Which NFL Team Has the Best WEAK LINK?

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2:08Robert Mays: Welcome to The Athletic Football Show. I'm Robert Mays. Another mailbag Monday for you guys. Derek is off today, but me and Dave answered all of the questions that Beller served up for us. A lot of really good ones on this show. Somebody reached out to me this week. somebody in the football analysis space uh just like via dm on social media and was just commenting on how cool it is that we get to populate these shows which such which with such thoughtful questions from our listeners and we get to kind of take it in directions we might not otherwise and my response to that was just yes like i i 100 agree with this i get that's why we continue to do these shows it's why i have such a fun time doing them and so i know i say that a lot just kind of commenting on how much I appreciate all of the thought that you guys put into these questions and how enjoyable these shows are.

2:58Robert Mays: But all other people are also noticing. So thank you again for everyone who spent the time to send them in. Got a lot of good ones today. Let's get to this conversation right now.

3:17Robert Mays: it's another mailbag Monday here on the athletic football show a lot of good questions to dig into before we do a couple things I wanted to hit off the top I forgot to do this last week and I'm very sorry if I missed the occasion but Levi asked us to give a birthday shout out or say happy birthday to his friend KH on his 23rd birthday. Very happy to do that. If you want us to pass messages along to your loved ones or friends on the show, on Mailbags, we will. I'm not above that. We are available via email. So KH, hope you had a fantastic birthday. Love to hear that you're a fan of the show. And so I hope you guys had a great week and kudos to Levi for taking the initiative to send that in.

4:02Robert Mays: The other person I wanted to mention, Ruben Clay, who has sent in a very good question about injuries along NFL teams, just what training staffs can be doing a little bit better, you know, how much of injuries are random, all of that. It's a very good question. It's something that I would just need more time and research in order to properly answer. And so we are not ignoring it. I actually think it's too good of a question for us to properly address on a mailbag. I would say once a week we get a question where I'm just like, this is so good, but I need like a month or two to talk to people and actually research it and have a better take.

4:40And I mean, that's a testament to how good the questions are on these shows.

4:43Robert Mays: For the most part, those, if we do decide that we want to do them in a somewhat more engaged fashion, those are gonna be next off-season type things. But we have a running list of all that stuff. And so if you have a question like that, that we really like, it's not that we're ignoring it. there are oftentimes where we just want to hit it in a slightly different capacity. All right, Beller, let's get to the actual questions. Why don't you kick us off? All right, here we go. Kaliang, Seattle. This is from Discord, says, in honor of the World Cup, there's a concept that soccer is fundamentally a weakling sport because a single mistake by your worst player is incredibly damaging.

5:18This is on Friday. I think if we all, not that he's the worst player, but we saw it in South Korea, Mexico on Thursday night. One big mistake by one player, incredibly damaging. So in that spirit, you guys, which teams in the NFL have the best worst player in the starting 22? Robert, take this one first.

5:37Robert Mays: I had like four or five different options. I didn't go through every single depth chart. These are just the first few that came to mind. I think Seattle was the first team I checked. Like who's the worst starter on the Seahawks just because we've conceived of them as this like really deep, complete team. I think they're in the conversation. I think Anthony Bradford's probably the worst starter among the 22 for the Seahawks right now. I think he's worse than other teams' worst starters. The Rams are probably a good answer to this as well. Like, is it Coleman Shelton or Omar Spates now that they traded for the corners?

6:11Robert Mays: Probably. I think both of those guys at their position are better than Anthony Bradford is. So the Rams, I think, are probably a better answer than Seattle. The Broncos are a really good one. Like, who is it for the Broncos? maybe like Justin Stranod. So I looked, I did the exact same thing as you, and I wound up looking across the league and settling on a lot of guards, a lot of linebackers, maybe some safeties as well. All the teams you listed are teams that I landed on. It's tricky though, because that language, it's best worst player, which to me suggests that he's still a really good player, right?

6:49Because I'm thinking about it in soccer terms, like France played the other day. like the worst player on France is still a starter for like this amazing club team, you know, like the worst player on France plays for like Bayern Munich or Barcelona or whatever in the NFL. It's, it's designed to not be that way. Like even the best teams probably have a starter where you're like, ah, we'd love to replace that guy if we could. So yeah, like 22 guys, it's an incredible number. I mean, it's really, really hard to have 22 guys that, And all of them are guys that you're satisfied with. Like that's, it's not realistic.

7:27So yeah, I, Anthony Bradford is a good one. I said spates the Denver linebackers are ones that I landed on. And then another one I looked at was probably Philadelphia. And like I said, guards and, and like safeties and linebackers, not linebackers for Philly, but looking at the Eagles, Tyler Steen, and then really probably both of the safeties, like Marcus Epps and Andrew Makuba. you look at that and you're like, all right, like it's not terrible, but we, I'm sure Philly would love to, or would hope for more from those guys this year. So I wasn't surprised when I looked through it and I was like, oh yeah, these are, these are a lot of the positions where we debate the value of it.

8:08You know what I mean? Where like, can you get away with spending less of these positions? I don't think. Yeah. I don't think it's a coincidence that a lot of the answers to this question play those sorts of positions.

8:19Robert Mays: The other team I would throw out, I think Houston is in this conversation as well, especially if Rutledge plays center. I mean, who's the worst starter on the Texans if their offensive line left to right is Ursary, Teller, Rutledge, Ingram, Braden Smith? It's probably like Henry To 'o To 'o. Now that they have like a second safety that you feel pretty good about.

8:46I mean, I see where you're coming from, but so much of the stuff on the offensive line is projection. I mean, it sounds good, but how good is it actually? But yeah, Henry Toa Toa, Tommy Togiai probably, if he's like penciled in. Tommy Togiai was really good last year though. I mean, that's kind of my testament to how good, yeah, that's how good their defense is.

9:06Robert Mays: Yeah. And this is a different conversation than who has the best roster because obviously stars don't matter in this exercise. And so like for the Texans offensive line, I still think the ceiling for the Texans offensive line is very limited, but I think the floor with a lot of those players is pretty decent outside of like injury. So if we're assuming health, I think the Texans are another competitor for this. I would probably, if I had to pick one, I'd probably go with the Rams, the Broncos. Now that the Rams have figured out those two cornerback spots. Those are probably the two teams that I would go with.

9:42I agree because criticize them all you want. I think like the linebackers in Denver are solid players, if not great players. And same thing with Spates. And obviously, I mean, Landman was great for the Rams last year. So, yeah, like if you're looking for the best weak link, I think those two teams would probably be my final answer. All right, let's get to the next one here. This one's all Dave. Meet Joe Kicker and John Punter. These men were made in a lab to kick footballs. Joe Kicker is capable of making 80-yard field goals with decent accuracy. He says about 80%. Even better than decent. John Punter can coffin corner the opponent inside the 10 from anywhere on the field, even from within his own end zone.

10:25Are either of these players worth drafting first overall? How much would their second contracts be worth? Dave, all you, man. It won't surprise you to hear this, dear listener, that Robert didn't want to do this. And he said because he couldn't come up with an answer for the question. Or was it just because it's special teams?

10:41Robert Mays: It is not because it's special team. It's because I think it's really hard to conceive of what the value of a player like this would be without doing like a very real amount of research. And again, we were prepping for these in like a day. I don't have time to figure out truly like what the contract value would be worth about a hypothetical player that could make 80 yard field goals at this rate. It is an absolutely insane question. And that's why I think we have a duty to try to answer it, even though it's impossible. Like it's, I was trying to put a value on what this punter would be worth. Like the ability to, no matter where you are, pin your opponent inside their 10 yard line every single time, like that is so tremendously valuable, but I don't even know where to start in terms of quantifying it.

11:29But I was curious about what a kicker like that could do for a team. So I just out of pure curiosity, I just went I pulled up the exact middle offense in DVOA last year. The Pittsburgh Steelers finished 16th in offensive DVOA dead middle of the road. Not terrible, not good. And I just went through their season. I was like, OK, how many times would a kicker who can hit from 80 have benefited the Pittsburgh Steelers last year? Like how many times did they punt from a range where they could have conceivably kicked a field goal if they had a guy who could drill from 80. And I wound up charting 38 extra field goal opportunities.

12:13If you really had Joe kicker on your team. And so if you calculate that for 80 % accuracy, that is 30 more field goals on the year, which, you know, I'm not, I'm a journalist. I'm not good at math, but that's 91 extra points. The Pittsburgh Steelers would have jumped with Joe kicker on their team from 15th in scoring offense to third in the NFL last year. If they had just let Joe kicker do his thing every time they stalled out within 80 yards. So I think that's tremendously valuable. I don't. Is it worth drafting first overall? It's hard to say, but I think that's probably worth a first round pick.

12:56like if you're the other thing too is I think you gotta because kicking is so volatile and kickers can just lose it with no warning I think in this exercise I gotta be able to count on this guy to do this for five to ten years but like yeah if a kicker could add that much extra value to your team for like six to ten years that's got to be worth a first round pick yeah I think that's worth

13:20Robert Mays: the first first round pick and the punting I'm trying to figure I think where you'd start with the punting is if you did like let's look at drives starting inside the 10 for opposing teams what are the success rates and the points per drive on those drives compared to what you would get in a normal down and distance situation or normal field position situation if you stack that up over an entire season what is that sort of thing worth again you I think you could get somewhere close to an answer I think it would take a little bit of time and research to figure out exactly what that answer looked like but yeah my my instinct is that yes both of those players would probably be worth first round picks I don't know what the second contracts would look like just because that's the other thing we have absolutely no conception of what that type of contract for a specialist would look like and where it would stack up to other positions all of that stuff it's impossible to answer Aubrey just reset the market and the word on the street was he was gunning for like 10 million a year and he i'm i'm being facetious he can only hit from like 65 so what's what's 15 extra yards of ability worth to you like i think it would be a pretty damn big deal if that were actually possible my galaxy brain take on this my like let's come back around on a take is that this type of kicker would be bad for certain types of head coaches in their decision making well for sure it would be i would hate watching this team it would i mean can you imagine if all you needed was a first down to be in field goal range just what that would do for decision making and yeah like how it would enable the worst instincts of conservative coaches no thank you do you think we've gotten to a place or we're getting to a place where there are fewer and fewer coaches where their situational decision making when it comes to like aggressiveness fourth downs are we trying to actually score points are making me lose my mind like I think the best example this year where somebody clearly was in his ear and now we've thankfully moved a little bit further past us than we should was Todd Bowles.

15:17Robert Mays: Like as soon as Todd Bowles was making some of the decisions he was making this year, I think we're doing a better job league wide of making sure that these things are optimized. But I think this type of kicker and punter potentially plays into a coach's worst instincts more often than it should. All right, let's get to our next one here, Beller. Okay. Anthony Mangaluzzo says, We often talk about how, year to year, defenses go through natural volatility. My question is, can one or two players whom the scheme is built around make or break a defense? One game example I can think of is when the Giants beat the Eagles last season.

15:54They had Jalen Carter inactive. Quinion Mitchell missed more than half the game. And the defense looked like a shell of itself. Robert, what do you got here?

16:01Robert Mays: It's an interesting question. I don't think I've ever really thought of it from this perspective. Like the reason that defense is a little bit more volatile is that it can be star player driven, maybe a little bit more than offense is. Derek has said that a couple of times this offseason. We've been talking about how defense can really be built around a couple specific star players. And like that's maybe why coaching goes a little bit, doesn't go quite as far defensively as it might go offensively because the quality of your talent matters more. I still think, again, this is just my hunch about why defense is a little bit more volatile, is that the end result plays on defense that can really have huge fluctuations.

16:41Robert Mays: We're going to talk about this a little bit later with a couple of the stats. Turnovers and sacks are so, so, so important in determining defensive statistics, advanced defensive metrics, overall defensive quality as gauged by those sorts of things. And those things are inherently volatile. like turnovers are just going to ping pong season to season that's inevitably the bears had 33 takeaways last year the bears were a bad defense like that that's there those things are not always completely lined up with one another sacks are also something where we know we talk about this you can have a season the abdul carter year from last year is a great example you can have a season where you have a ton of pressures and for whatever reason your sack production just isn't in line with your overall impact on the game.

17:26Robert Mays: And even if that doesn't necessarily speak to your quality as an individual player, that's obviously going to go a long way in hurting the overall quality of your defense. And then the last part of this that I think is really important, PFF did a study about this. Oh, man, it might be going on like 10 years now. We're all getting old as shit. But they talked about how determining defensive quality and even team quality as we get into the playoffs was often a product of coverage quality. Like how good was your team in coverage that year? And part and a lot of the downstream kind of conversations from that were it's hard to find a lot of team building lessons from that because coverage is volatile from season to season for individual players.

18:08Robert Mays: so because defensive quality is often driven by the quality of your coverage if that's going to ping pong from season to season just based on the nature of the position it's going to lead to an inherent volatility that goes beyond whether or not one or two players is in the lineup so i think it's an interesting framing but i still think that there are three four five other elements that to me probably lend more to the volatility of defense yeah i don't think that's the fun thing about football is you can't it's it's all so interconnected I don't think you can isolate any one thing and completely uh assign cause or or blame or reason to all of these different factors that affect so much but this question really the first thing it made me think of was our wonderful friend Bill Barnwell who had that stat last summer during the Micah Parsons saga where he pulled it out.

19:04And I think he, yeah, he said, he said this before Micah got traded to green Bay, but it was like when all of that was going down, he said, this is direct from bill over the last four years, the Cowboys are the league's best defense with Micah Parsons on the field by EPA per play. And then across a 1039 play sample, the league's second worst defense over the same stretch by EPA per play when Micah Parsons isn't on the field. So the answer is, yeah, there are players who can make or break your defense. Like if you have that sort of guy, I mean, Micah Parsons lessens the pressure on your secondary and your coverage to be right because of what he can do.

19:46And he makes life easier on the rest of your pass rush. Obviously, it's not just Micah. There's a dozen other guys who are capable of tilting the field that way. But yeah, those types of players can drastically influence things. And if you have them in your lineup, I think it gives you a little bit better shot of surviving some of that volatility and being consistent. I mean, we had a question a while back about, you know, defenses being consistently great year over year. And we talked about like, well, the Seahawks defenses bucked that trend. And there were a couple other ones. And the through line for all of those defenses was generational Hall of Fame caliber players consistently playing in those defenses.

20:30And, yeah, I think that matters. I think there are two different questions that we're asking here.

20:34Robert Mays: Like, is the is can one player that's not a quarterback have can removing that one player have a more pronounced impact on a defense than it would for an offense? I think the answer for that is probably yes. Like in the exact way that you're talking about with my persons. but I think the volatility question goes beyond that. Like, I think there are other more pronounced reasons why like outside of injury, why defenses are volatile in a way that offenses might not be. And so I got, I think it's like two different conversations that we're having, but it's, it's a good way of thinking about it. I've never really thought about that being the reason that defenses are more volatile or are more volatile.

21:12Robert Mays: My hunch is that that's not really the reason, even if what you're talking about, a defense feels very different. If you remove a player like that, before we move on we are deep into the group stage of the world cup and the athletics podcast network has something for everyone you can wake up with the totally football show from la dive deep into the biggest talking points of the day with the athletic fc podcast and watch the tifo podcast fool around on their daily live streams in the afternoon all of our shows are free to watch or listen to on your favorite podcast platform all right before we move on let's take our first quick break.

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25:06Okay, next one, simple and straightforward from Alex Barclay. Alex asks, what are the best three-year player peaks you've seen in your lifetime? As an example, 1998 to 2000, Randy Moss. Dave, what do you got here? Bet my life Robert's going to talk about J.J. Watt in the early 2010s. So I'm just going to leave. I'm going to leave that to him. That's his specialty. I mean, that is absolutely worth mentioning. I tried to focus because Alex asked us that we've seen in our lifetime. So I tried to focus on guys that I actually had a pretty up close and personal view of whether I covered them or whether I just had a chance to watch them play on a fairly regular basis.

25:52So, I mean, I have quite a few, but really for me, and I've talked about this on the show before it starts for me with Aaron Rogers and you have. Which three year period did you pick?

26:04Robert Mays: That's that's the, that's the, that's the, that's the really important question here. you have a couple to choose from and here's the again this is purely subjective to me so like you can bring all the stats that you want the stretch where he won back-to-back mvps what was that like 20 29 2018 to 2020 i think no come on that can't be it no no no no no it's not it's not that's what i was gonna say that statistically you could argue is much better but for me it's 2014 to 2016 team. And that's the stretch where, uh, you know, three pro bowls. He was first team all pro. He won his second MVP after 2011, 109 touchdowns to 20 interceptions.

26:46I mean, the statistics are obviously amazing, but the reason I say this is I just really felt like that is where the, like the myth of Aaron Rogers really crystallized into this boogeyman sort of player where I'm cheating a little bit, but you know, he beats the bears at the end of the 2013 season. And then from there, he was just like, he was always pulling those plays out of his hat. Like 2014 to 2016 is when he, he did the Jeff Janis hail Mary in the playoffs. 2016 was when he had the Jared cook throw to beat Dallas in the divisional round happened right in front of me. Still can't believe that that happened.

27:29All of his Hail Marys as a Packer happened during this 2014 to 2016 period. It just felt like that's really when I developed this sense of like, if Rogers is on the field, they got a chance. And that's not completely statistically backed up, but that's just, that's how I felt watching him in that timeframe.

27:53Robert Mays: It's a really good way of thinking about it. And I actually do think that's correct. Like the Hail Mary is obviously loom very large in our minds about the magic that he could bring. But the Jared Cook throw, in my opinion, still stands above the rest of them when it just comes to like what just happened. I mean, I remember where I was when I watched that. I remember I was in New York, like at a bar watching that game. It's like that's how much that moment is just crystallized in my mind. So I think that three year stretch is a good one. I still think in terms of like how dangerous he felt and just this supernova of talent, this is fudging it a little bit.

28:32Robert Mays: But I think if you did the back half of the 2010 season into the 2010 playoffs, and then you that went into 2011 and 2012, that also has an argument like that. What he was during that playoff run was insane. he averaged 0.28 EPA per drop back during the 2010 playoffs. He finished 90 of 132 for one for 1100 yards. He had nine touchdowns during that playoff run. And then he goes from that into the 15 and one 2011 season where he wins the MVP. And so that, that to me feels like, again, even if I think you're right, the myth making might've been a little bit more pronounced in like 2014, 2015, 2016, that three year run when he like announces himself as this just again, and otherworldly physical talent, that one, I think, has at least an argument.

29:22This is highly colored by the fact that I covered the Cowboys during this time period, and Rodgers just snuffed out two amazing Cowboys seasons. And having a front row view to that will color your perception.

29:38Robert Mays: So the Rodgers run there I had. This is another one where it's kind of cheating a little bit, but three seasons in a row where he played, Brady's 07-09-2010. 08, obviously you lose because of the injury, but like three full Brady seasons. 07, we obviously know what that is. He was incredibly good in 2009, and then he wins the MVP again in 2010. And then obviously 2011 was also insane, but if we're eliminating to three seasons, that Brady run probably sticks out to me. I'm sure you could have three or four more other Brady runs. My answer to this, a couple others just honorable mentions. The three-year run Miles Garrett just had, Yeah.

30:17Robert Mays: That one, two defensive player of the years in that broke the sack record. Justin Jefferson's first three seasons were insane. 1 ,400, 1 ,600, 1 ,800 yards in his first three seasons in the NFL. So his first three seasons, not just any three seasons. Aaron Donald from 2017 to 2019. He led the NFL in pressures for any player in 2017 and 2018. I appreciate that you picked a range for Donald because I just said, pick whatever three-year stretch you want like it doesn't really matter three-year run he wins defensive player of the year twice during that three-year run he had in 2018 he had 20 and a half sacks and 25 tfls as a defensive tackle it's just an insane season so that that's probably the three-year run for donald that i would pick my answer to this question and i think the answer to this question is what jj watt did between 2012 and 2014 yeah and in between 2012 and 2014 That's the exact range I chose as well.

31:16Yeah.

31:17Robert Mays: I mean, that was where he had, obviously, you know, his 2015 season, he had 17 and a half sacks. He had 29 TFLs. His 2011 season, he was a rookie. It's almost like the Rodgers year. You felt what come on during that playoffs. He had the pick six against the Bengals that year, and he kind of rode that into the 2012 season. But that 2012 through 2014 season, he had two 20-sack seasons in that range. Two. Pretty good. during that same stretch in 2012 j.j. watt's stat line in 2012 i don't have the pressures in front of me i'm sure they're insane he had 20 and a half sacks he had 39 tfls in 2012 39 he had 16 passes defensed in 2012 and you can make an argument and i obviously the voters did that his 2014 season was better he was second in MVP voting that year I was just extolling the virtues of Aaron Rodgers but like I and I did not have a vote at the time but I would have been willing to vote for JJ Watt over Aaron Rodgers in 2014 he was incredible he was a one-man wrecking crew the year where I legitimately think he I think he should have been the MVP of the league was 2012.

32:35Robert Mays: That was the year when Adrian Peterson won it. I think you can make a really serious argument that year that JJ watch should have been the MVP of the NFL. And that was the, he had two seasons in this three-year period that were almost as good. And again, I think people would say 2014 might've been even better. So that that's my answer. I had one more honorable mention I wanted to throw out and it's, it's, I spend too much time on Twitter, obviously, but I feel like we're already, we're already getting to an age where something that happened in 2014 is distant enough that people are downplaying it.

33:09And I know he dealt with injuries and I know that he was in the media to an annoying degree, but we do not have to minimize Odell Beckham jr's first three years in the NFL. Cause they were on fricking real offensive rookie of the year, pro bowls all three years, two time all pro. I believe he's still even with all the receivers that have come through the NFL in this time stretch. He's the only player in NFL history with 90 catches and 1300 yards in each of his first three seasons. I mean, doing that three years in a row right out of the gate is nuts. And yeah, I mean, injuries and a host of other things.

33:52you know he didn't maintain that momentum obviously but 2014 to 2016 odell beckham was

33:58Robert Mays: special i was mostly limited guys i watched when i was covering the league but obviously you can throw out i mean pick your three-year peyton manning stretch i mean it's probably 2003 to 2005 if you had to like pick a three-year manning's one of those guys I thought about him but like I said I was trying to keep it to guys that I really got to see up close and uh by the time I was covering the NFL Manning was in his last few years in Denver like I I didn't cover or see Indianapolis Manning but yeah take your pick of quite a few seasons that are worth mentioning if you're limiting it to two seasons the 2012-2013 Peyton Manning run in Denver is absolutely ridiculous and then the other one I would throw out just because if we're talking about all the quarterbacks pick your three-year breeze stretch yes absolutely that that would be the other guy that i would throw out there again this is not an exhaustive list these are like the first people that came to mind so if you're thinking what about this guy sure he was great too yeah yeah he had he had a great run it's one of my favorite parts about some of the uh response to the 25 and under draft and like guys we didn't mention there's i keep like just reciting 30 rock lines on the show but there's a stretch uh there's a line where tracy's talking about why he missed the birth of his kids and the the answers are making a french red pizza and forgot

35:29Robert Mays: that's such a good show when it's when you're trying to figure out why i didn't mention somebody the answer is forgot just just forgot to put him on the list it has nothing to say about that person i just forgot to put them on there you didn't do two weeks of exhaustive research for our mid-june fantasy draft robert come on it's it's it's like the human worry one is people were pissed about that the answer to that it's always this is one of those things where like never attribute to malice what you can attribute to incompetence uh this is a perfect example i thought i would pick kyle hamilton fourth so i didn't put nicky manwari on my list it has nothing to do with like the quality of the player like it's solely about the quality of my process i love nick him and worry somebody asked me that something similar about armand membu who i also love but i just i was trying to avoid one year players because of the volatility there and you know not having a huge body of work like if i have the choice between a guy that's played two or three years and a guy that's played one that's i'm gonna go toward the guy who i've seen do it more that's all But anyway, really enjoyed that show.

36:42Robert Mays: Well, we're going to do some drafts the rest of this offseason. You guys better believe it. We got more of them coming. I'm in a draft mode right now. All right, Bauer, what's our next one here? I'm always in a draft mode. I can't wait. Paul Wada's got the next question. Paul says, which are the five best single-season teams that didn't win the Super Bowl in the last 10 years? So we're going back to the 16 regular season, 17 playoffs as the start of this through last year. I can't remember who went first last time. Robert, take this one. I mean, if we're starting that season, you're just tempting me here.

37:13Robert Mays: But I'll start with the 2016 Falcons. Even if the defense wasn't good on that team, like the defense was there, that was truly a we're just getting by defense. It was extremely young. I mean, I would have to look it up, but they were spending no money on that defense that year. So overall team quality, maybe you can make an argument against them, but that offense is still one of my, the best offenses I've ever watched, one of my favorite offenses I've ever watched. Some other ones I'll run through. Last year's Rams, I think, are in that conversation. When you think about where they were compared to the rest of the league, like the Seahawks and the Rams were clearly the two best teams in the NFL last year.

37:47Robert Mays: 2024, I think the Ravens and the Lions have an argument from that season. Like the way that the 2024 Lions season ended because they were so banged up, I think we're going to forget what that team felt like at its best when they were healthier early in the year. That team was awesome. And obviously the wheels come off for a bunch of different reasons. And that 2024 Ravens team, that offense was phenomenal. I would also throw the 2023 Ravens in there simply because the defense was so good and you had the MVP of the league on the other side. And so that team is worth mentioning. The 2023 Niners were an incredible football team with that offense.

38:24Robert Mays: And obviously the Chiefs defense just hits a gear in those playoffs. Two more specific teams, 2021 Bills. Like the 13 seconds Bills team was really, really, really good. all the numbers back that up we need a trigger warning before we do this question beller like drop a trigger warning at the start of this thing i mean listen bill's fans at this point there's nothing that can hurt them anymore than they've already been hurt over the last 35 years 2019 niners i would throw in there i mean that that defense was absolutely insane that was top to bottom a really good team and then the last one i would throw out you pick your saints team between 2017 and 2020 yes which whatever one you want like i'm not the differences between them like it's all about it's rounding errors they were all pretty much the same quality of team and they were all so good the fact that none of those teams won the super bowl or even played in it is so wild like it's probably one of the stranger footnotes of my time covering the nfl over the last 15 years like those are the teams that i would feel the most compelled in exercises like this over the next 10 20 years to like remind the young people i i gotta tell you guys how good the 2018 saints were the 2018 saints were really really good i do think the answer has to be 2018 like 2020 you would have a better feel for it than i would like 2020 was was a good team but like breeze was was very obviously a declining player trying to get over the finish line at that point it's probably 2017 to 2019 those are probably those are probably that's probably the actual three-year stretch But I think the tiebreakers, 2018, I mean, you're in the dome.

40:03You're at home. I mean, that team was phenomenal. You had Mike T at the peak of his powers.

40:08Robert Mays: It's year two for all those rookies. The team feels a little bit more seasoned than it was the season before, the year before. I mean, you could make a compelling case for all of them, but I think the one that stings the most is 2018, and that's not even just because of the no call. It was just a phenomenal team. uh i think you named every single team that i was going to bring up except one nobody feels sorry for them at all but the 2018 chiefs were awesome yeah no that's a really good one i almost forget that just because when you win three after like it definitely it eases the sting but yeah that's a really good one to bring it's it's a footnote but i mean mahomes mvp highest scoring offense of the past decade.

40:55Mahomes had the Mahomes in that season had the fifth highest approximate value in NFL history. I mean, he was just unbelievable. Obviously, the defense was not great at that point in their build, but you had the Patriots dead to rights before D Ford lined up offsides. So, I mean, just knowing how close they were and how insane that offense was. I don't think Chiefs fans lose a lot of sleep about it, but that was a really good team.

41:20Robert Mays: I've been to so many crazy awesome games in part because the super bowls for the most part in the 15 years I've been going to the super bowl have been incredible I was at that game I was at the default offsides game and I almost forget about it like it's a it's so far down the list of like the most important playoff games that I've been to that it's almost like an afterthought but it's a hugely important moment in NFL history and like an incredibly memorable one it's also very cold that day I remember walking to the stadium and having a really bad time but yeah the 20 2018 chiefs absolutely worth mentioning all right let's take one more quick break and then come back and hit a few more of these what if fragrance could do more than fill a room the sense of calm collection from the pura calm partnership is designed to help you unwind recenter and find stillness right where you are explore three new fragrances each paired with calm's most love audio experiences try sleep story a lavender drift into deep rest or there's breathe Bubble, a mindful reset wrapped in white tea and cashmere.

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43:57Babylon Bill gives us the next question. Babylon asks, I wonder if the NFL community underplays the benefit of having a forecastable quarterback situation on a roster building. Look at the Panthers as a case study. Regardless of what you think of Bryce Young as a QB, They've been able to project QB salary across years and dedicate all of the remaining resources to the rest of the roster. We all know the types of resources the Browns have wasted on quarterback over the years. Yet briefly, they had a similar situation with Baker Mayfield, which promptly gave Browns fans the only hope they've had in seemingly forever.

44:25How do you quantify the value of one of these established QBs, the value that they save the roster when compared to the churn for a team like the Jets, who have yet to find that guy? Dave, what do you think here? I mean, I agree with the premise of the question. I've said it on the show several times this offseason. I like the Seahawks, the Seahawks doing what they did with Sam Darnold is it's so refreshing for me. And I think it's so refreshing for NFL discourse and, you know, people having an open mind about how you can build a championship contender. is that, I mean, Sam Darnold had a really nice season last year, but I don't think anybody's confusing him with one of the elites of the elites of the NFL hierarchy.

45:12And for so long, because of Brady and Manning and Breeze and Rodgers and up to Mahomes and Josh Allen and Lamar, it was like, you gotta have one of these four guys or else what are we even talking about? Why are we even doing this? And it's refreshing to see teams build contenders in other ways with quarterbacks who don't necessarily fit that archetype. I do. My only pushback on the question is like totally fair that, you know, just having a guy enables you to focus on other aspects of the roster. He's still got to be a baseline good player. I mean, you know, you brought up Bryce Young in the question.

45:58and rooting like hell for the guy. But we talk about him so much because like, yeah, you're, I mean, you're good enough to win a bad division with Bryce Young and you'll have some moments where, where he looks like the light bulb could be coming on, but we talk about it every week because it's such an uncertainty. It's such an, an important position. You still got to have that thing figured out. I mean, it's a moot point if you don't cross a certain threshold of ability. And so it is cool to see teams kind of start to figure this out and say, hey, just because we don't have a perennial all pro doesn't mean we can't win a Super Bowl.

46:36But you still got to cross that threshold. We still can't say for sure the Panthers have done that yet. But it is it's refreshing to see them be able to build around a guy with some sort of semblance of baseline ability.

46:50Robert Mays: yeah i the first the my first response to this question is i need to know so much more information about the panthers and browns fan situation in play at play here how why that's a that's that's my bad man i didn't want to it was it was a wordy question uh but bablin bill did start this off by telling us he is both a panthers and browns fan yes so i need to know more fortitude how how does this happen like is this a marriage situation is this like i so just i assume this came from discord beller it did so babble and bell please feel free to at me on the discord and explain to me the situation because i would love to know more about it my second response to this is i think in both both cases the brown situation and with baker mayfield in the panther situation for bryce young i'm not sure it's about quarterback contract certainty i think a good portion of it is you're not paying the quarterback anything over those first four years compared to what you would be.

47:51Robert Mays: I think the value of it is being on a rookie quarterback timeline. And that, obviously, we know the value of it. And so with the Browns specifically, I think one of the reasons that they traded Baker Mayfield is they had to pay Baker Mayfield soon. The Panthers are about to be in that situation. So those to me aren't the best examples because I think there's, yeah, you have four or five years of certainty, but it's more about the flexibility that comes with with Cubs with those four or five years as much as the certainty. When you start getting into veteran quarterback contracts that you're paying out over a multi-year period, then I think some of the considerations that Dave is mentioning are really important.

48:26Robert Mays: We've talked about this a lot over the years. Like, if you have a quarterback that's the 13th best quarterback in the league, but you're paying him like the third best quarterback in the league, that can be a bad thing even if you have certainty to come along with it. so I don't I don't think certainty is more important than flexibility or value in a situation like that the example of this that I think is actually kind of interesting where maybe you could make the argument that even if you're overpaying him a little bit the idea that you know you're going to have him for a long time is worth it is like Jared Goff like I think you could make an argument that Jared Goff relative to where he is in the quarterback pecking order is maybe a tiny bit overpaid even as somebody that likes Jared Goff like if you look at those cap hits over the next couple of years, but the lions know he's going to be on the roster.

49:12Robert Mays: There are huge base salaries. They can move them around. So that to me would be maybe the best example of this working in the right way. And on the flip side of that, Kirk Cousins is deals with the Vikings to me as an example of on the other side where, because they were only three year deals and you're constantly worried about what the next contract is going to look like, then you kind of put yourself into a tough spot when it comes to like the multi-year team building part of this, because every two years you're worried about a quarterback extension so I think that there may be an argument for this I still think that making sure it's the right quarterback that you're paying is more important than having quarterback certainty and I mean yeah like certainty is nice but yeah like where can you find an advantage in the margins I mean the Seahawks getting what they got out of Darnold at that price point is amazing.

50:06What would it look like if Darnold got a raise on his next deal? Cause it is a pretty short deal. And like, and how much more difficult does it get if Sam Darnold is pushing up into the fifties on his next deal? I mean, I know the cap is exactly the Baker Mayfield conversation. That's happening at this moment. It absolutely is. And I mean, I don't know. I, there isn't a 100 % right answer to it, but I do think, and and yeah like Bryce Young doesn't really apply here he hasn't shown enough but like a Baker a Sam Darnold I mean we talk about him every week for a reason like I'm of the opinion that you could build a contender around Baker Mayfield but at what price point because yeah like after a certain number I start to get a little bit nervous about how I'm going to fill out the rest of my roster even if I do like Baker Mayfield and that's I mean that's the delicate dance you mentioned

51:00Robert Mays: Darnold at the top I think the more important thing with Darnold is that Darnold had a 13.4 million dollar cap hit last year for the Seahawks it's not about the fact that the Seahawks are going to have financial certainty with their quarterback over a long period of time they're not it's only a three-year deal but the fact that you could get him at a relative discount based on what he gave you last season that feels more important than we signed a guy to a five or six-year contract and we know he's going to be around all right what's the next one here okay Our next one is from Jeremy Lupowitz.

51:29Jeremy says, in light of the Rams trade for Myles Garrett, how do you think about longevity versus immediate need when valuing a player in a trade? The Rams obviously viewed Garrett as worth a first, second, and third round pick more than Jared Burse. Whatever you believe the typical career span to be for an edge rusher, we would expect Burse at age 25 to have roughly five more productive seasons left in the tank than Garrett at age 30. Are two to three seasons of elite production really worth more than seven to eight years of great production? when you add in the fact that verse is on a rookie deal and will be cost controlled for the next three seasons while Garrett is the highest paid non-qb in the sport is there an argument to be made that verse was actually the more valuable asset in a vacuum in the trade and it was only the Rams win now mentality that led to them parting with draft picks in addition to verse as part of the deal Robert what do you say here I'd say two things to this one I get where Jeremy

52:17Robert Mays: is coming from I think that this mindset I get how he's seeing it this way I still think it's really hard in the NFL to project out more than three or four years in any scenario. So the idea that, well, if we trade for Jared Verse, we're getting seven or eight years out of Jared Verse. I don't think anybody is thinking in those terms when they're trading for players. You can't, even the guys that know they're going to have endless job security, the Sean McVay is in the Howie Rosemans. I don't think anybody's thinking about even five or six years beyond the next three to four. So I think that being one of the tipping points in favor of Jared Verse, I wouldn't weigh that very heavily on the other side of it we're trying to win super bowls that's that's the goal of this whole thing like we're trying to win super bowls and so even if the idea that jared versus a more valuable asset in the long term which i don't necessarily agree with i still think miles garrett based on what he is for the next three or four years is a more valuable asset than Jared versus right now.

53:19I still think that if the goal is to win championships,

53:24Robert Mays: the difference between those two players, especially for a team like the Rams, is what makes a trade like this worth it. I think they are more likely to win a Super Bowl because they have Miles Garrett in the next two or three years. I think the Browns are more likely to win a Super Bowl because they made the Miles Garrett trade in the next three to four years. So I'm not condemning what the Browns did. or telling it's more about, I think on both sides of this, each of these two teams is more likely to win a championship because they made this trade. And I think that to me is the most important thing at the end of the day.

53:59My biggest takeaway from this question is, it's an admirable thing to try to analyze this in a vacuum, but it doesn't happen in a vacuum. Like the Rams are in a very certain place, like the very specific place where this makes a ton of sense for them. Like if Matthew Stafford was 31, would they be doing this? Maybe not, but, but he's 38. Like he's every year could be his last year. Like this, this is it. You know, I, I don't know the veracity of the reporting, but the, the word on the street in the wake of the miles Garrett trade was that Philly talked to Cleveland as well. And Cleveland wanted Jalen Carter.

54:40And if that's true, if you're Philly, you're saying, well, we have a potential blue chip player at a very premium position where it's hard to find somebody. And the core of our team is much younger. I mean, Jalen Hurts is 27 years old. So, I mean, Lane Johnson's getting up there. But everybody else on the Eagles, that core should be intact for at least the next two or three seasons. And that's the other thing. And I appreciate you bringing it up, Robert. I at one point in my life made the mistake of thinking you could gauge this shit out five or six years in the future. And it's just it's not realistic.

55:15It's not productive. Like at most at most, maybe three. But really, realistically, I think you're probably you should be thinking of all this stuff in a two year window. So like does Miles Garrett give you a chance to get over the hump and win a Super Bowl in a two year window? And yeah, I, the list of teams that would be willing to do this is very, very small for that reason. But the Rams, it, it checks every box for the Rams. And the other thing I would bring up, I wanted to look this up. It's not as crazy of a trade, but in 2021, the Rams sent a two and a three to Denver for Von Miller, who famously tore it up in the playoffs and helped them win a Superbowl.

55:58do you know who Denver got with the two that they received in that trade was it Nick Benito it was Nick Benito do you think anybody in LA gives a shit that Nick Benito is on the Denver Broncos instead of the LA Rams absolutely not we're trying to win Super Bowls here the goal was achieved and I mean this is all going to be colored by whether or not it works obviously but yeah like that looking at it in a vacuum and all that other stuff i'm here for a

56:30Robert Mays: good time not a long time i'm with jeremy on this right like i in terms of like how he's thinking about it but i think for all the reasons that you stated i think that's why being the most important or most valuable asset in the deal is not the most important thing to consider when making the deal all right what's the next one contra post on says with the proliferation of advanced stat metrics like success rate, DBOA, EPA, etc. What highly consequential performance factors still cannot be isolated statistically? For me, the most important answer is the pre-snap work by the quarterback, but plenty of other responsibilities are tough to capture.

57:04I could listen to a whole show just discussing what each of these newfangled metrics are good or bad at representing. Don't tempt us with a good time. Contrapost on. Dave, what do you say on this one? I'm going to bet Robert has a smarter answer to this question, but where it took me when I was thinking about it is just for all the tools that we have available, for all the tape we can watch, and analysis is smarter and better than it's ever been, you still can't replicate knowing the assignments of the players on the field. Like, there's always going to be a gap between what we can see and what players are being told to do.

57:47And that shows up across a variety of things, whether you're talking about how a quarterback reads a progression and that can be different in multiple different offenses. So even even if a guy who's played in the NFL is breaking down tape and saying, well, this is how I was taught to read this progression, doesn't always mean that's true of the offense that's happening on the field. And then obviously with stuff like coverages, you know, what is a defender's assignment? You know, I'm thinking and I mean, I use PFF all the time. I love their stuff. I'm not knocking them, but when you're trying to chart receptions and yards that a DB has given up, well, what was the coverage?

58:28What was being asked of you? What was communicated on the field? Like maybe a coverage was called and there was some freelancing going on for better or for worse. There's just so much stuff that happens on a field that we can't know unless we are in meetings and talking to coaches and players privately. And so that's not a statistic, but that's just something I'm always trying to keep in the back of my mind when I review things.

58:56Robert Mays: A lot of these numbers are not good at portraying individual player performance or quality. Like that's not what they're trying to capture. And I think that's really important. We talk about that a lot with like EPA and quarterbacks. The idea that quarterback X led the league in EPA per drop back in this one specific area. I think that it generally points to the quality of the quarterback, but those stats are more about the quality of the offense and the health of the offense overall than they are anything else. Like, I don't think there's any one single, I know there's not a one single advanced stat that's going to capture the performance of any specific player, even beyond like the quiet stuff that Contra Postlin is pointing out here.

59:37Robert Mays: So I think that that's a starting point. Like none of those stats are going to capture individual player performance correctly. but even if you want to get beyond that a little bit like some of the stuff that can't even almost be isolated statistically quarterback pre-snap one is a good one the gravity a certain skill position player has like there's no possible way that we can account for the attention a certain player is going to be drawing away from other teams maybe other some like in-house metric people like teams and their analytics departments have like in-house modeling for stuff like that we have any publicly available for things like that the range or the amount of ground like a spine of the defense defender covers right like what a linebacker like linebacker coverage quality we don't have numbers for something like that outside of like what happens when you're targeted and dave just pointed out some of the limitations of that safeties are the exact same thing like we don't have numbers for that even coverage quality for corners we don't have we have the numbers when you're thrown at or how often you're thrown at but in terms of what the coverage looks like down to down we don't have publicly available information for that not as far as i understand with receivers we have like open score and things like that now for ed espn and there are some other metrics that do it but i still think those are you know there's some doubt i would say and like how much you can just purely rely on those because a lot of it is tracking based the ability to leave an offensive tackle on an island what that does to the rest of your offensive line like we can look at how much pressure how many pressures a tackle gave up can we fully appreciate the value of what an offensive tackle gives you if you can just leave him one-on-one all the time and devote your resources elsewhere so I think those are like the quiet things that even based on all the numbers we do have there's really no way to kind of properly represent that okay last question and emailers discorders you guys have worn me down on this we have gotten a version of this question a number of times over the last few weeks i have don't blame robert don't blame dave don't blame derek i've been ignoring it because i just feel like no team would do this in my opinion but you don't care about my opinion you care about their opinion so john heston derek 40 owen volkerreich and everyone else who send in a version of this you win i lose here we go the question basically guys would a team ever get rid of its successful head coach to retain its hot shot offensive coordinator so would the lions have ever gotten rid of Dan Campbell to hire Ben Johnson?

1:02:01If the chargers have an unbelievable offensive season this year, would they get rid of Jim Harbaugh to keep Mike McDaniel? Robert, what do you think here?

1:02:08Robert Mays: I don't think if that's what success is, like you were a really, really good team in that moment, I guess it would depend on what your definition of success is. Okay. So, and like where you are in the process, like I think the examples of this that I would point to recently, where a team just elevates its coordinator and fires the head coach, it's mostly that you feel like that version of the team has run out of road. And so even if you're a playoff team, you're still not as successful as you want to be, right? Like, I think that's what's hard about this. So the best examples of this recently, Joe Brady just did this, right?

1:02:47Robert Mays: Like, Joe Brady is the head coach of the Bills, but I think that's more about the McDermott era just running out of road than it is about them wanting to keep Joe Brady in fear of losing him. The Bucs did this with Lovie Smith. That's not successful, right? Like those teams were struggling, and they wanted to keep Dirk Cutter, I think, in part because of the work he had done with Jameis Winston the year before. So I think that you either have to be disappointing in some way or you have to get to a point where this era has probably coming to a close. If we want to keep this coordinator, or maybe the easiest answer is just to elevate them.

1:03:23Robert Mays: But the examples he's talking about here were like, Kellen Moore in 2023, like you're not going to fire a head coach that just won the Super Bowl because you're worried about losing the offensive play caller. The Lions with Ben Johnson, like you're not firing Dan Campbell over what he just did the last few years. Even if the Chargers, even if Mike Daniels is incredible this year, I can't imagine a scenario where the Chargers are like a 12-win team, they go to the divisional round, and you can somehow convince yourself that it's worth firing Jim Harbaugh and keeping Mike McDaniel. Like, it feels like you need a couple down years at some point in this process in order to justify something like this.

1:04:03If this were going to happen, and that is correct. Like, you know, the Eagles are just an easy one because of all the volatility there, and it's either really good or really bad. But if they were going to fire Sirianni, it would be coming after an early exit in the playoffs or you don't even make the playoffs. If the Eagles make another run back to the Super Bowl, you're not going to fire Nick Sirianni outright. You're just not going to do it. What I would say, if this were to happen, and I don't think it would, but if this were to happen, it would be very nudge, nudge, wink, wink. Like you wouldn't fire Jim Harbaugh.

1:04:46You would elevate Jim Harbaugh to an executive role in the front office and say, ah, Jim, Jim wants to be around the team, but he's just, he's, he's been coaching for a long time and he would just rather take a step back. And Mike McDaniel is going to be our head coach and Jim Harbaugh get a nice payday not to tell anybody how he really feels about what happened. Like it would be something political like that, or maybe this never happens, but. If there was a trade partner out there who really wanted your head coach, you know, like John Gruden and the Buccaneers comes to mind. Like if you could arrange a trade, maybe.

1:05:23But that seems so unlikely. Like if you were really going to do this, I think you would have to like elevate the head coach into an assistant GM or advisor role. And it would have to look really kumbaya. Like it would have to look like everybody was on board with this decision. And then you would just elevate the coordinator. It wouldn't be an outright firing where you just kick him out of the job.

1:05:45Robert Mays: Yeah, I think, again, it's going to come down to what your definition of success is as you're defining it for this sort of question. But the success and the level of the examples that were mentioned, I just can't imagine something like that ever happening. All right. That is all we've got for today. We will be back tomorrow with our next show for now. That is all we got. 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.

1:06:18Robert Mays: We'll see you next time.

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1:07:41No matter your goals, investing style, life stage, or experience, Schwab has everything you need all in one place. So you can invest your way. Visit schwab.com to learn more.