Willing and Vrabel: Previewing the AFC East

31:10And it's just very unlikely that he's suddenly going to become an above average passer. He is a really good example of one of the reasons why statistical analysis works, which is that our memories as human beings remember highlights. But you have to measure all the run of the mill plays that come in between the highlights because the highlights with him are awesome. But all the run of the mill plays for four years have been meh, have just been not good. I mean, last year they were meh, And before that, they were worse than that. So I'm just not a believer that even a new offense and a new offensive coordinator and even having Garrett Wilson and all that is going to bring fields and suddenly make him a good quarterback.

31:53I just don't. I mean, I wanted to believe it when he came into the league, man. I was all ready for him to be a star. It's just not happening. Yeah. I mean, at this point, if you're not skeptical, you're delusional. Like, I think there are varying grades of skepticism. I'd say the optimist in me holds out hope that this can be a dynamic running game with some explosivity through the air, even if it's not a efficient or elite offense. But, you know, I'm not, you know, at this point, holding on to all my Justin Fields stock thing it's going to hit, right, or my lottery ticket. I think for the Jets, success would be a good run game, your young players shining, and feeling good about the coaching staff and the play calling and the decisions that they make and competence.

32:46I don't think success means having a top 10 offense. Be realistic. You signed Garrett Wilson. By the way, there's a lot of Ohio State guys. josh myers was justin field center at ohio state you know that uh you got garrett wilson of course i actually like the the josh reynolds signing was kind of sneaky interesting to me with the um detroit reunion that is one good yeah he had that one good year but him and alan lazard can actually block and i think so you could kind of lean into i to me this needs to be like a physical run first offense and if they can do that i think they can at least be interesting and fun to watch defensively, another interesting schematic debate, I would say.

33:31Oh, I also want to say that. I did like Mason Taylor, the tight end that they drafted out of LSU. I think that's a good improvement. We'll say the one thing is all of his backups can't block. There's no blocking tight ends. Oh, my God, dude. Rucker can't block. Stone Smart is not a blocker. These are not blocking. It's not even that their tight ends couldn't block last year. They were some of the worst blocking tight ends I've ever seen. I cannot even stress. I don't know who it was. Was I watching Brees Hall? I think it was when I was watching a little bit of Aaron Rodgers around the Steelers signing, and there were so many reps where tight ends were just whiffing on blocks that were truly astounding stuff.

34:12Andrew Beck, I think. So they have a fullback now, but they do not really have a blocking. If they want to be a run-first offense, there is not really a blocking tight end here. So the Jets defense is interesting because I think in my head, I thought a lot of still really good players. Things just kind of fell apart last year. I want to blame coaching. You take the defensive coordinator, you promote him. The defense is sick of the offense being bad. But then when I looked at the depth chart, Aaron, I was actually surprised by the number of holes on this defense. You still have really good players.

34:48Obviously, Quinn Williams is a star. Jamie and Sherwood emerged last year. sauce Gardner however much he struggled in tackling is still a good cover corner who they rewarded of course with the contract extension but and I you know when McDonald broke out too but like defensive tackle outside of Quinnen edge depth with Jimmy Johnson coming off the injury safety corner opposite Gardner a lot of question marks on this defense was that your experience as well when you're writing this chapter? And how did you feel about this group? Yeah, listen, Brandon Stevens was the hole in Baltimore last year, right?

35:26Like, I'm sorry to slag the guy. And I talk all the time about cornerback performance is very inconsistent. No matter how much you measure it, just look at Gardner last year. But Stevens was pretty bad last year. And they're really depending on him now. Because if you're an opponent, you're avoiding sauce, you're going after Stevens. yeah that was pretty much the game plan every week against the ravens um i did like they drafted the fsu corner i was just looking at tri i wish i looked up a name pronouncer on him because thomas i guess thomas i don't know what the apostrophe does in there but azaria thomas it's right before the h uh big physical corner very good fit i was gonna say for Aaron Glenn scheme, but that brings me to the next thing, which is schematically, I'm actually not sure what this is going to look like either.

36:17Uh, so, you know, we talked about that on the offense with Tanner angstron. So Aaron Glenn is the head coach, but Steve Wilkes is defensive coordinator, super experienced, successful coach, which is to say, it's not just like some young name that he's bringing in there while, you know, he's taking over the defense. those guys call pretty different defenses you know right like so Aaron Glenn even obviously his tendencies were exacerbated by the injury situation in Detroit but historically a lot of man coverage Steve Wilkes very zone heavy so I again this is another one where I'm looking at this and I'm wondering I think they're going to blitz a fair amount especially with these the lack of pass rushers but I actually don't know what this is going to look like on the back end with these guys.

37:03It's another one where I'm like, I got to see this play out to understand schematically what they're going to run. Nope. And Gardner, you would think Gardner is the kind of guy you want to live on an island. And that would point to man. And you would think that Stevens is not, and that would point to zone. And I don't know what it's going to look like. I will say Michael Carter two years ago was a very good nickel. And then he was injured a lot last year. So that might be an improvement by having Michael Carter back for as far as the defensive backs go. Brandon Stevens on an island just the amount of times he was getting beat and at his downfield on the left sideline versus Baltimore it's not a it's not what you want it would be great if Thomas was able to emerge and take that job I'll say that who was I think he was second round is when they took him third round okay it's still a good line-gracking group you know i mentioned sherwood williams a little bit of down year but i think he could bounce back safety safety is interesting too by the way they added malachi moore i thought that was an interesting draft pick as a college player that i that i did like um and andre cisco who's been at least competent in jacksonville to play with tony safety has been kind of like a thorn in their side now for a few years but yeah i but again okay so this is a defense that was ended up 21st versus the pass and 20th versus the run.

38:27I do think that there is a world which we can see some pretty significant improvement because of coaching. But I think I went into this thinking like, oh, sure, they could absolutely like return to being a top 10 defense. And after looking at the depth chart, I was like, oh, I don't know about that. A lot of things would have to go right for this unit. I'll also say this about coaching, which is that oftentimes head coaches take over and their side of the ball does not necessarily improve because all of a sudden they have all the responsibilities of a head coach and they're not necessarily designing the scheme.

38:59And, you know, I mean, Tony Dungy's teams were always better on offense than defense. You know, so I don't know, just because Aaron Glenn is the head coach, does that mean the defense takes a big step forward? Because yeah, he designed some of it, but Wilkes designed some of it and Glenn has all these other responsibilities now. And I don't know, we can say for sure that the defense is going to improve looks as a coach i think that yeah uh i suspect glenn is going to be comfortable giving him a lot of responsibility and leeway and i think the question will be okay but if they struggle then do we see a war of philosophies or him stepping in one thing i do think they're going to be better at is um not having so many penalties you mentioned this in your chapter, they led the league with 72 defensive penalties last year, including decline and offsetting ones.

39:51I do not see that happening again this season. That to me felt like bad coaching last year and like a lack of discipline. Yeah. Although it's funny. I mean, we tend to think of penalties as being a discipline thing and being coaching related, but there are plenty of teams with good coaches who end up having a lot of penalties anyway. All right. Let's take a quick break and come back to talk about the big bad in the division, the Buffalo Bills. What does it feel like to have a better laptop like the Dell XPS powered by Intel Core? With a premium design that's thin and light, it feels smooth, very smooth.

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41:44And 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. We are back. I feel like Big Bad makes it sound like they're the villain. They're not the villain. They're just the overwhelming favorite again. Big Kahuna. Big Cheese. The Boss. Can anyone come at the Bills and take them down? I don't think so. We're going to talk about that at the end. This is a very good football team, Aaron. And doing this exercise only reinforced my belief that this is a very good roster.

42:23Offensively, not a lot of change here. This is something that Brandon Bean talked about when he was asked about the receiving group. But you're still looking at, it's the same group, only you've added Josh Palmer and Elijah Moore. Offensive line, which was remarkably healthy last year and consistent, remains the same. Assuming James Cook, there's no contract stuff. Same running back group. Pretty much the same. And yeah, why would you mess with something that wasn't broken, I guess, is where I would start with this offense. Yeah, unless you can go out and get some star receiver. I mean, listen, Brandon Bean really takes exception when you say the weakness of this team is the receivers.

43:07But guess what? Every team has a weakness. No team is perfect. Relatively something on your team is the weakness. And it just so happens, like, yeah, are the Bills really successful despite the fact that this is their weakness? Absolutely. But what's their weakness? It's got to be something, and this is what it is. and Keon Coleman, there are a lot of people who feel like, you know, if you chart Keon Coleman's performance, that it doesn't look that great for his first year. And, I mean, he did fine in our stats, but people who like chart and like do more of a scouting look at things are not big fans of what Keon Coleman did.

43:44We like Shakir and we like Kincaid and Dawson Knox. And, yeah, I'm not a big Curtis Samuel guy, but that's the weakness. But the quarterback covers a lot. I mean, the quarterback and the offensive line cover a lot of problems because they're both really, really good. Really good. The backs are good. It's a good group of backs, too. You remember it was the Jets game where Ray Davis went crazy. Ty Johnson. Yeah, Ty Johnson. James Cook.

44:17All of the backs were good in advanced metrics, and the offensive line was astoundingly good. I think the only concern I would have is if there was an injury. right to the offensive line, of course, but that you can say that about literally every team. The group of receivers, I was asked about this on NFL Live, like, ooh, what do the Bills need to get over the hump? And the defense is the issue, and we're going to talk about the defense. The offense was amazing. But I made this point, and I stand by it, like, they need someone who's better at beating man coverage. This is a team that plays, faces a ton of man coverage.

44:50And I pulled this because I was curious. both Dalton Kincaid and Keon Coleman, who are potentially, I think, your problem guys, had a sub-50 % catch rate versus man last year. Shakir had a very low average depth of target, and they were using him mostly on underneath stuff last season. I feel like when we're thinking about what's the difference here, what could it take, what do we need, that has to change. One of those guys has to be more reliable against man coverage. I really feel that way. has to as strong because everything can be exactly the same and this is still going to be one of the best three or four offenses in the NFL.

45:28But you feel like to win the playoff games, that would be the most important change to win playoff games. Especially the Kansas City Chiefs in particular, right? A team that loves to play. I mean, do we even have to talk about Josh Allen? He's awesome. What's to talk about? He was incredible last year. He said hi from my shelf. There we go. Yeah, a little Josh Allen. I have a little Josh Allen on my shelf. I mean, he was an animal. He's good at everything. He was careful with the football. I think the only thing is just like, you know, sometimes it's like, okay, where's the deep passing game coming from?

46:05But that's not a Josh Allen question, of course. There's nothing that seems primed for regression when you look through his statistical profile. He's gotten better at every aspect of playing the quarterback position. And to me, I think when I look at this offense and I ask, like, what could stop this from once again being an elite offensive group, offensive line injuries like Dawkins or one of this, you know, that's really the only thing that worries me. The thing about having no one number one receiver is you don't need to afford to lose. Right. There's no one receiver who, oh, Josh Palmer is hurt.

46:44Aren't we in trouble now? Right. There's not. like that. Palmer's a good player. He's a good route runner. He's reliable, but you know, he's, it's kind of, he doesn't move the needle for me on this offense. Um, the only thing, the other thing I'd be worried about is they're losing their coordinator, but they kept him this year. So again, continuity offense. You talked about this on another show. He's a really big head coaching candidate for the future. I think a hundred percent. Okay. The defense is, I think I want to, I'm more interested in talking about, because I think when we think about this team getting over the hump and going to the Super Bowl.

47:16This is the part, the side of the ball you want to see improve. The team clearly felt that way with their approach to particularly the draft where they just went ham on the defensive line. And for good reason. This was an average pass defense that was really aided by turnovers last year. You could talk about that. I know you guys always look at that when you look for signs of regression. But the pass rush, they're good against the run. They're always good against the run. I just think the pass rush wasn't good enough. So you go out, and you're adding TJ Sanders, who was their second-round draft pick, who's kind of like a three-tech-one-tech out of South Carolina, Deion Walker, Landon Jackson, and then you sign Joey Bosa to give you some veteran edge help, as well as Michael Hoyton, Larry and Gojobi, who are suspended.

48:04I like this approach. I think this was smart. I think you just got to keep throwing resources at this defensive line and hoping it hits, because we'll talk about the corner room, was obviously a first-round draft pick, but when I think about this defense and some of the issues last year and some of the games where they were getting pushed around a little bit, I do think about that defensive line, Aaron. Yeah, I agree with you. I mean, Ed Oliver is a good player. Daquan Jones is a good player. They added Larry Ogojobi. I mean, they did work. They said, look, we need to do work on this part of the team.

48:37Let's do work. It also will help pass the defensive line if Milano can actually stay healthy for a whole year, right? Because he's, you know, very good if he can stay healthy. But no, you're absolutely right. This is what they looked at. This is what you hope that Bosa and, you know, is a big improvement. You know, Hoyt's my boy, but he's not that meaningful.

49:02Obviously, they want the defense to be better and less dependent on turnovers. And if the turnovers come, then Yahtzee. I don't think people understood how much they struggled on third down last year. I talked about this a little bit after the Hairston edition, like why focus on past defense so much. The Bills defense was 30th in EPA per play and 29th in success rate on third down. 27th in DVOA, yep. And then when you expand that to third and long, it looks even worse. So, you know, drafting Hairston, obviously the second cornerback position was a major problem, particularly in the postseason.

49:41You saw that. And focusing on the defensive line, like they were very acutely aware that this was a flaw on the team that was papered over a little bit by some of the turnovers that they were getting. Yes, I agree. I am going to say Hairston's off the field issues give me a little bit of heebie-jeebies. Like I don't quite know what's the situation there. Yeah, really quickly, I want to address that because I didn't address that at all during the draft because I had no idea. But it came out recently that he was accused of sexual assault. This was a case dating back to his freshman year of college.

50:16The women reported it back then. The bills, there was a Title IX hearing that resulted in no action taken by the university. And Brandon Bean said they did a lot of research and defended the decision. But that was something that came to light recently because she filed a civil suit. I completely missed this entire story. So I just want to address that too. Sorry. And I don't know. I mean, it doesn't sound good. I will also point out, to completely switch ideas, Christian Benford is really good. I feel he is one of the most underrated players in the league. I actually put him on my defensive player of the year ballot last year.

50:51Really? Number five. He was my number five guy. I think he had a phenomenal season. He didn't make the NFL 100. I know it's the NFL 100. Make the NFL 100, right. Yeah, like what?

51:05We don't have to engage with that list. He's really good. How do you feel about Taron Johnson? He's good. I guess I'm not as excited by him as Bill's fans feel like he's like a top nickel. I don't think he's like a top nickel. I don't think he's Trent McDuffie, you know? I guess Trent McDuffie played a lot more on the outside last year, but you know what I mean. Like, I don't think he's like a top, top nickel, but he's a pretty good player. I mean, that's kind of the thing with the Bills defense generally is like, it's a lot of pretty good. Yeah. There's nobody who you're like, oh, that's, I mean, the closest thing they have is Benford.

51:39And then Milano when he's healthy. Yeah. Like Ed Oliver, Rousseau, they're really good. But when it's third and long and you're facing Patrick Mahomes in the AFC championship, who's going to be great for this team? You know? Ed Oliver is good, but he's not Chris Jones. Yeah. And Rousseau is good, but he's not George Carloptis. I think for me to feel good about this team, this defense, rather going from being what I believe was basically average to flirting with top 10, would really like to see one of those young defensive linemen make a contribution and then addressing the other cornerback position.

52:22running it back at safety with Rapp, Bishop, Hamlin is depth. Fine. It's good. They're well coached. And I will say, I think part of the reason they do get a lot of turnovers is this is a very zone-heavy defense. You have players who can play the ball. So while turnovers are always a sign for regression, there are aspects structurally of this defense, I think, that make me think they can still turn quarterbacks over, coupled with the fact that they have a quarterback on the other side or their own team who's an absolute animal and can allow them to play from ahead. You know what I mean? So, yeah, I get it.

52:59Sorry? If you combine both sides of the ball, they had the best fumble recovery rate in the league last year, which is something that tends to regress. But it wasn't crazy. It was like 62%. It wasn't like 75%. That's absolutely going to regress. Like, it's not ridiculous to think they might have a lot of turnovers this year too. I agree. I think what I'll just, to put a pin on the Bills, their approach to this offseason makes a lot of sense to me. They, I think, made draft picks in the right areas. They didn't have a lot of money to spend. They spent too much on Vin Miller. Joey Bosa's a much more reasonable contract, for example.

53:45I think they added some veteran depth to receiver. Do I wish they had a little more speed? Yeah. Do I wish they had an edge rusher that I've struck fear into quarterbacks? Yeah. But they're so good offensively. They're so well coached. I think these little changes around the margins could end up being the difference for them. It's the same thing with the Ravens. I was like, I don't know, man. There weren't problems with this team. I feel the same way about these two teams. We have the big who can actually take down the Chiefs and Eagles conversations. We have the table in the book. the best ever five-year period by DVOA since 1978 for a team that has not made the Super Bowl is the last five years of the Bills.

54:29The second best five-year period is the last five years of the Ravens.

54:38The Chiefs just keeping everybody out of the game, man. They're so good. They're such good teams. Shohei Otani's interpreter was fired today. Ipe Mitsuhara ran up gambling debts to a Southern California bookmaking operation. The inside story of the biggest scandal in modern baseball. He was absolutely bananas, the amount of bets he was making. I've never seen anything like it. From 30 for 30 Podcasts, this is The Betrayal of Shohei Otani. Presented by Gusto. New episodes available now. Listen wherever you get your podcasts. Rich Eisen here with some advice. If high-interest credit card debt is grinding you down, it might be time to call an audible with a SoFi personal loan.

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56:04The professional parts people. O, O, O, O 'Reilly. Auto Parts All right, let's wrap up the Miami Dolphins, who were the oldest team in the NFL last year and have begun to sort of pay the price of some of the contractual decisions that they've made in terms of letting players walk. One of which, well, they did a swap. I didn't get to talk about the Minka Fitzpatrick side of the Jalen Ramsey because I knew I was going to do the AFC soon, so I'm excited to get into that. But let's start with the offense, which is mostly the same. A few changes here and there. Jonah Savanea coming in at guard. Patrick Paul and Austin Jackson tackle.

56:55Darren Waller is part of this very strange tight ends group that no longer has John U. Smith. They sign Nick Westbrook-Kine, who is a very competent wide receiver three. I'll start. I'll say that. weird team to talk about last year because the stats are obviously skewed by the fact that Tua didn't play much of the season when he did play and I want to start here with you because you this is addressed in the almanac too uh had his customary lowest time to throw in the NFL don't need to talk about that uh 36 in average depth of target using true media I think you guys maybe We have a slightly different figure, but very, very low.

57:34Basically the same story, right? Not pushing the ball downfield, 5.6 yards. 64 % of his yards came from yards after the catch, which was the most in the league. 29 % of throws were behind the line of scrimmage. A lot of screens to HAN in this offense. Do you think it's going to be that way again? They led the league, by the way. In wide receiver screens, they ran the most, and they had a lot of running back screens. They had 7.1 yards per play on running back screens, so it was a good play. Good play. A-chan was great at them. We'll talk about them in a second. Back then said a team with Tyree Kill and Jaden Waddell should not be this boring on offense.

58:20Like, it doesn't feel like the excitement is there. Like, that's very subjective, but it just doesn't feel like the Dolphins of a couple years ago was like, oh my god like anything can happen it was like crazy the speed is going to be wild and that went away last year yeah they've got to figure out a way to get that back and i think going downfield a little bit more as help would be a big help and getting better blocking so that hn can get holes would also be a big help let's talk about that because that i think

58:52was maybe the part of this offense that sort of struck me the most when I was looking at the stats last year versus the prior couple of years. 30th in rushing DVOA. 2023, this team was dominant on the ground. First in yards per carry, sixth in success rate, first in yards after contact, seventh in yards before per carry, and then all of those numbers pretty much fell off cliff last year, particularly yards before contact per carry, because it was actually still getting decent yards after. But 31st in EPA per play, 28th in yards per carry. Okay, yeah, get the idea. What the hell happened? Like how much of this is offensive?

59:39Because the offensive line has never been, you know, dominant, obviously. Dominant, good. Do you think Mike McDaniel, who was the run game coordinator in San Francisco, hit a bit of a wall? Or do you think some of this was just the way defenses were playing them without Tua, not fearing the downhill passing attack? What went wrong with this run game? Do you think it was A-chan? I don't think it was A-chan. Way more run? I don't think it was A-chan because his receiving numbers were so good. The speed was still there. I will say if you read the chapter in the FTN Football Almanac, it's pretty clear that Alex Blickle believes that some of this is McDaniel hit a wall.

1:00:24Like that's kind of the thesis of the chapter. You know, I think some of it was blocking. And some of it, I wish I had run this number beforehand, but I would bet some of it is that the games without Tua, they were really, really not scared of the passing game. Okay. And my guess is they face some pretty heavy boxes in those games especially. I unfortunately do not have the numbers in front of me, so I'm throwing out a conjecture here rather than no. No, no, I'm going to pull up some of these run numbers with and without Tua while you're talking. But, yeah, like that would seem to be very logical.

1:00:59That even though Tua had the low ADOT, like you still had the fear that Tyreek was going to go, and you just didn't with the other quarterbacks. But you should be able to, I mean, even with that said, I know things well, but like A-Chan is such a good back. I guess I think to me, it's just kind of like another piece of evidence of the whole how much of this is smoke and mirrors kind of offense, right? There is a feeling that people have kind of figured out McDaniel. And some of the feeling of that is from the fact that he could not run a good offense with backup quarterbacks. You compare that to something like Matt LaFleur in Green Bay and what he was able to do to change things with Malik Willis and win games.

1:01:42And Mike McDaniel can't do that if Tua's injured. Second half of the season run game was still really bad, still dead last. So this was not just a Tua thing. But as we discussed, Tua wasn't pushing the ball downfield. I actually thought Tua himself was not bad last year when he came back from injury. it just kind of there was no explosivity through the offense both on the ground through the air so you look at this group now I think it's always hard with the Dolphins again like with this offense because we to talk about what the ceiling is and what the potential is I think the upside case rests on I'm not going to say Darren Waller though you know great if he was anywhere close to what he was a couple years ago, but more than two years ago.

1:02:31I would say this offensive line reworking is where, if I'm a Dolphins fan and I'm looking for some optimism, they have invested a great deal into this group. They have made draft picks. They have added players. Can it work out? Can the interior in particular, which they've really clearly – when you look at this group, it's very obvious like, okay, we need to get more physical on the inside. Yes. James Daniels. On both sides of the ball, I'll add that, by the way. Both sides of the ball. We're talking about the Kenneth Grant addition in the defense. Aaron Brewer, Savanella. Austin Jackson has been fine at right tackle.

1:03:05Patrick Paul, I think they showed a little bit of promise. If they can get that, if that group, I think, outplays what we've seen over the last few years, then you feel a little bit better about where this offense is going. Because outside of that, it's largely the same. Yeah, I agree with you. obviously better blocking means more holes for HN, more holes for HN means HN does magical things with that speed. And that opens things up for Pat. You would hope that that opens things up for the pass. And then maybe they can throw it. They got to bring the safety down and then you can throw it deeper to Tyreek.

1:03:43And a lot, I think, you know, usually I'm a pass to set up the run guy, but I do think that HN speed is so dangerous that there is a run to set up the pass here. If you can make the run work. So I absolutely agree with you that the interior offensive line is a big part of Miami getting its act together. All right, let me say something nice about Miami, because I think that was a little bit of a bad vibes conversation. I really like this defensive line. You mentioned this, they drafted Kenneth Grant, who I think gives them both run stopping ability, but also some pass rush juice on the interior next to the, you know, perpetually underrated Zach Seeler.

1:04:25Chop Robinson was excellent as a rookie and in the advanced metrics as well. 11th in pass rush win, which favors speed to some degree, I think. And theoretically is not a starter. Theoretically that's their third edge rusher. And he's very good. Right, him, Phillips. So even if Jalen Phillips comes back and is like, oh, he's not quite who he was, you have depth on that defensive line between him, Bradley Chubb, on the interior, Seeler, and Kenneth Grant, you have Benito Jones. I do think losing Calais is actually sneaky, a little bit impactful because he continues to be awesome. But let's start there.

1:05:03That's a really good group for them to work with on the front. Yes. Just a quick plug for the 25th quarter century team that Seth Walder and I did, where we put Calais Campbell on the team. He was one of our unexpected people. Still so good. The front, he's still so good. He is not aged, like kind of crazy. But you're right, the front, I think the linebackers are reasonable too, and there's depth there. They have KJ Britt now and Willie Gay as backups. Like the problem here is the secondary. I mean, there's Minka, but... Yeah, yeah. uh cam smith storm dot cater k how yeah aaron i was hoping by the time we taped this the dolphins would have signed another corner because i was like still available russell douglas their last year still available yeah even so i mean we're not going to pretend like any of those cornerbacks are dramatically changing this defense but this as it stands probably the worst corner group in the NFL.

1:06:10You know, I do think the Jalen Minka trade was so fascinating because I think it was much more about both teams just being like sick of these players and saying, he's your problem now. And why was Pittsburgh sick of Minka? There was a lot of buzz. There was a lot of smoke around that man, like players kind of alluding to it. I don't know. But I will say this about Minka. I think he's a better fit for the Dolphins defense and the Steelers defense because the Steelers ran a ton of single high. He was asked to play the post. Wasn't really getting his hands on the football. I think in Miami, he's going to play a little bit closer to the line of scrimmage.

1:06:50I think schematically, it makes sense for me that they added him. And safety, of course, with the departure of Javon Holland was a big issue. But it's kind of just like you're unplugging, you know, one hole and filling another, but now you have another hole in the boat kind of situation with the secondary, right? Like, so, okay, cool. We added a safety, but then we lost another corner. It is, it is a, a tough group. I mean, they opened two holes to include tight end, right? I mean, that was weird. Yeah. I didn't understand that the Jalen Minkin thing. I was even i i understand there johnny wanted more money but like he's not making much i didn't really get that because he was so productive in this offense last year yeah we talked a little bit about how two was getting the ball out quickly and i mean that was a big part of why his average at the target was down was johnny smith was such a target monster so maybe they felt like no we want to go back to being a little bit more explosive but he really took advantage johnny took advantage of the fact that you know they were like okay cool you're gonna play a bunch too high and defend our receivers downfield we now have a player who get yards after the cash and work underneath and i don't and you replaced him with a guy who didn't play last year and like pharaoh brown like yeah so yeah two holes opened up they filled the safety but two holes opened up um i think the optimistic case for this defense really just starts with that pass rush, which I, again, I really think could be like one of the, certainly a top 10 pass rush in the league, maybe better.

1:08:32Um, I just, and I, and I do like the linebackers, Brooks, Dotson, both former Seattle guys. I think their defensive coordinator, Anthony Weaver is strong. It's just so such a weak secondary right now. Um, so I, it's hard to know what to make of these Miami dolphins. I find them to be one of the more, we've been doing these power rankings pods and they've kind of consistently landed in the like 18 to 23 ish. What? 24 ish range league wide. And I think there's a little bit of fatigue talking about this offense because we've just seen the movie play out in January. So I guess if I had to give dolphins fans some hope, it would be that this young offensive line takes a step forward and you're able to be a little bit more foundationally strong running the football rather than just leaning on the space created by the passing attack.

1:09:30And this is the opposite of what I said with the Patriots. I feel that this is a team with a very narrow range of possibilities. Unless Tua is injured for almost the entire season, it is really hard imagining that this team's only going to have like four or five wins. But it's also hard seeing the point where they get to 11. Zach Wilson, backup quarterback. Also, just a weird, I wanted them to get like a more Tua-like player. We talk about the secondary as a weak link system. Their whole quarterback group is weak links. Yeah.

1:10:11Before we do the final rankings, Mike McDaniel, sneaky hot seat guy. Yes. Yeah. Because my guess is that the ownership in Miami feels the same stagnation that Alex talks about in the chapter. Yeah, it's kind of hard to know how much to attribute to him versus Tua without even getting into, obviously, the health aspect of this. even if he was reliably healthy. I think we've just kind of seen that this offense hits a wall that is certainly related to the skills of the quarterback, but also related to the offensive line, but also has the play caller innovated in the, you know, it's kind of hard to disentangle all of these things.

1:11:01I'd say best pick. I hear you on the narrow range of possibilities. I think for this team to exceed expectations, you would need Tyreek Hill to sustain level of play and not decline. Obviously, you know, the age is factor there. I think the run game has to bounce back with A-chan. And then defensively, you really have to see that pass rush be so dominant compensates for a secondary that I just don't think has the potential to be very good. Yep. That sounds about right. And like I said, I just don't think it's, I don't think it's a high possibility. Well, final rankings, who you got? One through four, AFC East.

1:11:38I mean, the Bills have the highest win projection in our preseason simulations. Of any team? By any team. Okay. Baltimore comes out with the highest projected DVOA, but they have a harder schedule than the Bills have. I will point out that this whole division plays the NFC South, so the schedules are pretty easy across the board. but we have the Bills winning the division more than any other team in the NFL wins their division in our simulations. Okay, that's the easy one. Bills won. Gotta go two through four. I'm gonna put the Dolphins at two. I know that that's a surprise. I think if something happens to Allen, it's a lot more likely that the Patriots are one than that the Dolphins are one.

1:12:23But I think the average of the range of possibilities puts the Dolphins a little bit ahead of the Patriots. And then I think the Jets clearly pull up the rear. And I do think that they're mostly playing for next year's quarterback class. This is a really, really tricky division. I think this is one of the harder ones to do. I'll go Pats over Dolphins for you.

1:12:50Maybe I'm drinking a little bit too much of the Vrabel turnaround Kool-Aid. And I might be a little bit too skeptical of the Vrabel Kool-Aid because the mayo Kool-Aid tasted so horrible that I may be underrating just how good Vrabel Kool-Aid really is. Before we finish today, I want to let you guys know about a couple of things. This podcast is a finalist for the People's Choice podcast, Best Female Hosted podcast, which yes, is Lenny Erasure, but you can go sign up to vote for me. I know it's annoying that you have to do these like little signups to vote for podcast awards, but it takes like two seconds.

1:13:31I will drop a link to that in the episode notes for this. You can also check out my other podcast with David Dennis Jr., Viewer Discretion, where we talk about TV and movies. This week, we are recapping superman have you seen superman erin i have not yet seen the superman i am old comic book i'm an old dc guy so i do think i am going to go see it at some point somebody's like mr terrific that's great awesome in the movie mr terrific i'm not going to spoil my recap i like that you the act he is one of the best parts of the movie is mr terrific and i think you like the comics you will like this movie but let me know watch it and get back to me um but that's going to come out on thursday morning so you can check youtube.com slash amena kimes or subscribe just look up viewer discretion or my name we're going to do a couple movies before getting back to tv we're mixing things up there uh aaron can you remind folks once again where to get the ftn almanac absolutely ftn fantasy.com slash almanac for the ftn football almanac 2025 jalen Carter is on the cover.

1:14:42The site may be called FTN Fantasy, and there are fantasy projections in the book from Jeff Radcliffe, award-winning fantasy projections. But a reminder, we're all about everything. We're all about just how good our teams and projection for this year and just what happened last year and what's going to happen this year, plus jokes. All the writers that you know from the old Football Outsiders Almanac days, ftnfantasy.com slash almanac, or look for it on amazon but also throw out a recommendation for ftn's stat hub page which i started using last year excellent stuff a lot of stats you can't get anywhere else um really easy to use and and really again very useful for both analyzing football but also other aspects of the game that's it for this week uh gonna be back next week with jordan rodrigue to recap the or to preview pardon me recap the nfc West.

1:15:34This has been the show featuring Lenny brought to you by myself, but also by the fine folks at Omaha productions, Kirsten Specky, Anthony Jimenez, Owen Saylor, Jack Foster, and Tucker Kostian. See you guys next week.

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