And it's what holds me back about the Falcons period. They're incredibly thin, like incredibly thin. There is a level of fragility to the offensive build that worries the shit out of me. The one guy who got hurt for them last year is not even there anymore. It was Dolman. So Nuzel, part of the argument for why this is going to work at center with Ryan Nuzel is that he played half the games last year. Okay. So everybody else was healthy last season. Mooney's already hurt. And this is a team that added no one to their offense this off season. I think by intentionally, they were like, Oh, we like our guys, which I think is just the wrong way to think about team building and regression and how you kind of build things in and you build in contingencies.

1:17:08Robert Mays: I think they thought, well, the quarterback is going to be better and more dynamic. And that's why we're going to be different this year. And I just don't think that is enough when you're building in a version of 10 different ways the season can go. You have to account for eight of those in a way that I don't think the Falcons did this off season. That's my concern. But if they stay relatively healthy, I think that they could be one of the more exciting units in the league.

1:17:33Derrik Klassen: That brings me to just an interesting thing that I think about the Falcons, which is the framing of drafting a rookie quarterback. Like typically, obviously we know now that Jaden Daniels and Bo Nix were really good and it accelerated how we feel about those teams and their timelines to contend. Famously, the Falcons put Michael Penix Jr. on a team that already had Kirk Cousins and was already pushing to win the division. And that was the expectation for that team last year. And it was the expectation when Penix got dropped into the lineup to like they were 500 with three weeks to play. And it was like, can this guy sprint us to the finish line?

1:18:14Derrik Klassen: Can Michael Penix like drag us into the playoffs, which is a crazy way to like evaluate a rookie quarterback, by the way, even a top 10 pick. That's nuts to be like, hey, you got three weeks to get us into the playoffs. What do you got? And it's it's funny to think how much differently you might think about this team in this quarterback if it was just your classic reboot where you're like, all right, let's see what this guy's got on an otherwise forgettable team. No, like this team has some serious potential if Pinnock's is that dude, which I don't know what my overall takeaway there is. It's just a different framing than what we're used to with a young quarterback.

1:18:53Derrik Klassen: It's not really fair to Pinnock's, in my opinion, but that's how good of a job they've done putting talent around him, I think, is that you're sitting there thinking like, OK, this guy that I've seen play a couple hundred snaps, maybe could win them the division, which you don't typically talk that way about guys like this.

1:19:11Robert Mays: it's my concern is that too often i am i go to the flashes with these guys and when we have quarterbacks that have spray problems and have accuracy and consistency issues but the other elements to how they play is so good that i'm willing to overlook it i think i might be over indexing that with michael penix but just again some of the things they said about the ways they were working on that just him staying on top of the ball some of the footwork things where his base was getting a little too narrow and he was speeding himself up like again he was a rookie quarterback, even if he's a little bit older, I do think that if you're honing that stuff, even a little bit combined with what I think are high end traits, ambition as a passer and processing speed, like how quickly he was getting to check downs, how few sacks he was taking.

1:19:55Robert Mays: I think that it's enough to build an offense around that I think is going to be creative, layered and talented outside of him that I do think that there is a path for this to be

1:20:06Dave Helman: wheels up rocket ship types type stuff yeah they there's a path for him to be like carson palmer ish but again it's a lot of it has to fix mechanically but how many times have we said

1:20:16Robert Mays: that about quarterbacks yeah and maybe that maybe that doesn't happen and maybe i'm overstating how possible that is and again if we're spraying throws in week 10 and i'm sitting there like banging the table watching this team because i have this vision of what they can be that wouldn't shock me, but I'm choosing to believe that some of that stuff can get a little bit ironed out and the relative strengths can shine a little bit brighter than the relative weaknesses. All right, we could do this all day. I'm sure we each have like two or three more of these. I know that I do, but we've been going for an hour and 20 minutes and I got to get to Brown's camp.

1:20:47Robert Mays: So we're going to have a bunch more shows coming your guys's way this week. We had six shows last week because we had two training camp mailbags. We're going to have that again. We're going to have two training and cap notebooks again this weekend because of all the visits that I'm getting to make with our athletic writers. So please be on the lookout for those. For now, that's all we got. Sincerely appreciate you guys listening. We will talk to you very soon.

1:21:37Derrik Klassen: We'll see you next time. that simplify the complex and power what's next. Because when everything comes together in one place, growth comes easy. Experience one place for all your HCM needs. Start now at paylocity.com slash one. With the Discover Cash Back Card, it's payback time when you earn cash back on everyday purchases. Activate and earn 5 % cash back at different categories each quarter on up to$1 ,500 in purchases. That's 5 % cash back at different places each quarter, like grocery stores, on gas, and at restaurants. It pays to Discover. Terms apply. See discover.com slash 5 for details.