Justin Fields, Kyler Murray, and Checking In on the Giants, Packers, and Bengals!

21:59Diante Lee:The athleticism is a question. Yeah, he's been in our lives for so long, but I continue to just think of him as like a young quarterback. He's one of those guys that's going to feel like he's 25 forever, even though he's clearly not. I feel like he looks the same. Yeah, I think if we did a side-by-side, it wouldn't be like Obama before and after leaving office. It would be like, yeah, he looks exactly like he did when he got drafted with Kyler Murray. but entering age 29 season, I'm actually, this is a interesting sort of league wide theme to keep an eye on. It's just like the quarterbacks who have that athleticism, when does it dip?

22:28Diante Lee:You know, we usually just pick 30, I think because it was a round number, but is it 30? Is it after five years? Is it after a certain number of rushing attempts, even looking at a guy like Jalen Hurts or even someone like Lamar Jackson? Like these are going to be things we look at here going forward with some of these quarterbacks who have been so dynamic at times with their legs. So I think that's a fair question. you're right. I think if it doesn't work out, we'll look at it and we'll go, Kyler Murray isn't the same athlete he was when we remember him a few years ago. But the guy who's got to be feeling the heat here, I was thinking Deontay, Kevin O 'Connell's got a lot on the line, I think, this year with this move.

23:07Diante Lee:I think we can agree Kevin O 'Connell's a very good coach. I think if he were available next off season and I needed a head coach and I was an owner, I would say, let's call Kevin O 'Connell. I think, I think he's going to be better than most of the guys there. But when you're saying things like quarterbacks don't fail organizations, organizations fail. I can already see the graphics with his, with his face on it. And everybody loves it and is giving you credit. Finally, someone's saying it's a, Oh, it's not the quarterback's fault. It's the organization's fault. And when you're, you're hugging the opposing quarterback after games and whispering sweet nothings into Anthony Richardson's ear.

23:44Diante Lee:and you're just kind of this media darling when you're going 14-3. Well, I don't know if others have noticed. I've noticed now that you are essentially benching your first-round pick. You know? I mean, there's no way around that. Like, honestly, there's really no way around that. Yeah. They could have went out and tried to go get a Kirk Cousins and said, hey, you know, we're just familiar with Kirk. We're giving him an opportunity to both teach J.J. McCarthy and maybe show some of that know-how he has in the offense for the first couple of weeks or at least do training camp. And then we'll see what ultimately comes of J.J.

24:13McCarthy's, you know, year two as a full-time starter, right? You go get Kyler Murray, you're kind of saying both by the differences in their play styles and what we've seen from Kyler Murray at his best. Kevin O 'Connell, I think, is not going out to reach that far outside of the typical prototypes that he's coached and dealt with in Minnesota, unless there was a directive that we're not putting J.J. McCarthy on the field unless we absolutely have to, meaning Kyler's got to get hurt again for J.J. to see this field. I think that that part's pretty clear to me.

24:41Diante Lee:Absolutely. Like it's, this isn't a, Hey, he needs one year to learn and take a step back. You can't spin it because the difference between Kyler Murray and the other options is that if Kyler Murray plays well next year, he could be your quarterback for the next three years, for the next five years. I think that's probably part of the reason why they found Kyler Murray appealing as a quarterback candidate versus like you mentioned, some of the other guys, whether it's Kirk cousins or Geno Smith or whoever. So I feel like there should be an expectation unless Kyler Murray, to your point, just looks different physically where we say he's not the same guy.

25:16Diante Lee:There should be an expectation that we see him play the best football of his career under Kevin O 'Connell. Like, I don't think that's unfair. Kevin O 'Connell, if you just put all of Kyler Murray's, you know, offensive coaches on the board and say he was the best one, I think we would probably pick Kevin O 'Connell. He's got Justin Jefferson. The offensive line might not be elite, but, you know, he's got two good tackles. It should be good enough there. And so that is my expectation for Kyler Murray is that I'm going to go into next year thinking as long as he's right physically and there's not this injury scare or anything like that, that Kevin O 'Connell, if he's the coach that he's supposed to be, the reputation that I do think he has earned to a degree that Kyler Murray should play the best football of his career next year.

25:58Diante Lee:But if he doesn't, then we may reassess Kevin O 'Connell because now you're talking about, well, was he actually that great with Sam Darnold? because Darnold went to the Seahawks and played maybe better than he did with the Vikings. They drafted a quarterback. That was a disaster. Kyler Murray went there. It didn't work out. Then I think we're going to be having those types of conversations about Kevin O 'Connell. So a lot on the line for him, I feel like, in 2026. Absolutely. And honestly, I would probably, at least if I were Kevin O 'Connell, and you can't say this to your ownership, you can't say this to the media because of how the second half of last season played out.

26:32But to me, internally, I'm looking at our offensive staff and saying, hey, forget the Sam Darnold thing and all of that and trying to replicate what we just saw in Seattle. Let's try to get a hot first half of the season the way that Indianapolis had with Daniel Jones. That I know will buy us another year, right? Because it confirms what we already think of him reputationally, right? Great quarterback developer, guy who can maximize skill sets, someone who is malleable enough to be able to change some of the DNA pieces, pieces of DNA of his offense to be able to match what he wants or what he can get.

27:03out of his quarterback. And I think if you just get a run where Kyler Murray is putting up, you know, averaging over 320 passing yards or, you know, you know, yards of total offense between his running and throwing, and he's not turning the ball over a bunch and not taking sacks. That to me, I think is success for all parties, right? Especially with how competitive the NFC North is going to be. And I do think that while they all are pretty closely clustered, as I mentioned, I do think that Minnesota is probably in a more tenuous spot because they've lost a bit of depth this offseason, especially defensively because of what they've had to do to get cap compliant.

27:37But I'm really fascinated, I think, for me, with Kevin O 'Connell in the arc of his time as a head coach to prove that not only can he reclaim a guy like Kyler Murray and be able to get the kind of hot offensive start that I would prognosticate could happen at the absolute best version of Kyler Murray in Minnesota. But I think bigger than that, to be able to show that you can change your offense significantly again. And it's one thing to make an adjustment between, you know, Kirk Cousins and J.J. McCarthy. It's another thing to bring in a guy like Kyler Murray, who has tried to play many different styles of quarterbacks, right?

28:11Whether it's been the big time extender, more of a pocket guy, someone who's tried to push the ball downfield a bunch to taking a lot of, you know, quick game and RPOs and stuff like that. When, you know, when Clayton Adams first got to, and excuse me, Drew Petsing and Clayton Adams first got to Arizona as his offensive play callers, right? So there are a lot of different things that we've seen from Kyler. I don't know if any of them are particularly present in Kevin O 'Connell's typical style of offense. So to me, that's really going to be the thing. Can Kevin O 'Connell prove that he can take the stuff that Kyler did at his best, hone in on the things that he was struggling with over the last two seasons, and really be able to kind of flesh out a much more balanced, stable version of Kyler?

28:51Because we really haven't had an opportunity to see that really outside of like maybe once or twice over the last five years.

28:58Diante Lee:Yeah, it's a good point. It's not just plug and play. Oh, he's a perfect scheme fit for Kevin O 'Connell. This is a, this is what the money's for situation for O 'Connell. All right. He has a certain skillset. He has a certain talent level. It might not fit exactly what you want to do. Figure it out. This is what the off season's for. This is what training camp's for. So that when you get to next season, you have a system where Kyler Murray can play well. And he's had six to eight-week stretches where he's looked like a top-10 quarterback. Yeah. Top-8 quarterback. Maybe top-five. Yeah. I mean, there have been times where we've been in October and it's like, should Kyler Murray be in the MVP conversation?

29:33Diante Lee:Those have been podcast topics over the years. Now it's a matter of, all right, when the dust settles after 17 weeks or 17 games in 18 weeks, how much has the team won? He hasn't won a playoff game. His teams have been unsuccessful. That hasn't been all on him. but he certainly is partially responsible for that. So yeah, all of a sudden, the Vikings become a very intriguing team. I'm telling you, we might get to August and I might pick them to win the division. I really think they have a chance to be one of those surprise teams in 2026. I'm kind of bullish on the setup. Their over-under for wins is eight and a half.

30:11Diante Lee:I'm like, they won nine last year with that quarterback situation. I think they're going to win more than nine games next year. So I think if you're a Vikings fan, you have reason to be excited for the potential for this team next season. You touched on McCarthy earlier. What does this mean for him? What is next year? Where is he two years from now? Three years from now? Is he finished as a starter in Minnesota unless Kyler Murray gets injured? Would anyone think about trading for him? Is there a chance he comes back at some point? All right, now Murray goes down for a month. And oh my God, McCarthy came in and he looks like a different player.

30:46Diante Lee:are you on just what the future is going to look like for this guy? I think going into last year it was like J.J. McCarthy is actually, it feels so weird to say now, but I do remember having this conversation. J.J. McCarthy is one of the guys who can swing this NFL season. That was the conversation going into last season. He kind of did, without disappointing Minnesota was, you know, offensively. I think that, you know, for whatever it was, whatever the conversations that were being had with Anthony Richardson, last offseason when Daniel Jones was coming into Indianapolis needs to be the exact same conversation that we're having now about J.J.

31:22McCarthy because they just fill very similar spaces right now on their respective rosters. So I would not be surprised at all if it becomes clear during training camp that, hey, you know, J.J.'s fighting and he's really applying himself the same way we were talking about with Anthony Richardson last offseason. You get in the preseason and, hey, man, there actually looks like there's a little something there. There's a little buzz. Is there something to feel good about? And then it just becomes clear as the rest of OTAs, mini camp, training camp goes on, that there is a big difference between the consistency you're getting out of your veteran versus what you're getting out of this young guy that you hoped to become your franchise quarterback.

32:01And with just where the lows were with JJ, when everybody in the league and everybody in the media was paying attention, because I do think over the last month, maybe month and a half, you started to see some things kind of even out a little bit. and he found a little bit better rhythm against weaker competition later on in the year. But I do think ultimately, this is JJ McCarthy playing out the string, put on a smile, stay away from the resistance bands, right? So that way you're not in the same situation that Anthony Richardson was in, you know? And then maybe you can be a mid-season trade target, but I think most realistically, you try to hang around for a year and then your agent comes up around this time next season and says, all right, we're ready to start looking for a place that you can offload us so we can get a second chance to kind of kickstart this career.

32:44I think that's how this ultimately plays out.

32:46Diante Lee:I got to say that resistance band thing has really stuck with me, Deontay. I got the little rotator cuff issue, you know, and they sent you home with the band and tied to the doorknob. And I'm like, should I be wearing goggles with this? Like, should I be wearing a helmet with this? Every time I do it, I'm like, I don't know. Do I need to take extra precautions? Like, well, poor Anthony Richardson. Again, I still need to read the deep dive of what happened there with him and the resistance band. But I'm with you. I am not buying anything about this is an actual competition. Now, maybe I'll be wrong.

33:15Diante Lee:I've been wrong before. I'll be wrong again. Maybe we'll get to September and you'll say, Sheil, you've totally misread that situation. J.J. McCarthy actually beat out Kyler Murray. I can't get there in my head. I mean, J.J. McCarthy has been in the building. They've seen more about him and learned more about him than we know just watching the actual games that he's played in, the actual dropbacks that he's had. They've seen him in practice. They've seen him in the classroom. They've seen him in the building every single day. And they're making this type of move. I don't think you make this type of move unless it's just something totally weird happens where McCarthy just looks incredible and Murray looks terrible.

33:52Diante Lee:Maybe there's a physical thing and it's just undeniable that McCarthy is, oh my gosh, if it's anything close, Kyler Murray is going to be the starting quarterback for them in week one and throughout the course of the season, unless they lose a lot of games or Murray plays really poorly. So we'll see what happens with JJ McCarthy going forward. It has been a very strange start to his career where you just like, you know, he wasn't, he gets injured. He's not playing. He comes back. He's a swing character. It doesn't go well. He's got a couple moments and they fired their GM. And it's like Kevin O 'Connell once seems to want these veteran quarterbacks over him every single year.

34:32Diante Lee:Like if he was totally sold on him, you wouldn't be making moves like this. And now you just kind of don't know what his career looks like in Minnesota or anywhere else. So that will be another interesting one to watch. But this is another one that's fun just in terms of league-wide storylines. Kyler Murray on the Vikings. That is a big-time storyline once we get to August, once we get to the start of the 2026 season. All right, we're going to take one more break. We're going to come back and we're going to hit on some teams where I feel like we didn't give them their due in the frenzy of free agency.

35:03Diante Lee:We had them written down a bunch of times. hey, let's talk about this team. And then all of a sudden, you had a Max Crosby situation. You had something else. And we said we have to pivot. So we're going to get to them today. Let's take a break. We come back. We get to those teams. All right, we are back here on the Ringer NFL show. The New York Giants, Deontay. I mean, they got like a brand new football team. It feels like kind of. Signed a lot of guys in free agency, brought in some ex-Ravens. John Harbaugh, they've got the new coach. They've got the new offensive staff with Matt Nagy as their offensive coordinator.

35:38They've got Denard Wilson as their defensive coordinator.

35:41Diante Lee:Some of the moves they've made, they bring in Isaiah Likely, the tight end from Baltimore. Jordan Stout, the punter from Baltimore. Patrick Ricard, the fullback from Baltimore. All those guys rejoined John Harbaugh with the Giants. Then they signed Darnell Mooney, the wide receiver, to a one-year deal to add to their receiving core there. They bring back offensive tackle Jermaine Illuminor. They bring in Jermaine Edmonds, who the Bears released. And they let Wondell Robinson go. They let cornerback Cordell Flott go. And they bring in cornerback Greg Newsom. A very active team over free agency.

36:21Diante Lee:Where does this leave them, Deontay? Does this look like a team that knows what they're doing? Are you bullish on them as a sleeper going into 2026? Are you like, I'm not really sure. what the plan is here? Where do you stand here with the New York Giants after kind of that first wave of free agency? I'm glad that you use the word activity because the first thing I thought about was the classic John Wooden quote. I don't know if you're familiar with it. Yeah, of course. Never mistake activity for achievement, right? I think is the word for it, right? And I do think about that when I look at this depth chart.

36:53It does not mean that the players they brought in were bad players. It does not mean that the moves they made were the wrong moves. But I look at this team, and if you're asking me to project out where they're going to land by December of this season, I don't know if it's going to be, I don't know if the Giants are going to be the sexiest team in the NFC East, right? I think chances are that they're probably a middling team, right? I do think that if you want to start with the offense and just look at bringing in a guy like Isaiah Likely, I think that's a legitimate chance. He has a legitimate chance to be a difference-making talent, especially in Matt Nagy's offense, right?

37:27You can take all the Travis Kelsey plays and give it to a guy who is just as, if not more dynamic, with the ball in his hands, as Travis Kelsey has been over the last handful of seasons. You bring in Darnell Mooney and Calvin Austin, who are pretty duplicitous, but I think ultimately what you're signaling by making those two moves is saying that we're going to spend a lot of time in 11 personnel, and we want to make sure that if Mooney is not 100 % healthy, that we have a guy to backstop him. Because you know that Atlanta lost Mooney to a serious injury last season. And then with Pat Ricard, I don't know what to make of that, man.

38:00In Baltimore, he kind of became a bit player as the years went on. I don't know how often you're going to see New York in 22 personnel or something like that where you get a lot of usage out of him, but he is a good blocker to have. And maybe if they do want to lean on a run game, I think maybe bringing a guy like Pat Ricard could also be a signal that they are looking at a difference-making running back in the draft. And if they get one of those, maybe they do lean a little bit more in some heavier personnel to be able to control the line of scrimmage on early downs. And then defensively, I think this is really where that activity versus achievement thing shows up most, right?

38:33Shermaine Edmonds is not the same player he was during his last year in Buffalo before he got the big payday from Chicago. Certainly, I think his play kind of waned over his last two years in Chicago. I don't know how much of a difference maker you're going to get from him there. And Greg Newsom, I think, I was excited about what he could have been in Jacksonville after the trade last year. And things just never really turned in a big-time difference-making play, even though Jacksonville's defense was playing like one of the better units in the league at times last season. Right. So I kind of line all that up to say that, like, I don't know if New York is a materially better team.

39:08I think that a lot of this is let's try to patch up what could have been obvious weak links for us and then trust that John Harbaugh and Matt Nagy and Denard Wilson are able to cover for what other kind of issues may come up.

39:22Diante Lee:I got to say, I love that John Harbaugh. it feels like his priority since he first started talking to the giants was to make sure he was making it crystal clear that he's running the show. Yes. And like Joe Shane is his puppet. Yes. It's just been such a theme from like the first time he spoke to them to then, Oh, he's thinking about, you know, joining the Titans, unless he gets this in his contract that he's reporting to ownership. And then, Oh, well he wants a certain level of control here and he's got different suitors. you know, He'll go somewhere where he can have that control. And then free agency starts and they're like, Isaiah Likely, punter, fullback.

40:02Diante Lee:Bring me all the ex-Ravens that I used to coach here. I want to make it clear I am picking the players for this team. And that's not actually going to be Joe Shane. So yeah, I almost feel like that's his top priority. And then priority two is thinking about the actual roster. Well, I think to your point, I think that this is certainly shown just in the signings that they made because everybody they brought in is a known commodity in the league, right? There was no high upside swing. There's no, hey, this is a guy who got limited snaps at his last spot. We bring him in. We're going to give him an expanded role because we think that we're about to get a guy who's really hitting the peak of his trajectory as he comes in here.

40:41Isaiah Likely is probably the only guy you can make that argument for, right? Who might have been a breakout player had he not started out the season hurt, right? I think that you can make an argument there, but everybody else, Drenno Mooney, known commodity, even when he's healthy, right? Slot receiver type, same with Calvin Austin, right? I think I wrote about it in my mock draft last week because I gave Pittsburgh a slot type receiver. And the big thing there was like, they gave Calvin Austin a long runway to prove that his speed would be a difference-making factor for an offense. And it just hasn't really materialized, right?

41:12So, but again, you kind of know who he is as a player coming in. Ardarius Rushington as safety depth. Greg Newsome as a corner coming in. Tremaine Edmonds. These are all guys who are probably going to give you at their median B - level play, and that sounds very much like an older head coach who has a lot of personnel control coming in and saying, give me guys who I've watched on tape, and I know exactly who and what they are. That's what I want to start off my tenure here in New York, and I think that that's what we're going to see. It's probably about a C-plus to B-level team, and their ceiling is really going to come back to whether or not you believe the Jackson Dart is going to be a dynamic, I mean, a dynamic difference-making talent in the league.

41:55And I think that the jury is still out on that.

41:57Diante Lee:Well, that's the big thing. I think you can look at these moves, and if you're a Giants fan listening, saying you guys are being too harsh, I think you can look at it and say, there's enough here to get a good evaluation of Jackson Dart. You know, like Deontay said, C plus, I would pretty much agree with that. This isn't like, oh my gosh, you plug any quarterback in, and this is going to be a great offense. This isn't a, oh my gosh, the quarterback has no chance because he's got nothing around him. I think it looks like it could be a pretty good offensive line. You know, you stay healthy, always have that caveat, but I think it's certainly an above-average offensive line.

42:29Diante Lee:If you don't even love him, you could say, all right, competent, not above-average offensive line, but that's the kind of territory we're talking about, so that's a good thing. Malik Neighbors, you assume he comes back healthy. Now you got Neighbors, Slayton, Mooney, as your top three wide receivers. That's not bad. That's not bad, you know, especially if Mooney comes back healthy. You have a chance there. I'm with you on Likely. The Likely thing is just a little, it's weird to me because maybe it is just injury related, like you said, but it's like he had Lamar Jackson last year. He had Todd Munkin, who I think was a good offensive coach.

43:00Diante Lee:You had like a situation where you needed someone to catch the football and he had 27 catches for 307 yards. So, but I'm still with you. You watch him and you go, there's untapped potential here. This guy could be a really good tight end. So I had no issue with that signing. I liked that signing. I was excited to see where Isaiah Likely was going to go. So I like that one. So I look at the whole situation and I go, there's enough there where if Jackson Dart is the quarterback that Giants fans want him to be, that there's enough there to get a fair evaluation. I will say this, and I've said it before, the Matt Nagy hire to me was uninspired and the offensive coaching staff, Nagy, Greg Roman, Brian Callahan.

43:42Diante Lee:I mean, it just is like, you got all the coaches that their previous, the previous people who employed them. We're like, we don't want to employ them anymore. They're not good enough here. And so now you kind of got a lot of cooks in the kitchen. Again, if you want to spin it, you could say, oh, a lot of veteran coaches from different schemes. This is great for Jackson Dart. We've seen that go sideways in the NFL all the time. You say, these are a lot of guys with contacts in the media and egos and career aspirations and ideas for what works on offense. And so now this is where John Harbaugh has got to be the one to say, all right, we're going to do it this way.

44:18Diante Lee:Nagy's doing it. All right, Roman, you're maybe doing the run game stuff, whatever, figuring it out with all of those guys with a second year quarterback so that his head's not spinning. And he's saying, oh, this guy told me this, this guy told me this, this guy's always in my ear and practice saying it, do it this way. But they, the other guy says to do it like those things are very real in the NFL when you put together coaching staffs like this one. So yeah, I'm interested to see what that offense looks like. And we're on the same page with the defense. I don't want to break a stream of consciousness, but I do want to throw this question at you before we move on from New York.

44:49So looking at wins lines from FanDuel, the Giants are at seven and a half, or at least they were about a week ago, right before the first wave of free agency. Have you seen anything in these free agency moves that will legitimately bump them up to eight and a half? And if not, are you betting the over or under on seven and a half line that they have now?

45:10Diante Lee:I am an under. I'm glad you asked. I looked at the same thing. They won four games last year. So even if you say, hey, they're improved from last year and better coaching situation, I think that's true. I don't think they're four games better than they were. Like, who do you think is the worst team in the division? If you had to say right now, who's it going to be? It probably is New York, honestly. I think I'd say it's New York. No, I think it's very close between they and Washington. I think you can make a legitimate argument in either direction. But I think I might still say New York, just because of how despondent the team looked as early as it looked despondent.

45:45Even when Jackson Dart was 100 % healthy, not taking a major beating, right? And all the guys hadn't gotten hurt. It still looked like New York was headed to disaster in a way that even Washington, I think, had shown more confidence with Marcus Mariota and Jaden Daniels. So I'd still say they're at the bottom.

45:59Diante Lee:We're aligned there. Yeah, I think if I had to pick a team to finish in last place in the NFC East, as of now, we're in mid-March. Again, this could change by the time we get to August. And that's not a negative. This team could legitimately go 7-10, and I think that that's a success, given what it was last year. Especially in year two of your young quarterback being the starter in year one under John Harbaugh. So I don't want to position this as though I'm saying, like, all these moves were worthless, and all these moves do absolutely nothing for the Giants. Having known commodities is not a negative here.

46:28I think that this is more having a conversation about where this team was last season, where this team has really been for the last two seasons, and then taking the names that you're dropping in through free agency and saying, all right, given where the roster was already at, unless you're going to tell me that Jackson Dart's an all-pro quarterback next year or Abdul Carter and Brian Burns are both Pro Bowl quality edge rushers that are major ceiling raisers for this team, chances are this is probably a 6-11, a 7-10 team, which is fine. But if we're talking about resetting the hierarchy of the NFC, I don't think New York has done enough to kind of factor into that conversation.

47:00Diante Lee:7-10 with Dart playing well and maybe still making plays with his legs without playing like he's ready to get his head knocked off every scramble that would be a nice season for the New York Giants to your point beat Philadelphia once give your fans something to be excited about in the division, I think that that would be a success like you said, Abdul Carter has 12 sacks everyone's talking about John Harbaugh's culture Jackson Dart's playing well. The roster still needs more work. And so you're finishing 7-10, but you're a frisky team. That would be a great outcome for the New York Giants. So yeah, I have a hard time.

47:43Diante Lee:Man, if they get to 8-9, if they make the playoffs, John Harbaugh's going to win coach of the year. He's got to be top two, I would imagine. Yeah, I would think he would win coach of the year, depending on what else happens there. I still think they kind of need another offseason of work. All right, that's where we're at with the Giants. Next team. The Green Bay Packers, who for as long as I have been a ringer employee and doing this podcast, I've been like, Packers can win the Super Bowl. I like Matt LaFleur more than anyone else does. I like Jordan Love more than anyone else does. Don't sleep on the Packers.

48:17Diante Lee:I'm looking over there beyond my desk. I still got the cheese head in the office from the Solak days. but Deontay I think this is the year I might be on the other side of this Packers thing when I feel like it's gone under the radar they have lost a lot of players this offseason offensively Elton Jenkins, Rasheed Walker two offensive linemen, Romeo Dobbs one of their top two or three wide receivers Malik Willis, the backup who could come in and keep them afloat and really win games with defensively, Rashawn Gary Kingsley and Ibarre Colby Wooden, you know, not a household name, but still played a lot of snaps.

48:57Diante Lee:Quay Walker. They lost seven players who played over 400 snaps for them last season. And the additions are linebackers, Ayer Franklin, cornerback, Benjamin St. Joost and defensive tackle, Javon Hargrave. And oh, by the way, Jonathan Gannon replaces Jeff Halfley as defensive coordinator. I don't know why I hear that as something derogatory. You've heard me say his name many times over the years. Let's be honest. Yeah. And Rich Pissascia. It felt snide. Even though you were delivering it as snide, it 100 % came across that way. We'll get to him in a minute. Rich Pissascia, special teams coordinator, left them, surprisingly.

49:41Diante Lee:There's weird reporting around that. They're like, we didn't think he was going to leave. All of a sudden, he leaves. Quarterbacks coach, Sean Mannion, he leaves. Deontay, I have a hard time. And again, it's mid-March. We still have the draft, but remember, they don't have a first round pick. They have no picks in the top 50. They got 52 is their first pick. They have two picks in the top 100. So I'm looking at it going, what is the case for the Packers being better in 2026 than they were in 2025? Am I wrong? Are you worried about this team? How should Packers fans feel about what has been an offseason in which they've had a lot of roster turnover?

50:16Diante Lee:for. I didn't come in with the idea that I would make a bit out of copying a championship winning coaches quotes, but the thing I'm thinking about here with the Packers is what Kurt Signetti said, right? Production over potential. It's time for the Packers to produce. We can't keep talking about what Jordan Love could be. We can't keep talking about, oh, if this guy was healthy, oh, if this guy wasn't dinged up, oh, if the offensive line had maintained its continuity, then if this, if this, if that. And I'm not saying that those weren't all legitimate reasons why this team has fallen short of being able to compete for a championship the way that you, myself, many people here at the Ringer and really just across NFL media have expected this team to break through.

50:57It's not a mistake that people feel that way. There is still a quality roster here, even with the departures, right? They've always been pretty deep on the offensive line. And the way that they've designed this organization is to continue to take swings at O-line. So that way, they always have somebody behind a guy like a Rasheed Walker, somebody behind someone like an Elton Jenkins. So that way you're never, you're never going to really see the Packers have a legitimate weak link up front. They might not be star level players, but they rarely have weak links. They've earned the benefit of the doubt there.

51:25Diante Lee:Yeah. With their own. That's true. Usually somebody just steps up who you haven't heard of and you're like, Oh, that guy's fine. Good enough. You're right. Good enough. Same thing with wide receiver, right? They've been one of the better wide receiver drafting teams. Now have they had a guy since Devante Adams to reach the ceilings of a Devante Adams? No, But what they have done is bring in a Christian Watson, who is flash star-like potential. You've seen Jaden Reed show that he can be a wide receiver one in terms of the amount of target share that he can get when he is healthy. So I think that if you look at their wide receiver room, you say, hey, someone like Romeo Dobbs leaves, does it hurt a bit?

51:59Yes, but this is exactly what we drafted Matthew Golden for. And given our track record, we have reason to be confident that someone like Golden can show up and be another field stretcher, another guy who can work in the intermediate areas. and you have Tucker Craft, you know, in theory, will come back 100 % healthy and you and I were talking about it over the first like six weeks of the season. He was the best tight end in football.

52:19Diante Lee:He was. Over that stretch. My favorite tight end also. By season's end, it was Trey McBride, but for the first six weeks of the season, Tucker Craft was moving around like Rob Gronkowski. Like that's not, that's not me overstating it. That is not me looking back, you know, with rose, with rose colored lenses. At his season, he was legitimately an unguardable force. So you say, we get him healthy, We know what we already have with the offensive coffers. There's enough here to win. And that's true now, just as it's been true for the last three or so seasons. The thing now is Jordan Love can't have a cold spell, right?

52:51That can't happen. You can't have inexplicable turnovers. You can't have the inexplicable, you know, Panthers game where you're not able to, you know, dial it up in the red zone and get over the hump. And then on the other side of the ball, yes, they have lost some talent, but you know what they do have? They have Micah freaking Parsons. Yeah. Okay. And if he's the player that we were talking about all offseason last year, about how a team goes out and trades with this guy and it instantly changes their outlook in terms of Super Bowl contention, I have no reason to believe that he's not still going to be that player, even though he's coming off of an ACL injury.

53:22And they have enough, I think, on the back end as well to be able to continue to force turnovers and play really aggressively in zone coverage the way that they had over the last couple seasons with Jeff Halfley. Ultimately though, it's just getting it done And I think it's an unsatisfying position To have to take in the offseason Because it sounds very amorphous Because what does that mean? But ultimately, I want to see this team at the top of the NFC North I want to see this team get a top two seed In the NFC And go out and at least vie for a shot For the Final Four Can you go make a conference championship game?

53:54If you can do that Then all the moves, all the losses To the depth of this roster is 100 % worth it The trade for Michael Parsons is 100 % worth it. Short of that, then yeah, I do think we have to come back to the table and say, man, what has the Jordan Love era actually been in Green Bay? And that doesn't lay all the blame at his feet, but I think it does kind of illustrate the fact that this team has hung around being one of the next ones up for a little while. And it's entirely possible if they don't make a big break in 2026, that they're going to end up being left behind by some of the other young upstart teams that are coming up in the league.

54:26Diante Lee:Yeah, I mean, they've won. It's weird because the floor has never been low with them, with LaFleur. I've given him credit for that over the years. And I think the floor is still high, as long as you have LaFleur and you have Jordan Love. I don't think this is going to be a bad team, but they've won nine games or fewer in three of the last four seasons. So it has been kind of that high floor, but man, they haven't quite reached those heights that maybe some people like myself were expecting in some of those seasons. So I think that's how I look at it going into this year as well, where the floor is high.

54:58Diante Lee:You made a strong case there for settle down, Sheil. It's not, you know, it's not going to be that bad when you look at this. I think one of the things as you were talking that stood out is that like their upgrades, their improved play, their replacements have to be from guys who are kind of already on the roster or if they end up hitting, you know, mid round picks, late round picks this year. It's not like they went out and were like, Hey, we got this player and this player and they're going to be upgrades and they're going to replace. No, they're counting on their player development. And to your point, especially in places like the offensive line, like at wide receiver, they've done a good job not saying, hey, this player is leaving now.

55:35Diante Lee:We have to replace him. No, you're thinking about that a year ahead, two years ahead. We've had this guy in the pipeline. He's looked good in practice. He's been part of our development program. That's really what they have to count on this year to not take a step back, in my opinion. And like you said with Micah Parsons, last year, they were 19th in defensive DVOA. He played in, what was it, 13 or 14 games for them? Yeah, and when he came over, he wasn't playing a bunch of snaps. We can talk more about Jonathan Gannon at a later date. I think that's a downgrade in terms of defensive coordinator.

56:08Diante Lee:I do too. Yeah, halfway. But I am fascinated, though. There was one thing I will say about Jonathan Gannon in 2022 is that he let his edges cook, right? You got a great year from Hassan Redick in Philadelphia. You got a really strong season from Montes. Not Montes, excuse me, Josh Sweat as well, right, on the edge. I think Javon Hargrave, when he exited Minnesota, one of his tweets said, hey, you're playing in the Brian Flores defense. He doesn't let his defensive tackles cook. The one thing that was absolutely true. Is that what he said? Oh, I missed that. The one thing that was absolutely true of Javon Hargrave when he was in Philadelphia with John Gannon is that guys got to cook.

56:44It might have come at the expense of some run defense every once in a while. I might have come at the expense of giving up some explosive plays every once in a while. But I do think that if you're Javon Hargrave, Devontae Wyatt, Lucas Van Ness, and Micah Parsons as that front four, you feel like in this scheme, my defensive coordinator is going to let me go fly. And maybe that is what this team needs. That's how this team is built, is that their front four has to be able to go fly and get to the quarterback and get a lot of production in the backfield if this team wants to be contenders.

57:10Diante Lee:Yeah, let's see what that defensive depth chart looks like after the draft. We'll revisit it, see where we think that Packers defense is going to be. All right. Last team, Deontay, we wanted to get to that we haven't discussed. The Cincinnati Bengals in free agency. They had Boye Maffe, the edge defender from the Seahawks. They had Brian Cook, the safety from the Chiefs. They lose Trey Hendrickson. They lose Joseph Asai on the defensive side of the ball. They also bring in Jonathan Allen, who's another player who got released from the Minnesota Vikings. and then they bring back a couple offensive linemen, Dalton Reisner and Orlando Brown.

57:48Diante Lee:I mean, I think we know the deal with the Bengals, that their offense, if Joe Burrow's healthy and the receivers are healthy, is going to be pretty good with a chance to be great if everybody stays healthy and everything works out well. It's a matter of how good their defense can be. Not saying you need them to be top five, top 10. This is the classic, great offense. Can your defense be just good enough to kind of keep you afloat type team? And it wasn't good enough last year. Ranked 30th in DVOA, 29th in EPA per drive, 29th in success rate. Maybe they got a little bit better in the second half of the season.

58:23Diante Lee:But you know what? I like bigger samples. And in the big sample, that defense was not good enough. So had they made the types of moves that make you think maybe they could get to like the 21st best defense. and if the offense is really good, this is a team that can vie for the AFC North crown or at least can be a playoff team in the AFC. Football is more than just reading dev charts and pass production, but you cannot look at this too deep and tell me that this looks like even the 21st best defense in the NFL, right? Like, you know what this team looks like to me? It looks like a team that is probably, should be sitting at home, wishing that maybe it did something with Trey Hendrickson over the last two off seasons to either keep him long-term or to go get some draft capital back.

59:08This would have been a great draft for them to say, hey, maybe we lost Trey Hendrickson before the 2025 season and it really stung to lose the production that he has given us. But you know what we do have? An additional first round pick in 2026. Or an additional second round pick in 2026 that we can package up to go get two first round picks in this draft so we can hit defense twice. Jonathan Allen is not the same player that he was in Washington, right? Like, he can still in spurts make a big impact on games. He's not going to be a game wrecker like he was at his best, at his healthiest. Boya Mafe, I think, is one of the, like, analytics-wise, I love him, right?

59:42You're going to get great numbers in terms of the pass rush win rate, right? His pressure rate's always going to be high. He's always going to be in close proximity of the quarterback. And I do think that they need that, especially if you're losing a guy like Trey Hendrickson. But that's not a potential A-level pass rusher in my mind, right? And then you look at what was really a struggle for them, was the second level of their defense all last year. The linebacker play was poor. They gave up a lot of big runs and passes over the middle of the field. Teams were really able to pick at mismatches at the second level of this defense because they're playing young guys there.

1:00:15I probably would feel a lot better about this team if they had a Zaire Franklin or a Devin Lloyd or a Tremaine Edmonds. None of those three guys are players that I'm absolutely in love with as middle linebackers, but they certainly would give you a much higher floor defensively as your signal callers or a Koi Walker or a N 'Kobe Dean. for that perspective, right? I don't know how they didn't get in on any of those guys. For those handful of guys to all be elsewhere, two of them to be playing on the same team, and Cincinnati walks out of free agency with no starting level linebacker play, that's really concerning to me.

1:00:49And while I like Brian Cook, and I think that he will be an upgrade over Geno Stone, who really just played below the level that I expected in Cincinnati, Brian Cook is one of those guys to me that, you have to prove to me that you're not a Steve Spagnuolo type of player, right? You have to prove to me that your level of play was not raised by how great Spagnuolo was with his scheme and deploying you in multiple ways. So there's still just too much up in the air for me to feel extremely confident about Cincinnati. That's not to say that they can't make a big move come draft day. It's not to say that they can't try to get in on maybe bringing in some more veterans by trading away late draft capital to help patch over some things that they're still missing defensively.

1:01:29But if you're asking me on March 16th of 2026, if I feel like this team can recapture the magic of 2021 and 2022, this just does not look like the defensive depth chart to do it.

1:01:40Diante Lee:Yeah, they got more professional. I don't know what that the end product is going to look that much different. Yeah. I mean, and Mafei, you're paying a big number too, $20 million per year. I thought he might be someone who's more around$15 million per year. And then the edge market blew up with Jalen Phillips getting$30 from the Carolina Panthers. So you're playing a lot of money for a guy who turned into a rotational piece with the Seahawks last year. And I'm with you. I like his game. I think he can be a solid starter for you, but I don't know that he's going to make a huge impact. Maybe there is upside there that is untapped and he will make a big leap here this year.

1:02:16Diante Lee:But that's far from a given. I like Cook. I feel I would be really surprised if that's not a significant upgrade. But to your point, you got to be careful with those Chiefs defensive backs. Sometimes they go somewhere else and are never heard from again. So that's another one that's up in the air a little bit as well. And you mentioned it with the linebackers. That's still going to be an issue. So I don't necessarily have an issue with any of the moves that they did make. I think they got better. It's just a question of how much better did they get? Now, unlike the Packers, they've got draft capital.

1:02:48Diante Lee:They've got the 10th overall pick. They've got 41. They've got 72. Can you nail some of those picks? Because I've said this for years. The Bengals have looked ahead and said, we might have this player leave on defense. Let's draft someone a year early. They've actually had the right process there. And it just feels like they've missed all those picks. Every single time. defense. Maybe none worse than Shamar Stewart this past year. I mean, who gave them basically nothing all year. Miles Murphy has given them nothing since he's been there. Even their defensive backs, I think outside of DJ Turner, who is flashed like that, maybe he can legitimately become a difference-making corner and at his best.

1:03:32It's certainly shown that he can kind of translate some of his raw athletic traits into playing tight coverage. We just have not seen anything close to consistency at any level of this defense, especially in the absence in 2026 of Trey Hendrickson. I'm really nervous about what this team is going to look like.

1:03:48Diante Lee:And I was thinking about the Hendrickson then. I wonder if they knew this is what his actual contract was going to look like or if Hendrickson, if he could have looked into a crystal ball and said, all right, I'm going to get$20 million per year. Would this have been an easy extension to do before this season? I don't know. maybe the Bengals didn't want to give him that kind of guaranteed money. I think that was the reporting that that wasn't the case, but you almost look at it. And if Trey Hendrickson was a free agent from another team, we probably would have looked at it and been like, Oh, the Bengals should sign Trey Hendrickson.

1:04:19Diante Lee:Yes. This all season. Everything about that negotiation is cutting your nose to spite your face. Yeah. They never were able to trade him. Like you said, at some point it was like, all right, if you're not going to, and his injury that made it tricky last year, if he was healthy the whole season, Maybe you are able to trade him before the trade deadline and get something back for him, but they end up getting nothing back for him. They don't get an extension and here they are needing defensive players. So that is not great either. I will say this for the Bengals, because I was wondering, I was trying to remember.

1:04:49Diante Lee:I know they had some downs, they had some ups. Once Joe Burrow came back, I was looking at the numbers. If you look at their offensive performance, just when Joe Burrow played last year, seventh in success rate, ninth in EPA per pass play. And that's now been pretty consistent over the last, I'd say, three years. That when it's Burrow, Chase, Higgins, I know there are questions about, is that how you build a team? I mean, you're probably going to have a top eight offense. I was going to say, and that might be on the low end. I think when they're all dialed up, that can be a top three offense on a year-to-year basis.

1:05:20Diante Lee:Absolutely. So that gives you the ceiling. It's just a matter of, can Burrow stay healthy? Can you get enough from this defense? I think they've got a very big draft here where you don't want to say, we got to nail the draft and these rookies have to play for us right away. But that is something that could kind of swing their fortunes right away here. If they can get like two players on defense who can be either good starters or competent starters, that could kind of change their fortunes a little bit. And that sounds easy. Like, of course they can get that. It's not that easy. We fool ourselves into thinking that's easy with the draft every single year.

1:05:55Diante Lee:So they're a very interesting team to look at when we look at next month's draft. All right. Bengals, Packers, Giants. There you go. We got to some teams we haven't talked about yet on this podcast with the free agency frenzy. We'll get to some more teams in the future. Thank you to Deontay Lee. Thanks to everyone for listening. Thanks to Christopher Sutton for producing. Stefano Sanchez on video and additional production supervision by Conor Nevins and Arjuna Ramgopala. I'm Shio Kapadia. We will talk to you later this week on the Ringer NFL Show.

1:06:34Diante Lee:21 plus and present in select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 plus and present in DC, Kentucky or Wyoming gambling problem. Call 1-800-GAMBLER or 1-800-MY-RESET. Call 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut or visit mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit gamblinghelplinema.org or call 800-327-5050 for 24-7 support in Massachusetts or call 1-877-8HOPENY or text HOPENY in New York. For Louisiana, call 1-877-770-7867. This episode is brought to you by Athletic Brewing Company. No matter how you do game day, on the couch, in the crowd, or manning the snack table, Athletic Brewing fits right in.

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