The Iceman Cometh: Ranking All 32 QBs

24:57Ben Solak:It was really weird. If this was a one-year timeline, Matthew Stafford clearly would have gone right now, by now. Can we say that? Or actually, well, Woody? Definitely now. Yeah. If it was a one-year timeline, would you put Matthew Stafford in? I would have taken him above Burrow. I would have taken him above Burrow, I think. Behind the other three. Yeah. I feel confident I would have taken him above Burrow. Who's in a better environment, Matthew Stafford or Burrow? Stafford. Yeah, Stafford, yeah. But also Stafford won the MVP, and Burrow has, like, you know, thrown a lot of passes. Like, you know, it's a different level of achievement in their really good systems.

25:31Okay.

25:31Ben Solak:So I, again, I want to remind folks, this is a three-year timeline. We are trying to take quarterbacks out of their environment, and Herbert's in a pretty awful one, which we'll talk about, I'm sure, very shortly. But so is Drake May! Not as bad, but I don't need to repeat everything I said when I explained MVP voting. The Patriots offense, we talk about which quarterbacks are the engines that make them go. He was so obviously to me last season what made that Patriots offense. That was, by the way, second in past DVOA and 21st in rushing, which has to be the widest discrepancy of any team in the NFL.

26:13Ben Solak:He was, whereas like, yeah, anyways. he was so fundamental to their success and the reason why they got there even despite some I think better than expected play from the receivers again we don't need to rehash the numbers statistically he was the best quarterback in football last year during the regular season now folks are saying yeah but you saw during the playoffs his inexperience and that maybe we were a little bit over the skis with him that's fine it's probably right but this is a three-year timeline and I'm picking this young quarterback to continue getting better so I feel pretty good about taking him here above Justin Herbert, who as much as he overcame his circumstances last year, and also he was really about in the playoffs too, right?

26:54Ben Solak:We have seen more out of Herbert and arguably we have seen his ceiling and know who he is. Although, you know, you could argue improving his circumstances would change that. Drake Mays in year two, he only played one and a half seasons right yeah like arrows pointed way up i feel like people have gotten way too low on him after the postseason last year and i am happy to buy all the drake make stock that anyone is selling oh but don't did you hear that his schedule was easy which means that all of his quarterbacking plays just no boy doesn't count now there's nothing on the film is legitimate because he got to play you know whatever the dolphins twice and the jets twice the it's playing again yeah i really thought i was gonna get may the way that may as a rookie played a risk averse operate 8 to 15 yards down the field you know kind of pop gun success rate completion percentage oriented play and then as a second year player walked out and said oh we shoot now all right we shoot now and then just the explosive play rate jumped up the attempts that went down deep down the field jumped up the accuracy down the field was was excellent which is exactly what it was on the unc film the fact that we are already seeing a quarterback who was able to modulate play style relative to his play caller relative to the weapons available to him relative to the defenses that he's playing at this young of an age and despite the fact that he can't really set tempo with the running game where you can't say okay we're always getting into manageable down distances because we're this good in the running game no he has to be able to both be the eddie steady engine we're like all right we have to get to second and four we have to stay ahead of the stakes we have to win field position and then also the big play guy off of the shot play stuff that's just not a uh chameleon this that you typically see from young players typically like they win the way they win they lose the way they lose and then they have to grow into a new version of themselves may pretty quickly hit as i can do everything you need me to do right i think that when i like you talked about how like people have started to undersell may and not appreciate what he pulled off my thing with may whenever we talk about him people always don't talk about the physical toolkit right he is like 95 josh allen's height 92 josh allen's weight 91 josh allen's movement skills right i mean he is just like a little bit of a baby knockoff target version of what you get from alan in terms of the run away from linebackers you know bust through arm tackles from defensive linemen the arm talent throw on the move the way to hammer these these tough windows like he is he was he's the sort of athlete that always gets drafted top five top 10 at quarterback period and then he's got himself a really good head on his shoulders there's there's no reason to be anything less than like you know shiningly gloriously optimistic about may moving forward And so, yeah, he was very, very high on my list.

29:30You had, did you have, okay, who's your five or your six pick? On my board, I have Justin Herbert ranked above Caleb Williams. I really, I have, I had one objective. I was telling the producers this in the show. I said, I want to leave this draft with Caleb. That's like what I wanted more than anything else. I want to make sure I have Caleb when I leave this draft. I'm guessing you don't have Caleb this high.

29:50Ben Solak:No, you're going to take Caleb Williams above Justin Herbert. I don't want to give the rest of my board. I have him high-ish, I thought, but several slots lower. You're going to do this? Probably not. I really want to. Well, I mean, now you told me you're not going to take him. I can go get him on the next pick. I think Matt Herbert just screwed with you. I'll take Herbert at five. We are not doing... Coward! At six. We're not doing context. However, I would like to be buying Justin Herbert before the Mike McDaniel year. That feels good to me. I like, I like, well, we are doing context. When we talk about who these quarterbacks have been, we're not doing context.

30:28Ben Solak:When we talk about what they're going to be, but context, when we talk about what Herbert have been, has been is just essential to the conversation, an offensive line. That was 32nd in continuity, 32nd in pass block win rate. Uh, Herbert was hit 208 times last season, right? That's, that's total context. That's in the pocket on the run, whatever. That was a point against him for me, because I was like, these hits are got to add up at some point, right? Like, I just, and he has been, last year he was playing through injury. He was an Ironman. He watched that in his NFL. And we love it. We love his toughness.

31:04Ben Solak:But, like, that adds up, Ben. It was brutal to watch last time. He was tanking, yeah. 13 quarterback hits per game, which is like, that's like Justin Fields' numbers when he was a starter, when he was running the ball like 10, 12 times a game, right? Now, Herbert, the up in the scramble rate was actually a very big deal for Herbert last season. It was something that the offense desperately needed was, okay, you tend not to be a guy who wants to talk and run the football, but we're going to need you to do this because we just cannot protect in the interior, let alone on the edges once they started to accumulate injury there.

31:348 % scramble rate was up from his career average was about 5.56 before that. So a big leap there. It was a big leap in time to throw as well because he's playing in a Greg Roman offense. And they were very oriented on these long developing play action, shot play, pass plays. I think people forget, and it's been a long enough time now that we forget this, but when Herbert first broke out under Anthony Lynn and Shane Steichen was there and like that offense, that was a quick distribution offense. And when Joe Lombardi came in to kind of become the new offensive coordinator, the hope is that they would remain an offense that could get rid of the ball fast.

32:06And Herbert's got like a super computer brain up there. one of my number one critiques of Herbert before this season was Herbert will too much just stick to the rules of the play. I will read the leverage of this player and do this and blah, blah, blah. And that means we're getting nine targets to Tyler Conklin. We're doing nine targets to Tyler Conklin, baby. I know that didn't happen. But in general, he can be a little bit too willing to color exactly in the lines and not color outside of them a little bit. This past year, I thought he had to learn how to do that more, and that was to his benefit.

32:32When we get a Miami potato offense into the building, I think people will get a new vision, a new realization, on the combination of processing accuracy and arm strength here, which is very, very clearly what the lead quarterbacks are made of.

32:48Ben Solak:So I talked about the offensive line stats. I mean, one thing that jumped out to me, I was looking at percentage of targets over 10 yards that were to open receivers, next-gen stats. First and second were the Seahawks and the Rams, right? Those are two offenses, a combination of, you know, the receiver play and also the scheme and all of the things that they did, the play action, all of it. So the Chargers were 28th last year. Reminds me of those Greg Roman, Lamar Jackson offenses. Oh, wait, why did we hire this guy? And so that's obviously going to change with Mike McDaniel, who's extremely good.

33:25Ben Solak:If I had to capture what is Mike McDaniel do? And we know there's like a lot of complexity to this with regards to how he uses formation and motion to do this, accomplish this. but in like extremely dumb layman's terms, whatever, he gets guys open fast. First read, it is going to be open. And vertically. And right, vertically. And I think you make a great point, which is like that's such a good stylistic marriage for a quarterback who is extremely smart and accurate, like Justin Herbert, right? Like, so I think, yeah, like we've been wanting him to be like a little bit more loose and play outside of structure.

34:02Ben Solak:and he obviously brings abilities that Tua doesn't to Mike's offense in that regard. But if this thing works, he's not going to have to do that as much. And I think that's why we're all so optimistic about it. Look, I want... He was still like... It's funny because I actually threw him an MVP vote and I don't know if anyone noticed that. When I was building my fake MVP ballot in December, I did it for an article, I think. I'm pretty sure I had May 1, Herbert 2. I had Stafford 3 because... The, there was a point, there was a point last season. Yeah. Where like, uh, yeah, it was against the, in that Cowboys game.

34:39This was like early December. Herbert had plus 23.9 total EPA again, uh, on, on pressure to drawbacks against the Cowboys. It just, he makes pressure not real. Like it made it not matter. Now he went and played the Patriots in the post season. And it was without question the worst Justin Herbert game I've seen him play. He was just not throwing the ball to open receivers he was missing stuff on the scramble drill it was making bad reads like i think i am not one to buy into oh we'll never do it in the playoffs but like two of the five worst herbert games off the top of my head are both playoff games there's no question he is wilted in january football the next three seasons 95 of those games are gonna be regular season games and i'm confident my hypothetical team's ability to figure out how to make it work in the

35:23Ben Solak:postseason round yeah i'm just going with ceiling with did you have herbert over may or you had may over herbert i had herbert like only a little williams or yeah on my list i had herbert above both williams and may yeah okay all right so i'm not going to take caleb i know i was trying to be funny here um i'm taking dak prescott at seven uh i think it's kind of slept on how good dak prescott was last year uh i mean top five in just about every meaningful metric one that caught my eye was just how accurate he was throwing the ball downfield. His completion percentage over expected off target rates were both top two in the NFL.

36:04Ben Solak:I think behind May, who was first in like literally everything. He was excellent, kept clean. He was excellent against the Blitz. He was efficient. He was explosive. Now he obviously got to play with in an unbelievable situation with George Bickens and CeeDee Lamb and the run game was good too. But I do think it's worth noting that offensive line had a lot of injuries last season in Dallas, you know, missing two other starters and for much of the season. So like, I just think at this point, Prescott for me has built up enough of a body of work consistently over the years where I feel comfortable that in the next three years, like when I think about when I was thinking about this category and like what, who's going to give me what I expect, which is top five to eight quarterback play.

36:51Ben Solak:I just felt comfortable with Dak. He is probably the most known quantity of this next tier for me. And at seven, I feel great. Yeah. I mean, like last three seasons, he's eighth in EPA per play. He's 11th in success rate. Last season, he was top 10 in both. He also was third in off target rate last year, fourth in completion percentage over expectation last year. A lot of what you say about Burrow, where, yeah, you're playing with elite receivers, but I've seen a lot of guys play with really good receivers. and A, not deliver the ball accurately, and B, not have a high catch rate because they're delivering the ball to inconsistent locations, bad relative to coverage.

37:28We could call this Justin Jefferson, J.J. McCarthy theorem, where it's like, okay, did Jefferson have his worst season as a pro? Yes, but a lot of that has to do with the fact that he doesn't agree with his quarterback. Dak is extremely receiver friendly, right? He precipitates out the best of some of these receivers. Nobody really was saying of George Pickens, oh, a clear like elite duo guy, right? I think film-wise, we liked him as that, but like that wasn't what he was in Pittsburgh. Dak precipitates that out of him in a way that other quarterbacks don't. So you can set your watch to Dak being A-B-plus quarterback.

37:57He's been doing it for the last decade. And he has also the postseason reputation that Herbert does. But if you look at...

38:03Ben Solak:No, he's been better. The Bucs game is one of the best postseason performances by a quarterback. I was there for that one. Dak Prescott, Joe Burrow, same EPA per drop back in the playoffs. One of my favorite stats. To me, this is a little bit... For me, taking him over the next little group of guys is a little bit more of a floor versus ceiling play for me because there's a couple guys below him. There's a few guys who I actually think have higher ceilings, but this feels safe. The floor I get with Dak Prescott for three years is very high. All right, are you going to do it? Yeah, absolutely. I had one objective in this draft, and it was to walk out with Caleb Williams.

38:40I want to be... If I want to be a... Ben Solak is a blank guy, and like that's my reputation i'd like to hitch my my my wagon to the caleb williams horse number one last season he's the only quarterback who's bottom five in both sack rate interception rate he does not have major negative plays and he was avoiding interceptions wonderfully during his first season with the bears obviously taking sacks at a preposterous clip but he didn't just solve that problem he dramatically when he swung hugely from really really bad to really really good yeah that pendulum will probably come to settle somewhere in the middle but if you are a below average sack rate guy while also being a lead leader in terms of low interceptions, then I'm buying it because you are avoiding the negatives.

39:22Ben Solak:Can I interview you really quickly? You mentioned the sack rate. I do want to highlight the pressure to sack rate in particular, because people might hear that and say, well, the Bears offensive line was great. But even when Caleb was pressured, he still was not sacked. And I think that's worth mentioning because that is a quarterback's trait that we're talking about. And he had the second lowest pressure to sack rate in the NFL. The sort of stuff that Caleb can do in terms of pocket feel and pocket escapability. He still can be shaky as a pocket manager where he will step himself into pressure, step himself into tougher throws.

39:48His feet will come off of the correct timing with the concepts. But in terms of pocket escapability, there's big red sirens spinning. I got to get out of here. He has a pretty natural feel. He has unbelievable balance. He's crazy contact balance, the ability to break tackles, like special, special, special athlete in terms of getting out of the pocket. Now, have you seen this guy throw the football meetup? Have you seen the guy sling the rock? Pretty good arm talent. Unbelievable. I was going back and watching Caleb this week. You got to pick the guy who throws the ball like that. It goes back to draft philosophy.

40:23It goes back to how do we decide who first overall picks are. If you can achieve things on the football field that are geometrically unsound, that are reality-breaking, that are coverage unspooling, you got to get that guy in the room. And what Caleb can pull off in terms of the velocity on his throws is the ability to get them up and down over coverage, the touch that he gets into the sideline, and then the throw on the move and the throw from bad platform. We have so much evidence from last season that you just never have to say die with this guy in a way that is not true of Drake May and Matthew Stafford and Dak Prescott and Justin Herbert, let alone I think you can put Caleb into the Josh Allen tier and into the Patrick Mahomes tier in terms of resurrecting bad plays and creating really good throws out of it.

41:04Over the course of the season, you saw him settle into the timing of the offense a lot better, Operationally, they got a lot smoother. The off-target rate was still bad, but it got a lot better. The explosive pay rate still pays it off for him. So he's still one of the best quarterbacks by first down per touchdown rate per dropbacks because he's creating big plays for the negative ones he's leaving on the field by missing throws. If the bet I have to make on Caleb Mina, if the bet I have to make is that he'll become more consistent throwing eight-yard slants, I'm willing to make it.

41:29Ben Solak:So talk about the bet you're willing to make, and I think something that jumped out to me, and I think this is why I'm so high on his trajectory and also his ceiling, but I did also ultimately he was lower for me just because of the variance aspect. And, you know, there were some bad misses last year too. And I think sometimes the accuracy can be still a little spotty. But here's something I found fascinating. So Caleb Williams had a 3.2 time to throw, which was 33rd in the NFL, right? And that's always going to get dragged up with a guy who tries to make plays and sometimes pulls them off and it's fine.

42:01Ben Solak:When Caleb threw the ball in rhythm, So two and a half to three seconds is a quarterback throwing in rhythm under two and a half's quick game over that extended. He was second in EPA per drop back to Drake May and third in QBR. So I think what we need to see in the coming years, and I think what we can see, and he's got the coach to do it, who had Jared Goff playing like a machine, is can he keep some of the magic in the extension while just continuing to play a little bit more on time? because when he plays on time, it's so good. But it's all about finding that balance, Ben. And I think for him to be like truly for me, a top bot, whatever guy, that has to come a little bit more into equilibrium.

42:51Yeah. And he, the thing, the number one thing he has to learn how to do is how to take some speed off the pitch, some mustard off the throw and some urgency, some intensity. There's some weird misses. Yeah. Yeah, they alive is Baker Mayfield theorem. We're like Baker has to throw every single ball as hard as he can throw it because like arm strength wise, he's not a guy who has like a ton of, you know, depth to his game. Caleb has like every single throw and oftentimes will throw fastballs when he needs to throw curveballs and change ups and level these throws. The most important thing for me, and I remember he played the Vikings in week one, the Lions in week two, and they choked that Vikings game and they got destroyed by the Lions.

43:25They're oh and two. Everybody was like, man, we knew Ben Johnson and Caleb would never work. He's not like jerk off. This is terrible. You went back and you watched the film and he's like ripping 24-yard digs to Roma Dunes on time with location. There was a myth that Caleb wasn't doing it. And in my opinion, the truth was he was doing it with great inconsistency. But it was very clearly there. When it was on, it was on. And so the entire process of last season, which I think to a lot of people was an experience of, oh, wow, the light bulbs turned on. Like, all right, they're figuring it out. To me, they were two steps ahead of that narrative arc the whole way down.

44:01To me, the proof has been in the pudding for longer. And so I feel more comfortable, I think, than probably the average person in saying, no, this trajectory has been clear. This direction has been right. Like you said, of Drake May, the arrow is pointing way up. I think if not Drake May, then for no other quarterback in the league is the arrow pointing up higher, more rapidly, more steeply than it is for Caleb Williams. I fully buy everything Ben Johnson's doing with him. I fully buy everything Caleb's done to improve his game. Talking again about the sack rate and the pressure rate. To me, again, this marriage and what it's demanding from Caleb, how it's making him grow.

44:32I needed this guy. I needed my name to be next to him on my little Google sheet.

44:37Ben Solak:This is how bad draft picks. This is how the greatest draft picks are made is when you really need him. And it's not the worst draft picks are made when a GM gets emotion. This is your emotional, your emotional drafting right now. It's like a Zach Wilson pro day throw. I watched that Caleb touchdown against the Browns, the DJ more in the back of the end zone. And I said, I can fix him. Don't even worry about it. Whatever it takes. All right. Number nine is the quarterback I had above Caleb Williams. I'm going to give you his rankings. and I want you to just tell me who it is if you can. So blind guess this quarterback.

45:03Ben Solak:This quarterback was, let me finish them. Don't interrupt me. Third in QBR, second in EPA per drop back, third in DVOA, which accounts for opponent. He was second when kept clean. He was second on third down QBR and first on third and long. So everything I just said, this was a top three quarterback in the NFL. Name that quarterback. That was all just last year? Last year. Jordan Love. Yes, Jordan Love. Bang. Yeah. I thought the discourse around Jordan Love to be the - I found the third and long stat, I think, in the process. Okay, first and third and long is crazy. Yeah. I find the discourse around Jordan Love to be like the dumbest in the NFL right now.

45:40Good take. Good take. Clip that, Jack. Clip it, Owen.

45:45Ben Solak:It's so odd to me that people won't acknowledge how good he's been. That he's clearly a top 10 quarterback in this league. I have him higher. I would have had him higher than you. uh and when you watch like it's it's yes i think lifler is the scheme is good guys are open but it sings because of love's aggressiveness to push an ability to push the ball downfield to throw over the middle of the field to throw guys open um i think he is incredibly accurate it and yet he's got this weird reputation as like the like I don't know Brett Favre like the worst of like I like as this like irresponsible erratic gunslinger that is absolutely not consistent with the quarterback I saw no the the when we talk about gunslingers and specifically in the case of Jordan Love we use the term to say oh he is irrationally and unreasonably pushing the ball down the field when there's something healthier for the context of the offense when you watch how the Packers call plays, how Matt LaFleur calls plays.

46:50It's like, all right, we got to push the ball. We have this guy who can make these throws from these platforms. We won't be taking these one-on-one shots. The gunslinger idea is that there's an alternative and our guy is unreasonably taking the alternative. No, for Jordan Love, you want to build the plane out of the fact that he can drop the ball in buckets 30, 35 yards down the field. His ability to throw against leverage. We talk about man coverage, talk about dropping the ball in a good spot relative to coverage is just so sick. He's a hooper, man. I mean, he just feels it.

47:19Ben Solak:Man coverage is a thing that really jumps out to me. Sometimes when you watch man coverage, it's like, does a guy have receivers who are just constantly winning, or do you have a quarterback who's constantly placing the ball perfectly? And I think that's something that stands out with him. Also, again, not the greatest. The offensive line was really up and down, receiving group. There's injuries. You lose your best pass catching option. There's a tight end. Before the halfway point in the season. I think, I don't know. He just doesn't give enough credit for elevating the offense around him. I think part of it is because Malik Loz comes in and he looks great and we'll get to him.

47:56Ben Solak:But I'm a huge Jordan Love fan and remain so. All right, 10. We got to move. Oh, yeah. All right. I really didn't want to have to make the 10th pick. To me, the top nine were very obvious. I know I won. We have taken my top nine players very comfortably. I think obviously like now becomes the question of how early are you willing to take a Matthew Stafford? I'm not willing to take him here. So to me, this is the Jaden Daniel spot. Okay. Is that your guy? No, I had Stafford 10 and Dana's 11. I, this is again, it's so hard with Matthew Stafford because it's, we, the, it's such an unknown variable of how long he's going to keep playing.

48:32Ben Solak:And you could be taking him now for me. It was kind of like, it sounds like he's going to give us at least two more years based on the way he's talking. But yeah, To me, he's year to year, no matter what he says. Just because when you're 38 years old and you have a back problem, you're year to year. I would put the percent chance that he plays two-plus years at below 50%. To me, that was the limiting factor that made me run to Jaden. Now, if Jaden's 2025 was his rookie year and Jaden's 2024 was his sophomore year, the Jaden versus Drake May versus Caleb Williams conversation would have been a fast anyone here in that pick there in the seven and eight range as it is.

49:11Jaden clearly had a worse year the last season when he was healthy. The accuracy came down. He wasn't as effective in the scramble drills as teams had a better feel for the fact that, OK, we want to keep this guy in the pocket. We want to make him have to make throws from inside of the tackle box when he gets outside of us. That's when he breaks our defensive structure. So we're going to challenge him to be able to get more through his progressions that put a ton of weight on the commanders wide receivers two and three and four, which are players like Debo Samuel and Zach Earth, which was a huge limiting factor.

49:36Ben Solak:Well, also, for much of the season, Terry McLaurin didn't even play. So the wide receiver one, what? Yeah. And then you're getting a running game, which when it was Brian Robinson in 2024, and when Jane had first dawned, Cliff was in his bag. The thing is, Cliff has done best in the league is affect the running game from the shotgun with the RPO game. He's always been a great run game designer. 2025, then move on from Brian Robinson. We're going to do this story. You know, Bill cross game merit. We're going to do this Chris Rodriguez. And it just did not work. They were terrible breaking tackles, the running back position.

50:03So Jane was consistently put in, in long and lates. And that's not a winning position when you want to be a run first team. I want to be buying Jane Daniels stock because I think that they're, what they're going to about to try right now with David Blau is the OC and with some of this Ben Johnson style offense, it's going to do to Jaden that which was done to Caleb last year, which is force you to learn a little bit more about a play on time in the pocket, play on time with your feet from under center dropbacks, turn your back to the defense. But if you can get there and Jaden has been so much better of a decision maker and throw her to the middle of the field than I ever thought he would have been coming out of LSU.

50:35If you can, if you can get there for us, now we can be a modern passing game, right? Kind of the modern meta of how we throw the football while also wrinkling in a ton of really dynamic quarterback move stuff. And that sounds like an absolute bear to defend. And so I am worried about the consistency, even pre-injury. And I think even at times in his rookie season, you saw some of the scattershot accuracy that was a problem for him at LCU. You saw some of the late decisions. He wants to see it before he throws it. But in general, I have elite physical tools. I have proof of concept from 2024. and I like what I can envision him becoming as he's forced to develop in this new offense.

51:09So I take Gene at 10. Yeah, I'm a huge fan of Daniels

51:13Ben Solak:and I think he deserves a lot of the, like we're talking about Herbert and a lot of that stuff applies to the commanders last year. In terms of context, right? Because it's always, I like to use the word context. We're not making excuses. We're trying to write context. If someone controls context on this podcast transcript, and get a lot of results. It was bad. I think what I like the most about him, you hit on a lot of the things in terms of like, yes, defense were a little bit better at taking away some of the things he wanted to do. And yes, you saw when he's definitely, his game is affected when there's not that dual threat ability.

51:51Ben Solak:But I think he has within him, and we saw that especially his rookie season, the ability to play very fast and be a quick trigger decision maker. And so I think that's always going to give him a floor for me. Um, you know, and I think that I agree with a lot of sentiments about the offense next year and not considering it, but I liked the Antonio Williams edition. I think I like this scheme change. So cautiously optimistic about the offense. But I think what I'm my general point is I've seen enough from the young quarterback to feel good about him moving forward. Durability remains a concern, though, for sure.

52:22Ben Solak:Um, that that is undeniable. It's going to be the whole way down. Yeah. Okay. We don't need to talk about Stafford. I think we hit it. If we were doing this on a one-year timeline, he would be top five. This is the three-year timeline. We have no idea how long he's going to play. So he lands 11th. I had him 10th, but it's entirely about time. Yeah. The one thing I noticed in Stafford during the prep is just that he is the 10th biggest change among 50 quarterbacks last couple of years in pressured paper drop back on pressure drop back versus on pressure drop backs, which you just, you are starting to notice.

52:52it's so hard for him to beat high pressure teams because he can't move.

52:56Ben Solak:And there's a fragility there, right? Because when you have that discrepancy and there's other players that will talk about the, some of the pocket passers where that's on display, you take out one chain on that offensive line. And this thing could, as much as people talk about the Rams, not taking McKay lemon and the fragility of the receiver group, the offensive line, look at the depth chart and ask me what happens if you take out one of those tackles. It's yeah. Okay. So I took Stafford at 11, so you're back out. We don't need to spend a lot of time on it. 12. Okay, this is an interesting...

53:27Ben Solak:I have like four guys tiered here. I'm between two. I'll tell you the two that I'm between. I think I know. Stroud and Trev are the two that I've got here. What order? What order? Very similar age, right? Stroud is 24.6. Trevor Lawrence is 26.6. Very similar in terms of some career arc messiness. Trevor started terrible. Had a really good season. Went back down. Now a great year with Liam Cohen. CJ Stroud. Great season. 2024, no good. Bobby Salk's fired. Much better in 25, but then the playoffs, both of them feel like EKG quarterbacks. Big peaks, low valleys, and it's tough to calibrate to them.

54:03I have Stroud above him, and I'll take Stroud here. I think that Stroud's 2025 was a lot better than people realize. It is colored and tainted by how poor he was in the postseason. 10 turnovers in two games, terrible. If you look at it from an e-paper dropback perspective and a success rate perspective, Stroud had equivalent numbers in 2025 to his rookie season. In 2023, when we all crowned him as the next guy, he's going to be the fifth best quarterback in the league for the next decade. In that rookie year, it was all about explosives, right? They were a play action team. He was hitting the middle of the field hard, and they were creating these big gains.

54:33Not nearly as many explosives in this past season, but Nick Cayley would ask him to do more in terms of, you know, reading out quick game, half field stuff, getting to the correct IDs. And Stroud is an aggressive thrower. He throws on time between zones. He places the ball correctly. He asks his receivers to make big plays for him, and they've got the right bodies for that. Nico Collins, Jaden Hagan, some of these big catch guys. And so he will be consistently correct for you. He has a couple of games, like that Lions game sticks out where like his head just really starts spinning. He unspools a little more quickly than you'd like him to.

55:02But in general, he is really, really consistent getting the ball where it's supposed to go on some of the basic half field quick game stuff. And then on the more of the play action shot play stuff. The thing for me is the Texans running game since Stroud has entered the league is 31st in EPA rush and an internal success rate. Only the Raiders are worse. So Stroud sees more third and longs per game than any quarterback starter over the last few years. It's him and Caleb Williams, the only two to see like seven third and longs per game. If you can, and Stroud in his rookie season saw tons of base defense.

55:29That's all down. He saw tons of single high. That's all down. If you can reintroduce a healthy rushing attack to Houston, Stroud will look more like the quarterback we expected him to be. So I'll take him here at 12.

55:38Ben Solak:It's so rare for a quarterback to not get affected by third and longs, bad line play, not being able to run the ball. Like I know everybody correctly, just, you know, criticize Stratton for what happened in the postseason. But I think what you saw with both him and Herbert is that stuff adds up. And it can break you, and it can cross some bad habits. And so we can look at that and say, like, this dude's having a meltdown. An average quarterback would win that game. Yeah, but an average quarterback hasn't been saddled with this for the course of a season, hasn't been taking hits, hasn't been playing with an unreliable offense.

56:17Ben Solak:So it's just, I think you gotta both quarterbacks deserve heat for how bad they were but it's really notable that that happened one against very good defenses and you know the yeah but I just think it heads up over the course of the season and you see that that's just a reason why it tends to happen at the very end Ben and the truth is it I'm reminded of this watching the NBA postseason we're like the Pistons can drag Jalen Duren through an entire regular season no problem into the postseason teams start picking on you right yeah the teams they'll take okay you've been able to hide this for 13 of the 17 weeks of the regular season but it's postseason football we're after it right we're emptying the bag of our best pressures and our best defensive looks and we've got a large sample now what you like what you don't like and so when we get to postseason competition no matter the sport your achilles heels start to really see a lot more attention and so in the case of the texans and the chargers you had i think two quarterbacks who were doing a lot to drag some shaky offensive lines into postseason football.

57:17Well, the moment we, you know, we get a Patriots defense because it was Patriots for both those teams. That's really keyed in on this. Then, you know, we're going to be able to, to break you where you're weakest in a way that we don't see in regular season ball.

57:27Ben Solak:All right. I had, I had Trev 13. All right. So, so people were 13. I don't know, but I had him in the same spot as you did. Um, so to me, he's a little bit of a tricky one because I've actually been lower on him at various points in his career than I think some of you guys, you guys mean you and Nate who I know, you know, it's kind of like the Trevor guy. Um, as friend of the pod, she'll probably would call us. Uh, and you know, there's been games with him. It wasn't just like, oh man, you're getting destroyed. Like there, there were games during the regular season this year, even the beginning of the year, like there's just been games where I watch him and I'm like, this dude is just not consistent enough for my taste.

58:08Ben Solak:But I do think in the second half of this season, we saw an unleashed Lawrence who was benefiting from not just the improvement in the receiver group of the trade for Jacobi Myers, but the play calling the coach, despite the fact that this team so they weren't running the ball particularly great and the receivers were still dropping footballs for him. But in the second half of the season, he was top five in just about every meaningful quarterback metric. One that I would highlight is he was slinging it 9.4 air yards per attempt, um, which was third league wide. And I think when you see that version of him, where he just trusts the structure of the offense, but also was able to make plays outside of structure too, you remember that he is one of the most physically, not the most physically gifted quarterbacks in the NFL.

58:55Ben Solak:That feels a little bit strong, but he's, he, he can make every NFL throw. He can do everything. He has the size. He's got the frame. He's got the arm talent. Um, and I I think remembering that ceiling and seeing it play out really over the course of like several weeks was enough for me to feel like, OK, I'm going to bet on Lawrence's ceiling because it is as high. You know, his ceiling is that of a top eight quarterback, whether or not he'll consistently hit that. I don't know. I can't tell you that with confidence, but it was like, oh, right, it's there. Yeah. So I like, you know, when it comes to my relationship with Trevor Lawrence and my belief in him over the time, it's funny because I found myself now more like, to your point, you were lower on in previous.

59:36I find myself a little bit more dubious of him now and the idea of being like, okay, Liam Cohen is 100 % fixed him. Trev is really good at seeing the first read and ripping it accurately. And he would just grit his teeth and he will throw into tight windows and he will throw into coverage rotations just thinking you can solve the problem. He's the sort of guy to me that when the coaching falls away, when you get the good defensive coordinator, he is not good at adjusting his game and kind of calibrating. He will just kind of continue to throw his head into the brick wall there a little bit. in a way that you would have hoped he would have matured out of by now and so i i i want to fully believe on trev it was back half of the season last year where things really got figured out i'm definitely at least a full half of 2026 you've done a little bit more from like being full-throated in terms of you know this is he's he's turned the corner when i look at him relative to like some of the guys later i'm like that are on the board for me right now yeah the physical toolkit is in a massive massive difference maker relative to who's left ultimately

1:00:31Ben Solak:why i chose him over the next two guys who i have in the same tier who do you have next we're on 14. I don't like this pick at all. I will take I'll take Jared Goff here. I was deciding between him and another guy. Yeah, they're in this year. I had Goff way lower when I first started doing this because last season was so bad. And then I went and got back into last season. I was like, oh, wait, like when Goff was pressured, he died when he was unpressured. He was pretty solid relative to what I thought would be post you know uh exactly uh ben johnson second highest delta in terms of epa per drop back from pressure non-pressure to jared goff and then i i so i was like all right like you know like you gotta knock him down and then i sat and i said wait a minute i already knew that about jared goff like i'm i i don't want to double count that like last season reminded me of how much you can impact this guy with pressure you know through the middle of the field the eagles game you know the defensive tackles are dominating it's cold weather like there's limits on the guy but i don't want to double count that so i ended up moving him up quite a bit because when it is on relative to like, you know, we haven't taken Brock Birdie, Sam Donald, Kyler Murray, Jalen Hurts, all these guys like when it's on, it's on when it's off, it's off.

1:01:40But if you go and you look for like a person at perspective over the last three years, golf's on this is above these other guys on this, right?

1:01:46Ben Solak:We were so I was doing the thing like if this was a one year draft for Stafford, we would both have him top five. Let me reframe this. If this was a every T every quarterback plays but with a good offensive line, like a top 10 offensive line, where would you draft if you could guarantee top 10 offensive line play, how high would you take Jared Goff? I mean, probably like 14th, like probably where I'm doing it right now. I mean, like, I would have him higher. About like, okay. So like, because the floor with the good offensive line. The thing is like, he's not getting above Dak for me. He's not getting above Drake and Caleb for me.

1:02:16Like Stafford, he's not getting above Stafford for me. It's like, maybe he's getting to 10, but like, I think I'm more, I feel like I'm already drafting on.

1:02:22Ben Solak:It's fine. Yeah, no, I mean, it's hard to crack the top. The top 10 is hard to crack. And then it gets, it gets kind of froggy. Yeah. so so for the sake that right last three seasons your golf's like second epa per play right and i and you know brock purdy we haven't drafted is also first up there and we'll have a brock purdy conversation but golf lets me get to a lot of throws 10 to 20 yards down the field that other guys can't make because of his way he sees it because of his comfort hitting those and some of the aggressiveness he gets to uh check downs and adjustments at the line of scrimmage and and and throws underneath to keep the offense on schedule that some of the younger and more erratic quarterbacks don't get to.

1:02:55I would really love if Goff could get his deep ball to a league average place, and then I would buy it so much more. Just some of the deep ball consistency drives me insane with him. And then obviously, we're talking about it going to be a high pressure to sack guy. He could be a high pressure issue guy.

1:03:09Ben Solak:I really did not push the ball downfield last year, by the way. Just the vertical ball was so good at Cal, and now it's just not a part of his game anymore. It's very disappointing. For what he is, yeah, this is fine. 15, almost at the halfway point, this is where I take Brock Purdy. okay um so purdy's always the like the stats are so great and yet like why are we you know how much of this is kyle shanahan how much of this is the team you know because statistically he did he's top five and everything right he always is um the thing that really jumped out to me by the way is like the he was uh was he first in pressure to sack right yes first to the wife because we talked about Caleb being second.

1:03:51Ben Solak:I was like, oh my God, Purdy again. He's unbelievable on third down, third and long. He's unbelievable. So when you try to like take out, you know, try to isolate quarterback play a little bit more, he's still very good. I do think I have seen enough Purdy struggle games against elite defenses, defenses that are able to confuse him turn him over that i'm okay dame for that but i also think the fact that he managed to produce the way he did last year without obviously brandon iuk with kiddle missing a good chunk of the season with ricky pierce all missing good chunk of the season we got to give him credit for that now the other thing i think worth noting is you know mac jones coming in and being as good as he was also a little bit of a point against him but if you're telling me three years like I think I've seen enough from Brock Purdy where even without Kyle Shanahan as much as he benefits from him I still think you're gonna get good quarterback play um I really do I don't think you're gonna get disaster like I think you can and right now we're at the above average point of this draft do you feel the same way I thought I was gonna have pretty higher than you I thought I was gonna get pretty I I had honestly a lot of notes down because I was pretty common I was gonna talk about Purdy just because of like, you know, how we talk about him, you know, how much he gets helped by that Shanahan offense.

1:05:14I was like, all right, like, I think I can put him here and I think I can snag him. Purdy, I've always been a Purdy guy from like snap one. He took over for Jimmy playing the Bucs, playing the Dolphins. He started pushing the ball down the field and he started scrambling around. And I was like, this is it like this. He's going to bring a level of mobility and creation to the Niners office that hasn't been there. The base offense will work. You know, we'll have some second reactor plays. This is good. But then when you weren't willing to like christen him as MVP God of the league in 2023. You immediately became like an anti-Purdy guy.

1:05:44I've always appreciated Purdy's game. Limits are very clear that because he is so reliant on Kyle getting the first read open, it's a little bit like Trevor, where once you start to fool him, he will throw himself into some terrible, terrible interceptions. But in general, we'll keep your options on schedule.

1:05:58Ben Solak:You also make plays outside of structure, which is one of the things that differentiates from, and I do think his scrambling ability is both legit and an important part of... 100%. it's a massive differentiator with him from past 49ers carbacks you know the seahawks have been on the receiving end of that um but also they have now at this point kind of owned they started to really uh put him on the struggle bus as well uh so all right the final pick of the first half are you gonna do it is this a spot so here's my question and you can answer this or not answer this you know what i mean by it yeah where are you gonna take sam oh he's in this i have a tier of three right here.

1:06:36Okay. I'm trying to figure out who I can push down my board and still get later. So when I took golf, my highest ranked player on the board was Fernando Mendoza and I took golf. Now at this point, I'll think I'll take Mendoza. I'll take Mendoza. Yeah. Mendoza is a really good prospect. He's been a top five quarterback in any single draft, ideal height, weight, size. He's got excellent arm talent, right? It's a little bit more of the Trevor Lawrence conversation and the Josh Allen conversation where it's can make every throw. It's not going to be on the and one highlight mixtape, but very clearly has it.

1:07:08Excellent processor, great accuracy, has scramble ability, has tackle breaking ability. The fabricated concerns about him coming into the league are the concerns with the under center drop backs. Timing-wise, no RPOs. I'm extremely confident in the processor that I saw at Indiana. I'm also confident in the individual and the way that he's prepared and gone through the pre-draft process in anticipation of the offense he's going to play. I think landing in a Clint Kubiak offense is going to be good for him in that regard, because Clint's been really good at getting multiple quarterbacks who do not necessarily major in this style of play to become successful.

1:07:41Some of the rollout stuff, the Hatfield stuff. And then he also gets a Brock Bowers, Ashton Gentry sort of an offense, I think, has the weapons that and an offensive line that isn't great, but I think will be good enough that it won't, you know, David Carr. And so Fernando Mendoza here at 16, I want to be buying on the future of this young guy relative to some of the more average veterans who I think are good players. but Mendoza gives me a high tail outcome that those guys don't.

1:08:04Ben Solak:Who is the angriest? Which fan base is the angriest right now? Philadelphia. Philadelphia by a mile. Every time. Yeah, it was going to be feisty. Denver. Denver is going to be best. Denver. Yeah, I think those three teams, I don't want to say anymore because I'll start giving away my board. I was, I actually, I thought I'd put Mendoza higher than I would have. When you say you're going to do it, you weren't talking about taking Mendoza? No, I was asking about the quarterback who I'm going to take after the break. Grab a cotton candy five-hour energy shot and get in on the sweet life. You get that classic throwback cotton candy flavor, but with zero sugar and a five-hour energy boost.

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1:09:28Ben Solak:From professional-grade products you can count on to fast, dependable delivery, they're there to help you keep things running smoothly. Plus, their technical product specialists are here to help answer your toughest questions. And because Grainger knows safety is always a priority, they're committed to being your partner in protecting both your people and your facilities. Call 1-800-GRAINGER, click grainger.com, or just stop by. All right, we're back. I'm taking Hertz here. 17. okay Eagles fans uh probably well I don't know I haven't put my finger on the pulse of Eagles nation right now um Jalen Hurts and Sean Mannion are friends now so optimism is through the roof just a ton of excitement about the uh the positive relationship there in June May um like so okay Hurts was not good last year he wasn't like yeah he's just any measure any way you slice it um and i think this is obviously i would say it's not a make or break year for his career because i think he has a skill set that'll enable him to be an nfl starter for years but this does feel like a make or break year for perceptions of whether or not he is always going to play with limitations does that fair to say i think that's there i mean like are who i i don't know who outside of like you know a strong eagles faithful would say jaylen hurts can play without limitations Like if you give them the right offense, like there's no issues here.

1:10:54Yeah.

1:10:55Ben Solak:It's not like I'm not one of those people who's been like, Jalen Hurst doesn't throw to the middle of the field because of his play callers. I obviously don't believe that. He has had multiple play callers and multiple opportunities. However, I am of the belief that if Jalen Hurst is willing to run more, it does change the complexion of the offense, changes the run game in a way that helps him. It creates coverages that are more favorable to him. And when I say this year is make or break, Like, I really believe if he is not willing to run more than all right, we're I feel like we've got a pretty low, not low, but the ceiling is suddenly just comes down.

1:11:33Ben Solak:And so I want to see it like, will he do it? Is that fair? Absolutely. Design runs per game last year, 4.3. It's the lowest of his of his career as a full time starter, right? Since 2020. Now, I'm not filtering out tush bushes here. And so, you know, that's hard to do. but in general his involvement in the first and 10 second and six design running game was limited he also did not scramble nearly as much or nearly as successfully as he had in the past he had the lowest first down per rush that he's had in any season of his career was not impacting the game with his legs nearly as much if i have a quarterback who uh is not the same run threat he used to be doesn't access a area of the field intermediate middle he throws to one of the lowest rates of all quarterbacks in the league he and he also gets dramatically more affected by certain coverages zone relative to man coverage than other quarterbacks do like we're we have stacked too many limiting factors ways exactly ways that that can affect you now that's before aj brown leaves right and so we're also now we're seeing like you know like if you know eagles fans oh why isn't jaylen hurts higher well jaylen hurts is about to we're about to learn something about him without aj that like you know we haven't had the chance to learn about like joe burrow without jamar chase and D Higgins.

1:12:39Yeah. Prescott without CD Lamb. And AJ Brown was the league's best man coverage receiver in his time in Philadelphia. Lead league in targets per route and yards per route wrong. He was the man coverage to loosen. So Jalen, who was already a lot better against man than he was against zone, is now losing the receiver who kind of was the man problem solver for them. So Jalen's never been more exposed. There's never been more visibility on his warts and defensive game plans to attack them. And so it's hard to buy stock up right now. Now, if he walks out there and starts killing it in the Sean Mannion offense, great.

1:13:07but how much of that is going to be because the running game gets boosted back up. The offensive line is more consistent guard to guard. And then it's just the same. It's always been when it's jailed as a contributing, but not engine factor in an otherwise very healthy offense.

1:13:20Ben Solak:I think what I would say is, um, his skillset is one where if you do have, and I feel this way about another quarterback who was also in green Bay, he's going to come up at some point. When I look at Jalen hurts, I feel the same way I did about Russ. at various points of his career, which is because of his abilities, and he does have a few special abilities, if you can run the ball at a top 10 level, let's say that offense is going to be good enough. I really believe that. When I say good enough, I mean good enough. Obviously, we've seen this, and they had more than a top 10 running game, and they had more.

1:14:01Ben Solak:But I'm just saying, if you could tell me right now that the Eagles offense is going to be top 10 in efficiency and explosiveness, that I will tell you this offense is good enough to make a deep playoff run coupled with the defense, obviously, because of his rushing ability, the fact that he throws such a beautiful deep ball, and it's sort of just kind of like the way he – the style of play. However, when you're drafting quarterbacks and you're building in a vacuum, which is what we're doing, you don't want to say this quarterback needs a top 10 rushing attack. Right. However, it's 17. That's the stage of the draft.

1:14:33Ben Solak:I feel fine saying that. um okay did you did you not have him next well you're up next who did you have next 18. So he was well and truly in this tier I'm not sure I probably would have taken Kyler Murray above him and this is where I'm going to take Kyler Murray really okay I had him slightly below all right yeah so Kyler Sam Donald Bo Nix Baker Mayfield like we are in the conversation Jalen Hertz we're in the conversation of all right I know how to win with you I also know how to lose with you right I know how to I know how to beat this guy and I know what the limiting factors are the um bow nicks has been statistically so much better than kyler murray last two seasons sam donald's been jayla hurts has been statistically so much better than kyler murray last two seasons i'm drafting for the next three years and i think kyler outside of arizona is about to remind us what it's like when you have a quarterback who has this much movement skills and this much accuracy i want to talk about something with kyler because i obviously i've talked about him a lot and how you know he raises the floor for minnesota and even in his last couple years in in arizona though they weren't great and he was injured he was basically average right which is you know incredible for minnesota killed for average last year but i have a question for you um because i did have him i had him in right a little bit below the hell happened in the deep ball because his first few seasons in the nfl he was one of the best deep ball throwers in the nfl and that has dropped off precipitously and there's a litany of reasons for that i think one of them is surrounding cast nature of the offense but do you think there's something about him that suggests he now he goes to a Minnesota Vikings offense with freaking Jordan Addison uh why did I say Jordan Addison for Justin T.J.

1:16:07Hawkinson that's who they built the passing game around Dustin

1:16:09Ben Solak:Jefferson and Jordan Addison uh so the if he can approximate anything close to what we saw earlier his career bombs away but like can he like what happened in your mind so i i wrote about this and i couldn't find it fastly quick in my drive and i'm sure that i'll find it later it'll drive me crazy but the the first thing that comes to mind is that cliff offense is and we saw this with jayden in 2024 very oriented on okay spread out and formation everything in the moment you get the one-on-one outside the numbers you throw it and so a lot of the kyler deep ball stuff to me is our throws that were like 20 to 30 yards down the field 20 to 35 and just like up against the sideline one-on-ones throwing the ball to deandre hopkins there in arizona like that's a great setup versus like ripping the post and like the deep over and some of the throws that i think are more like within the process you know first read second read a little bit later in the down i think a lot of murray's verticality was like you know i would call it college area verticality relative to like what we expect from nfl deep concepts the they're also like knee injuries right and so you have there's a foot injury in there as well right and so you also can talk about like mechanically he's not getting the same power from his lower body that he once was, which he's a guy that needs that because he's not a big dude.

1:17:19So he needs to get the whole mechanical chain torquing in order to actually get like real mustard on the football.

1:17:23Ben Solak:It's how Caleb Williams is like, it's his secret sauce is he's got like, just he's like a coiled spring. Yeah. Deep ball accuracy is also like if you look at a league wide perspective, a wide receiver stat as much as the quarterback stat, a lot of his your ability to adjust and win the ball above the rim. Now he's been more off target for sure. But like, you know, I think that they wanted Marv to be good down the field and Marv just has not been good down the field. That impacts it as well. Kyler, I just think that the the office we saw him in with Cliff was like well suited to what he was as a young in and OK coming up and like out of the college game.

1:17:53But he is a much better fit. Like I shouldn't say that now he fits with Kevin O 'Connell. It's such a different offense. People say like, all right, how is this going to work? He can't throw middle of the field. Yes, but he still does so much in terms of like throws into the sideline and velocity on the ball and the quick releases that a good offensive coach should be able to scheme around Kyler Murray, the veteran in a way that's much more NFL, much more healthy. than like the Cliffs offenses with all the strengths and with all of its warts. Murray is not a guy who's super involved in the design running game for his movement skills because he's not that big.

1:18:22So you don't want him taking hits as a scrambler. Still, Murray remains one of the more dangerous, turn a negative into a positive play guys, one of the highest first down rates on his scrambles among all quarterbacks in the league. And so we're still talking about to me, a guy who impacts the game in two ways, legs and with the arm and a guy who makes well enough throws for a good scheming coach with a good wide receiver core to be able to create explosive plays.

1:18:43Ben Solak:19 i'm going to take the quarterback who was 19th in qbr and that's sam darnold uh look at that well done he's in the t i did the we've sounds like we have a lot of the same guys without giving away too much in the same tier um kind of a funny like an odd season to characterize because started off it's actually similar to another quarterback who i expect is going to come up very soon who, uh, who we've been talking about a little bit, uh, in that his first, first half of the season, really, he was unbelievable. And then the wheels kind of came off a little bit in the second half. Um, and you, you saw some of the issues with pressure and that have ailed him at various points in the career.

1:19:28Ben Solak:And then he has the best single best game of his entire season when it mattered the most in the NFC championship insane. And then the Super Bowl he's not really the you know the catalyst for the success but he played fine uh so it's a weird season to characterize Ben and it kind of makes it hard to rank him um I think the what I'll say is and why I feel comfortable with him here is you saw what he is capable of which is he if you have a receiver like Jackson Ben Chikpa who's was the best receiver in football last year I thought he played defense he plays o-f-ins as defense I look like it said defense it actually said o-f-ins um Darnold is a quarterback and of course you saw this with Jefferson as well in Minnesota who is capable of aggressively delivering him the ball downfield he is you know he he can sling it he can throw it over the middle of the field he's a great play action quarterback so it's funny because we talked about Hurts and his constraints and Darnold's kind of different in that I don't think he has constraints as a passer.

1:20:31Ben Solak:His problem is how he sometimes responds to pressure and sometimes can make bad situations worse. And again, you saw that in the second half of the season. But I do think the ceiling is high enough for me to feel. Like, we obviously saw the ceiling is high enough to win a Super Bowl. Sam Donald, 28th last year, or excuse me, 28th last two years among quarterbacks in terms of EPA per pressure dropback. And I think that when we're talking about Sam coming off of the Week 11 Rams game, it was like, man, we all know what the issue is with Sam Donald, like this Rams defense, these pressure teams, right?

1:21:01You can't do it. And then he has a great end of the regular season. Excuse me. He had a shaky end of the regular season, but he has a great postseason run. It's like, all right, like now you'll just never hear this mentioned, but it's the same thing. Like Jalen hurts his 2024 run into Sam Donald 2025 run. Demons don't get exercised. They get banished and then they return. And so like the idea that Sam now is this is to me like wrong. Sam is what he's always been in his totality and his goodness and in his badness. Now, Sam, when he got drafted third overall, like the arm on Sam, Sam is the best arm we drafted in the last like six, seven picks.

1:21:33And so on it, like, you know, like it's, it's nice to get Sam here this low because of the throws that he can make down the field. But it's important to remember that like the warts on the guy are still the warts on the guy, even when he wears the ring on his finger. Like everybody knows that the playbook for beating Sam and teams were doing it seven months ago. Like that was happening.

1:21:48Ben Solak:I feel like you just inadvertently gave like four or five pieces of relationship advice in that. Oh yeah. Demons donate exercise. they just return. The warts remain even when he's got the ring on his finger. A lot of bars. I mean, like as a, you know, married for six years, two kids now, when my buddies text me with like, hey, so like dating advice, I'm like, please, this is the only drama I get in my life. Let's hear it. What's going on? Demons don't get exercised. They just return. That'd be a tagline for like a scary movie. A little like tinkles over the head and nine, nine o 'clock on ABC, this episode of The Bachelor.

1:22:25all right 20 who you got all right i'm very pleased that i get to be the bonex guy because it means maybe i won't get yelled at um that's unlikely but yeah 20 they're gonna yell at you anyways this is about where i have him as well so yeah uh bonex a player who i've always found unoffensively fine in a way that deeply offends a lot of people in colorado is a highly risk averse quarterback who keeps the office on schedule since he entered the league the lowest stack rate among all quarterbacks 3.6 percent he does have a more of a league average interception rate, a lot of those games come in flashes, right?

1:22:57Where he'll be like 0-0-0-0-2, 0-0-0-0-3, where he has these very high interception games. If you look at deep accuracy since he entered the league, he is bottom two, bottom three, and pretty much every match we have a completion percentage, off target rate, success rate, not a reliable deliverer of the football. When we start to hit 15, 18 plus, he can hang a ball out there 40, 50 yards down the field. And one of, I think the dissonant conversation points for Broncos fans is we say, Bo is not reliable throwing the ball down the field. Bo can't throw the ball down the field. And they say, look at this Marvin Mims touchdown against the Browns.

1:23:28What are you talking about? Like, it's a beautiful seam ball, 40, 50 yards down the field. Bo is awesome at hanging the sucker out there on the home run shot. Doubles to triples. He's got to hit Cortland Sutton in a dig window. He's got to hit, you know, Marvin Mims on and over before the corner gets involved. Extremely unreliable placing the football, gets there late, throws his receivers into hits. So you have to operate really more within the 10 to 15 yards, right? More like the 8-15 yards, and then occasionally ring the bell and go for the home run. Now, Bo, from the moment he walked in with Sean Payton, understood where his bread was buttered, is really good at distributing that ball fast, does it accurately at or behind the line of scrimmage to maximize yards after the catch.

1:24:04He can place it very well against zone coverage in the shorter areas of the field. He just struggles with it when he has to put mustard on the football. And so you can keep a passing game on schedule. And then, something that I don't think gets talked about with Bo enough, as we saw in that Bills playoff game, you can walk out with the Bo running game plans, right? and he like you know when they beat the texans it was on the back of a huge bow scramble in the fourth quarter right to get that that game-winning field goal and so he is a little bit in the brock purdy joe burrow tier where burrow's wrong he's in the brock purdy tier yeah purdy is the one he reminds me yeah exactly where when he scoots he can scoot on you that's impactful yeah i think

1:24:39Ben Solak:both both there's things that he's already obviously good at i think the scrambling is important to mention um he avoids negative plays uh the pressure to sack you know like the bronco's offensive line is very good but he is able to point guard the offense keep it out of way or keep the ball out of harm's way and stay out of trouble and keep the chains moving um he to me is when i when the biggest concern i have is just the off target rates when he throws the ball downfield. I will say that did improve somewhat over the course of the season. And so I think part of the bet here, and I love getting the 20, especially with Waddle coming in, is if that improvement can continue.

1:25:29Ben Solak:And to me, that's what has to improve for him to leap into the top 15 or the top, you know, I mean, like to be a upper half quarterback in the league, because that was what ultimately held me back from putting him there, even though So I think, you know, like, and also some variance too. I mean, people forget last year because it ended well. There were some pretty rough outings for sure. I do think that the Broncos receiving group was not great though. And that's as good as the offensive line was. And as much as occasionally Sutton would make him right on, you know, throws against man coverage and whatnot on the sideline.

1:26:01Ben Solak:This wasn't like a group of world beaters by any, you know, like the imagination. So this is a year where they got him. they got him ready, locked and loaded, armed him up with doing every military thing I can come up with with Jalen Waddell. But I think I feel comfortable that he's kind of because you know what he's good at and he also has, I think, some unique attributes. If he can just improve with that one thing, then you could easily imagine him. But that's a big thing to improve. We're talking about being accurate right now. It's kind of a big part of quarterbacking. The regression part is important.

1:26:37And also, like I said, deep ball accuracy can be a receiver stat waddle like if you made me rank biggest moves of the offseason draft trade free agency everything waddle the broncos is like easy top 10 has the chance to just be the be the tipping point for a super bowl now because it happened so far before the draft that i feel like because the first reaction was like all right how does this affect aj brown where's aj brown because that was like the new cycle at the time waddle the broncos a big big

1:27:00Ben Solak:big deal okay i'll go baker 21. um you know he was i was alluding to when i was talking about Darnold, although Darnold, I think did it for longer. Baker looked like the best quarterback in football for six weeks. And then it's funny because I wouldn't even say like he was horrible the rest of the season. He was just wildly inconsistent the rest of the year. There were high highs and then very low lows, a lot of turnover worthy plays. He made a lot of, again, this speaks to the variance, like good plays under pressure and on third down, but then he would try to force the ball on early downs. And it was just a very inconsistent season from him.

1:27:42Ben Solak:21, however, feels like good value for me. Yeah, we're at the point now where like every quarterback you take, if you just remember their five best games, like Mac on Sky 21, like this is crazy. Baker just from Cleveland to Carolina to Tampa Bay, just struggle so much to calibrate just when he is on, he is on when he is disagreeing with his receivers, when he's throwing into tight windows, when he is getting pressured. I mean, he just continues to hammer high-velocity balls into coverage and just lives and dies on the one sword that he has in his quiver. And the toughness is impressive. The scramble ability is impressive, but also the pocket management is just so rough at times because he's running to go be the tough guy and be the scrambling guy.

1:28:22He knows how he wins, and he runs to it and only plays that way and never really modulates when he's getting something different from the defense, when the offense needs something different from him. he just marches to the beat of the Baker Mayfield drum so he's not a guy I thought I was gonna leave

1:28:35Ben Solak:this draft with where I had him ranked serves a little credit I think too for the sort of general decline in the run game and and last season he was in more difficult circumstances than he was the prior year all right I think I know you're gonna take it 22. Cam Ward yeah Cam Ward yeah so am I thrilled like you know 49th out of 53 quarterbacks uh love EPA per drop back let's just start here the stats are horrendous last year as we are yeah as somebody who's been like oh sacrate pressure dropbacks i ain't got no stats for you on cam ward everything was bad however i watched him play and when i watched him play i i made him my first team all rookie quarterback at the end of the season and i got guff from giants fans and saints fans alike and i think that we'll talk about both those quarterbacks cases in a little bit but just to me ward made high difficulty throws in long and late context in red zone context in trailing by 17 points context in first and 10 context just across the board made more high difficulty you know spectacular play throws than both tyler shuck and jackson dart did they both those players certainly had those moments but watching those three war is the one where i say okay who's becoming a top 10 quarterback whose arm is is elevating his offense above a scheme plays to a point where like defenses fear him even outside of the pocket to me that player is clearly cam ward he has to play more on time he has to has to has to has to run the football be willing to scramble he would not cross the line of scrimmage last year he was looking for kill shot after kill shot or kill shot and understandably he wanted to score he had he had it was it was nine designed runs on the season and seven of them came after callahan was fired so with callahan the plan was clearly never to use never to run him.

1:30:14So he ran two times. He's not, you know, Lamar, but he's Baker, right? Like he's got a nice dense body and he can scoot a little bit. Like you have to be willing to scramble and get the second and four. He's just trying to score 10 points on every single play. And he knew he was, he was fighting a big uphill battle. They get Cardinal Tate into the building. You know, they have a new offensive system, the Brian Dable, Wanda Robinson. We're gonna be able to work a lot better in the short areas of the field. He's got a little RPO pop gun game. That's great. A little arm angle change. That's nice.

1:30:38And then he has some of those really nice whistlers there into the scene up into the sideline so i'm buying the arm talent on cam ward at this stage

1:30:44Ben Solak:so i bunched all the these guys together the rookies and i honestly it's funny because we're not really having this conversation like because they both all had i mean it was just not ward chuck and dark i'm speaking of yeah it was such a um you know i think they all had challenging situations, shall we say? And I honestly am of the belief that you could probably put the three of them in any order right now, and I don't think it would be that objectionable. I agree with that. I think with Ward, it's a bet on the ceiling. He played one of the best games against the Seahawks of any quarterback, by the way.

1:31:22Ben Solak:The James Proche Seamball. The moment I saw that I saw him picking this guy 22nd in the quarterback draft in May. It's hard. Like, you know, it's similar. I mean, Caleb also had abysmal stats season one. And it's absolutely like we have examples of quarterbacks bouncing back from that. I'm going to go Shuck here. Yeah, that's what I've got. And I went back and forth because I think Dart played probably the better like two games, frankly, of any of these quarterbacks. But there are some things with him that concern me. Whereas Shuck, I think I saw a level of and he also he also has they all have bad stats.

1:32:00Ben Solak:So whatever, throw that out. I saw a little bit more consistency from Shuck as a thrower as well as and this was like a I wouldn't say surprise but it was pleasant to see a level of aggression maybe that I didn't know I would see necessarily from him throwing over the middle of the field intermediate throws trusting Olave at points to make difficult catches now you add I mean we're not supposed to consider context here but you had another really good receiver who can make difficult catches on the middle field and I just feel like the arrows pointed up um again you know took too many sacks I thought had some misses and I don't think you know the mobility was quite what you'd like it's certainly not as good as dart but I feel like he showed me that he's got a floor as an NFL starter that maybe people didn't know he was capable of yeah the aggressiveness I think is a very important point both edges of the blade right shock was pushing the football down the field and make it uh throws into tight windows more uh eagerly than i thought he might now his open target rate numbers are pretty good right kellen moore's doing a nice job scheming some of that downfield stuff up shuck also has one of the worst pressure to sack ratios in the league right and rookie quarterback bad pressure to sack ratio you know sun rises in the east right like when you know not about this they're all bottom five in pressure to sack shucks big thing year one to year two is figuring out where to have the dial right in terms of okay like how much can kellen more scheme up for me how much do i need to create chunk plays are we doing it within the structure of the offense so I can get rid of the ball quicker.

1:33:26He's got to be willing to throw the football away more. But also, some of the best stuff is some of his arm talent stuff. He's got a very nice placement on some of those arc throws. And so I very much am a buyer on Shuck, like on the rookie contract right in the next three years. Saints long term, he's older and he's got injury history. I'm a buyer on Shuck. I'm a buyer on what I saw from Kellen Moore. They went to improve the running game, which was very, very bad, especially during their Shuck stretch in the back half last season. So I'm a big, big, big Saints buyer overall. But the way that this Saints offense falls apart as if Shuck can't calibrate how aggressive he's supposed to be.

1:33:56And he starts too many sacks, too many turnovers, and that kind of hamstrings the offense with too many drives.

1:34:02Ben Solak:All right. Are you going to take Dart next or someone else? You got to complete the set, right? Yeah, I'll take Dart here. I had a couple of guys who I'd have been comfortable here, and I'll take Dart just as we go through these rookies. Because like you said, I think that while Ward to me was clearly a cut above, I think having Dart or Shuck above him is not what I would do, but it is defensible. And I do think that both Dart and Shuck had their flashy moments of brilliance. I think that Dart, when you look at how good he was as a scrambler and accordingly as a third down playmaker, right? Some of the throws that he got against the Eagles, against the Broncos in that game that they should have won, where he's able to create throws outside of structure because he has established the threat of his legs in a way that is surprising relative to what we expected coming out of Ole Miss.

1:34:40Now, numbers-wise, I mean, Jackson Dart was hit. Where's my Jackson Dart piece? There it is. Dart was hit 14 times, excuse me, 148 times in 14 games. So over 10 hits per game, league average is eight. It's no good. And he doesn't protect himself when he does get hit. Now, to protect him from that more, you'd like to either A, get the ball out quicker, but they were already running like a shotgun RPO offense that got the ball out fairly quickly. Or B, just have him stylistically throw the ball way more, check the ball way more and not use his legs. But that was really the strength of his play as a rookie.

1:35:14And so there is a chrysalis process that has to happen here where he plays style wise. He simply has to change if he wants to have a long NFL career. But again, it's a calibration thing. You still need to use his legs to a degree.

1:35:25Ben Solak:I was just talking to our producer at this because this is coming up. We're talking about a John Harbaugh culture question coming out of Baltimore. And I mentioned that I'll be interested in seeing how he, obviously he's not calling plays, but how he approaches the utilization of dart on design carries, which he had the most of, if any, quarterback in the NFL despite playing fewer games, which is insane. It's insane. And he's fine size. He's not big. He's average for quarterback. What I was saying, the producer is like, yes, he comes from Baltimore. But Lamar was a very different style of run.

1:36:03Ben Solak:I mean, there's never been a runner like Lamar in terms of his ability. The way Lamar avoids contact. Like Lamar's injuries have not come from taking hits while running, right? Like you designed running. It's important to mention for the most part. And like, I I'll be interested in seeing how hardball approaches that balance and whether or not they feel that they can run the ball better without having dart as a part of that rushing game. You know, you add Francis Mauna to the mix, same back, scatterable coming out from injury. But I think that's, this was part of my discomfort with dart was the contact and the potential for injury.

1:36:39Ben Solak:I was thinking about that compared to these other two quarterbacks moving forward. Yeah. And it's Tyler Jacques who's had like multiple insane injuries, right? But like, yeah. One of the great myths of quarterback mobility is the guys who run more get hit when they're who get run more, get hit more, and then they get hurt more. When the reality is the guys who've run more in high school and college have learned how to get hit. And so they go down and they protect themselves and they get tackled. They know how to brace themselves. Dart was not really a runner. He would scramble. It was there, but he's not really a runner in college.

1:37:07So all of a sudden when he's getting a huge menu of quarterback run, he does not know how to protect his body. He's not used to taking this many hits.

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1:39:19Ben Solak:Marriott Bonvoy, where game day checks in. All right, 25. I'm going to take Bryce Young here. I had trouble figuring out what to do with him. This is your biggest reach so far on my board. Yeah. Well, at this point, I don't know, man. We're at the point of the draft. with the remaining eight god what is it 25 we're gonna we gotta move pretty quickly here where it's it's so weird they're all there's all big there's nobody i i so i didn't i had them we actually have had all the same tears except for you had caleb i think a few above mine or a couple above mine and but and mendoza but i don't this i'm i'm done tearing them now i'm just throwing darts yeah um the case i'm gonna make for bryce and i think this got a little bit slept on how bad the offensive line was in Carolina last season.

1:40:09Ben Solak:And I, I, which, you know, I talked about this when I talked about most improved position groups, the fact that, you know, they were missing Robert hunt for the entire season, pretty much. And a Kwan who was up and down and whatnot, but I didn't realize like, so I was looking at quick pressure rate for Herbert. Bryce young faced the court, the highest quick pressure rate in the NFL last season. And I don't know. And he took too many sacks and obviously his numbers were not great over the course of the entire season, but like, I don't know, maybe it's appreciated. The run game was really inconsistent.

1:40:45Ben Solak:The offensive line was kind of bad. Yeah. The structurally, they also do a lady, some like screen stuff and some swing stuff for like Bryce, just getting pressured fast because they're not blocking guys. Right. But I think that no, like guard center guard was a problem for them for a lot of the stretch last year which Bryce is a smaller dude and so you really want to have like a wall there on the interior and they did not for him I just like I have like you know I my I'm where I'm at on Bryce where like the physical size is so limiting and then we talked a lot about oh peak plays for like Knicks and for Hertz and for Purdy even the Bryce Young peak plays are a lot of times like you know Ted please go be taller than the corner over there to you know to a point where like if I'm just winning on deep contested throws I just feel like I'm not winning reliably I just heard that.

1:41:25Ben Solak:When I think back to, because I was thinking back to the Rams game, which obviously was, he got to finish the season on a high note. It wasn't all, like I understand what you're saying. There was a decent amount of 50-50 balls, but he also like, he'll have like weird stretches where he's just oddly accurate throwing the ball into tight, like not just tight, but throwing the ball downfield. And I don't think it's just, I don't know, him leaning on his receivers per se. So I think that's very good. That's good. That's good. All right. You had him, you had him later. Who do you have next? 26. I'm thrilled to get the quarterback with the highest EPA per dropback over the last three years here in Malik Willis.

1:42:00Wow, what a win for me.

1:42:01Ben Solak:This is crazy. So unfair because I said to myself, if the Steelers had signed Malik Willis instead of Aaron Rodgers, I probably would have taken Malik Willis' top 20, certainly, which is so, again, we're trying not to do that in this exercise. But holy mackerel, that Dolphins receiver group. and it's not fair. It's not what we're doing. We're trying to do this in a vacuum, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it knowing what's about to ensue. I'm just, I'm, I, I have, every player left has massive, massive, massive physical limitations. Uh, Daniel Jones, specifically specifically off the Achilles, everybody left has massive, uh, physical limitations, except for Malik Willis, who has an NFL caliber arm and has truly like, you know, uh, uh, near elite, right?

1:42:46Great to excellent running ability as a quarterback, right? The tuck and run, the ability to break tackles and the design to end of the scramble game is very much there. You can create an offense that will give bad defense coordinators problem because you get to play 11 on 11 football. I joked about the EPA per drop back numbers. You have to lower your thresholds to get like, you know, 100 drop backs over the last two years to get Willis into the sample. But when we have seen him throw, there is clearly accuracy when he gets to throw to his first read, right? He can throw guys open against man coverage with placement.

1:43:13He can do it to all three levels of the field. We don't really know what he looks like as a I have to drop back for the entire second half of the game because we're trailing quarterback. And I think they're in Miami when they're going to be losing these games. He's not going to have great receivers. We're going to see just how inconsistent he is as a passer. But I have peak passing and then I also have peak rushing. And so at 26, yes, very happy to take Malik Lowe's here.

1:43:34Ben Solak:All right. 27 is where I'm going to take Daniel Jones. Yeah. And I wanted to ask you this question. So Daniel Jones, the reason he is going 27th after coming off of best season of his career is obviously, well, even coming. Well, OK, let's get to that question.

1:43:52Ben Solak:um he is he is coming off an Achilles injury we don't know exactly when he's going to play we do know that's a very brutal injury and we have seen quarterbacks take a long time to come back from that none of that stopped the Colts from giving him a contract extension and talking about him like he's going to be absolutely fine um and that's really why I was I I just feel like I'm not there where they are. I did want to ask you, so if he didn't, it's an impossible hypothetical because we don't know how he would have played down the final stretch. And I do think we started to see some warts crop up during the season, which maybe don't get talked about.

1:44:31Ben Solak:But if he did not have the Achilles, how high do you think you would have taken him? I mean, like 17 Hertz, 18 Kyler, 19 Sam, right? I think let's say he's averaged the rest of the way. The Colts lose in the divisional round, and Sam has the run that he has, and Sam wins the Super Bowl. Jones' peak stretch, the first half of the year would have been better than Sam's peak stretch, but Sam actually got the hay in the barn, so you're probably putting Sam above him. So there. The thing about Jones is, let's say he'd finished last season, and the Colts had been the ninth best offense in the last 25 years in terms of points per drive because they were on pace to be the first.

1:45:06So let's say they were top 10 last 20 years. I still would have been here being like, all right, do it again. that I've well you saw too much Daniel Jones over his time with the Giants too many issues playing against pressure too many issues with the sudden high turnover high sack games to be like oh and now he's fine right so even if he had finished the job this is as obvious of a okay do it again before I really start to rank you sort of a player and then you fold in not just major injury but like Achilles injury on the plant foot for a quarterback asking to drop back we just have seen that his mobility is so important to his success and that's going to affect his mobility and then it's also going to affect his arm strength if kurt cousins and aaron rogers are any indication and so now i've got massive physical limitations on a guy who wasn't really killing it from like the mental game perspective anyway so now i need to see it again and i also like really really really really really really really need to see it again

1:45:53Ben Solak:you have a 28 all right we're down we're in we're in the we're in the drags nobody i like i mean like i'll take i'll take geno here i mean geno's 35 how much like i'm the oldest quarterback i have right now is Jared Goff. And so I feel comfortable. I'll take one, one geriatric quarterback and I'll take Gino. He's 35 turning 36. Uh, Gino's last season with the Raiders was highly, highly concerning from an arm strength perspective. Would not be surprised if we're just not going to see Gino be successful for the rest of his career because he is such an aggressive quarterback who wants to push the football.

1:46:24So the moment his arm is consistently failing him, he's just going to be a high interception player who cannot reliably hit the windows he would like to try. if we get a Frank Reich season where a like the let's say the arm comes back a little bit because he's got another year off of some of the injuries and the hits he was taking in Seattle if Frank Reich gets him to a point where he's more comfortable playing short and close to the line of scrimmage then potentially we have ourselves like a nice veteran quarterback here who consistently gets to the first read his accuracy isn't incredible but it's good enough yes he's going to throw you a lot of picks he's also going to throw you some spectacular touchdowns he's tough in the pocket he will play 17 games for you you know that to me like splits him off of Tua where I'm like, all right, I'll take Tua.

1:47:00But how many games over the next three seasons am I actually getting of him in the field? So I'll take Gino there.

1:47:07Ben Solak:The thing I'm most interested in seeing, and obviously I've taken my lumps with Gino, is whether or not arm strength is going to continue declining this season. That was probably the thing that there was certain throws last year in Las Vegas. Look, it was a horrendous situation. And this is a better one. And I think we're going to see a better quarterback. I really do think he's going to be better. But there were throws that kind of died on him. And I think because he's such an aggressive quarterback, it was almost like there were moments where he thought he could make throws he wasn't making anymore, as well as throwing to guys who just wouldn't get.

1:47:43Ben Solak:It was a bad offense. So I think if that stabilizes, and that's all I think was impacted by the offensive line and pressure and him wanting, I think that the pressure he was facing affected the style of play as well. And like some of the bad decisions and the bad, whatever. Anyways, if the decline continues, that's concerning. And I think over three years it is concerning. But I do think there's a very realistic world where he's better than what we saw last year. Yeah, I mean, possible. I would be surprised if he isn't. It's the degree to which he is that I think is the question. It's okay. Can he play with any bad arm strength?

1:48:22or is it no arms actually back a little bit and now I can get 20 yards on the field more consistently but yeah easy easy to wash away a lot of the Raiders from last year like hired hired highest paid office coordinator who they fired by mid-season one year coach Pete Carroll like everything there was very clearly in the mess so yeah I'll clean slate Gino for the Jets

1:48:39Ben Solak:in 2026 wish it was another team but I'll clean slate him for the Jets 29 wait yeah 29 30 31 32 We have one, two, three, four quarterbacks left. I'll take two, I hear. Don't do that. Don't do that. Your pick is easy and fine. It's my pick at 30. That's awful. And this means that I think he's going to get the job over Penix. And that's the best case for Falcons fans is that actually that doesn't happen, in my opinion, that Penix comes back strong and that he improves in certain regards. But it just seems like such a long shot at this point. Tua was really bad last year. He had stretches of competent play, but I think the thing that was so alarming about watching him was he was bad in new ways.

1:49:29Ben Solak:He's always been a quarterback who isn't going to give you much outside of structure. He's not going to throw a certain post-field at us. But he was also making really horrendous decisions last season at times. He was bad when kept clean. That was weird. But I do think, and this is obviously risky given his timeline but or his injury history pardon me but i do think we're not that far removed from seeing him give you admit at least average quarterback play so he was leaving the league in yeah and like legit passing stats three years ago like that happened and so it is much it's more convincingly capable of happening again than it is with the other guys you go dude like can i pass no no no there's three quarterbacks left yes they are of the steelers browns and the cardinals i will i suppose i will take aaron rogers because i'm most confident of getting 16 games out of 17 games out of him than i am out of getting the the two alternatives i have written about aaron rogers now in the news that he has signed with Steelers.

1:50:33Thank you. He cannot move. His accuracy down the field has fallen off precipitously. His accuracy under pressure is the fourth worst of any quarterback we've seen the last five years. The ball is getting out extremely fast behind line of scrimmage because he just doesn't want to get contacted. So we have a quarterback here who is too old and is continuing to play despite the fact that he's too old.

1:50:52Ben Solak:You made I know I know I'm just like throwing out counterfactuals, but you made a really important point in that piece. And I talked about this a little bit yesterday reacting to the contract about how we know Rodgers at this point in his career balls come out fast zero he doesn't want to take pressure but he's still accurate and he can still you know he make most throws if you knew that Mike McDaniel was the play caller in Pittsburgh do you think Aaron Rodgers could put up a top 15 season 15 is rich I don't know Mike McDaniel those pass catchers Pittsburgh Steelers I think the offense is good a lot of what players are good a lot of what Mike is good at though is taking the decision making away from the quarterback and Rodgers would oh no he's never gonna do that yeah I just think like his skills that is one that you could hypothetically build a competent offense around but like we don't trust yeah and and I do hear Steelers fans when they say you know we need better pass catchers because when you're gonna live with this much yards of the catch it would be nicer if you weren't thrown to like Michael Pittman and and you know Johnny Smith I conflated two years there but in general you know the rooms has not been as good as you'd like for it to be.

1:51:58You said Rodgers has been accurate. He can make most of the throws. I agree. He did lead the league in off-target rate on downfield throws last year, right? It's important to remember, when he throws downfield, it's extremely early in the down, and it's usually because he's panicking, and he's supposed to throw a one-on-one. And so he just, and he hates throwing picks. He's consistently, every single year, one of the lowest pick guys. So he throws out of bounds, and then he gets mad at his receiver for not doing something. And so it's just so hard to believe in top 15 offense because that applies above average, and just like there's such a hard average cap on an offense that decides to play this style.

1:52:27Ben Solak:legals will have been really interesting all right uh murray would have been what five percent of the price so bad okay brissette and sanders we're calling it brissette and sanders because you know it's obviously i want you to think about the headlines that will happen on this pod if sanders goes last and i want you to save us the two you and i 24 hours of awful hell and prevent him from going last. Shador had a 37 % success rate. Which isn't great. The only quarterback, I was using FTN's number of success rate, you know, it was different. The only quarterback below 40 % throwing the football.

1:53:06Ben Solak:Jacoby was not great, but... That Cowboys game, Monday Night Football, pretty good. It actually, at times, at least looked like an NFL offense. Realistically, neither of these quarterbacks, I believe, will be starting next season, which is also so. So we're only playing for this season. I'll go Shador here. Why not? Brissette holding out is the funniest holdout of all time. It's so good. It's perfect content. Do it. I'll take Shador here and you can have Brissette. Yeah. Jacoby Brissette might go just a long time. I mean, he's a better quarterback. Yes, I would say I would say likelihood of starting 15 plus games over the next three years jacoby zero shidor like one percent so you're you're actually getting some longevity there and the browns i do think have pretty improved circumstances for him so there you go that's it that was very long uh quarterback draft who's going to be the angriest eagles fans always giants maybe um i don't know if colts fans can be eagles fans i think seahawks fans darwin at 19 is going to get us into trouble Steelers fans they get it they're they're I've heard from them yeah me taking Kyler over Sam is gonna get me in a lot of trouble oh I forgot you did that yeah that's gonna be tough or love haters fine come at me I'm this my guy wrong uh uh alright that's it for now uh Ben that was a lot of fun working folks check out your work ESPN.com the mini-com show featuring Lenny Celebrity Jeopardy season 3 no just kidding me already won that and we're done ESPN's bowing out now mean as the go the champ uh also follow ben on various socials tick tock and instagram uh you think you're the only benjamin so lack of notes so some guy with last name so like dm me on instagram like are we related and i was like i'm not answering this but thanks man odd um thank you okay so uh by the way for those who are interested jeopardy uh which i haven't really talked about here obviously i did do a podcast with my friend david dennis jr you can watch it on youtube youtube.com slash I'm in a times or check it out on our viewer discretion podcast feed, full episode breaking down how I spent two months during the NFL season secretly studying for jeopardy.

1:55:25Ben Solak:And I, we're also going to talk about the boys finale this week for those who watch the boys area, fun as well as perfect match. So you can check out that feed for those. Thank you as always to the folks at home off productions, Kirsten Specky, Owen Saylor, Jack Foster, Tucker Tash. See you guys next week.

1:56:05Ben Solak:We'll be right back.

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