Around the NFC With 10 Big Questions!

21:29And maybe you get one over Chicago, but that's about it. It's really hard, I think, for me to envision the Vikings winning the NFC North in spite of the fact that they regularly are performed above people's expectations in the Kevin O 'Connell era.

21:41Diante Lee:This is interesting. I'm on the other side of this. Now, the odds would say this is probably good that we're split because they're almost exactly the same. Giants are plus 550 to win the NFC East. Vikings are plus 500 to win the NFC East. Both of their wins totals are eight and a half as well. So they're pretty similarly positioned right now. I look at the Vikings and I'm like, are we sure there's a big gap between them and those other teams in the NFC North? Maybe, and I've never been like, oh, yeah, Kyler Murray's underrated. Like I've never been the biggest Kyler Murray fan. I just look at kind of the coaching there, what I'm getting from the defense, and then the environment that Kyler Murray is going to be dropped into.

22:23Diante Lee:And I feel like they have a chance to be a surprise team in the NFC. And I'm not saying they're going to go 14-3 or something, but let's say these teams are a little bunched together. And now all of a sudden it's, I don't know, 11-6 or 10-7 and the other teams are 9-8, like that type of season. I think there's a chance for the Vikings to do that. And of all the units, if you just look at it that way, Vikings offense, Vikings defense, and Giants offense, Giants defense, the Vikings defense is the one that has been more proven that you can kind of be confident that whatever there is there, Brian Flores is going to find it.

22:56Diante Lee:So I got Vikings. Deontay's got Giants. I see that you are right. The kind of case of the path to get to first place, I think, is easier for the Giants. I think the Vikings will end up being a better team. But who knows? We'll revisit in August. It is a fascinating one to think about because, I mean, Minnesota has been so snakebitten by really poorly timed injuries or injuries at spots where it's like the one position where they don't have enough depth, right? You think about Christian Derrissaw going down and it tanking their run game two years ago when Sam Darnold was a quarterback. And then the money they spent on the interior and then guys got banged up on their interior last year and they just weren't able to run the ball between the tackles in.

23:37So maybe I am maybe indexing a little too hard on what's going wrong in Minnesota over the last couple of years versus just the Giants, which I have not had to regard much at all up until John Harbaugh getting there this offseason. So there might be a little bit of kind of new car, you know, intrigue for me. But still, like, I just think about how competitive the NFC North has been over the last three years, honestly. And I just have a really difficult time seeing a team go from the bottom of that division to leaping up to the top, given how good they are, you know, in terms of Detroit and Green Bay really being the top two in that division, in my opinion.

24:14Diante Lee:The other hard part about this is Jackson Dart. Like, what is he going to look like? How are we going to be talking about Jackson Dart at this time next year? I think he's a very difficult player to project because I think he kind of exceeded expectations as a rookie for sure. I think he was exciting. He made plays with his legs. He made plays out of structure. You're like, oh, I think they might have something in Jackson Dart. Even if you look at just EPA per pass play, he's 15th, which that's like really good for a rookie to get to. Way ahead for rookie expectations. And especially the environment he was playing in.

24:46Diante Lee:It's not like he had a great supporting cast or a great play call or anything. So that was great. But then you can easily make the other argument that, yes, he was 15th in EPA per pass play, but he was 30th in success rate. So they were really winning a lot of the high leverage, explosives downfield. But down to down, that was not a great quarterback performance. That was not a great passing game. He uses his legs a lot, which is exciting. But can that sustain over the course of a 17-game season? You know, just his style of play, the durability. Like I had those questions as well. The supporting cast, you know, the Athletic reported this week, Malik Nabors had a second cleanup surgery on his knee.

25:26Diante Lee:and John Harbaugh is like, yeah, the timeline's going to be kind of deep into training camp start of the season. Like you're not going to see him out there here in the spring or at the start of training camp. So there's kind of all those holes you can poke in it as well, where it's just, I'm sort of like, all right, let me, this is kind of, I'm on the fence right now. Let's see how I feel kind of later in the summer once you get more answers to some of these things. All right, let's take a break. We come back, we get to more. This episode is brought to you by WeatherTech. Everyone knows winter is the MVP in making a mess.

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26:24Diante Lee:All right, we are back here on the Ringer NFL show. All right, Deontay, pick a number. What do you got? What's next? All right, let's jump over to the evens now. We'll go four. I'll keep it close for you. Four, all right. Washington Commanders. We touched on them earlier, but I want to dive in a little deeper because I feel like this is not a team that has gotten a lot of off-season conversation on the Ringer NFL show. So, Deontay, what's more likely with the Washington Commanders? One, Dan Quinn gets fired in season, which we kind of just discussed, or two, the commanders make it to at least the divisional round.

27:00Diante Lee:So we made the case of why Dan Quinn is on the hot seat. I think that's pretty obvious, but this is sort of zoom out. Jaden Daniels, state of the roster, those two new coordinators, like do they have a chance to kind of make some noise? Jaden Daniels was so exciting as a rookie and he's someone who I don't want to say he's forgotten, but it's kind of like, you know, In the conversations we have, his name doesn't come up a lot because of how last year went and his injury. So what do you think? Quinn gets fired in season or the commanders make it to the divisional round. What's more likely? I think it's got to be Dan Quinn getting fired.

27:35Again, this comes back to trying to lay out the pathway. And we just talked about how competitive the NFC North is. I do think that Dallas is going to factor into the wildcard race if not being able to win the NFC East this year. and you think about how competitive the NFC West is as well. Basically, the only way that I can imagine the commanders getting to the divisional round is if they win the NFC East and play the way that they did two years ago, right? Like, I think that they would have to surprise all of us and be like a 12-win team where they're either hosting a game or the number one seed in the conference in order to make it to the divisional round.

28:09I really struggle, I think, to see how Washington is going to be able to get the tiebreakers or slog their way through the season and maybe sneak in as a 10-7 seed or something like that, right? There's also the issue of what we talked about earlier, right? We're talking about two new coordinators. Both guys have not called plays in an NFL capacity. We really don't know what either of their scheme, whatever their schemes are going to be. I think that the best we can do with Dorote Jones is really just trying to take what we've seen from Minnesota under Brian Flores and just assume that they're going to run the exact same style of defense.

28:44But that style of defense has been so particular to Brian Flores over the years that it's hard to say that somebody is just going to be able to, you know, glom onto that, you know, and then copy and paste it when they get their own opportunity as a play caller. So there's just too much up in the air for me. And that's before we even get to Jaden Daniels' health and whether or not they're going to have enough juice at the wide receiver position to be able to create running lanes. Are they going to have to ask Jaden Daniels to be an excellent scrambler and a factor, you know, basically their most dynamic ball carrier as well in the design run game?

29:18And if that's the case, we just saw last year that that is just too much to ask a young quarterback to carry. It was too much to ask him to carry two years ago. He just happened to be so excellent during that season at doing so, not turning the ball over and winning close games late in the fourth quarter that ended up not mattering. But, you know, those issues have always existed with the way that Washington's roster is constructed. And I don't know if enough work was done this year for me to look at them and say they can turn the disaster that was the 2025 season around into being in the second round of the playoffs in 2026.

29:52Diante Lee:There's just, like you said, there's so much uncertainty. I mean, it's, you know, I like that they were like, hey, let's go to the Brian Flores tree because it's like you don't always have to go to the Vic Fangio tree or whatever else. It's an inspired choice. Yeah, at least take a swing. I like that, but I am also nervous that it's one of those where you're like, all right, we're going to run the Brian Flores defense, but we don't have Brian Flores. I don't know how that looks. And if that type of defense goes south, it's going to go south in like a big way where you're giving up explosive plays and it's going to look really, really ugly.

30:25Diante Lee:It's not a safe style of defense that you're playing there. So that makes me a little bit nervous. And then offensively, like I am still a big Jaden Daniels guy. But how do you, like, here's their wide receiver depth chart, Deontay. I don't know how, how is this your wide receiver depth chart for your 30-year quarterback? You have Terry McLaurin who turns 31 years old in September. I don't think he's a kind of a sneaky, I don't want to say old guy because I, you know, that would be disrespectful. But for a wide receiver, 31 years old, like, usually you are on the declining stage of your career.

30:58Diante Lee:You have Traylon Burks, you have Deami Brown, you have Luke McCaffrey, and you have rookie third round pick Antonio Williams. Like that's your pass catcher group when you've got a quarterback who was awesome two years ago and playing on a rookie deal. Like that to me is just very, very troubling. And I think if they have a bad season, I don't think it's just Quinn. Like it feels like it's going to be all right, let's blow it up and start over and try to build this thing around Jade and Daniel. So there's just a lot of uncertainty there. But to your point, if Daniels gets hot, if it's like, hey, this new scheme really suits him well, I think there is a chance that they are a more competitive team than maybe the picture we're painting right now with the commanders.

31:41I mean, the struggle for me as well is like, if we were to assume that it's true, that whether it was Adam Peters or Dan Quinn or a combination of the two that was really taking issue with the style of football that they were playing under Cliff Kingsbury offensively, You look at their personnel and you're going to struggle to find out how they plan to play any differently than what we've just seen over the last two years, right? Chico Conquo, I like as a tight end. He's nobody's idea of some in-line bully ball blocker type, right? John Bates has been kind of a bit player, right? Like he's their backup tight end.

32:16but I don't think he's going to get enough of a target share or if you would merit enough of a share of the snaps for them to say, oh, we're going to be some very multiple, you know, two tight end set type of offense either. And you look at what they've invested in the running back position, all those guys are kind of scat back-ish or play better out of the spread than they do, you know, an under center style of offense. It is really a struggle for me to figure out how this team plans to play offensively in any kind of, you know, markedly different way than what we've seen from Washington over the last two years in the Jaden Daniels era.

32:52And again, to me, that was the big problem with why this offense did not have an identity out of asking Daniels to be a superhero on a week-by-week basis.

33:00Diante Lee:And it's like, if you're moving to that style of offense, if he's going under center and you want to run the ball and play action, and now you're not using his legs as much, like, I don't know, is that a good idea? Is that actually the best use? Yeah, or I thought he looked pretty good in the spread. I know that NFL's kind of phasing that out, but it's not the worst thing to be doing something that fewer teams are doing now. So I just wonder about the timing of all of it and what it's going to look like. But I can't quit Jaden Daniels, so I don't know. I'm not saying they're going to stink, but...

33:29Diante Lee:I'm right down with you. Yeah, I wish they just had. I wish I felt better about the environment he was in here in year three. All right, Deontay, what do you got? What's next? All right, we'll stay on the even numbers. We'll go with two here. two. I'm scrolling up to number two. Okay, Deontay. Every year in each conference, we have roughly three new playoff teams and three playoff teams from the previous year that don't make it. So for this question, I want to know which three teams as you sit here right now, do you feel like are most in danger of being knocked out? The playoff teams from last year, most in danger of being knocked out three of them in the NFC.

34:11Diante Lee:As a little reminder to the audience and to you, our playoff teams last year were the Seahawks, the Bears, the Eagles, the Panthers, the Rams, the 49ers, and the Packers. So again, this is one that we absolutely will be revisiting once we get to August before the season. But as we sit here now, which three of those teams do you think are most in danger of missing the playoffs? I think, this one's tricky for me, right? Because this is what, this is, it comes back to your disclaimer at the start of this podcast. I'm like, I will not be held responsible for anything I say. This whole podcast gets trashed.

34:53You won't be able to find this on Spotify once we get to August. 100%. I would say the team that I'm most likely to pick to miss the playoffs right now will probably be Carolina. A lot of that comes down to, you know, their fourth down conversions. We've seen this over the years that that is not always sticky on a year-to-year basis, even though I think that they did some very analytically inspired things to maximize possessions, right? I think that they did a great job, you know, when they did convert on fourth down and maybe got into the red zone or got into plus territory by delivering on, you know, scoring on those drives.

35:24I would say especially during the second half of the year, I thought they did an excellent job of managing games that way and shrinking possessions for their opponents. But again, if we're just measuring up, you know, roster for roster, talent for talent, quarterback for quarterback, you're going to have a hard time convincing me that Carolina will be one of the top seven teams in this conference, you know, in a consecutive year type of basis. I mentioned the Bears, you know, as another team, you know, earlier as a team that, you know, kind of, you know, took advantage of some turnover luck. Another team that was very aggressive on fourth downs.

35:56I think that we talked on the podcast and a couple of Bears games late in the season where they were so aggressive. We were kind of like, all right, man, I feel like Ben Johnson is maybe feeling himself a little too tough right now with how often he's going for it. And I think that, you know, I will say both of the Panthers and the Bears, they don't have to walk into 2026 feeling like competing for a Super Bowl is, you know, their top priority. These are two teams that I think are continuing to try to build the most balanced roster that they can. So if the Bears take a step back, or even if it's not a step back, and you go 10-7, but it just so happens that you've got multiple competitive teams in the NFC East, and we've been talking about the NFC West, and maybe you get boxed out on a wild card spot as a result, I don't think that your feelings should be hurt if you're a Chicago fan, even though I'm sure you would like to see your young quarterback and head coach duo continue to push forward in the postseason.

36:46and then last for me and this feels this would feel this feels blasphemous out of my mouth but when you look at the track record it's not as hard to imagine I'm excited it's San Francisco like San Francisco to me is the one team that like I think outside of the two that I named that you have to squint the hardest and try to sell me on how this is a top seven roster in the conference right especially when you think about the fact that it took Christian McCaffrey being maybe unexpectedly healthy for the duration of the year and how much of a load he had to carry. I remember during the time that Mac Jones was the starter, I was like, man, I don't think, I literally do not think that they could have given Christian McCaffrey a single more touch in that stretch of games and his body would have handled it.

37:33They're up by 24. They're still throwing swing routes to Christian McCaffrey on second and 10 and he's got to go run through three tacklers to go get four yards. I'm like, I don't think that that's a necessarily sustainable way of playing. They don't have a great running back rotation behind them. So it's not like there's some plan to lighten the load on them. This is a team that's relying on Trent Williams, who is what, I think 37 now as a left tackle. I think I was writing about this two years ago, that Jason Peters is basically the only tackle of my lifetime who has ever had a Pro Bowl season after the age of 35.

38:07And even in that, Philadelphia eventually got to a point where they were like, hey man awesome for you that you can still play at a starting above average level we cannot continue to bank our franchise on somebody at this age and ultimately walked away from it and Trent Williams was asking for money this offseason so you think about the money tied to somebody that age if you get any slippage for him in what is that going to do to influence the rest of the offensive line who's not all that impressive and then the other side of the ball is almost a more important question to me, right? Like, trading for Osa Adigazua is nice.

38:39Bringing back Drain Greenlaw is nice. But this was a defense that was really bad. That was, like, quietly very bad last year, in spite of everything that Robert Sala was doing to try to, you know, glue and, you know, use toothpicks to hold together. And you're bringing in a defensive coordinator in Raheem Morris, who, in my opinion, when he was in Los Angeles, was not the most inventive play caller. he's going to play the same kind of soft zone shells bend don't break offenses can take whatever they want in between the 20s and we're going to hope to clamp down and turn these drives into field goals instead of touchdowns style of defense and I just don't know if San Francisco has the kind of playmaking talent especially at safety and in terms of pass rush outside of Nick Bosa to make that picture make sense to me so to me I think that those are the three teams and maybe the one that I feel the most uncomfortable saying out loud would probably be San Francisco.

39:32Diante Lee:Yeah, I think the Panthers, if any, most people doing this exercise, you would probably just pick them, not because you're sure that they're not going to win the NFC Sound. It's just like that division's kind of up for grabs. And if you're saying, hey, you got to knock three teams out, I think that would be certainly one of them. And then I do think for this exercise, at least as I was doing it, it was kind of like you sort of have to pick either the Bears or the Packers. I felt like doing it. You pick the Bears. I'll pick the Packers. And this is one where, like you said, I may change my mind as we get closer to the season.

40:06Diante Lee:If you kind of just ask me who I feel better about right now, I was kind of like, I think I feel a little bit better about the Bears. Now, the Packers have - That's interesting for me. Yeah. I would like to hear you make that case. Yeah. Well, the case is that I think Ben Johnson has a chance to be sort of minted as one of the best coaches in the NFL. for all the regression stuff that you're right to point out that could happen. There is also a chance that we end the season being like Caleb Williams is one of the five best quarterbacks in the NFL. And that kind of staved off the regression because of how well he played.

40:43Diante Lee:Because it wasn't like last year was week to week. He's lighting it up. There were still inconsistencies in his game where the highs were very high and very exciting. But there were also moments where if you just watch those moments, you're like, wait, what's all the hype about this guy? He's playing in a very erratic manner. So if he's able to be better in his second season with Ben Johnson, I think he has a chance there. So the Packers, I didn't, you won't be surprised to hear this. I didn't like the Jonathan Gannon hire. So I'm worried. I don't think their defense is going to be much better.

41:13Diante Lee:Now, if you get Micah Parsons healthy for the entire season, maybe I'm wrong about that. They did lose a lot of people where I'm not, none of them are superstars, but it's like these guys played a lot of snaps for you and they probably earned the benefit of the doubt with their player development and thinking a year ahead, but they kind of have to prove that. So the odds are with you. Packers are minus 130 to make the playoffs. Bears are plus 108. I think I would pick the Packers to miss if I had to. And we had the same third team. And I was thinking about it. The 49ers might be the highest variance team in the NFC.

41:48Diante Lee:I think there's a scenario where things break their way. You know, you mentioned the defense. Maybe you get Fred Warner back. Maybe some of the young guys, Mike Kell Williams back. Maybe this is the year where those guys, you know, the injury bug doesn't bite you. They've just got so many offensive players, 30 or older. You mentioned Trent Williams, Christian McCaffrey, George Kittle. George Kittle off this Achilles. Mike Evans. I mean, these are your best players who are all over 30. So I'm not going to be like, this is the year. It's going to be different. They're all going to stay healthy and it's going to be great.

42:21Diante Lee:And you're going to have this juggernaut offense. so they have a chance if it's not devastating injuries, if those guys all get healthy by the time you get to the playoffs. I mean, Kyle Shanahan, Brock Purdy, they kind of showed last year that they can keep that offense afloat. And there was a time last year where it looked like the best offense in the NFL for a stretch. So I'm not saying they're definitely not going to make it, but I think if I had to pick a team in this top three exercise, I'm kind of with you there. So we're aligned on the Niners. We're aligned on the Panthers. You have the Bears.

42:52Diante Lee:I have the Packers there. All right, Deontay, what do you got? What's the next number? Let's jump over to six here. Six, we go down to number six. All right, you know what? I was like, well, I guess we got to talk some NFC South on this, you know, we're doing the NFC. We're doing 10 questions. So here's the way I thought to do it. Rank the following three NFC South quarterbacks based on how you think they'll perform this year. Let's use EPA per play. You know, keep it the metric that we hear a lot nowadays in the football discourse. Now, I didn't include Baker Mayfield in here because I think he is a, even for whatever, you know, criticisms you have of Baker Mayfield, I think he's in kind of a different tier than three guys.

43:35Diante Lee:Just when you talk about his floor, if you disagree, you can tell me, but I've got Bryce Young, Tyler Shuck, and Michael Penix Jr. And even Penix, it was like, do I do Penix? Do I do Tua? Do I tell Deontay, just whoever's played quarterback for the Atlanta Falcons? Because Penix injured his ACL in week 11 last year. Now, I was reading Falcons covers, Deontay, and I don't know if you were locked into this, but Penix was apparently dancing at his wedding last month. So it feels like the knee might be feeling good. Maybe he just powered through it. I don't know. I don't know. I got to see these dance moves, you know.

44:12Yeah, I haven't seen them. A two-step is a lot different than actually breaking out, you know, a full-on dance.

44:18Diante Lee:I didn't study the film on that one. I'm sorry. It's May. There's only so much content I can consume here. But those are the three guys I had written down. Young, Shuck, and Penix. How do you think they will rank by season's end, Deontay, in this specific statistical metric? I think it might be in the exact order that you laid out I think that if we're using EPA as a metric I think it will be young, shut, and then panics And I think that for me And it's not necessarily because Bryce Young was so impressive to me as a quarterback I thought that he was more fine to mediocre But I think the one thing that was working in his favor when Carolina was winning games Is not turning it over not taking a bunch of sacks and not turning the football over a bunch and those are the two things that dogged him so badly earlier in his career it opened up the question of whether or not Carolina can proceed with him as a starting quarterback let alone as you know your your quarterback of the future you know a potential franchise guy so I think that Dave Canales has done a pretty good job at simplifying the game for him and allowing him to get by as a quarterback without having to have some prolific 30 completion, you know, eight yards per attempt type of game, right?

45:40Like he doesn't necessarily have to do that for Carolina to have had a functional offense over the last year and a half. So that part I think is what I feel just safest about. I probably just feel like that's the most stable potential outcome between these three. I think that with Shuck, you see some things that you can be encouraged by, right? Like you can obviously see the arm talent. You can see, you know, some of the decision making, you see a little bit of the athleticism at times. You're still talking about a guy who plays around in the pocket, maybe a little bit more than you like. And some of that might just be some rookie jitters and getting used to, you know, Kellen Moore's offense.

46:16Some of that was also just like endemic to his game when he was at Louisville before he came to the league as well. So I do think that there is a little piece of that. I also thought that the accuracy was kind of scattershot, right? In a way that for most quarterbacks that we don't feel warm about, we would say is concerning, right? If you feel optimistic, you're going to say, hey, outside of Olave, he's throwing to, you know, Vele and, you know, this contract tight ends that nobody is all that impressed by, right? And I think that there's a space in which you can say that honestly and earnestly.

46:47I just did not see enough on tape for me to be blown away by him. I think the New Orleans' success last year was led more by the fact that they got this surprisingly strong performance from its defense. And they were able to just kind of hang around in games and be competitive more so than Shuck showing me in particular anything that would have blown me away or made me believe that he could be a legitimate plus starter. And the last on the list for me is Penix, right? And this comes back to inconsistencies with him as well. And the same would be true if we're talking about Tua being a starter if Penix is not ready to go by week one.

47:20the way that you're riding with Penix on a week-by-week basis is just too much for me to trust him. In terms of physical talent, he has enough there. He has enough arm talent to make the throws. You can see that, at least with the last regime in Atlanta, they believed that he could push the ball down the field and they were really trying to build their offense around being this bobs away, drop-back passing game. And it just never really came to fruition in spite of the receiver talent that they thought they had around Drake London. then maybe Kevin Stefanski there. You're maybe basing a little bit more around Bajon Robinson.

47:54You're maybe taking a little bit of the stress to push the ball down the field off of his plate, and you might see more efficiency. But if we're just taking what we've seen on tape over the last season, plus I would have a hard time saying that the last few games of Penix's rookie year versus what we saw last year before he got hurt again is enough to say that you can trust him more than Tyler Shuck or Bryce Young right now.

48:19Diante Lee:I agree with pretty much everything you said there. That was the order I had him into when I did the exercise myself. I had Young, Shuck, and Penix. I did go back and look at the numbers from last year, which this is interesting because the metrics do not match the narratives where if you just look at how they ranked last year, Penix was 23rd, Young was 28th, and Shuck was 29th. And his numbers were very similar to Spencer Rattler's numbers. So I'm not telling, you know, I don't want to be pumped to break sky. If you think he's great, there were absolutely things there that I was like, oh, this looks actually different than his college tape.

48:59Diante Lee:And he looked, you know, maybe they do have something in here with Tyler Shuck. But the numbers would not suggest that he was, oh, this is an incredible rookie season that is definitely going to translate into him being their franchise guy. I know a lot of the numbers were bunched together, to be fair. Like these guys were pretty much maybe in the same tier when you look at it, where one game really could have flipped one of them maybe up a little bit or down a little bit. But I think the way they get talked about, because I'm with you on Penix, it doesn't feel like anyone's planting their flag on, hey, just give Penix another chance.

49:32Diante Lee:He's going to be great. I haven't heard anybody say that. Maybe you have where anyone's like, come on, he was injured last year. It was a bad system, bad OC. once he gets here with Kevin Stefanski and gets healthy, it's going to look great. No one's making that case. Yet statistically, it wasn't as bad. It wasn't like, this is a train wreck. Oh my God, this guy's one of the worst starters in the NFL. It was actually more, a little bit more towards the middle than I think maybe the narrative would suggest, Deontay. I'm right there with you, right? And I think that a lot of that was, he just never rose to the occasion in moments where they necessarily needed their quarterback to take over games, right?

50:08Like you didn't see, you didn't see these weeks where like, oh man, he is just drilling in on third downs, right? Like I have one of the stats that I have, you know, on true media is looking at passing success rate on what I consider third and obvious. So that's like third and four plus. That means the defense knows that pass is coming and they are going to play, you know, they're going to play their best coverages or send their best blitzes. And Penix's success rate on those situations was 26.2%, which amongst starting quarterbacks would be at the bottom, right? Like that's zeroth percentile, right?

50:39And the other guys didn't necessarily blow us away from those metrics either. Bryce Young was only at 33%, which is 19th percentile. Tyler Shuck actually had the strongest performance in those metrics at 39%, which is in the 62nd percentile. So we're talking above average for Shuck. And I think that that is one of those things where when you're evaluating the metrics in their silos, in their respective silos, you're going to walk away with a different story on the season that they had versus what we were maybe experiencing on a week-to-week basis, right? And this is what makes this kind of question fascinating because now we're just talking about how much you trust versus what the data tells you versus what you've seen on film, right?

51:18If you're just evaluating these guys and the decisions they're making in the pocket. So it is a tight cluster, but again, I think I will come back to the way you kind of laid out that list is how I feel about them in terms of my first instinct. And I wouldn't be surprised at all if it ended up totally flipped, right? I can absolutely see Michael Penix being able to move the chains because he's throwing it to Drake London, and Bajon Robinson is getting a screen or two per game that he's turning into a 25-yard gain, and now it's kind of bloating up the numbers a little bit and helping him out. I don't know if any of these guys will be so impressive that we're making a podcast next offseason, and we're talking about how these guys are now in this top 12, top 10 conversation as quarterbacks.

51:57they're all serviceable and I think that we'll probably be maybe more disappointed in their play than impressed by their play. And I think that all of them can maybe kind of lead a 500-ish football team.

52:09Diante Lee:I was thinking that deep dive on the NFC South quarterbacks. I mean, that speaks to my NFL content right there. I don't know that you're getting that from us in November of next year. Enjoy it while you got it. Enjoy it while you can. We will get to it eventually, just maybe not when actual games are going on. They might not be as relevant. Maybe they will be. And you'll throw this back in my face and say, Sheil, you made fun of us in May. But look at us now. We are the biggest story in the NFL. We'll find out if that happens. All right, let's take it. This episode is brought to you by Spectrum Business.

52:41Diante Lee:Fast, reliable internet means everything for your business. And even this podcast. That's why I trust Spectrum Business. They keep companies of all sizes connected with internet, advanced Wi-Fi, phone, TV, mobile services, plus 24-7 US-based support. millions of business owners already trust Spectrum Business. So visit spectrum.com slash business to learn more. Restrictions apply. Services not available in all areas. This episode is brought to you by Two Good and Company Coffee Creamers. How do you take your coffee? Piping hot, ice, strong, frothy. But if you love rich, creamy goodness and delicious flavor in every sip, try Two Good and Company Creamers.

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53:34Diante Lee:Find two good creamers at your local retailer in the creamer aisle. One more break. We come back. We will finish out the 10 questions. All right, we are back here on the Ringer NFL show. I like Deontay because he keeps track of the numbers he picked, so I don't have to, Deontay. So where are we going next? What do you got? Let's go number one. We'll jump back over to odds. Number one. Okay. This is a Philadelphia Eagles specific question for you, Deontay. I've set the over-under for the Eagles offense. Let's say EPA per play, EPA per drive, whatever you want to say. Just offensive efficiency. The Eagles in 2026, their offense, I'm setting it at 12.5 is the number.

54:18Diante Lee:So you got Sean Mannion. What'd you say? I know you so well. As soon as you started laying it out, I guessed where you were going to be at. And that's exactly where I had you. All right. So you got Sean Mannion as the new OC. You've got no A.J. Brown. I can't say it officially in a couple of weeks, but no A.J. Brown. New offensive line coach. A lot of the same other personnel aside from A.J. Brown. New system. New scheme. Over or under. Now, I guess over would be, I always get confused with this. Like, is over mean better in this situation? I think over means over the number 12 and a half. Yeah, we can use, I was going to say you can do better or worse.

54:57I don't mind going better or worse on that. Okay, let's do that.

54:59Diante Lee:Better or worse than 12 and a half. Deontay, what do you got? Ugh, better. Better sounds intuitive, right? Because you're still going to be weighing all the talent that they still have on roster. You still, in theory, have one of the better offensive lines in football, even if they play below expectation. You're still talking about Devontae Smith being a number one caliber wide receiver. You're still talking about Saquon Barkley leading your running game. You still have Dallas Goddard and you bring in Eli Stowers. You bring in Makai Lemon. So there are the pieces there, right? And I think that if you're going to get to that number, you know, being a top 12 offense, that almost automatically assumes that you have an above average passing game because it would be really hard, I think, for Philadelphia to replicate what they had two years ago where they were hanging around that kind of 10 to 15 range, but they had this revolutionary explosive rushing attack that they were really leaning on offensively.

55:58It sounds good in theory. The practical piece of it, just if we're looking at trend lines, the passing game was poor in 2024 to the point where they basically won a Super Bowl in spite of their passing game, at least up until the playoffs. I would say the NFC Championship game and the Super Bowl were probably the two best examples of what that team could have done at its peak in the passing game, just not what we saw over the stretch of the season. And then last year, and how disastrous and predictable, right, and frustrating it was on a weekly basis, watching them struggle to, you know, pry receivers open and for, you know, Jalen Hurts to find wide receivers when they were open or for him to extend plays and all of those things.

56:40So the practical part of my brain wants to say worse. the optimistic, you know, if I'm just like looking at this, maybe objectively by the numbers, it would suggest that this team's talented enough to be better. But I don't know that this, this to me is maybe overexposure, but I've got to say they're going to be closer to 14 to 16 than in the top 10 area.

57:00Diante Lee:It's interesting. Look, I was looking at every year where Jalen Hurts has been the starter and they have finished, this is just EPA per drive, ninth, fourth, eighth, seventh and 19th so four out of the five years they have been better than 12 and a half and even some of those now I was thinking about this because even some of those years like you said the passing game no one was like oh this passing game's on fire the running game had really been the consistent aspect of the team the offensive line Jalen Hurts being a factor in the run game just really lifted kind of the floor where you could get by with some of the inefficiencies in the passing game and you could just hit on some explosives because, because you know what the run game was going to be really good.

57:42Diante Lee:And it was, this was before Saquon Barkley, they were doing this with a mile Sanders back there. So they were able to do that. And that just wasn't there last year. And I just don't know this new system. How much are they going to lean on Jalen hurts as a part of the run game? Or is this just really going to be a lot of under center where it's kind of taking out the quarterback run game from it? How good that offensive line, it looks good on paper. Yet you had multiple guys leave the country to get treatments that they could only get outside of the U.S. to try to get healthy. You know, that is not low.

58:16Diante Lee:Okay, well, they're fine. It's not like a standard. Hey, they're coming back from an ACL and it was in September. And hey, everybody comes back and they're fine from this. It's not that kind of injury. And then the offensive line coach, having a different offensive line coach back there, what's it going to look like? So I think ultimately I would be with you. You know, it's, we're kind of, everybody's tired of the AJ Brown story, but ultimately taking AJ Brown out of your offense, that's going to make your offense worse. It has to be accounted for. It's going to make your offense worse, even if you feel like you've done other things to try to help yourself.

58:50So can we also say this is an offense over the last few years that has struggled to be, you know, effective and prolific in spite of the fact that they don't turn the football over. At least when we're talking about EPA, it is very hard to explain a team being poor by EPA standards and they're not turning the football over. That means that you are bad on third down, which Philadelphia was. That means that you're, you know, I think their red zone numbers are really propping them up early in the season. And then as that kind of started to regress to the mean, we really started to see some of the data plummet for them.

59:27Or it was harder to explain away some of the other struggles. once the red zone effectiveness kind of took a turn for the worse. And then we're still talking about a team that doesn't take a lot of sacks either. So you're talking about a team that doesn't get a lot of negative plays, doesn't turn the ball over a bunch, and has still struggled to be above average or more oppressive, I guess I should say, because they've typically kind of hung around that average or better mark, like you were saying, in terms of total EPA. That is quite a feat, right, in my opinion. And I don't think that they're going to change in terms of throwing caution to the wind.

1:00:00And that's definitely not Nick Sirianni's thought process as a coach. He's always going to prioritize not turning the football over. What's the opposite of that?

1:00:09Diante Lee:Grab caution from the wind? I don't know. Right, I don't know. Exactly. I don't even know what the inverse of that is. Yeah, that's what it is. You know, but I don't think that that's going to change about their approach. And now you're talking about trying to integrate, at least in large part, a style of offense that is not part of what we've seen in Philadelphia for the last, you know, five or so years. So there's just so many, I think, opportunities for this to stall or be bad for a while. And maybe by season's end, we're talking about how, oh, you know, for the last eight weeks, this has been a top four offense in terms of EPA because they're hitting all these explosive plays and a play-action game has been figured out.

1:00:50And these under-center runs are now starting to hit in ways that they weren't early in the year. but I could 100 % see a five or six game stretch where maybe they're winning games. Maybe they're going 500 and it's just not the most impressive thing in the world.

1:01:03Diante Lee:Yeah, I think that's the optimistic scenario is that, all right, even if there are struggles early on, by the time you get into the playoffs, you're like, okay, they figured some things out and this is going to be a dangerous offense, but there's no guarantee that that happens. All right, Deontay, what do we got? What's the next number? Let's wrap up our odd numbers here and go with number three. All right, number three. So this goes back to one we had earlier. Remember, every year in each conference, we have roughly three new playoff teams and three playoff teams that get bounced. Well, we talked about the ones that we think might get bounced.

1:01:35Diante Lee:So now we give our May take on which teams are going to replace them. So the Panthers fans, 49ers fans, Bears fans, Packers fans, they're all mad at us. What are you talking about? You have our teams missing the playoffs. We're going to be good this year, but now we're going to earn some goodwill with some fan bases. Deontay and we're going to pick the three Playoff teams that didn't make it last year But they're going to make it This year What do you got? There are two easy ones to pick to me In Dallas and Detroit I think the Cowboys and the Lions would be Relatively easy ones to pick It really to me comes down now to like Do you believe the Bucs Can win the division?

1:02:17And I do think that that is 100 % On the table for them So that's going to be my trio is the Cowboys, the Lions, and the Bucs. I'm with you on the Cowboys.

1:02:26Diante Lee:I think people are going to be sick of hearing podcasters talk about the Cowboys going into the 2026 season, but I just do feel strongly that they are a playoff team. I think the offense is very good. It was very good last year. They bring everyone back. And then defensively, I'm not telling you they're going to be good or a juggernaut or anything like that, but they were terrible last year. And I think they made the change at defensive coordinator. Their talent is better this year. So I'm with you on the Cowboys. I'm with you on the Lions. I think the big thing that the Lions have going for them is they have one of the easiest schedules in the NFL.

1:03:00Diante Lee:I think it's the second easiest schedule in the league. And so if you can just get a little healthier from last year specifically, I think defensively it was Drew Petsig we'll see as an offensive coordinator, but you still have enough talent where they have a chance. And then the third one, you went with Tampa. I think you could make a case for the Saints. They have the NFL's easiest schedule. You were mentioning the defense earlier. So it's not like the offense has to be amazing and take this major leap. I think the Saints have a chance. And I still think the Vikings do have a chance. Let's see where I end up with them.

1:03:34Diante Lee:But in my gut, I'm like, I kind of think they're going to be a playoff team in 2026. But then when I actually have to do the exercise, I'd be like, all right, well, which teams are you knocking out? I'm not sure I'm going to be able to get there, but I do think they have a chance there. So we're aligned. Cowboys and Lions are going to be popular picks, I think. And then it's a matter of a different NFC South winner. Or who knows? Maybe I'll go four new playoff teams in the NFC and be like, all right, give me the Saints and give me the Vikings there in the NFC. Maybe we'll have more turnover than usual there.

1:04:05Diante Lee:All right, Deontay, what do we got? What's the next? We're not done yet. Nope, we've got two more. Two more. Okay, go ahead. We'll go with the 10 here. We'll take it all the way to the bottom of the list. I know some people are thinking, Shield, shouldn't you be keeping track? Listen. This is what your co-worker's here for, man. I got you. That's right. That's why you have teammates. All right. 10. So the Los Angeles Rams, Deontay, are currently the NFC favorites. After their draft, they're kind of an even more interesting team than they were before the draft. I came up with some wild outcomes.

1:04:37Diante Lee:So I want you to tell me which wild outcome for the Rams kind of go from most likely to least likely. Okay? So I've got three of them. Outcome number one, they're just a juggernaut. They go 15-2, 16-1. Basically, from the start of the season to the end of the season, they look like the best team in the NFC, the best team in the NFL, and they finish it off with a Super Bowl victory. It's just like, man, this was a dominant team in 2026. That's outcome number one. Outcome number two, Matthew Stafford gets benched for Ty Simpson. at some point this season. Maybe he really struggles. More likely, maybe he has some kind of injury.

1:05:19Diante Lee:And he's saying, I can play through this. I'm fine. And they're looking at him going, I don't think you are fine. You don't look like the same guy you were previously. Meanwhile, you're getting these leaks that, well, you know, Ty Simpson in practice, you know, he's leading that scout team, Deontay. This guy's just making throw after throw. And McVay says, I know this is going to be unpopular, but we are going with Ty Simpson over Matthew Stafford at some point during the 2026 season. So that's outcome number two. Outcome number three, regardless of what happens this season, Sean McVay decides he's hanging it up after the season.

1:05:54Diante Lee:He announces his retirement and we find out the reason is because he actually was not on board with that Ty Simpson pick. Yes, there was a lot of PR afterwards and spin afterwards, but what you thought right when you were watching that, that press conference, that actually was the truth. and less need and ownership. They said, we need to make this pick. And McVay says, I don't want you to make that pick. And now all of a sudden after the 2026 season, Sean McVay says, I'm not coaching a second year quarterback who had 13 college starts. Good luck to you guys. I'll take a year off. I'll get back in the league when the right opportunity presents itself.

1:06:32Diante Lee:So there you go, Deontay. Three wild outcomes for the 2026 Los Angeles Rams. Rank them from most feasible to least feasible. This is actually, this is a great setup. This is a really interesting one to me. I think that most likely, in spite of how unlikely it is in actual football terms, is this team just mowing everybody down, having the number one offense in the NFL and going to win in the Super Bowl. Not because the Rams aren't capable, right? Like we just saw them have one of the most efficient rushing attacks by success rate that we've seen, you know, in this century so far. We obviously know that Matthew Stafford is an MVP winning quarterback, and I think that everybody would expect that as long as his back is allowing, that he'll perform at an MVP-esque level again this season, right?

1:07:20Even still, right, you're still banking on a lot that this team would either win their division, will have to win their division at 15-2. And as a one seed, they're beating a Seattle. They're beating a revamped Philadelphia. They're beating whoever else is at the top of the NFC to be able to go out and win a championship. When Josh Allen might be waiting on the other side of the conference. Lamar Jackson or Patrick Mahomes might be waiting on the other side of the conference. That is a big ask. But I think in terms of what you laid out, that would be most likely. I think that the secondary pick here would be McVay stepping away because of whatever friction is caused with less need because of this pick.

1:07:59And I would say, honestly, I would think it would be less of a reflection of Simpson and maybe more of, hey, if this is truly Matthew Stafford's last year or you guys are about to really make an aggressive push to try to hand the reins over to Simpson, if I'm Sean McVay, I'm thinking no matter how young I am, I'm here to go compete for a championship. I'm not here to rebuild. I already did this I ate crap you know after you know at the end of the Jared Goff era before we moved on for Matthew Stafford I went through that and you guys saw what that did to me on a personal and emotional level right like this was absolutely ruinous to me in terms of my you know work-life balance and my mental and emotional health I'm not going I'm not risking going through that again with a young quarterback so I could totally see it for that the least likely to me is Matthew Stafford being sat down in favor of Ty Simpson.

1:08:53I think that, A, if we're just looking at Stafford alone, the book on him going back to Detroit has always been that if he can stand, he is going to be in the pocket trying to play quarterback. He is willing to brave a bunch of injuries in order to try to be out there to play. So he definitely does have that competitive streak to him. I also think if we're to take Sean McVay at his word that his relationship with Matthew Stafford is so strong that I think that he would ultimately leave it in Stafford's hands and say, hey, as long as you think you can play, I'm going to play you. You're going to have to come to me and say, sit me down and give the rookie a shot for me to do that.

1:09:34I think that's what makes it the least likely for me. And again, Sean McVay is about one thing. He's about winning. It's not about building the Rams into a two-decade-long dominating franchise. Not that he doesn't want that, right? But I think the ultimate lead for him, it's what is going to give me the best shot to win this Sunday. He is not really wired any other way. And I can't imagine that he would look at Ty Simpson, even if Simpson shows up and absolutely blows us away in training camp, right? And he's throwing for 250 yards per game in the preseason, and it looks like he's just dicing teams up.

1:10:09I still would really struggle to see Sean McVay thinking, my best chance to win is a healthy Ty Simpson over a dinged up Matthew Stafford. So I think that as long as Stafford can be upright with whatever back issues might crop up this season, he is going to lean on Stafford and trust that that gives us their best chance to go win a championship.

1:10:29Diante Lee:I got to admit, I love doing the little fan fiction. You know, that's when I really get in my element. Once I can squeeze in that little nugget, the scout team thing. I mean, that makes it. All right. That had you thinking. All right, maybe I do need to consider that one. Nothing better than when you get the report about how the quarterback's doing on scout team during the week. All right, I think I had the last question. It's eight. Is that right, Deontay? That's my pro. That's a pro right there. All right. Number eight, rank the following four quarterbacks in terms of likelihood to win the MVP in 2026.

1:11:05Diante Lee:What a one to end on here. We've got Jordan Love. We've got the aforementioned Matthew Stafford. We've got Caleb Williams, and we've got Dak Prescott. Jordan Love, Matthew Stafford, Caleb Williams, and Dak Prescott. The reason I'm asking is because I was looking at the MVP odds, and the top six guys are all in the AFC. Josh Allen, Lamar Jackson, Drake May, Joe Burrow, Justin Herbert, Patrick Mahomes. Those six guys have better odds than any player in the NFC. So then I was going down a little bit, finding the NFC guys, and I thought, all right, let's make this a question with those four. So what do you think?

1:11:46Diante Lee:Those four quarterbacks, most likely, least likely to win MVP? I think if I'm starting with most likely, this is a bit of a surprise maybe for me because I just hadn't thought about this cluster of quarterbacks potentially winning. I might say Dak Prescott because I think that there would be a lot of narrative thrust in his favor because he would be taking a team that hadn't made the playoffs. and if he's playing at a high, high level. And if this team does have, you know, one of the top three offenses in the NFL, it would likely be because he's performing by EPA like either the best or second best quarterback in the NFL, right?

1:12:22I think that that's what it would take. And that would also mean that they're having a strong year in terms of wins and losses and they've supplanted Philadelphia atop the NFC East, right? There would be a novelty to that that I think might help, you know, Dak Prescott win MVP. Second for me would be Caleb Williams, right? Like I think that by wow factor, again, if we're just talking about what the story around a player like this might be, it would be, oh my goodness, he's with Ben Johnson in year two. He took another step forward. He's playing like Patrick Mahomes. He looks like the next transformational quarterback in this league.

1:12:57Next time we go to the draft, people are going to be talking about this deep, you know, class of quarterbacks trying to find the next Caleb Williams, right? He's going to be the next name that people are mentioning that teams are chasing behind to try to replicate on their own. I could definitely see that for Williams. You're going to get the scrambles. You're going to get the deep throws. You're going to get all of those things that you want to see in an MVP quarterback. I think third would be Stafford. It's always hard to go back-to-back. Basically, at this stage now, because we've seen so much with the proliferation of the passing game now, it would take a record-breaking season, I think, for a quarterback like Stafford, whose last MVP, you know in spite of what I think a lot of voters might say myself included because I just thought that he had the best season overall I do also think that there was a bit of a factor of hey this is an older guy who coming into the season we weren't sure 100 that was definitely the Leo wins the academy award you know style of MVP right like because we have watched you over the the breadth of your career and you're still playing at this level um you know you have merited an MVP trophy.

1:13:59I think it would be really hard for him to back that up with the year that would bring him back to the top of the mountain in terms of quarterback hierarchy. And then last for me is love. Not necessarily because I can't see it happening. I just think the confluence of events that it would take for the Packers to be atop the NFC is bigger than just love. I think that he would be competing with a lot of things there. That to me would also be a... They're at the top of the NFC because Micah Parsons is playing like a defensive player of the year. Tucker Craft is playing like an offensive player of the year, right?

1:14:33Or they have balanced out their offense again, and now they are dominating in terms of their early down runs, the way they were when Josh Jacobs first got to Green Bay. And there's all these different things that are competing with that. And Jordan Love is maybe putting up gaudy numbers, but you're not getting the game-winning drives in the fourth quarter all the time because they're up by a score or two and they're kind of, you know, about playing out the string. And this is my hypothetical, right? Like I can definitely see Love because he is so talented. He does have a great arm. He can push the ball down the field.

1:15:04When the Packers offense is healthy around him, they can be dynamic in terms of the play action passing game. All those things are true. I just think in my mind's eye, based on the conversations that we've had and what we've watched at the Packers, when I watch Matt LaFleur as a coach, he doesn't view me as a guy who really wants to be tearing it up throwing the ball 50 times a game. He wants to run the ball on first down. He wants to get to third and short and keep the game simple. He wants, you know, the design play action passing games to be the times that they're pushing the ball down the field.

1:15:34He doesn't necessarily want to live in an offense where he's asking his quarterback to do that time after time after time on passing downs. It would be hard for me, I think, to imagine Jordan Love playing that way and really playing at the level he was during the first two months of the year where he was leading every EPA and success rate statistic and also basically never throwing interceptions and not taking sacks, that is a very high bar, I think, for any quarterback to clear. I don't know if that's realistic for the way the Green Bay wants to pass the ball. They want to take those deep chances, which means that your completion percentage should be fluctuating.

1:16:08You should throw a couple of interceptions at inopportune times because you're being very aggressive. It would be hard for me to see that style of play winning an MVP.

1:16:16Diante Lee:Yeah, Love has really had the efficiency stats over the years, but to your point, I don't know that he's going to have the volume stats where all of a sudden they're throwing it all over the place and he's going to be in the mix there. I still went Stafford at one just because I feel like if there's a chance it just looks like last year again. And if it does, and if they win a lot of games, then I think he's certainly in the conversation. I had Caleb Williams second because I think there's a chance he makes the leap. He's got that type of talent that you feel like one of these years he's going to be in the running for it.

1:16:46Diante Lee:I don't know that it's going to be this year, but I think it's possible. Prescott, I think your case was good for him as the third choice where just the hipsters, the ball knowers are like, man, we told you Dak's been good all these years. And he comes out with Pickens, with CeeDee Lamb. Will he have that supporting cast in 2027 and beyond? Maybe not. So I had him third and I had Jordan Love fourth. For the record, Deontay FanDuel has Prescott as the favorite. So they're with you, plus 1 ,300. Stafford right behind him, plus 1 ,400. Love third at plus 1500 and Williams plus 1600 but those guys are pretty bunch so those things could change by the time we get to week one alright that was the Kapadia 10 for the NFC don't worry if you're a fan of an AFC team we'll come back next week and we'll do the same exercise different questions but we will make it all about the AFC alright thank you to Deontay Lee of the Ringer thank you to Christopher Sutton for producing Stefano Sanchez on video additional production supervision by Conor Nevins and Arjuna Ramgopal.

1:17:51Diante Lee:I'm Shil Kapati. We'll talk to you next time on The Ringer NFL Show.

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