The duality of NFL expectations

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1:57Robert Mays: Welcome to the athletic football show. I'm Robert Mays fun show for you guys today. We got a mailbag question earlier this spring from a listener. It was essentially about trying to figure out which teams, which types of teams we overrate or underrate heading into a given season. Like where are our blind spots as we're trying to predict season long results for some of these teams. So that's what Derek Classen and I did today. We went back over the last decade and used under or over-performing preseason win totals to try to identify some of the teams that were the most disparate from our expectations, whether that was in a good or bad way.

2:35Robert Mays: And then we figured out buckets that those teams fell into. So which types of teams do we typically overrate and which types of teams do we typically underrate? This was a really fun discussion. A lot of teams that are either just hiding there in plain sight or just kind of jump right out at you. So really fun to kind of go back and remember some of these teams, what our expectations were, how we talked about them and how surprising either in a good or bad way, a lot of these were in the moment, like the 2018 to 2019 Browns is probably my favorite team that comes up as part of this discussion.

3:07Robert Mays: Before we dig into that though, it's a pretty big bombshell moment this morning in the NFL news world on Pablo Torres podcast, Pablo finds out him and Mike Florio from pro football talk talked about the ruling and the arbitration hearing about the collusion case for between the NFL PA and the NFL. They got their hands on the 61 page document that previously had not been made public from the arbitrator and just the details about that ruling. So we also talked about some of the revelations in there, some of the takeaways and some of the stuff that maybe has not yet become clear, but we're going to be keeping an eye on as we learn more about that situation.

3:45Robert Mays: So we're going to dig into that before we start talking about the teams that over perform or underperform their expectations. Let's get into that conversation with Derek Klassen right now.

4:00Robert Mays: All right, Derek, we had a fun one on tap today. This is from this idea, a kernel of an idea came from a listener from a mailbag question that we got earlier this off season. I can't remember exactly who sent it and I apologize for it. I was trying to look for it and could not find it, but it's in my long list of these are cool mailbag ideas. Maybe we'll do some of them. And the question was essentially, what types of teams do we, the collective we, I think that he was pointing at you and I and like the football internet in a way, but also just people in general, what types of teams do we overrate going into a given season and which types of teams do we underrate going into a given season?

4:37Robert Mays: So that's going to be a majority of today's show. We're going to try to figure out little buckets that fall on either side of that line. Which teams do we think will be better than they usually are? And which teams do we think will be worse? And we had a little bit of a methodology we used to try to figure out these teams and try to put a marker on it. But this was really fun to dig back into. There was a lot of like, remember some teams moments as you were going back through the last 10 years or so. But I do think there's enough rules and enough through lines here that we can come away with some pretty decent conclusions.

5:07I think we absolutely can. I think the most fascinating part to me about doing the research for this was that for the teams that we typically overrate, it's a lot of stuff that like we should know better. And then we kind of buy into those teams anyway. And then I realized with the teams we underrate, it's a lot of guesswork, like, like things where you're having to guess about X, Y, and Z. I'm not going to spoil the list obviously yet, but it's just, you're doing more guesswork. And I think it's harder. Whereas the overrated teams, it's like, ah, we know better and we keep doing it anyway.

5:38Robert Mays: Some of this, some of the lessons here are going to be a little bit similar to the cold takes revisited show. We did a little bit earlier this off season, like they're going to be some parallels because I think some of those cold takes from last year apply to this line of thinking, like, like we weren't immune to the same rules in 2024 that have existed over the last 10 years or so. But I think there's going to be enough differentiation that this is a worthwhile conversation, even on the heels of doing that that cold takes revisited podcast. Yeah. I'm hoping it's a little bit different, but again, that's like, it's the same as the cold takes.

6:09Cause I think in the cold takes show, I made the joke of like, I'm going to do it again with the Jaguars. And I probably will. And again, the whole point with all these overrated splits is I'm going to do it again. I'm going to bet on it.

6:19Robert Mays: When we do the show in July, where we say that we know this is a terrible idea, but we're going to do it anyway. It's going to be really funny doing that show a month after doing this one and just completely ignoring all of the lessons or the wisdom that should come with the exercise that we're about to do. Before we dig into this, we had some pretty big news drop this morning. If you guys have been paying attention, pro football talk and Mike Floria, I've been talking about this really for the last several weeks. And I think probably even longer than that, there was a grievance filed by the NFL PA earlier this year or late last year.

6:51Robert Mays: I can't remember exactly when it was filed, but the ruling came out, I believe in January. and the grievance was over the idea of the league colluding to prevent guaranteed contracts among players and since then the ruling had not been made public and the grievance the 61 page document that kind of went through the ruling and the decision by the arbitrator had not been made public and Mike Florio had been talking about this well today Pablo Torres podcast Pablo finds out they talked about this document which Pablo had gotten his hands on and there is a ton of interesting information in here. Some of it's surprising, some of it not that surprising based on how the league typically likes to operate.

7:29Robert Mays: So Derek, as you looked at some of the information that came out and went back and listened to the show that Pablo and Mike did today, what really jumped out to you about the discussion those guys had and some of the bombshell moments that came out as they discussed and kind of combed over that ruling? I think what kind of stood out to me, and they did a really good job of presenting this is that even though this is a big bombshell thing right that that this kind of got released and all that stuff we also knew that this was probably how this was going down like especially during the Lamar Jackson contract talks we all knew the fact that he wasn't able to get a fully guaranteed contract had to spell out that there was something going on behind the scenes because he was he'd already won an MVP by then he was one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL like there was no reason not to pay him whatever he wanted plus the fact that teams were it's not just that teams weren't willing to pay him right it said he'd asked for a trade and then nobody was picking up the phone which is crazy because some of the things that they were mentioning for um i think it might have been arthur blank that they were quoting uh it was arthur blank yeah where he was quoting like oh the play style and the injuries and all this other stuff when deshaun watson had just gotten the fully guaranteed thing when he tore his acl as a rookie and then also had a play style where he gets hit a million times so like the stuff that with lamar jackson and him wanting a guaranteed contract it just didn't really mesh with a lot of the reasons that you wouldn't pay him.

8:47It was just kind of bizarre.

8:49Robert Mays: Let's go through the timeline of this in chronological order as it was laid out in this discussion. So in January, an arbitrator named Christopher Droney stated that there's little question that the NFL Management Council, with the blessing of the commissioner, encouraged all 32 NFL clubs to reduce guarantees in veterans contracts at the March 2022 annual owners meeting. That owners meeting happened a few days after the Browns gave a fully guaranteed contract to Deshaun Watson. And so the Lamar Jackson thing happens into the next off season in 2023. So the Lamar thing is kind of the first thing that comes to mind.

9:26Robert Mays: There were some other players involved in this, whether it was Russell Wilson trying to get a fully guaranteed deal that spring after being traded to the Broncos. Kyle Murray was in the midst of his contract negotiation, but the guy that probably had the most leverage walking into his negotiation with his respective team was Lamar Jackson. And there were some fun details in there about Lamar texting. I believe it was Eric Dacosta about wanting a full guaranteed deal. Lamar claiming that his phone was no longer working as he was trying to ghost the Ravens. So Lamar is a deeply funny person, by the way, like the way that he operates sometimes is really one of one.

10:02Robert Mays: So that obviously is the biggest negotiation, the biggest single negotiation that kind of comes in the wake of this. And it's complicated by the fact that there is this franchise tag element of it. And the only real thing that I do think stands up to some scrutiny when it comes to why teams were not willing to offer Lamar any sort of contract or why teams did not reach out to him. All the play style stuff and the injury stuff and the is he as good as we think he is stuff, that to me was always bullshit. It's like, what are we talking about here? Like, he just won the MVP award. He's a superstar quarterback.

10:36Robert Mays: Like there's, and not just, but he has an MVP award. He's a superstar quarterback. What are we doing? These guys don't become available. Look at what just happened with Deshaun Watson. The only thing that to me holds up to scrutiny is why would we negotiate this contract for Lamar Jackson when the Ravens are just going to match whatever we offer him anyway, and this is going to be a waste of our time and it's going to create unrest in our locker room just because why would we piss off the quarterback we already have when we know it's not going to happen anyway because the Ravens are going to match it.

11:06Robert Mays: My response to that is make them do it. Yes. Make them do it. They clearly they don't want to do it. So make them do it. I do think that it was a real hurdle in the moment though. I'm not saying it's a hurdle that teams shouldn't have at least tested when a guy like this is sort of kind of available, even if he wasn't really. And that part to me is collusion, whether it's like spoken or not. The fact that nobody was pushing the Ravens on this thing, on this particular contract, that to me speaks to there's a little bit of a, I mean, obviously the NFL has always been a good old boys club, but like very clearly in the way that they were operating around his contract, it very much was.

11:45Robert Mays: Overall, the grievance failed because droney rule that the NFL PA did not prove by a clear preponderance of evidence that the teams actually acted on that advice. And I think that's just a reminder of how difficult it is to actually prove collusion. Even if you're going to have a meeting where you say, hey, we should really limit the guarantees in veteran contracts. It's really difficult to prove that all 32 teams collectively decided and acted on the fact that they were going to do that. Because there's always some little excuse for each and every player as to why it wasn't actually collusion, even though it very clearly seems like there was a collective decision and collective messaging around the league about how this should go.

12:23right because the thing like that is like oh we just put together a committee we had a meeting and they suggested that we we push down the guarantees but there's no like hard line every single team has to do this and that's again that's how you walk into the gray area of being able to get away with stuff like this when every other cookie crumb would lead you to believe that i mean there were what like it was 594 different players i think that they found that they were had rights for grievances for getting their contracts uh the guarantees pushed down like it started with the three quarterbacks, obviously.

12:52But as the case went on, it went up to almost 600 players. That's that's like a third of the league, dude. That's a lot of a lot of players.

12:59Robert Mays: The one element of this that I'm sure there's a reason and that I'm just not thinking about right now. I haven't spent a ton of time considering what it might be. And maybe we'll find out a little bit more about this as time passes. I'm curious why the PA didn't want this out there, because it really does seem like this is a pretty big blow against the league and a pretty big at least PR win for the PA if they're going to try to muster up a little bit of momentum for this topic and this issue moving forward. So I'm not exactly sure why they didn't want that out there. Maybe there are certain elements that they find a little bit damaging when it comes to some of the communication and some of the details involved in that report.

13:36Robert Mays: But I can get why the league didn't want this out there. Why the PA didn't want this out there is maybe a little bit surprising to me. Why they didn't want that out there either is confusing. Some of it is like the timeline with J.C. Treader being the union head is also like kind of bizarre in terms of him. It seems like maybe had some of the power to withhold this document. And then there's kind of a secret search firm that they had that got in the new exec on the other side. And then J.C. Treader gets cut so he can't be the union head anymore. But then they kind of create a new job to get him in there.

14:07And obviously, again, Pablo and Mike, Mike Florida do a much better job of explaining that than I did. But it's absolutely worth the listen to go get into the timeline of Treader. and some of this getting withheld is a little bit fishy.

14:18Robert Mays: Yeah, and obviously this is not great for him and what he wants to eventually do with his standing in the union moving forward. So I would highly encourage you guys to go listen to that episode with Mike and with Pablo. They did a great job, and I'm sure we'll be talking more about this moving forward as we get more details and we kind of understand the long-term ramifications about what stuff like this looks like. All right, before we dig into the teams that we typically overrate heading into a given year. Let's take our first break. Football season has arrived, and with the U.S. Bank Smartly Visa Signature Card, you earn an unlimited 2 % cash back on every purchase, including at the stadium or at home, watching on a brand new TV.

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16:20Robert Mays: all right let's dig into our main topic of today and let's talk about the teams that historically we the collective we overrate and underrate as we predict what's going to happen in a given NFL season so what you and I both did here and Beller did a great job of going back through really the last 10 or so years and looking at the teams that overperformed and underperformed their preseason win totals the most. That's not an exact science, but I do think it gives you a bucket of 60 teams over the last decade that were better or worse than we thought. And we kind of use that as a jumping off point to try to figure out what these buckets should look like.

17:00Robert Mays: So let's start with the teams we overrate. As you were trying to figure out certain archetypes of teams that fell under this category, what is the first one that you landed on? I mean, should we just start with the easy one? teams that went went to the Super Bowl and then kind of have the hangover that that feels like the obvious starting point I there's some more interesting ones to get into but I mean we we took this back 10 years right which lands you on exactly the 2015 into 2016 Panthers which is a big one the 2022 Rams after the Stafford year and obviously Stafford gets hurt at the end of that but they were three and six with him on the field they weren't a good team with him they were pretty banged up period though they were I think they finished third and adjusted games lost that year that's one that we might as well just mention but it's not interesting teams that get hurt yes underperform expectations that's not a fun one to talk about yeah i didn't even consider some of those because there's some teams that underperform their win total by like four or five and then you're like oh the starter missed 13 games well that's not interesting you have to get to at least the starter needs to play at least like half the year and them have not been very good um which leads me to the 20 29ers jimmy obviously gets hurt for a lot of that season but they were only three and three with him and the defense was a lot worse that year and then obviously the the kind of the most recent one is the 2022 into 2023 eagles where they kind of bleed out all their different coordinators and really don't know what they're quite doing on offense for 2023 obviously they bring in saquon the next year and win the super bowl that 2023 season they clearly had a bit of a hangover is there anything what do you think is the main driver of that do you think it's that these are spike years for these teams do you think there's some consistent element for how these teams were built or what these teams looked like that makes them a little bit more susceptible to a hangover like this?

18:39Robert Mays: Or do you just think that sometimes we get teams that are better than that have like a year that's sort of an outlier and then they come back to earth a little bit? I honestly think it's less about these teams and I do think some of it are spikes, right? Like obviously 2015 with the Panthers, the defense was really good, but also Cam Newton has an MVP year 2020 with 2021 with the Rams. Obviously they, they jump up with Stafford and a bunch of things go right for them. I think it's actually more about, though, it's just really, really hard to get back to that level year over year unless you are one of these dynasties.

19:11Like over the last eight or so years, almost all of the Super Bowls have been won by Patrick Mahomes or Tom Brady, and they are like dynasties by themselves. And other than that, it's not a lot of guys who or teams who even get back, let alone win it. It is for the most part very, very hard to sustain that level of success. And so I don't even know if it's necessarily about these teams, something going wrong for them or all that stuff. I just think for it to go right, you kind of have to be a 10 win team. And then a few things go right for you to get into the Super Bowl. And then the next year you can still be like a 9 or 10 win team and all that stuff just goes wrong.

19:46Robert Mays: I've got a few different ones. The first one I'll start with is teams that had a spike year because of what their defense was. you know, teams that either were driven to playoff type seasons or had reached a certain floor because their defense was really good. And then you add in the volatility of defense, you take that floor away and things get really ugly, really quickly. We had two of those this year, the Browns and the jets this year were both of those sorts of teams. I think the 2023 Patriots were a team like that. They weren't bad on defense in 2023, but they were ninth and weighted defensive DVOA after finishing in the top five the year before.

20:22Robert Mays: And even a drop off like that, when your offense is bad, can have you picking in the top five. To me, the best possible example of this ever is the 2018 Jags. Yeah. Yeah. That crazy 2017 season. They go to the AFC championship game. Their win they're over under the next year is nine and they go five and 11 because that year was sort of a mirage. And then another team that's kind of like this in 2017, this was two years after they won the Super Bowl, but the 2016 Broncos defense was still very good. And then it took a step back in 2017 and the offense was abysmal. Like we talked about that quarterback room on our worst quarterback rooms ever mailbag question earlier this week.

21:00Robert Mays: And so then the bottom falls out of that. So if you have a team, the 2018 bears are kind of like this, like they were fine in 2019, but they were definitely worse than the previous year. If you're, if you have one of those defenses that kind of like defines a season in some ways, or it can be like the best defense or the second best defense in the league. If you don't have an offense the next year that can pick up the slack, you're almost guaranteed to be a little bit worse on defense. And so I think that's where a lot of disappointment comes in is just a lack of stability on that side of the ball.

21:30I had a very similar category, which was just elite defense the year before and a quarterback situation that nobody feels comfortable with. Like, I think that's the important part because defensive stuff is volatile to begin with, right? Like you said, it can kind of sway back and forth. But then when you add the element of like, I think defense really is a hive mind. We are working together. We are working towards one goal type of unit. Well, when the offense and the quarterback sucks and you feel like you're getting no support, it's a little bit harder to continue to fuel that for week after week after week.

22:01Obviously, we saw that with the Jets last year, the Browns last year, that 2018 Jags team was certainly in that. And so this was actually the category where for some of these categories too instead of just looking at you know who are the teams that falls into this I want I looked ahead a little bit and like who are the teams going into next year might fall into that it's kind of hard because a lot of the teams that had really good defense is also still I feel good about the offenses but the two most unsettled quarterback spots are the Vikings and the Seahawks and we like a lot of those coaches right but think about two years ago what we thought about like Robert Saul and Kevin Stefanski we really like those coaches at the time too so even coaches we really love like this stuff can happen to you too i think those are two really good ones

22:40Robert Mays: to point out and this kind of touches on one where i think we underrate these teams where i think sometimes we ascribe too much volatility to stable coaching situations and i'm wondering if the vikings specifically fall into that right i mean this year's vikings were better than we expected them to be with an unstable quarterback situation in part because everything else around the quarterback including the coaching staff is so good and that's one we'll get to with the teams we underrate, but I wonder if the Vikings have so much stability elsewhere outside of the quarterback that there may be a little bit more immune to something like this.

23:13They might be because again, I mean, I think Kevin O 'Connell, they have two probably top five play callers on both sides and they've now both been there for they're going on what year three year four. That's that's pretty dang good. And plus all the other additions they've made. But with the C that's why the Seahawks, I think, are more interesting because the entire offense, they scrapped everything. So you saw McDonald's defense, but the offense, man, it's who knows.

23:35Robert Mays: Well, think about the exercise we just did last week. We ranked the supporting caps in the NFC. I had the Seahawks last and I had the Vikings first. So I do think one of them is a little bit more susceptible to fall off in the way that we're talking about. And it's funny because I think that quarterback uncertainty can play both ways on a list like this. But the quarterback teams that I think we overrate, where there's a little bit too much excitement on it, are teams with young quarterbacks, highly drafted quarterbacks, but everything else around them is really dangerously fragile. And I think the two most recent examples of that, two teams that underperformed their over-under total pretty significantly the last two years, the 2024 Bears had an eight and a half over-under.

24:18Robert Mays: They won five games. The 2022 Panthers had a seven and a half over-under and won two games. Both of those teams had the number one pick at quarterback. Both of those offensive play callers were fired before that first season was over. so just because you have a shiny new quarterback if you haven't gotten some of the other shit right there is a decent chance you will not be as good as the market expects you to be that's a good one where the young quarterbacks play into so many of the overrated and underrated ones honestly but the the one where it that's one of those things where regardless of how you feel about the player right Caleb Williams Bryce Young whoever it is Trevor Lawrence even if your team is picking first overall you're probably not a very good team and that's kind of what makes the whole Jaden Daniels you know Washington thing pretty spectacular the Jags is another really good one I didn't think about the first Trevor Lawrence year oh my god yeah where everyone is excited oh we've got Trevor Lawrence he's the best since uh Andrew Luck or whatever I mean I guess Joe Burrow was the year before but like everyone was so excited about Trevor Lawrence and they were not even close the worst team in the league like far and away and that was basically what happened with the Panthers again the Bears weren't quite the worst team in the league but goddamn they were close and and And so again, like season firings, all midseason firings from the teams that you're talking about.

25:31Yeah. So it's like if you maybe it's specifically picking first overall that you should not get too excited about it. Like you should you should really take stock like, man. I love this new quarterback. This is a great shiny new toy, but let's chill out for just a little bit.

25:46Robert Mays: OK, how do you square that with like the tepid Titans optimism that we've both shown over the last month?

25:56Robert Mays: It's going to be so fun when we forget all of this shit. By August 20th, we're going to forget everything that we've said on this show. It's going to be fantastic. I literally opened this up by saying the teams we overrate are mistakes we make all the time. I just lay out how this is a mistake we keep making. And now I have to stare dead in the face of everything I've said about the Titans. I don't know. You're just going to get swept away by your love for Cam Ward. And I'm not going to blame you for a single second. I might. This time is going to be different, you know. what's your next overrated uh bucket of teams the teams we overrate it a similar to the quarterback thing but it's second year quarterback where they've really showed something the first year i'm thinking 2018 into 2019 baker mayfield that was a big one that's probably the biggest one in terms of how good we thought they were going to be and then the team just completely cratered and then a couple of other teams that weren't necessarily bad like they might have even still made the playoffs, but didn't take the leap we wanted were obviously last year's Texans.

26:55I think we all thought CJ Stroud was going to go nuclear. And then even the 2016 into 2017 Cowboys, like that 2016 Cowboys team was insane. Dak had one of the best rookie seasons we'd ever seen. And then the next year they were kind of just like an okay team went nine and seven. Like those are teams where maybe the bottom is not going to fall out like the Browns team did as often, but sometimes they just don't quite take that step that we all want.

27:17Robert Mays: I had a very similar sort of bucket to this. I had teams that burst onto the scene and feel exciting. And then we overrate what they'll be the next year. And I think quarterbacks fall into this because it's often driven by the quarterback. So I think last year's Texans are an offshoot of this. My personal journey with the early Justin Herbert chargers is an example of this, where I just expected them to be good every year because of what he was as a rookie. And, you know, obviously they still made the playoffs. They were still a good team, but I think a lack of huge step from the Jordan love led Packers kind of plays into this a little bit necessary caveats about injuries, et cetera.

27:50Robert Mays: But I think it falls into a similar sort of bucket, but I think sometimes it goes beyond the quarterback. And I think it's just some teams that for whatever reason, we collectively, like they were, they're never good. And then when they are good, it's like, all right, here we go. We're really turning a corner. And the Brown, the 2019 Browns were my first example of this. They are the best example of this. I've mentioned this in the past. There are some like real skeletons in the internet closet at the ringer.com about the 2019 Cleveland Browns, because think about what the second half of that year with like Freddie Kitchens and Baker Mayfield felt like it was so exciting that it was easy to think that this, the line was going up.

28:30Robert Mays: We were going to see more of the same. And then that didn't happen at all because half a season is not enough of an indicator about what's to come. So I think the Browns fall into that. And then the other team that I kind of think is like this, the 2016 into 2017 Raiders oh that's a really really good one because yeah I guess Derek Carter like I wasn't obviously he wasn't second year at that point that was what his 2016 was his third year I think because he was 14 15 16 but still it's technically his rookie contract like that's young quarterback has the MVP season that's a really really good one just think about that team I remember going to Oakland and writing about that team Nate's dad was the offensive line coach.

29:09Robert Mays: That's what I did. I went there to write about the Raiders offensive line. It was just such a fun team. They went 12 and four in 2016 after finishing seven and nine the year before. And so they went and then obviously car gets hurt. We get the, who was the quarterback in the, was it Connor cook was the, I think it was Connor cook. Yeah. It was Connor cook played for Derek car in that playoff game. And then, so going into the following year, you think Khalil Mack, that offensive line, Derek Carr has now asserted himself as like at least in top 10 ish quarterback in the league moving forward. He was the highest paid quarterback in the, in football at some point because of that season, they have a nine over nine and a half over under heading into that season.

29:50Robert Mays: They win six games in 2017. So in reality, they're closer to the team they were in 2015 than the team they were in 2016. And I think that happens reasonably often. The 2022 Cardinals are another good example of this where they had those really exciting moments in 2021 they went 11 games and then they were they had an eight and a half over under in 2022 and they went four and 13. I actually have that Cardinals team as like a slightly different category that I have like it's pretty ambiguous but uh well let's move on to that because I think these the teams that either the quarterback was exciting or they burst onto the scene I think we've hit enough of those where did you have the 2022 cardinals so i had the cardinals in what is my biggest category and in a lot of ways my loosest category but it's basically teams where the coach and the structure has started to corrode and then we tell ourselves that no it's it'll be fine they'll figure it out next year cliffs cardinals absolutely fall into that where like they kept having these late season struggles felt like the offense was a little bit just banking on the quarterback to bail them out 2022 it finally all collapses 2022 again with the frank wright colts like where they year over year are cycling quarterbacks and all this stuff and it's like ah they'll figure it out and then the offense just got too stale completely collapses brandon staley in 2023 with the chargers where we kept telling ourselves that the defense was gonna figure itself out they're gonna defend the run all this stuff that never happened there i keep this thing happens they'll be fine if this thing happens, they'll be fine.

31:19Robert Mays: If this thing happens, they'll be okay. We've done that so many times where it just feels like there's that one elusive, you know, skeleton key sort of thing, this magic light switch that if you flip it, everything else will be okay. If you find it somehow, and that just never turns out to be true. Because it becomes clear that that is just at least in this given organization, just like inherent to who the coach is. Cause like to me, the earliest one on our list is like the 2018 Packers with Mike McCarthy, where like that clearly ran out of road at the end of that. And then they had to switch coaches and then like, that's it's such a good bucket.

31:55Robert Mays: And I was trying to figure out what to do with those, that 2018 Packers team was because it's staring you in the face. When you look at this whole list, that's a really, really good way to kind of categorize them. The other one that falls into this for me, the 2020 Eagles are like the best possible example of this. Yep. where they they early on in the Carson one stuff, they were getting away with all these RPOs and throwing down the field. And once was making all these plays, that stuff starts to fall away a little bit. And it's like, all right, are they going to find new answers on offense? Are they going to find new answers on offense?

32:26And then they just never did. And obviously some of the stuff with Carson Wentz injury plays into that. But it was a lot of like, man, this just got stale. And then once it gets a little stale and the quarterback plays a little bit worse, you get one of the most disgusting offensive seasons we've ever seen.

32:39Robert Mays: I think just in terms of watching the offense. I think there are a lot of parallels between the experience of watching the 2020 Eagles and the 2022 Colts, just like watching it down to down and just how yicky you feel watching them try to play. I think it's a very similar thing. And I think bucketing them the same way is a very good thought, even though I do think the 2022 Colts fall into another category that we do have to mention. Yeah, they fall into a slightly different category, which that's the perfect segue jump into it there are a bunch of teams here that this is kind of adjacent to what you were saying right so that's like structural things where you've started to fall into a nosedive and we're hoping that because of a b or c reason a team can pull out of that nosedive and they just fail to do it i think this one maybe is a little bit harder to predict but it has some parallels and these are teams that just hit the quarterback cliff in an unexpected way or faster than you thought they were going to the 2022 season.

33:41Robert Mays: There are three of these, right? So the Colts fall into this category with Matt Ryan, where they think, okay, at least we're going to get some floor of play with Matt Ryan this year after what he did in year one under Arthur Smith. And then that doesn't happen. The 2022 Broncos trade for Russell Wilson to save their franchise. And then Russell Wilson looks like he did that year. I also think that plays into the urban Meyer, Shane Waldron Frank Reich corollary before, like the Hackett. I think, yeah, I think there's some of that going on too, but I also think there's a quarterback cliff associated with that.

34:16Robert Mays: The 2022 bucks, right. They had an 11 and a half over under, they went eight games. And that's partially because by the end of it, Tom Brady was like, I'm done. I'm over it. I just don't want to be a part of this anymore. So those are those three teams in 2022. I think the 2024 jets are kind of like this a little bit, right? With Aaron Rodgers. But I think an even better example of this is the 2017 Giants with Eli Manning. They were supposed to, they had a nine over under that year. They won three games. They were 12 to one to win the Super Bowl that season. And then they ended up with a second pick in the draft and took Saquon Barkley.

34:53Well, because that was like, the defense was playing pretty well at that point. Odell Beckham Jr. was obviously pretty hot on the scene. I think they thought he was going to go. And it was like, that's always the thinking with these, right? is like the quarterback, everything else is good. And the quarterback will give us one last run here. And then the one last run is not nearly as sexy as you need it to be.

35:11Robert Mays: Are there, do you have any other quarterback cliff teams? Cause I know that was one of yours as well. Um, quarterback cliff team. Some of them are just like the way that the Carson Palmer, like Bruce Arians era in, uh, Arizona kind of ended was basically like, you weren't quite sure when the cliff was going to come for him. Um, but that, that was kind of the other big one in my mind. because those teams were, dude, in 2015, that Cardinals team could have won the Super Bowl. And then two years later, it's just gone because Palmer just can't throw the ball anymore. All right, I want to talk about that 2015 Cardinals team.

35:43Robert Mays: Before we do that, let's take a quick break and then get to some of the teams that we've underrated when it comes to preseason expectations. Are you the kind of sports fan that wants to dig into the story behind the stats? Then join us daily on The Athletic Live, where we'll be live on YouTube to cover all the sports stories you can't stop talking about. On game days, we watch the biggest matchups live alongside the Athletic's most tapped-in reporters. Or come hang on an off night for an inside look at how headlines happen. We want you dropping questions in the chat, and we'll bring answers straight from the source.

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37:26All right.

37:27Robert Mays: So you mentioned the 2015 Cardinals and similar to your thing where there was like this slow decline and then everything just kind of fell apart. I also think that there's a flipped version of this where there's like a slow increase and then everything clicks all at once. And so I think there are actually two teams in 2015 that fall under that category. Like the 2015 Panthers, there was nothing magical that happened to them between 2014 and 2015. Like the biggest indicator or the biggest change for them offensively was essentially Andrew Norwell and Trey Turner heading into year two and their offensive line going from this like decent unit to one that was really good.

38:06Robert Mays: And then Cam Newton has an MVP season. So it's like a slow build to that moment. I think the 2015 Cardinals are like this, you know, that Carson Palmer had been there. It was like year three with Carson Palmer and Bruce Arians. They hit. And then the other example of this to me is the 2017 Eagles where it all just kind of comes together in year two and then the 2016 Falcons. And I think all of these are hard to identify. Like it's really, there was no marker that I think we all should have been picking up on that should have told us all of these teams are gonna go from middle of the pack on offense to really, really good without some huge changes.

38:48Robert Mays: You know, there have been some, Alshon Jeffrey comes over to that Eagles team, But it wasn't anything where you had these superstar players changing teams. It was a little bit quieter than that. So I think that's why it's a little bit hard to define. But I do think that that is a bucket that does exist. The Shanahan with the Falcons is like the best example of that, of like even stuff that we like. It's hard to predict that it's going to be that good, because I think by that point, most people thought that Matt Ryan was like a top 10 quarterback, like very, very good. He had made Pro Bowls and stuff by then.

39:17and then Kyle Shanahan I think you know that was obviously coming off of the Browns stint that he had had um so I think people respected Kyle Shanahan but you watched that team in 2015 they were a fine offense but Matt Ryan I don't think was fully comfortable in it and it's they they weren't really lighting the world on fire and so how were we to expect that they were going to go from like okay kind of above average solid offense to oh my god that's the best thing I've ever seen when it's not like like you know Julio Jones had already been there like Jake Matthews had already been there like some of the other core pieces has already been there they didn't add anything special unless like you really think the running backs taking it, you know, taking it up a notch was really the difference.

39:51I don't know.

39:52Robert Mays: I do think you're two for some of these things. I mean, that was the case with the 2017 Eagles and the 2016 Falcons. And so just a year to acclimate. And then in the second season, you can take a big step forward. I don't think it's some hard and fast rule. I think if you treated it that way, you'd be setting yourself up for a lot of disappointment. But I do think every once in a while it does fall into place that way well and so that's the thing about the teams that we underrate right is like I feel like they fall into buckets of like so like with the 2016 Falcons it's like okay we have a play caller we like and a quarterback we like there are going to be five of those in any given season going into the NFL one of them is going to be insane it's a matter of trying to roll the dice and figure out which one that it is and that's always the the trickiest part all right so what was your first bucket of the teams that we underrate heading into seasons yeah my first was kind of back to the play caller thing and this again it can be hard to actually guess how much these play callers are really going to change but i look at obviously 2017 with sean mcveigh taking over for the rams i mean they went from one of the most inept getting the quarterback killed offenses that i've ever seen to immediately lighting the world on fire that's a big one 2019 matt lafleur coming you know we just talked about the 2018 packers obviously lafleur comes in with a completely different style changes that kevin o 'connell in 2022 with the vikings they way outshot their win they won 13 games that year um and they were really really good that i had oh really i had one more who wasn't isn't the head coach so it's kind of cheating and also the quarterbacks already incredible but 2023 with todd monken where like yeah they were that was already a good raven's team right so that's a little bit cheating but really kicking it up a notch into like a completely different level of team when you bring in a play caller like that i actually just had coaching changes rather than play new play callers but obviously those first three guys you mentioned our new play callers, but I think you can throw it to Miko Ryan's in there.

41:42Robert Mays: That's a little bit tainted by the fact that there's a quarterback change, which we'll get to in a second. But I think these new head coaches and a lot of the time, new offensive play callers, that's when you can just have something that comes completely out of nowhere. You know, the Rams had a couple guys. They signed in free agency that off season. They went out and got Robert Woods. They went out and got Andrew Whitworth. They drafted Cooper cup, but that was it wholesale change offensively and a type of offense that I had never seen like what the Rams were doing that year I had never seen that all combined into one NFL offense where you have all of these jet motions and sweeps in the screen game like it was all one personnel set which nobody else was doing it was it was crazy when it all happened and so there's just you can't predict that and I think the 22 and 2 Vikings are like that a little bit the 2019 Packers is a great example, but these teams where it's kind of the flip side of the Frank Reich, Shane Waldron, Urban Meyer Jags, where everything is wrong with the setup of your offense, going from that to something where now you're at the other end of the spectrum.

42:48Robert Mays: That's how you can go from the worst offense in the league to a top five offense in one single year with important, but still modest personnel changes. And the reason I'm so gung ho about this being a possibility is that there's one specific team I'm thinking about this year that hopefully will undergo a similar sort of transformation. Are you, are you close to them or something? It's a team I follow with like a passing interest. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Hopefully it works out for them. We'll see. But I mean, that's, that's kind of what I don't even remember all of the head coaches that got hired with Sean McVay in 2017, but I'm sure there were a handful of other offensive guys that did not have the well but shanahan that year they didn't take the leap so that's why i didn't really like but they also punted on that season brian hoyer cj bethard with the quarterbacks yeah that that really wasn't it wasn't kyle shanahan's fault i'm not i'm trying to put it on him but the other offensive guys i think hired in that cycle were not immediately as impactful as a guy like sean mcveigh and that's that's you just never know who it's gonna be you can take a good guess but like it's hard we hit on this a little bit uh in the coltics revisited show where just new offensive play callers, you just don't know.

43:58Robert Mays: Like you don't know what Liam Cohen is going to be in that role. And we never seen him do it before. You don't know what Sean McVay is going to give a team in year one. So there are examples of this this year. It's like we talked about it. And I think we've become a little bit better of trying to identify it further out. Like what if Chip Kelly is just gangbusters with the Raiders and it all comes together in year one. I think we're slowly becoming more open to those possibilities because examples like this are starting to stack up a little bit. So we both had play callers and coaches. What is your next bucket of the teams that we typically underrate going into a season?

44:33I mean, the other obvious one is just the guesswork on which rookie quarterback is going to be good. Like it's

44:37Robert Mays: that young quarterback or young quarterback. Exactly. Like taking their leap finally, like because obviously for Lamar, it was Lamar and Patrick Mahomes. It was technically year two for them, but Josh Allen, it's year three. Like, so it's basically young quarterback being better than you thought you know 2016 Dak Prescott um bursting onto the scene for that Cowboys team is one Chiefs in 2018 obviously the Ravens in 2019 Lamar taking over and then last year you know Jaden Daniels obviously doing what he did but even to a lesser extent Denver right like Bo Nix even being like producing like an above average NFL quarterback was I think much better than you should ever get out of quarterback six in any any class the Broncos from last year to me fell into like four different buckets.

45:19Robert Mays: I didn't know how to characterize them. I think the quarterback part is one of them. And, but there are a couple others that I'm actually going to throw the Broncos into the, but there's tons of quarterback ones. 2021, Joe Burrow taking the step that he took that Bengals team goes to the Superbowl tearing his knee after tearing his ACL 2018, Patrick Mahomes, obviously 2019 Lamar. I think you could make an argument that Josh Allen did it twice. Josh Allen goes in 20 from 2018 to 2019. He goes from that was an objectively bad offense to then 2019. They're they're decent. Like he's imperfect, but they're doing enough to be competitive.

45:55Robert Mays: And then in 2020, he steps into being an elite quarterback. So there was like that was incremental twice. Talk about Joe Burrow, Jalen Hurts in 2022. Like what Jalen Hurts was that first year as a starter compared to that second year. And then we mentioned CJ Stroud with the Texans. So I think that to me is probably the biggest one. And if, listen, if we're trying to make an argument for why the Titans could fall on the other side of this, maybe the Titans have the Jaden Daniels or CJ Stroud example of this, not the Bryce Young or Caleb Williams example of this. So you can make an argument either way, depending on how you want this to go.

46:35you really could but that's the thing I mean CJ Stroud and Jaden Daniels both went what second overall instead of first I mean maybe it's that simple maybe I'm doing some dumb math here yeah

46:45Robert Mays: I've got a couple more that I would throw out this one is actually I do think applies to the 2024 Broncos but to me there are several examples of this recently we overreact to one down season too often from otherwise stable and good situations I think the two best examples of this to me are the fact that the 2023 Los Angeles Rams had a six and a half over under is ridiculous. That is wild. Six and a half for Sean McVay. What are we doing? I I'm wrong more often than I'm right. And so I very rarely do I like crow from the rooftops about this stuff. But if you go back and you listen to the show we did, I think it was me and Jordan after I went to training camp that year.

47:28Robert Mays: And I was just like, why is this team going to win six and a half games? Like no one has properly articulated this to me and then they won 10 games, but they're not the only example. I think the following or the year before, which is part of what was driving that thought with me about the Rams, the Seahawks were like this, the 2021 Seahawks were bad. And then everyone's like, all right, the wheels are falling off here. And then they're over under 2022 was five and a half and they won nine games because well, Pete Carroll's still there. And I understand the quarterback is changing, but I think we're overreacting to this a little bit.

48:01Robert Mays: So I think they're a good one. The 2024 Vikings, right? I think we were collectively a little bit down on the Vikings because the quarterback got hurt midway through the 2023 season. The defense was so weird that I don't think we really know what to do with the early season highs and then kind of the tail off in the back half of the year. And then so going into last year, I think it was really easy to kind of throw your hands up about what the Vikings would be. And then they were one of the best teams in the league. So I think these teams where they've shown a certain level, there's a little bit of a dip and we don't really understand the dip.

48:38Robert Mays: So we just kind of think that's the going right now. And in reality, that's the exception. I think that happens fairly often. And I think Sean Payton in 2023 is also kind of like this. And I think that's why you could throw the Broncos into this mix. I mean, even I, I, it feels dangerous saying this after where I ranked the Niners supporting cast, but like Kyle Shanahan has done this multiple times where he wins like six games and then the next year they win 12 games and they're the best offense in the league again. Like, and this is important to distinguish from what we talked about earlier with like teams where things were corroding.

49:09Like when I was talking about the 2018 Packers and the 2020 Eagles and stuff, those were year over year. It's the same problem. And they might've won some games, but it was a consistent root issue that was plaguing them and eventually came to eat up the entire foundation this what you're talking about where we're underrating where it's like one maybe it's a season from hell maybe our quarterback got hurt maybe we just didn't have the maybe a bunch of players aged on defenses one season but we reloaded getting over we just when it's one bad season for a myriad of reasons who cares if the coach has been to super bowls before consistently puts out some of the best offenses or the best defenses whatever it is we should probably give that guy some amount of faith after one bad year who cares vick fangio is like that this year too

49:51Robert Mays: on the other side. It wasn't a head coach, but it was a defensive coach. They were the best defense in the league last year. One I want to throw out, looking back at this list that we didn't mention for new coaches that have given their team a bump because I think he's taken a lot of bullets on this show. The 2018 Colts with Frank Reich. Like Frank Reich and that offense with Andrew Lockheed, that team was good. Like they were legitimately good. We are going to retcon the Frank Reich Colts so hard because of how ugly it was when it ended and what happened with the Panthers. I really want us to hang on to the fact that the 2018 through 2020 Colts were a fun team that did a lot of good, interesting things and did not have a lot of elite players, but were consistently competitive.

50:33It would the I loved the early parts of that offense when it was Andrew Luck or even like they did some interesting stuff. The Jacoby Brissett year, they bring with rivers and it was yeah, with the rivers, you're like they until that Matt Ryan year and maybe the year before it was just like not it was not great but or it was great but obviously that final year it's hard to forget how bad i love the wentz year how well okay that was to me a little bit less the offense being what it was and more the quarterback being whatever carson once was at that point on on team three or four i've got one

51:08Robert Mays: more and it is kind of a flipped version of one of the teams that we overrate there are just teams that their defense takes over in a given season and we had no idea it was going to happen. Or you have some idea, but they're so much better than you could have anticipated. The 2017 Jags fall into this category where they just have this astronomical number of sacks and turnovers, and that defense is good enough to win them like a dozen games. The 2018 Bears are like this. The 2017 Vikings had an insane defense. Their offense was also really, really good very randomly, even though all of them were the best players.

51:44Robert Mays: That was the Keenum year. They finished, I think second or third in offensive DVO way that year with case Keenum and a backup running back. Like that year was absolutely insane for the Vikings on offense that year. Uh, the 2019 Niners were not a good defense the year before. And then we're a top five defense in 2019. I think it's easy to pin a lot of the Niners success on what Kyle Shannon has done on offense, but that 2019 Niners team was mostly driven by how good the defense was and it kind of came out of nowhere a little bit the 2020 dolphins are a team that actually is on here in a surprising way so the dolphins had a six preseason over under that year they won 10 games they were ninth in defensive dvoa that season which may not seem that high they were dead last the year before so they went from dead last to ninth and bringing it back around the 2024 Broncos fall into this category.

52:40Robert Mays: They were so bad on defense the year before, and they were a top three defense last year. Obviously the season long numbers in 2023 are dragged down by what the first month of the season looked like. So they did get better over the course of the year. But if you just look at the aggregate stats from the previous season, it's a massive improvement for last year's Broncos team. But, but even then, so like in that scenario let's say in 2023 the broncos had played like a top 10 defense the back half of this season for the next season would you still want to predict that team being a top 10 defense if they allowed a 70 point game the year before better than top 10 better than top 10 they were a top three defense last year by like every single metric it's still hard to do that and so i think that kind of takes me to how i want to wrap this up some of these things we can see coming from afar.

53:30Robert Mays: Okay. I think the best possible example of this to me, when it comes to something that we feel is evolving, evolving, eroding, we tell ourselves for whatever reason, it's going to be different. And then it's not different. And we think back to why did we expect this to be better is the giants is the, is the giants offense for this year. And there are going to be times where you're dead wrong about stuff like this. But I think we've learned that if you're willfully ignoring some of these things, it's going to come back to bite you. So I think some of it we can see coming, but I think some of it we can't, you know, the defenses sneak up on you, the quarterbacks, the new quarterbacks fall onto both sides of this line.

54:09Robert Mays: It's hard to know exactly which new play callers or head coaches are going to give you this sort of bump. So I think you can use some of this to inform your thinking about what this season and future seasons are going to look like. But I also think it's really hard to identify some of this stuff from a mile away because it's not always obvious or apparent, especially the stuff of teams taking a leap like you just it's so hard to predict a team jumping into the top eight offense, defense, whatever it is, winning 12 games like that is so much harder. Whereas, again, with some of the teams that we overrate, it's like these are all lessons that we know.

54:48But you get to July and you again, you tell yourself it's going to be different. You tell yourself like the Giants again are doing it. Maybe I'm even doing it with the Steelers that I'm telling myself that it's going to be different with Mike Tomlin being around for as long. But like it's just it's those teams you overrate. You're like, man, no, it's going to be fine this year. And then and then it's not.

55:06Robert Mays: We're going to do a show at some point. We can say this here. We're going to do a show at some point in the next couple of months about those sorts of takes. The ones where like we're just ready to do it again, even though all science reason and rationality tells us not to. And it is going to be very, very fun to do that show after having done this one. But you know what? That's OK. Sometimes it's OK to believe and sometimes it's OK to get hurt again. We're going to be able to do those takes and then look back at our notes for this this exact list and be like, oh, that kind of reminds me of that team.

55:36Oh, it actually kind of reminds me of that year. Oh, it reminds me of this. And then we're going to feel bad about it and still probably trudge ahead with those takes.

55:43Robert Mays: Does it ever really work out for anybody? No, but it could work for us. Could work for us. All right. That's all we've got for today. Sincerely appreciate you guys joining us. We're going to be back with our next show on Friday, actually. So we're switching the schedule around a little bit. Bella and I are unfortunately a little bit tied up tomorrow. So we're not going to have a show for Wednesday into Thursday. we are going to have a show for Thursday into Friday. So just keep that in mind as you're keeping an eye on your podcast feeds or your YouTube channel here over the next couple of days.

56:15Robert Mays: For now, that's all we got. Sincerely, I appreciate you guys listening. We'll talk to you very soon.

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