The most surprising developments in the season's first month

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1:27lines with that semi wherever you get your podcasts from unpacked.

1:33Robert Mays: Welcome to the athletic football show brought to you by the U.S. Bank Smartly Visa Signature Card. I'm Robert Mays. Really enjoyed today's show. Our old buddy Deontay Lee from The Ringer came on and we talked about just the things that have been most surprising to us over the first month of the season. I mentioned this in when Deontay is on there, but we were really going to dig into some specific stuff defensively from what the year has looked like so far. And I just wanted to zoom out a little bit. Like we're four weeks into the year. I feel like on this show specifically, sometimes we can really be so deep in the muck that we don't come up for air often enough and just kind of think about what the league has felt like and just what the big picture perspective is.

2:12Robert Mays: And so that's what we wanted to do today. We picked about seven or eight things that have just been most surprising or most striking compared to expectations about what the season has looked like so far. Some of that stuff were topics that we've hit before, like the Chargers or the Texans defense, but we also use those as jumping off points to larger conversations. And so this really is just kind of a bird's eye view of how the first month of the season has played out and what has felt surprising about a lot of the results that we have seen so far. So let's get to that conversation with me and Deontay right now.

2:53Robert Mays: We are a month into the NFL season with week four being over on the eve of week five. And the original idea today that I wanted to do was talk to Deontay about something defense specific and really like dive in and chew on some of the schematic stuff that's happened in the league so far. And I was sitting there last night just kind of thinking about how strange the NFL season has felt to this point and just how hard it's been to kind of get a handle on what's real, what's not. I can't remember the exact impetus for it, but I was just trying to think about the context associated with a certain type of performance and how now it's reframed because we know more about that team than we did two weeks ago.

3:30Robert Mays: And my takeaway in that entire headspan exercise was there's just so much chaos right now that I actually wanted to just zoom out a little bit, take a breath, and talk about some of the stuff that has really jumped out to us in either a surprising or striking way over the first month of the season. And so that's what we're going to do today. Rather than dig in even deeper, I wanted to actually come back and see if we could get some perspective on this whole thing. Look, I have a deep appreciation for this. My Slack messages every week have been like, oh, my God, all these teams are scoring in week one without needing explosive passes.

4:06Is that the new meta of the league? A week later, that's right back out of the door. It's actually not like that at all. You know, teams that I was ready to dismiss after a couple of weeks start getting hot. And, you know, the opposite is happening in other spaces. So I think that zooming out and being able to take a look. Honestly, this kind of gives me a chance to breathe for a second and kind of let go of the wheel a little bit. You know, I don't have to white knuckle this thing. We got 17, 18 weeks of this before we get to the playoffs.

4:31Robert Mays: That's exactly why I wanted to spend the quarter mark of the season feels good. Good time to do this while also acknowledging. And I want that to just be the first beat we hit here. I still don't think we know jack shit. But truly, I do not think we know anything that's real and lasting. I think there are some things that have really jumped out. And that's what I want to dig into. But there are no sweeping proclamations to be made. Somebody, angry Jaguars fans, which I can understand why they are, were retweeting some of the conversations that we were having about Trevor Lawrence at me a month into last season.

5:02Robert Mays: And we were just like, oh man, Trevor Lawrence struggling. Is this just who he is? Turns out, no. So a month in, it's always best to pump the brakes a little bit. But I do think there's plenty of interesting stuff to chew on. I remember what it was. I was trying to think about just the marks of the Panthers season so far. And Bryce Young has a monster day against the Falcons in week two. And it's kind of like, well, it's the Falcons defense. And then we see what the Falcons defense has done the last couple of weeks. And it's like, well, I guess that was even more impressive than we even knew in the moment.

5:34Robert Mays: And so that's what the first month is. It's just like a constant exercise in trying to find the right and real context around everything. And so I think we're going to do a little bit more of that today. I would think so. And it's funny, right, just how often it's a moving target. because I would say like a few seasons ago, I got a month in and I was like, actually, I think I have a pretty good handle on who doesn't matter in this league. And I remember sitting and talking to some of my coworkers. They're like, you feel that strongly going into October? And I was like, yeah, you can just look at some of these teams, some of the underlying metrics, you know, the injuries and all that, you know, you can kind of cast aside.

6:06I think that this year is probably like the absolute inverse of that. Like 2024, I felt like we were pretty clear after about a month about who was serious and who wasn't. This year, I would not, I would never, you know, venture to make that same type of proclamation.

6:19Robert Mays: So we're going to make about seven or eight proclamations today just about the things that have been surprising to us. The most surprising, again, surprising slash striking things about the league so far. And talking about things that are over, that's my first one. This era of the Philadelphia Eagles is just over now? And I don't mean that the Juergens trade signals they're waving a white flag. I think it's more complicated than that, and we'll dig into the specifics of it. But when you think about the discussion about the Eagles coming into the season and why they could be a team that was a contender, a relevant team to the end of the year, it was a lot of, well, we've seen this group do it before.

6:53Robert Mays: This group has constructed. They won the Super Bowl two years ago. Can this group do it again? And then you look at this team now with Lane Johnson gone, which we can dig into, with the Juergens trade happening, with the defense just being a complete youth movement. And there just aren't a lot of guys around that we recognize anymore. And with the offensive line going from the identity of this team, everything about the Philadelphia Eagles offensively was built upon their offensive line for the last decade, seemingly. And now you're looking at this group and we got Willie Lampkin and Drew Kendall and Markel Bell.

7:26Robert Mays: And I think just in so many ways, it really does feel like over the last 48 hours or so, we have shut the door on an entire era of Philadelphia Eagles football. And it just seems like it happened very quickly. Absolutely. And I want to kind of address the last piece of what you said first. I can't remember the last time I looked at an Eagles depth chart and looked at their backups and was like, oh, my God, if somebody gets hurt, this is really, really bad. I'm very much more used to looking at the Eagles depth chart and be like, geez, dude, you guys might have two NFL starters sitting behind all pros, right?

7:59Like it is just it could not be more opposite from where we were in 2024, in 2022, when this team was gangbusters offensively and could do whatever they wanted, even if there were, you know, quibbles about what they were doing schematically. Right. And I think that the conjunction, the conjunction of Lane Johnson's retirement plus the Cam Juergens trade was a reminder for me that teams enter seasons with multiple things being true at the same time. And you're really just waiting to see which truth we land on. Right. Based off of the results of the season. And like you were saying, I think the optimistic view is, hey, you've got a quarterback that you've been to championships with and won a championship with.

8:36you've got a head coach who has been there and done it whatever your you know quibbles might be with his approach to the game game management you know questions about what his leadership style may be you've seen them do it before you have big Fangio calling this defense you have all of this bought in goodwill and then after those two moves happen I'm sitting yesterday talking with um you know our old buddies Bo Wolf you know and I'm like geez actually maybe I should have been asking the question that if you had to beg Lane Johnson to come back and he took a hiatus in training camp and you have to beg, you know, Landon Dickerson to give this another shot.

9:07And him and Cam Juergens had to leave the country to go get treatments done on their lower body so that way they could be okay to start the season. Maybe I didn't spend enough time thinking about what the outcome is if that tends to be more of the truth of this team than what I thought more optimistically. And it's just a fascinating place to be for this team. And like you said, I'm looking at them now and you look at the schedule and God, there is a chance that even their A game might not be good enough for them to live up to the Eagles standard that we got really comfortable with over the last half decade.

9:37Robert Mays: And I don't even know what that A game looks like with the current state of the offense and the fact that the defense, we expected the defense to come in and be one of those just game-changing units consistently, where they are controlling the way that games are played as the offense kind of figures itself out over the course of the year. And that just hasn't happened. It hasn't happened with a couple of the defenses we expected that from, and we'll talk about that. And so you look at the Eagles right now, and if the defense is going to be somewhere around a middle of the pack unit and the offense is going to be in the current state that it's in, we might be looking at another one of those bottoming out Eagles seasons, which they have, right?

10:13Robert Mays: Even in this run of really sustained success, they aren't really afraid to have these massive dip seasons because it's actually a good thing to have them every once in a while when you have job security. And I'm talking about the front office, not the coaching staff. When you have that job security because it allows you to have access to players like Devontae Smith and kind of reload with those sorts of guys every once in a while. But I think we're headed more toward one of those Eagles seasons than a season where they're trying to squeeze every last drop out of the roster like the way they have over the last few years, understandably so.

10:46As we're, you know, I know that the conceit of the show is what takeaways we have now. And I think so much of it is actually just like a reminder of certain tin pulls, certain things that are just true about the NFL in general. And that's that this league is built on roster attrition. The fact that you don't just get to be excellent in perpetuity, that you don't just get to keep your continuity and all the guys will be great and you'll stick around and there's going to be some linear, you know, this linear growth year over year and that brain drain is not going to affect you. It is extremely rare that that is the case for any franchise, even the best of them.

11:17And Philadelphia is not exempt. And like you were saying, all the things we believed about Philadelphia is front four. You look now, they've got the lowest quarterback hit rate in the league through four weeks. You think that's the disease on defense?

11:28Robert Mays: Like, do you think that's the issue that's plaguing them right now? That would make the most sense. That's my takeaway as well. I think that's the easiest thing. That's the easiest thing to point to, that A, is causing them problems, and B, that you can sell yourself on regression back to the mean positively for this defense, right? They've built this entire thing on being able to get home with four. You've got good enough players to get home with four. You've got to believe that over the course of a 17-game season that more contact on the quarterback will start happening and you're not going to have to blitz.

11:57And then there's also that baked in trust that your defensive play caller, who's one of the greatest that we've seen in the NFL and NFL history, will figure out ways to manufacture pressure if that four man rush is not enough. I think that's your finger crossed case. If you're an Eagles fan to say, hey, even if this offense actually is bottoms up, we might still be able to squeak a nine and eight, ten and seven season where we can kind of backdoor our way into the playoffs and get ourselves a one game sample where maybe this defense can win us a game or two. That's, I think, what you're leaning on right now more than anything.

12:28Robert Mays: You got to tell yourself a story to get there, though. I mean, that feels like a tough needle to thread. I do not necessarily think I'd be bad on that. Yeah, you're selling yourself on that, but that ain't what you're seeing on tape. And when I say I don't think they're waving the white flag, I think that some people are looking at the Juergens trade and being like, oh, man, fire sale time. I don't think so. The idea that you'd be able to get some of the key pieces from this team based on one move for Cam Juergens to me is misguided. on defense that's going to be the foundation of the team moving forward like those guys are going to be what they build this thing on the jerkins trade to me feels like a we know we're not really going anywhere this is a guy who doesn't have a position right now because he was really struggling a guard his body has failed him before we have long-term concerns about his health to get offered a second round pick for that player in this moment given the current state of your offense in the current state of your season, you can't really say no to that.

13:26Robert Mays: But on a multi-year level, you're still trying to keep the vast majority of this roster together. The question becomes, how are you going to rebuild this offensive line in time to make the rest of the roster construction matter? Because now you're in a spot where you did it with the defensive secondary two years ago. You were able to kind of refuel the plane in midair to get Q and Cooper Dejean in the same offseason and helped you win the Super Bowl. Can you do that with the offensive line in one single year before you get to a 2028 offseason where now everything is on the table? You got two first.

14:03Robert Mays: You got two second. You got some financial decisions to make about the quarterback. Again, I think the defense, they'll play Mitchell. They'll play Dejean. They already paid the defensive tackles like that is all going to be there. but the offense it feels like we could be dealing with an entirely different group over the next two years and I'm just not sure how the offensive line gets back to a place where you're a championship caliber team in the next 12 months given the current state of the offensive line that's going to be the real challenge I mean you would just struggle to find precedent where that happens right like you can find rookie production that can get you back to a championship level at a lot of positions there's just not a ton of precedent right the Bears did it in a year even something like what the Browns did this offseason you you can do it in a single year but even that requires a level of aggressiveness where you're trying to kind of maximize the moment where if you're how do you care about maximizing the moment for 2027 I don't I was going to say yeah I don't think he's not in a Ryan Pohl's position where hey I've got to bring in Jonah Jackson all these injuries and just bank on the fact that we can get him healthy with his old coach I can't you know you're not making a decision to bring in a mid-30s Joe Tooney and crossing your fingers and hoping, hey, what we saw over the postseason is actually not who he is.

15:17And if he gets an offseason to kind of flush his legs a little bit, we'll actually get back to him playing at his position and at a level that we expect him to be at. If you're Philadelphia, you don't want to live in that world, right? This franchise kind of prides itself on the fact that they never have to make those types of decisions under duress and that they kind of get to take advantage of other teams who are making those types of decisions to be able to extract that draft capital. And if you're Howie Roseman, that's exactly how you feel after trading Cam Juergens. Would you like to have kept your former, you know, high level center around?

15:46Yes. But in this moment where he's struggling, where you're kind of remaking the offense anyways, you might not have gotten potentially another top 50, top 60 pick, you know, for a guy like this, given where his body is at and given what the trajectory of his career looks like at any other point in time from here on to the end of his contract. So it makes sense to make that move. I think that you also pointed out the right perspective in that Howie Roseman has sat at a podium already. And I would say people who talk to Howie Roseman and know this brain trust have kind of been signaling this since the A.J.

16:16Brown trade request started bubbling up last year, that everybody in this franchise is kind of aware of the fact that the expensive offense days have to end. Because again, the league doesn't work like that. You don't get to keep all your good players in perpetuity. They were going to have to, you know kind of pivot and start to bring in new bodies and I think you know in talking with some of my buddies you know around the media I think that my biggest question is was if this year is about trying to figure out whether or not Jalen Hurts was going to get a second extension and whether or not he is going to be the long-term answer and that you're going to use those draft picks elsewhere to build around him or not I think the bigger question now if you're an Eagles fan and if you're somebody covering the Eagles is trying to suss out whether or not that was an evaluation that's on the table and if a move like this is maybe an implied kind of answer that they're thinking about what the future looks like at the quarterback position and beyond well that

17:07Robert Mays: was what i was going to say maybe it was an evaluation that was in progress and a month into the season it would feel like a very quick hook or a quick closing of that evaluation right maybe after a combination of last season and the last month and just how he's taken to this maybe that was enough which it's going to be fascinating like how they rebuild the offense specifically over the next two years and whether that includes moving on from the quarterback and trying to find another one and that they now have the ammo in a draft two years from now to potentially seek that out is really interesting on the the Ravens side of this what do you think about the Ravens being that aggressive to go get Cam Juergens in this moment is it a move that I like to have made?

17:52No, right? But this speaks to what you have to do when you're under duress, right, as a GM. And you've got multiple centers on IR. You're going to probably be playing your backup quarterback for a couple of weeks, just based off of some of the hinting and reporting around Lamar Jackson's ankle sprain. And you've got a new offense. And I'm pretty sure this is probably Declan Doyle and Jesse Minter saying, hey, I trust you, DaCosta, but we don't have to make my life this hard, okay? If you can go get me somebody to make life a little bit easier, I would love to have a player that I can at least feel certain about.

18:23And I think that it's probably a worthwhile bet for Baltimore because if he's great, he's now cost controlled, right? He's cost controlled as an interior lineman, as your center. You feel a lot better about trying to spin things forward around this offense, knowing that there were so many questions about the center position to start this year for you guys anyways. That will be a great question answered for them. And if his body is banged up, you can say, hey, man, we took a big swing. It didn't work out. we're actually not hampering our long-term future too badly because it's not like they'd have to eat a bunch of cap casualties to be able to move on from them if that ended up being the case after this year or maybe next season.

18:58So I think that you can sell yourself on the fact that it's high upside for Baltimore. It is just a major risk on draft capital, just given what we've seen on the field from Cam Juergens this year, that I don't know if I will be the most comfortable making.

19:10Robert Mays: It's overpaid, clearly. But I can understand the mindset that leads to it in this moment on a couple different fronts. One, you've seen what this offense looks like over the first month of the season. And if I were Eric DaCosta or if I were Jesse Minter and I'm looking at the potency we have felt from the offense, I can understand trying to squeeze onto that thing with both hands and not let go. And that's what this feels like. And I also think it speaks to a larger point that I want to dig into a little bit later on the show. How many teams around the league right now do you think are looking at the current state of the league and saying, why not us?

19:49You'd have to, I mean, if you're in, if you feel like you're a top 20 team in the NFL right now, you've got to be thinking, if there's a way for us to put, to lean in on 2026, we need to probably start exercising as many options as we can to lean in.

20:03Robert Mays: And I think the Ravens, if you're looking at your offense and you know that Lamar's going to be back in a couple of weeks and that center thing is just staring you in the face, and it's not even just the center thing. By making the trade for Cam Juergens and moving, oh, you want it back to guard, You get better at two positions. You're protecting him, yes. And you get better at two positions at the same time, and you give yourself a chance to unlock this offense that I personally, and I think a lot of people justifiably are really, really excited about. And so if all it took was a round and a half overpay to go get Cam Juergens in order to potentially give yourself that in the long term, I can understand landing there if you're in a costume and be like, man like yeah that it might look really ugly in a couple years based on his production and us handing a pick to the eagles but the idea of not letting this thing slip through our fingers because of what we could potentially accomplish i understand that like i think sometimes teams overstate that stuff when they're making moves like this and and i also think that's an important part of it like i we did a segment on the the athletic show which i do for the the company with Amazon and we were talking today about in-season trades and some the history of in-season trades and just how checkered they are because a lot of them don't work out you know for every version of the Von Miller Odell Beckham thing we have 10 Amari Cooper trades but those I think you're talking yourself into the idea of this is going to put us over the top we are this thing away from competing I don't I don't see the Juergens move as that I see it as protecting yourself.

21:36Robert Mays: I see it as a backstop choice. And that mindset to me makes it a little bit easier to justify even if you know you're overpaying compared to one of those, well, if we just get another receiver in here, this thing is off to the races. That's speculative. This, you have proof of concept for how good the offense can be if you're getting an acceptable level of offensive line play overall. I mean, and there's just so much evidence in Baltimore specifically to support the fact that when the offensive line starts falling to pieces, it can very much unravel what would have otherwise been excellent offensive play.

22:11We have talked about the Ravens offense taking steps backwards because they're playing guys out of positions or you're leaning on guys that you wouldn't have wanted to to open the season. And if I'm Eric Costa, I didn't bring John Simpson in to have to ask him to be a starter this early in the year. That's my break glass option. I just like having him around because I know the guy, right? That's much more of what you're thinking. You don't want to ask your rookie first round pick to say, hey, you're going to be snapping the ball now to a guy that you you're doing a job that we didn't draft you for to begin with.

22:40And now you're snapping the ball to a guy that you have not really gotten any reps with. Oh, and we really need to win as many games as possible because it looks like the AFC is going to be as competitive as it's ever been this year. I think, like you said, you want to protect yourself. You want to insulate yourself. and if you're Eric DaCosta and you know I got the head coach I wanted, we took what looks like the absolute right swing on Declan Doyle as our first-year offensive play caller. I might have an MVP. I would have probably had a guy in the MVP race if he didn't have to miss games, and he might be so good when he comes back.

23:10Lamar might be right back in that race again, and you're getting the most out of Zay Flowers. Like you said, we are not going to risk anything stepping backwards with this offense if we have the opportunity to keep it where it's at, And I certainly as a GM am not going to feel good with my 2028 second round pick saying, hey, this was worth maybe costing myself an opportunity to compete at the highest level.

23:31Robert Mays: When you have Lamar playing the way that he has over the first month, you have to do everything you can to get the most out of those seasons. And in 2024, when he was playing at this level, the defense wasn't very good. and now I think you have you should have enough confidence and optimism about the defense where we got to do everything we can to make sure we're capturing this season when Lamar is playing at this level because when he is I think you're capable of pretty much anything all right let's get to your first one here the one the first thing you wanted to talk about that has been surprising or particularly notable to you four weeks into the season is what I don't want to do too long of a preamble, but I think that you'll understand where I was coming from going into the season with Jacksonville.

24:14Because I think that you guys had a few conversations about the Jaguars preseason as well, right? What's real coming out of their hot streak to end last regular season, right? My biggest thing is all of the things that would make you feel the best about the Jags, if you were a Jags fan over the last two months of last year and the first month of this year, is all the stuff that we say does not stick year over year. Great turnover luck, explosive runs, converting third and longs in the passing game. Those are not things that are supposed to carry over from one season to the next, especially when you kind of stand pat with your roster.

24:46It's not like there was any major influx of new talent. They didn't do a bunch at the top of the draft. In fact, they got, you know, they were very heavily criticized for what they did do in the draft with bringing in, you know, Nate Berkettcher and just like their approach to drafting tight ends as well in general, knowing where their offensive line has been kind of weak. So I 100 % expected them with a pretty difficult opening season, open to the season, that, hey, Trevor Lawrence is going to get hit more often. Some of the turnover luck might go the wrong way. I don't think that they're going to be one and three coming out of this stretch, but maybe they're two and two and we feel like, okay, they've kind of come back to earth.

25:21And no, they're still gangbusters. Every time they touch the red zone, you get the best red zone play calls and Trevor Lawrence is ripping throws in between defenders. They're still explosive in the run game. I do think that you've seen a little bit more contact on Trevor Lawrence now than you did last, you know, to end last season. And I do worry a little bit about what that's going to look like over the course of the season if he keeps hitting the ground as often as we've seen over the last couple of weeks. But for the most part, this defense is performing the exact same way it did in November and December last year, and we're still looking at the same Jags team that looks like a buzzsaw, you know, in the AFC.

25:56Robert Mays: I can't remember a situation. I was trying to think of one as you were talking, just like trying to land on, okay, is there an example? And the reason I'm saying this is that One of the hesitations with the Jags, and I want to be clear, like I was excited about the Jags coming into this season. We have the 10 teams at the table. The first two teams off would have been the Niners and the Jags, and they are now on there. And so I was very open to the idea that the Jags could be a very good team this year. I just think I was in a mode where I want to see it again. And part of the reason for that, can you remember an example where we had one of these play calling offensive head coaches that was just clearly one of those dudes almost immediately when he got the job and the way that Liam Cohen has been.

26:39Robert Mays: But that guy was paired with a first time, first year defensive coordinator that we'd never seen do it, was very, very good, but doesn't have like an established track record of success because that was part of it. Like, Cole, I'm willing to believe, but, like, we had one year of Campanile. Let's see if just this whole group can do it again. And they clearly have shown an ability to do that. Because with the other guys, like McVay obviously had the first season that he did with the Rams, but Wade Phillips was their defensive coordinator. Like, we'd seen that. Shanahan comes in. The 17 season is kind of a wash for the Niners, and so that didn't happen immediately.

27:13Robert Mays: I just think that the dynamics at play were unique enough and we had just a lack of long-term built-in equity with the main principal pieces that I really was just in a, hey, what does round two look like? And they have come out and been like, round two is going to be better than round one. You watch us. And that's exactly what this has been. Exactly. And again, like I just keep leading back on, it's not like they brought in some all pro guy. They weren't the team that went out and traded for Jalen Waddle. Right. Like they're not the team that went out and traded for AJ Brown. They didn't do any of that.

27:48They didn't spend two firsts to go get Sauce Gardner to add to their GV role.

27:51Robert Mays: I'll push back on that a little bit. Do you know who the all-pro player they traded for is? Travis Hunter. Travis Hunter. Right. Yes. They traded for a guy who's going to be an all-pro corner this year, potentially. Exactly. Like it just doesn't often work that way. Like you said, with not just first year play callers, but a quarterback as well who was fresh off of a bottoming out right like i came out of the 2024 season like you know what if it never happens for trevor lawrence at least i can say i believed all right i gave it i gave it a good old college try i don't have to go down with this ship any further it's okay we gave it a shot and he turns right back around and you see a rhythm in his game that i would say never has existed for him in the pros it's a great over the last like three three months the confidence putting his back foot in the ground driving the ball in between you know these closing passing windows to wide receivers that I didn't necessarily look at as being like oh these are great ball winners these are great contested catch guys these are going to be separators these are guys that you can push the ball downfield with I think the scheme of the offense the play of Trevor Lawrence and then I just think the the rhythm that they're in you look at a guy like Parker Washington is like the ultimate manifestation of every the all of the work that they have done to build this offense to be as good as it is and i would say defensively you're starting to see that with travis hunter we saw this last year with uh devin lloyd at linebacker you're seeing it with josh heinz allen right now as a pass rusher like you just see these little manifestations of like all the work they're doing is getting the maximal results right now they have the ingredients of what a contending team feels like on several different fronts and the reason that the specific reason i say that in this moment is that they've shown an ability to kind of do different versions of things over the first month of the season.

29:35Robert Mays: Like this is a really maybe random player to point out when making this point, but stick with me for a second. Brenton's strange being like the fifth or sixth most important player on your offense is how you win Superbowls. Yes. Yes. With the way that he's been playing, how important he would, how well he plays within the role that they ask him to fill in. Exactly right. And he may not be a featured piece of what you're doing week in and week out. But if there's a moment where you're playing against the Bengals team who just seems to lose every single tight end that they play week over week, you're like, all right, this is going to be the featured guy in our passing game this week.

30:12Robert Mays: And we can do that. He's worth featuring in these specific moments. The offense has shown an ability to do that. It's multifaceted. And then on defense, you've seen flexibility and personnel on the back end that's given them answers to different problems. The idea that, all right, well, we don't really know. Is Travis a full-time outside corner? Do we want to do that? And you're kind of playing around with him and Jarrion Jones and Montero Brown all in combination with one another. And you're trying on all these different combos of players. And like, is this the way that we should play? Even the ability to do that is a luxury that teams without that much depth and depth and flexibility don't even get to explore.

30:50Robert Mays: And I think that to me is what really good, but also resilient contender worthy teams feel like where you can have the options, the mindset and the flexibility to kind of vacillate between these different versions of yourself and figure out what is best for that moment when what is best for the long run. And I think to me, in combination with being just exceptionally well coached on both sides of the ball, that's what this version of the Jags feels like. Absolutely. You know, and you opened up this conversation with like, just how often do we see things happen this way? I think that most times when it goes this way, it's because a team takes on such an extreme manifestation of a certain personality in terms of how they play, right?

31:34You think of Miami when Mike McDaniel gets there. You think of Sean McVay early in Los Angeles. You think of all those teams. When I watch Jacksonville, there's really nothing extreme about what they do, right? Like they don't blitz more than any other team. They're not necessarily getting into cupboard shells that nobody else is playing and offensively. It's not like they're rolling out some type of personnel grouping that is, you know, melting the minds across the league. Like, sometimes I just watch them and I'm like, God, this feels like the best team in football at squeezing 16 yards out of a pass play when they want to get it.

32:07Like, if they need to go get 18 yards in the seam, I don't know if there's a better team right now at designing a way to get Parker Washington exactly 18 to 20 yards across the middle of the field or Jacoby Myers exactly 14 yards when they need it. They are just extremely precise. Like you said, they can take on different personalities within a game. I think that just speaks to the feel that Liam Cohen has as a head coach and play caller. And I think the same thing you would have to say since Anthony Campanile. Like their understanding of what their personnel is and how to get the most out of them is way beyond even the most aspirational case for them coming into these jobs last year.

32:43And I think that they're continuing to build on that without needing these ultra dynamic pieces, you know, young guys outside of like a Travis Hunter, you know, that are just eye popping every time you watch them on the field. it speaks to coaching execution and just how well they game plan on a weekly basis i don't know if there's really anybody maybe outside of like kyle shanahan right now who is doing it better on the

33:05Robert Mays: offensive side of the ball oh i i'd have a tiny bit of pushback after the way the last couple weeks have gone over over over here with the back of quarterbacks that's what i think that's fair i think liam cohen is i think liam cohen has shown that he is a member of the inner circle that that That is what we have, what he has done over the first month. It's funny you say that about the identity. It's the last point and a half I want to make about this before we move on. The identity of the offense and the defense is just really well-constructed units on both sides of the ball that are an expression of the best modern ideas on both sides.

33:39Robert Mays: The defense is just a combination of a lot of things that are working for different trees built into one thing where you're doing a little bit of all of it, but you're doing all of it well, which is really difficult to juggle. And Campanile has shown an incredible ability to do that. And on offense, it's just like, this is just the good shit right now. We're just doing the good shit right now in a way that is very well constructed. And so that's not really a specific schematic identity. It's just good ball. That's what the Jags feel like. And then the last part, I think in terms of, all right, how do you do this year over year?

34:14Robert Mays: How do you feel like a different version of yourself? You need guys to rise and fall. We had mentioned Travis Hunter as a joke. And Anton Harrison feels like the player like that for them this year. Yes. And then when you stumble into guys in your rookie class, that's almost always an ingredient. Emmanuel Pregman has been such a win for them. That's it. Huge win. Think about the teams that have won Super Bowls over the last couple years. Think about the 2025 Seahawks. Think about the 2024 Eagles. Cooper DeGene, Quinjon Mitchell, Nicky Manwari, Gray Zabel. You have to get a couple of these guys.

34:45Robert Mays: and Travis Hunter almost feels like a rookie in that way just because he is a new piece of this. So let's just say Travis Hunter is this year's first round pick and then you get Pregnant and then everything else that's happening around it, you start to feel the ingredients that typically lead to this sort of team getting all mixed together in Jacksonville and it's an incredibly exciting place to be. All right, let's take our first quick break and then come back and hit a few more of these things that we found surprising. football season has arrived and with the u.s bank smartly visa signature card you earn an unlimited two percent cash back on every purchase including at the stadium or at home watching on a brand new tv score big with unlimited two percent cash back on every purchase visit usbank.com smartly card to learn more the creditor and issuer of this card is u.s bank national association pursuant to a license from visa usa inc some restrictions may apply my wife and i have two kids and a mortgage And so I can admit that it can be easy for me to focus on the scary side of finance.

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37:59Robert Mays: We don't have to spend a ton of time on this next one because I did kind of allude to it, but what has surprised me or been striking to me is just how wide open this whole thing feels. Like, it really is extremely exciting. And I think last year it felt wide open in part because a lot of the blue bloods with the elite quarterbacks fell off. And this year that hasn't happened, right? A lot of the best quarterbacks in the league and the MVP caliber quarterbacks, those offenses and teams have looked good so far, but all of those teams also feel flawed enough and everyone else. There are other teams at the top that feel complete enough.

38:33Robert Mays: Like the Jags team that we just talked about where now the teams with those MVP quarterbacks and everyone else is just kind of smashed into this top 10 to 12. That is just incredibly compelling. A guy right now, the top eight teams in DVO a total team DVO a are the Niners Jags chiefs, bills, Ravens, Seahawks, Rams, and Chicago Bears. Let's take the top seven of those teams and have a conversation. Those are the teams I would have expected to be there. Like, again, I think the idea that the Jags and Niners are there isn't necessarily surprising. But you look at that top seven and like any of those top seven teams can tell themselves very legitimately, we think we can win the Super Bowl this year.

39:16Robert Mays: And even other teams, like I think the way the Cowboys offense is playing, like it just feels like so many, at least 10 maybe even a dozen teams by the time we get to mid-season if they continue in this form or even a slightly better version of it as we get a little bit more time on task are going to be able to tell themselves we legitimately think we can be the best team in the league or the most dangerous team in the league by the time the season is over and it's not because other teams have fallen off it's because we have enough to get ourselves there and it's an awesome place to be I mean it It just makes the entire, it makes the prospect of the rest of the season unbelievably intriguing.

39:56Robert Mays: And so, but it is surprising. It's still just one of those things where it still feels new that we have this many teams that we feel good about to that degree. But right now, I think it'd be hard to argue against it. 100%. I mean, you know, in doing the power rankings for the ringer, you know, I just put up one from the first quarter of the season. and in trying to stack the teams, there were so many times where I was like, I actually need to redo my one through 32. Like I'm not resetting my entire, all the copy on this, but I actually need to ask myself, do I think that this team that's ranked ahead of them can beat this team?

40:29And then now I'm just down this rabbit hole of, well, stylistically, this team could do this and it will be a problem for them. I can 100 % see. The answer is yes, way too many times if you're thinking about it that way. 100%, 100%, you know, and this is not, a lot of times I feel like people come out of like the first month of the season and they're like oh you know x amount of teams can legitimately look at themselves as a playoff team or contender and it almost feels dishonest right because you're trying to extract so many small slivers of information to make you believe in one team or the other i i genuinely went through like the top 20 to 22 and even the very flawed teams you look at teams like the packers you think about teams like houston you think about teams like the chargers who you know have been about as bad as you can be for a team that was expected to be a contender and I still feel like I think under the right circumstances maybe they're not Super Bowl contenders but think what 100 % ruin another contender season under the right circumstances right like and that is a rarity and there's that is a rarity for any season I would say especially in one like you said where there are an elite class of quarterbacks that are around and they're not they're not hurt their teams are not falling apart we still are looking at teams that may not have access to that type of top tier play at the quarterback position and looking at them and saying we still have to take them seriously.

41:42I really enjoy a season that can give that to us this early in it and we're not just discarding teams. And now we're spending the next three months talking about the same, you know, half dozen, you know, squads all the rest of the way through.

41:54Robert Mays: I think there are going to be plenty of teams that force themselves into that conversation. Like teams, like we didn't mention the Bengals. Like the Bengals' defense is improved enough for they'll probably be relevant. And then I joked about the Bears, but I think the Bears are actually a good example of this. If you watch what that team is doing offensively and you imagine what it's going to look like potentially with Caleb Williams back. And I know there's been a little bit of like, oh, man, the backup quarterbacks look great. What does that mean about Caleb Williams? The only time we saw him not against Brian Flores in a rainstorm this season, the team scored 59 points.

42:22Robert Mays: So if you're the Bears or if you're a Bears fan and you look at the way the defense has been playing and who knows where it settles, but it's been better than you expected. And you look at the ceiling on offense. I don't think it's unreasonable for you to be one of those teams and fan bases. it's like, well, why can't we do this? Like, are we any more flawed than some of these other teams are? Because the teams that were supposed to be super teams, the Rams are still very good, but have their issues. The Bills offense looked unbeatable for two weeks. It's taken a fallback down to earth over the last two weeks, and their defense has struggled in the first month of a new coordinator.

42:57Robert Mays: We talked about Baltimore. The Ravens are a little bit banged up. I still think right now they might feel like the most dangerous team overall at full strength, but they're not a perfect team by any stretch. The Chiefs have an argument as to be the best team in the league so far, but I still have concerns about their pass catching options and just what that team looks like in a world where they can't lean on the run to the degree that they have. Everybody has issues. The Niners are number one in DVOA. They've been top five on offense and defense. They look incredible, but what is that defense in the long run?

43:30Robert Mays: How much faith do we have in that? And so the teams that have looked really, really good, I still think have enough potential issues where if you're one of those teams on the fringes of the top 10, I don't think it's crazy for you to start talking yourself into the idea that maybe we could kind of force our way into the conversation over the course of this year. Absolutely. All right. What's your next one here? Your next thing that has jumped out to you so far over the first month of the season. So I kind of cheated and joined two together. And I think and a lot of it is just because I expect knowing how we podcast, we'll probably end up roping a bunch of different coaches into this topic.

44:09But coming out of the Sunday night game where I am watching the Panthers just absolutely maul Detroit's defense. Right. Like and it's not just that game because you can obviously look at that in a one game sample. And hey, Detroit's defense is just kind of lost right now in the mix of their identity versus the players they do and don't have available. I think it's fair to critique it from that perspective. But you look at them over the course of the season, they played a lot of really good offense. You guys, you know, specifically were talking about Bryce Young and his response to having Brad Idzik as his play caller and their approach schematically versus how he's performed.

44:44I've walked out of the first month of the season feeling great about their offense in a way that I did not expect, given the injuries to their offensive line and the questions I had about whether or not they'd be able to sustain a running game that could protect Bryce Young. And then on the other hand, I look at a team like Denver and Davis Webb, and I'm like, you want to talk about having all the equipment you could possibly need to field a great offense. Maybe the best collection of offensive linemen in the league right now. You've got a head coach who, if you're borrowing from his scheme, has got every tool in his offensive playbook to be able to handle things.

45:18You've got a ball-winning wide receiver in Cortland Sutton. You've got a field stretcher in Jalen Waddell. You've got Pat Bryant as this kind of like, you know, breakout potential breakout piece as a as a receiver who can kind of flex inside and out and you're watching them play the 49ers and i'm like why is it this freaking hard for you to complete a pass more than 10 yards down the field and i i don't i don't necessarily want to lay all of that blame on webb's shoulders i think there's a conversation to have about both him and bo nicks but just looking at the dichotomy and those two as play callers given what you would have thought about their rosters entering the league.

45:53My mind has been kind of blown in the difference in how they've performed over the last few weeks.

45:57Robert Mays: I think just bucketing the new play callers, period, into guys that have been maybe better or worse than we thought, that's full of plenty of surprises. I was excited to see what Idzik could do. I just, I think somebody mentioned this before, recently, because we were talking about Bryce Young, and they were like, you guys had the Panthers so low in the supporting cast rankings coming into the year. And I think part of that is just questions about the offensive line, but also part of it is that either it was the quarterback or just the entire environment offensively. I kind of feel like we had just run into a dead end with like what this version of the Panthers was going to feel like.

46:32Robert Mays: And I just couldn't have been more wrong about that. Like the scheme has felt more alive and the quarterback has done. It's also a reminder how impossible it is to fully extricate quarterback play from everything else. Like you try to do it as best as you can. But in reality, the quarterback is going to make the supporting cast look better while the supporting cast makes the quarterback look better. play caller included and so the way that bryce has played i think reframes how you also see everything else whether that's right or wrong but idzig has been great the guy on defense that i think has probably been the most impressive defensive play caller among all the new guys is rob leonard how many rob leonard conversations was anybody having coming into the season deckland doyle has been phenomenal tommy reese in over the last two weeks has been really impressive we'll talk about atlanta i think mike rutenberg and brian flurry have been good in the way I might have expected them to be like those guys with their situation the personnel what I expected those offenses defenses to look like that was probably expected but then you've had guys that I was really excited about where the results just haven't been there so far like I'll we'll see what happens with Christian Parker and the Cowboys it's still very early they've been really banged up with injuries but that has been the tape is not a way to go they have a long way to go not good at all and the other guy I'd throw in there like I was wondering how quickly Jim Leonard could get the Bills defense to a place where that unit felt championship caliber.

47:50Robert Mays: And again, it's so early, like there's no reason to make definitive statements about any of this stuff, but the Bills are 26th and defensive DVOA over the first month. Like that unit will need to be better if the Bills want to get where they're going. And so it's been a mixed bag with a lot of the first year guys where I think some people that had some name recognition or had some heat coming into it just haven't been as good as we might've expected. And some guys that maybe had kind of fallen into the background a little bit in all the preseason discussions we were having have been some of the biggest hits among that group so far.

48:21Absolutely. And I think that, you know, when I think about Brad Isik as kind of like the headliner for me, the guy that I've walked out of the first month of the season feeling the most encouraged about. And we talked about this a little bit with Liam Cohen and his just understanding of the team that he's gotten, how to get the most out of it. It was very easy. It would have been very easy for others. And I certainly felt this way as well when he's talking about, hey, man, as a head coach, I've got a million other things that I've got to manage. I can't be in Bryce Young's ear the way that I need to be in it.

48:51His quarterback coach, the guy that's already in the room with him, talking to him, knows what he likes, knows what he doesn't, knows how he feels about, you know, different play calls as they come in, how to build a rhythm within the game. He would just be more connected with him than I will. That has 100 % been borne out, right? Like you think about the RPOs. You think about the use of personnel for them. Think about the answers that they've built in, how they've leaned into when to attack the middle of the field with Bryce Young and how versus how to set up easy opportunities for him and Tett McMillan outside the numbers.

49:23That's something you can only get by really understanding the fact that putting the putting the play sheet in somebody else's hands is not only going to help me as a head coach, but there is actually a chance that we can get even more out of this offense. And I didn't walk out of last year feeling like there was anything wrong with Dave with the way Dave Canales was calling the O. In fact, because of what I felt about Bryce Young at that time, I thought running the ball on early downs as much as possible, getting in these hyper condensed heavier personnel groups on early downs, really trying to protect your quarterback and then getting as spread out as you can in obvious passing situations and trying to give Bryce Young something that looked a little bit more like what he was used to at Alabama when he was in college was the best kind of two personality mix to their O.

50:07this year feels more cohesive. It feels like they've kind of added some of those more spready elements with their heavy personnel. And you're just seeing a better version of Bryce Young because some of those marriages are happening. Davis Webb, we've kind of touched on whether or not it's him or Bo Nix. To me, when I look at him and Nix, I do think there's a menu of calls that Nix is just going to struggle to maximize. And there's also the you can't establish a run thing, which really predates him as a play caller. And then you look across the league, and it's kind of like similar conversations in different spots.

50:37Sean Mannion, same thing. You are here really to fix the run game so that way you could get the most out of your play-action passing game with Jalen Hurts. Could not be more opposite. In fact, it feels like every week that goes on, it is less of whatever they hire Sean Mannion to do and more of what Nick Sirianni has gotten out of his offense on a year-to-year basis. I think that that's pretty telling. You know, you mentioned Rob Leonard, and I think that Derek was talking about it maybe last week or two weeks ago before they played the Chiefs. where you watch and it's like, did they just play good football?

51:08I don't, I don't really have a better answer than that.

51:11Robert Mays: It reminds me a lot of how we talked about the Jags. I've said that all season, but it reminds me a lot of how we were talking about the Jags defense over the last season, where again, it's not like one specific magic bullet thing. And I do think that so far, the Raiders defense has been rooted in a lot of like the Seattle ideas in a more specific way than maybe what the Jags defensive philosophy was last year. But it's still a mix of enough stuff in his background where it's not like one magic bullet thing of like, oh, this is why the Rob Leonard defense works. It's just like, no, it's just good shit in the same way that we've been talking about the Jags for the last year.

51:43Absolutely. You know, and, you know, we talked about Declan Doyle doing the same thing, right? And that was actually more of a person. I wouldn't say necessarily a personality change because Todd Munker was trying to lean more into the heavier personnel while he was there before he left for Cleveland. But really leaning into all the things that were working in Chicago in terms of having multiple tight ends, right? I had a lot of questions about whether or not that was the right way to go about building this offense, bringing in a bunch of young guys who are going to be unproven. You're bringing in Matt Hibner.

52:10I don't even know what that skill set is going to look like. You're a Matt Hibner doubter. That's the reason. You've got to believe in Matt Hibner. You know, like I had no idea what we were going to get out of this. And then you're watching the first quarter and then play the Colts, and it's like, ah, got it. I see what you are. I know exactly what I'm looking at right now. Okay, we're good, you know? So I think that there's a lot around the league. I would say Brian Fleury has kind of been in that same mix of a guy who just seems to have a really well-tailored understanding and execution of I know who my best player is and how to feed him the ball and I know how to build an offensive ecosystem around that to keep our targets for Jackson Smith and Jigba as explosive as healthy and as effective as possible I've come away really I think really encouraged by guys that I just had no feel for when we came into the season that that has probably been the biggest surprise for me i'm with you i i think that that's the right way to

52:58Robert Mays: look at it the idzig davis webb thing is interesting because like you said i didn't come away from last year thinking oh man like dave canalis is mishandling how he's calling the offense and how what the offense looks like but i do think that when you look back to it and obviously this is hindsight but when you look back at it you did feel a play caller that maybe didn't fully believe in what his quarterback was capable of. And the offense was getting called that way. And it's not, again, it's not like, I don't think he explicitly was like, I don't think that was unfounded, right? Like I could understand landing in that place if you were Dave Canales, but it just is a reminder of how much these little tiny things matter, where when you have a guy and it's a come in and be not even slightly deterred by whatever limitations the quarterback might have and just think that he's capable of anything.

53:51Robert Mays: And it's also the way the offense has been built this year in Carolina. There is such intention behind pulling in things that might seem mismatched into one cohesive vision in order to maximize the quarterback. That, to me, feels like an offense built by an architect who believes in the quarterback. Like, you're not going to try to tailor it in that way where you're trying to give him everything he can to be successful if you don't believe in what the ceiling of it could look like. It felt like last year the Panthers were calling and constructing the offense to get by. And I don't even mean that as a negative, where this year it feels like they're calling and constructing the offense because they believe the quarterback, when you give him all the tools, can play at this sort of level.

54:40Robert Mays: And I compare it to what's happening in Denver, and it kind of feels like the offense is being – I thought Derek's point about this was so good on the Sunday night show where Bo Nix, I think has most of the culpability in the offense feeling this way. But if you are the play caller at a certain point, aren't you going to get beaten down by some of the choices he's making and then no longer call the offense thinking that he's the type of quarterback that can lift it. And now you're back in a place where you're more, more worried about the floor and creating an acceptable level that for this thing to operate on.

55:14Robert Mays: It feels like that. It feels like the Broncos are operating in the world that the 2025 Panthers did, and the Panthers have completely broken out of that world. Well, and I would go back another season and say, when I watched Denver, they remind me, at least offensively, they remind me so much of the 24 Eagles offensively over the first four weeks. I remember you bringing Kellen Moore. The Bo Nix, Jalen Hurts comparison rears and talking about it again. We will never escape them. We will never escape them. But I remember Kellen Moore comes in. He's trying to be much more ambitious with the passing game.

55:43We want to push the ball downfield more. We want to put more on the quarterback's plate to understand when he's going to be hot and where these options, where these different options are. And the offense just absolutely fell flat on its face in the first month. And then they had that bye week. Right. And I think that that's the story has been told enough where Jordan Mailata and Lane Johnson basically kind of corner, you know, Nick Sirianni and more and say, we're not doing that anymore. OK, us got the big guys over here. Let us carry the way the rest of the way. And I think that my concern with Denver is that they don't have a Saquon Barkley who can lead the league in rushes of 60 and 50 and 40 yards the way that they did in 2024.

56:20So I think that there is going to come a point where if you're Davis Webb, you have to really kind of do some soul searching and figure out how can I manufacture? And I think that that really is the adjective that you'd have to use if you're Davis Webb. How can I manufacture a healthy offense knowing that I can't guarantee we're going to get the chunk gains that my play calling would otherwise try to go find for our O? It's a really difficult way to live, especially when you know how talented the supporting cast around your quarterback can be when they're at their best. I don't really know how they're going to square that circle because there just are too many times in a game.

56:56And I think I've talked back and forth with Derek about this. I think we probably chatted about this with Bo Nix as well. we're just watching the tape and you're like dude this this isn't even hard i'd understand if we were asking you to do some very difficult things you have the arm and the throws are there and if you don't make the throws what the hell do you want me to do with this offense buddy like it's really hard to run an offense under that you know when a quarterback is turning down decisions that would be the health not only the healthiest and most most ambitious but in a lot of times you really shouldn't have any other option but to take some of these shots to open receivers

57:29Robert Mays: it really is crazy watching how distinct the difference is between an offense where the quarterback feels compelled to show that sort of ambition and one that doesn't it it's just it's just it's an immense difference and I think that you have felt that difference between both the Panthers and Broncos offenses this year for two quarterbacks who I think both were kind of at a crossroads in terms of what we needed to see from them like this was the year for both of them. With Knicks, it was, we're in year three. We just traded for Jalen Waddle. You're in the same system. We're building on this. We're giving you the play caller you probably want.

58:03Robert Mays: Show me what you got. And we've seen the results so far. And there's been a lot of the same stuff with Bryce Young. People didn't want them to pick up the option. And after they did, it was like, all right, what are you going to show us as you're sitting here wanting a contract extension? And it's been the exact opposite set of returns so far. All right, let's take one more quick break and then come back and hit a couple more of these. This episode is brought to you by Onnit. You know those days where your schedule is packed to the brim? You're jumping straight from managing work deadlines to squeezing in a workout, running family errands, and trying to handle a million things all at once?

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59:16Robert Mays: I don't know about you guys, but my favorite part of running is the mental health benefits to come from it. Just the way that I feel when a run is over. I do most of my running when I'm on vacation because my Peloton bike is not with me. And even though it's tough to get up in the morning and go for a run on vacation, I'm always happy that I did. The way that I feel afterwards, there's nothing quite like it. And running can be freeing, running can be cathartic, and Peloton helps you feel all of that. Now that feeling fits wherever you need it to with the new Treadflex. Treadflex is Peloton's latest treadmill with a smaller footprint that makes the joy of running feel even more accessible.

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1:01:08Robert Mays: podcast, Redefining Talent, one conversation at a time.

1:01:20Robert Mays: I don't want to spend a ton of time on this one because we talked about it ad nauseum, but I don't think you can do this show in good faith and not talk about the fact that the Chargers have been the biggest flaming disaster and disappointment in the entire league. It'd be dishonest not to. Yeah, we have to, right? But actually, I've talked about this so much. You live in San Diego, right? You have been – your proximity to this team is very real in ways that probably aren't good for your long-term health. As you've watched them this year, what have your impressions been – not of like why it isn't working.

1:01:56Robert Mays: I think we've talked enough about why it isn't working, but what it means that it's not working to this extent. I think that the question I keep coming back to is who does it say the most about right like does this say the most about Mike McDaniel does this say the most about Justin Herbert or does it say the most about Jim Harbaugh and where he's at in his career and I think maybe the most unsatisfying answer is that it does feel right now at least like it's pretty evenly split because the things that go wrong, you can point in every all three directions and say, this is because of a decision that X person made.

1:02:35This is because of a play called that this guy made is because of a decision on the field that Justin Herbert made. It all just kind of seems to be going already in a way that makes it hard to really kind of distill it down to like, oh, it's just because Mike McDaniel is calling these sets of plays or is mixing his use of the running backs in this way or change Justin Herbert's footwork or the timing on his throws. But that's incomplete, right? Right. That's incomplete over four weeks now. If it were any just one of those things, I would like to believe that there are enough smart football people in that building.

1:03:07Right. That you could identify that and make it and fix it relatively quickly. It's all of it. Right. It genuinely is all of it. And I think that over the next month of the season, I think that that's really where my focus is on is can we get more clarity on whether or not their failures in September was a bigger reflection on any one of those three characters? I think that's really kind of where I'm trying to hone in on.

1:03:29Robert Mays: My problem with that is you can't pull apart the Mike McDaniel thing from the Jim Harbaugh thing. Right. It's impossible to do. And so I think that is why, at the end of the day, I probably land on Harbaugh more than anything else. And I'm willing to admit this. There's confirmation bias associated with this here because of how I view the coaches I would hire, the coaches I would chase, all of this stuff. Right. We are reaching a critical moment with the CEO coach. We are approaching a critical moment with why we seek these guys out, what they're offering, what the argument is as to why these are the types of people you should hire to run your football organization.

1:04:17Robert Mays: The argument about the Jim Harbaugh's of the world, the Harbaugh's of the world period, is that this will create a certain floor for the organization. But if that's the argument and the floor falls out of it, which is entirely possible. We saw it happen with Pete Carroll a year ago. Why is that the argument? Like, why are you trying to establish a certain floor when we now have plenty of evidence that that floor is not a guarantee? And I don't even understand that being the argument. Like, to me, it's more about if I have a coach on one side of the ball, like the Niners floor is established by what Kyle Shanahan can build out of the offense.

1:05:03Robert Mays: Like, I don't think floor is established by. And this may be true, but do we really think the floor is established by some nebulous understanding of like physicality and culture? like I think it kind of is but we don't have that many that I don't want to be flipping and dismissive of that as an idea like football is built on those ideas like I I embrace that like I understand that you need to have guys that buy into that this is not an X's and O's chalkboard game but we don't have enough evidence that the X's and O's guys are any worse at creating physical talent, physical like bought in football teams than some of these guys who walk in the door where that's the thing they're billed to be.

1:05:49And so if we're not getting that in abundance from those guys compared to the X's and O's

1:05:55Robert Mays: coaches, why are we still doing this? I mean, what is the argument for these guys? It's one of those things where like it's necessary, but not sufficient in 2026, man. That's where I'm at. And that's just what it is. it's necessary but the other guys are no less capable of giving you that necessary physicality like it's not exactly there's so many examples of this recently like ben johnson's a fucking hard ass like think about what think about what the evidence we have of the way that mike mcdonald was able to get these guys to play like the guys that are playing like this that have edge are just as often coming from like the supposedly nebbish nerd coaches as they are from these guys Guys who are like these supposed to be big football dudes.

1:06:43Like I just. You look at. It's harder and harder for me to justify. I mean he had it in his building. He had it in his building with Jesse Minter. Like you listen to Jesse Minter talk. And like you said. He comes across like every offensive coordinator that gets teased. For being one of the you know the buddies of the pencil pushers. And then you watch his defenses play in Los Angeles. And it's like they will put six or seven DBs on the field. And they are still denting people's face masks. When they try to run at them. So it is not we can't treat it like it's a zero sum proposition or it's a one or the other thing.

1:07:15And I'd like to believe knowing Mike McDaniel's history with Kyle Shanahan and his his commitment to trying to run the football, not only in the smartest way, but in a way that gets his big people on your little people in a way that's going to hurt your little people. I would like to believe that he has not lost the ability to do that or his understanding of how to mix that in with, hey, sometimes we just got to be downhill and just punch a team in the mouth. Right. I don't think that that's lost on any of the people in the building, but it does come back to what you said. Like as Jim Harbaugh, if you're going to be the CEO type, then you have to come out of each one of these weeks with a new directive of what it's going to mean for your offense to look like the most physical team, to look like you have an edge, to look like you can keep your quarterback upright.

1:08:01We have not seen that once this season, right? And certainly, and if we've seen it, it hasn't been for more than like a four or five play sequence, right? You get these great opening scripts where you can tell people have poured over the film to put together the best way to get you down the field as quickly as possible. And then as the flow of the game goes along, you're sitting here looking like this could not possibly have been the best ideas that the combination of Jim Harbaugh and Mike McDaniel could have left a week's worth of practice with. Like, this just can't be the case. And if that's how I feel after a month consistently of watching this team, who else's feet does it land on but the head coaches?

1:08:39And then I think that we have to extend that conversation maybe to Joe Ortiz as a GM, right? And all the promises made of what the offensive line situation would be and how it was going to express itself out on the field and what it was going to do for Justin Herbert. He did not forget how to be a good quarterback who can make every throw. You can watch the second half of their loss to the Seahawks and see that he did not lose his ability to throw some absolute piss missiles when he needs to. It's just clearly there's some sort of breakdown in philosophy and execution and approach on a week-to-week basis that I don't—maybe I just did not appreciate enough and I was going up and watching them at training camp and minicamp because it didn't seem like this team was very far away in the way that they are when they're on the field now.

1:09:22Robert Mays: I don't think they thought they were very far away. I think this has probably been shocking to a lot of people in the building, even as shocking as it's been to people out of the building. The last thing I'll say about the coach archetype thing is that I do have like a half joking working theory that you should just hire jacked nerds. McVay, McDonald, Ben Johnson. It's like, is my play caller like very smart and very good? Yes. Is he also jacked? Yes. Like, that's it. Like those, they just hire jacked nerds to be your play callers. It's not a perfect theory, right? Liam Cohen isn't yoked. Kyle Shanahan, I don't think, spends an hour in lifting weights every single day.

1:09:59Robert Mays: But there are enough of them now, and it's started to build, where I have a working theory that's coming along. I like this. I like this. I like using Jack as like, I'm trying to glean just enough of your personality by your insane dedication to your physical physique, knowing that you don't need it to be good at your job. I think that that says a lot about who you are as a human being. I think it's a discipline thing, too. right? I think it says something about the discipline necessary to like have to work out that way and fit it into your schedule on top of everything else. I'm only half kidding about this.

1:10:34Robert Mays: Like I actually do think that there is something here. We joked about Brian Fleury early in the year when I said he looked like a defensive line coach. And to me, it does not surprise me that Seattle looks really good on offense. When I look at a guy at a podium that looks like that, that looks like somebody who is about two things looking great and smashing your face in the run game okay everything else seems very optional in his life all right so among the most disappointing things about the league this season and just in terms of compared to preseason expectations the chargers offense and the chargers period are probably number one i think you can make an argument that the texans defense after the way that last week went is probably also in that discussion they weren't as bad they haven't been as bad all year as they were against the cowboys i just want to be very clear about that like the down-to-down numbers are still pretty good but those issues are still surprising and that is one of the things that you wanted to dig into Yeah, absolutely.

1:11:22I mean, you watch the tape and it's like, they did not change who they are personality-wise. They're not, and it's not like Philadelphia at the top of this conversation where we're talking about, hey, if you're an Eagles fan, you're trying to tell yourself that certain things will regress defensively and you'll get more pressure on the quarterback and certain things will start to happen for you. You'll still be able to play these light boxes and stop the run. You watch Houston's front four and they still look like the goddamn Monstars. Daniel Hunter and Will Anderson are still unblockable. I would say the Will Anderson is probably playing the best football of his life over the first month of the season.

1:11:54He is an absolutely unbeatable freak of nature type again this year. And you're just watching what's happening on the back end and it's literally every problem that it seems like they're having right now typified all the ways that they were better than the rest of the league in coverage because they never made these mistakes. They used to never have these communication breakdowns where one guy's running across her and a safety doesn't pick him up, right? And now CeeDee Lamb gets an easy 30-yard completion over the middle of the field. They never had these issues in stacks and bunches where, hey, guys can just run out free access into the flat and go get you nine yards on first and 10.

1:12:31That's not how you would beat the Texans' defense. It used to have to be a whole lot more of an effort to try to find these open windows in the passing game. And obviously, I think Sunday, like you said, it was probably the worst that they've looked all year. Maybe not having Aziz Alshair had a little bit of an influence on that. I'm open to the idea that it was. I think that there's a lot of credit you can give to Brian Schottenheimer and that offensive staff for putting together a game plan that really muted the impact that Derek Stingley could have on the game while also attacking all the other ways in which that defense can be vulnerable on the back end.

1:13:06I thought they did an excellent job of being committed to attacking the guys they needed to attack and avoiding the guys they needed to avoid. But these are just, it's simple stuff. It's Kamari Lasseter not being a liability. It's read Blankenship not being a liability in coverage. Maybe that's where you need to start. And it's unsatisfying. I think if you're a fan, just hearing that guys got to play harder, guys got to play better, right? It is unsatisfying, but they don't have to change their coverage shells. They don't have to change their approach. I don't think they've just got to be in better tune with one another.

1:13:34And some of those second half breakdowns with pass interference calls and losing those 50 50 opportunities. I feel like there is something to get turned around. That's not going to take a lot of effort. It has just been a shock to me to watch a defense that I herald as one of the most disciplined, one of the smartest, while also being able to play a relatively simple football game, not being able to do so knowing how good the players are across their defensive roster.

1:14:00Robert Mays: News just came across while we were recording. D 'Amico Ryan said that he's taking back play calling duties for the defense, which that's just not the type of thing. You expect that type of thing from units that maybe you thought might flounder early in the season. Right. Right? Like that's the desperation coaching staff playbook is that, well, it's not working, so we're going to change the play caller. That happens all the time. I didn't expect the Texans defense a month into the season to be one of the units that was playing those hits, and that's where we are right now. And I think it's necessary, right?

1:14:35Like, I'm actually not mad at it if I'm Tameko Ryans. You need something to change.

1:14:40Robert Mays: Like, even if it's not, Matt Burke did a great job last year. If it's not all Matt Burke's fault, at this point, you're 0-4. Your season's on life support. Something probably has to happen. If I'm Tameko Ryans, if we fail this year, it's not going to be because CJ Stroud's lights out and my defense couldn't get a goddamn stop in the second half. it can't we can't go out like that right so I 100 appreciate and respect the idea that like we are going if we're going to go down on our sword we're going to go down with the thing that got me this job in the first place and that was me calling excellent defenses in San Francisco so I can respect that and I wouldn't be surprised and it may be it's going to be one of those causation versus correlation things I would not be surprised at all if over the next month of the season we see things start to tighten up a little bit on the back end just knowing his detail and coverage his detail in the approaches to structuring their coverages to having answers to different formations knowing what offenses want to do to you and being able to take away your opponent's best player those are all the things even when he didn't have the best players on the back end in san francisco they were able to achieve year over year i wouldn't be shocked at all if they're able to get back to that over the next month to two months of the season the last surprising thing that we wanted to talk about is something that was the only one that both of us had on our lists.

1:15:52Robert Mays: And it's the Atlanta Falcons, the Atlanta Falcons. I think, and I made it as broad as possible because I think on both sides of the ball, this, this is worth bringing up like what the offense has looked like over the last two weeks since Penix got back. And, but we hit this on our Monday night recap, and I'll be curious your thoughts about it. I'm just so impressed by what the defense looks like, but the amount of guys that aren't playing for this team, both guys we knew about coming into the year, but even in season injuries, we didn't even mention this in real time when we were doing the Monday recap.

1:16:24Robert Mays: So Darius Smith played like two snaps. He played like two snaps in that game. So one of their like de facto starters on the defensive line, just out for the game. And it didn't matter. The defensive line still controlled this entire thing. And so for the defense to look as good as it has. And the other guy we didn't mention on that show that I think is worth mentioning in terms of why they're, how they're playing. And the way the defensive front is playing. Nate Ali is their defensive line coach. He is of this system. He was the Colts defensive line coach for a bit. He was in Houston before he came to the Falcons and the Falcons, even if their system is a little bit more blended because of the personnel that they've had over the last couple of years, the defensive front specifically is still rooted in four down attack, Jim Schwartz, Jim Washburn type stuff.

1:17:08Robert Mays: and so he comes from that world they're playing that way and so just really everything about the way the Falcons have looked over the last couple weeks and how just staggeringly good and above their maybe expectation both the offense and defense are playing they're absolutely to me one of the surprises of the season even if it's only been a two-week sample that we've really understood how good they are I mean the defense really is where I think we should start because they are somehow second in the league behind the Vikings in quarterback hits. You could not have told me under any circumstances.

1:17:41They could have ran cover zero every snap, and I would not have believed that they would get through the first month of the season being second in quarterback hits. As long as you're just watching, it's like their guys just play with their hair on fire, man. Like, they can run some decent stunts. I think they did, especially, I would say, against Green Bay on Thursday night, you know, a couple of weeks ago. I thought they did a really good job of trying to show pressure in certain spots, really trying to manipulate protection. So there's definitely some thought going in there with Jeff Olbergen being able to kind of set up guys to be able to get easy one-on-one opportunities where they can go attack.

1:18:13But a lot of this is just Brandon Dorlis just being a great hand fighter. You know, a lot of it is just their edge rushers are constantly crushing pockets, moving towards the quarterback, getting the hell off the ball and affecting plays that way. And I think we saw this last year a little bit on the back end, and it's really where things tie together. They were able to get a lot of their rookies last year in terms of forcing turnovers, taking away passing windows, and they play aggressively. This is not, hey, we're just going to play a bunch of quarter quarter halves and our safeties are just getting the hell out of there and we just never want to get beat over the top.

1:18:46They're sitting on routes when they can, right? They're driving on passing windows when they can and trying to go get their hands on the football. It's probably, I think, outside of some of the other things we've talked about so far today. over the last two weeks, I would say that their defense has been one of the stories of this season in terms of getting the most out of what we expected to not be very much. On the other side of the ball, it just feels like Michael Pinnock's being back gives him an opportunity to do something that I think Kevin Stefanski has always done well. And maybe we just didn't, he just didn't have the talent to be able to maximize it.

1:19:18Knowing stylistically what you need out of your passing game to maximize your quarterback skill set there are times where I watch Atlanta and I'm like who did this guy work for again because I feel like I'm watching the air choreo right like you've got a bunch of routes that are 18 to 25 yards deep breaking across the middle of the field Michael Penix has got max protection and he's just ripping the ball and it's it's impressive to me that Stefanski and Tommy Reese were able to step in really not knowing what version of Michael Penix they were even going to get because of how banged up he was all offseason but clearly having enough presence of mind to say his skill set is X and we can get into these certain things in our playbook with Drake London, with their use of tight ends to be able to get him clean pockets and give him opportunities to aggressively attack down the field.

1:20:06And all of that is possible, not because of their play calling, but obviously don't want to leave out the effect that Bajon Robinson has on every defense and what you have to account for with him on a down to down basis.

1:20:18Robert Mays: What they've done up front with the run game. It's just such a cool example of how run game quality and even like offensive line and overall schematic quality can also be impacted by the back. Like they're the best example of this where I think that and it's it really kind of flies in the face of how we talked about running back value for a very long time. And to me, this is like the best example on the other side of it, where if the running back is often a product of the situation, the environment you place him into, it inherently limits the value of that player. But then when you watch the Falcons play, he makes the environment better.

1:21:00Robert Mays: yeah like it's like the way that his his ability to set things up the pace that he plays with like that combination blocks are more effective when bijon robinson is the running back because of the timing he plays with in order to set those things up then they might be for a back who can't play that way and so you want to give some credit to like oh well look what bill callahan and the offensive line and all those guys are doing and they're really giving him these opportunities and then you watch the plays unfold and it's like well yeah it's it's all well constructed but at the same time he's making everything else look better it's just and i know this this can happen with running backs it's not the first player that's ever felt this way but it's the most obvious example of it that i can possibly remember like i think that we've had backs that transcend the situation that you put them in and show the value because of that but i think most of the backs who you can credibly say that about are doing it at the end of place right it's the derrick henry's it's the saquon barkley's where what they're getting yeah jonathan taylor is a great example where what they're getting is if the play is blocked for six they're getting you 80 and that's where you feel the gap between those players and the rest of them bajan is not like that like it's I guess Le 'Veon Bell would probably be the best recent example of like backs we talk about this way we talk about this way but he's even better at it like what he's doing is an even like more refined uh just exaggerated example of that exact same idea and it's just watching it happen in real time it's kind of like it's it's head spinning but in a very cool way where it's like I'm trying to figure out how this is all happening and I know the hand he has in it but I still don't fully understand exactly how to feel about it or how to articulate it.

1:22:53Well, and it's what you said, right? It's the fact that we just don't often put running backs in that type of context, right? It's much easier to talk about quarterbacks in that way, right? Like you can watch Lamar Jackson and very clearly see he can turn bad protection into good protection with his legs. Josh Allen can do the same thing with his legs. We've definitely seen Patrick Mahomes do this often with his legs. When you watch Bajon Robinson, it's not necessarily that things are blocked up poorly, but all All of a sudden, just a fine outside zone play. You need to still get to a certain baseline level.

1:23:21But after that baseline level, he's the one that's accelerating everything. And, you know, Le 'Veon Bell, somebody you mentioned, you know, I don't think that their run game was really not explosive. It's probably hard for people to conceptualize this way because their run game wasn't often explosive enough on a consistent basis. But I thought about Marshawn Lynch with those later Seattle offensive lines of being able to, hey, he can jump cut, he can dead leg, he can push, you know, bring his weight one way to the other. He can change directions in these ways where he can actually get his guard that extra six, seven inches that they needed to torque out this block to be able to finish this play in a way that most running backs can't.

1:23:58I would say maybe like Bajon Robinson and Kenneth Walker are probably like the two guys right now, I would say, that are doing this on a level that just other running backs in the league aren't before plays break big, where they make things work, right? They make things work. The yards before contact are not an offensive line stat. They're a them stat. and in everything they're doing after contact is also them as well.

1:24:19Robert Mays: But even Walker is more of like a force of nature physicality thing than it is with Bajan, where he's reversing field after running into a wall and making guys miss. It's a miss tackles thing more than a – Kenneth Walker's lifting the environment, but he's lifting the environment in a way that I think we've seen more often before and makes more sense than what Bajan is doing. Like I think that if you look at the numbers of the Chiefs running game, Kenneth Walker is transcending what the situation he's being placed into. When you look at the actual physical examples on tape for the, for the Falcons, Bijan Robinson is doing that in slightly different ways, but he's also somebody that can be a home run hitter, right?

1:25:02Robert Mays: So he's doing the stuff that Marshawn Lynch was doing for the 2013 Seahawks and how he's lifting the quality of the offensive line, but he's also ripping off 60 yard touchdown runs in the way that he was two years ago. Like it's, it is. And honestly, maybe Jamal Charles is the best example. Like maybe Jamal Charles is actually the back we're trying to find here. As we think about like what the combination of the stuff we're talking about in terms of running back nuance with that explosive ability. Like maybe that's actually the guy that we should be throwing out there. But the fact that you're having to like clamor back a decade into NFL history in order to figure out a guy who's affecting the game in the way that Bajon Robinson has, I think speaks to how rare of a player we're talking about here and what he's doing right now is the rarest of the rare.

1:25:50Robert Mays: 100%. That is all we've got for today. Deontay, please tell the people where they can check out all of the wonderful stuff that you were doing these days. Working at the Ringer. So Ball Norris Notebook comes out every Tuesday morning. We're typically looking at the All-22. I try to cover everything. This past week we did a lot of defensive stuff, but I'll cover the pass game. I'll cover stuff in the run game. If you're a sicko and you want to see why something is or isn't working for your favorite team or for your team's rival, I can promise you we'll cover that. And we're doing power rankings, right?

1:26:19We've kind of changed the face of it. So every four weeks we'll do it. So it's a little more quarterly now than the other publications. You do it weekly. But that means more in-depth looks at what has happened during the season and then trying to spin things forward. I mean, you can always find me yelling about either the Dodgers, the Eagles, or something else happening in sports on Twitter at DeontayLeeFB.

1:26:39Robert Mays: All right. That is all we've got for today. We will be back tomorrow with the Week 5 preview. Until then, appreciate you guys listening. We'll talk to you very soon. Thanks for tuning in. Make sure to hit that subscribe or follow button so you never miss an episode. If you enjoyed what you heard, please like, comment, and leave a rating. We'll see you next time.

1:27:28Robert Mays: We'll see you next time. P-A-R-L-O-A dot com.

1:27:59Go.

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