Redrafting the 2024 NFL QB Class | Ringer NFL

0:00Welcome to the Ringer NFL Show. I'm your host, Sheil Kapadia. There are currently seven quarterbacks from the 2024 draft class starting in the NFL. We saw Michael Penix Jr., Caleb Williams, and Jaden Daniels play on Monday night. We saw Drake May, Spencer Rattler, and Bo Nix play on Sunday. And of course, JJ McCarthy, who has been injured, but is still the Viking starter. So the exercise today is simple. Rank them. You get your choice of any of these guys for the rest of their careers. Who are you picking first? Who are you picking second? All the way down to number seven. My guest today is Dave Damaschek.

0:39You can hear him or watch him on Football America on the Levitard Network. We talked about it. We disagreed. We had a lot of fun. And then at the end, in the hurry up, I give you my take on the Titans firing Brian Callahan, kind of the state of the Titans, our first coach firing of the 2025 season. All right, let's take a quick break. We come back and we redraft the 2024 quarterback class. This is the Ringer NFL show presented by FanDuel. And if you're betting on the NFL, FanDuel is the place to do it. They've got everything. Same game parlays, quick bets for when you want to jump in live and your way so you can set your own lines.

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3:10All right, here with Dave Damaschek. So here's what we're doing. 2024 redraft, right? So Caleb Williams went first. Commanders took Jaden Daniels second. Patriots, Drake May third. Michael Penix Jr. goes eighth to the Falcons. J.J. McCarthy, tenth to the Vikings. And then the Broncos take Bo Nix 12th. Six quarterbacks taken in the first 12 picks, Dave. We might never see that again in our lifetimes. And then in the fifth round, Saints take Spencer Rattler. So here's the exercise. We watched three of these guys just play on Monday Night Football. you have your choice for your franchise, for one of these guys, for the rest of their career.

3:50We're going to do all seven, but who's your number one pick? Who do you got? Oh, we're starting at the top of the pile, are we? I have to say maybe because my brain works like that of a five-year-old, but what I just saw is hard to sort of not overreact to or to lean into all the way. I might have said Jaden Daniels had the commies vanquished the Bears, but it's Caleb Williams. You know what? I'm going to stay with Jaden Daniels. I don't want to overthink this. Jaden Daniels played in the title game just, what, eight months or so ago. And I find it remarkable for all of our conversations, you, me, and countless other people talking into microphones all through the offseason about what these teams need to get right.

4:40And all of a sudden, the Washington Commies, who previously had been a punchline for many moons, as a matter of fact, draft one guy, a quarterback, and all of a sudden they're playing for a trip to the Super Bowl. Let's not overcomplicate. So were you deciding between Daniels and Caleb Williams? If you had to choose, maybe we'll get to that. Because that's what you made it sound like, which is surprising. to me. I like that is surprising to you. I mean, listen, I like Drake May quite a bit as well, obviously. I mean, what we've jumped into here, I'll, you know, full disclosure, I love debating all manner of things.

5:20You know, we could go back and forth, but it's sort of in and out and five guys and Fatburger and otherwise, like I'm happy to live in a world where they all exist. And I I don't think there are any what's remarkable thus far, at least, is we can eliminate Spencer Rattler as a fifth round pick. But the first round guys, what would be anomalous if it ends up playing out this way is that none of them are busts, as you know. I mean, it's usually about a 55-45 proposition, first round quarterback, 60-40 at best. And there's a chance, at least from what we've seen, that all these guys are going to work out to some degree or another.

6:03But you said you're surprised that I would say it's Caleb V. Jaden Daniels, who would be the other person in that conversation, Drake May. Well, Drake May. I was having a really hard time, David. I was thinking, you know what, for content's sake, maybe whoever he says, I'll say the other guy. And I was debating Daniels and May. I have Williams as my clear cut third. So we will talk about that in a second. I ended up though, if I actually had to choose, I'm just going to stick with Daniels. I'm trying not to be a prisoner of the moment. Recency bias six weeks this season. I think Drake may has probably changed my opinion of him more than any of these other quarterbacks in the first six weeks this season, but I'm with you.

6:40You know, Daniels has the fumble on Monday night. He's playing with a injured knee. He's got the brace on. He's still slippery as usual. I mean, when he's in the pocket and he just has to elude one defender, it's like there's nobody else in the end Lamar Jackson. There's nobody else in the NFL who's that slippery and can just get away. And all of a sudden it's an eight yard scramble throws a beautiful deep ball, can hit all parts of the field. He's accurate. And I just, you know, we can still go back to the old school, like the moxie, the, the, he's cool under pressure. He went to Detroit and scored 45 points in a playoff game and won as a big underdog.

7:17So yeah, I still have all those things. I'm a little nervous about can his body withstand the rigors of like a long NFL season. He had an injury last year. Yeah, he had an injury this year. But yeah, I'm going to still stick with Jaden Daniels. But I have Drake May clear cut. I mean, that I don't have to think three seconds about Drake May over Caleb Williams. So give me your case for why Caleb Williams over Drake May at number two for you. Well, listen, you and I have, you know, exchanged a couple of notes back and forth before we did this, but I didn't ask you just for the fun of it and to keep it sort of open ended.

7:53I say Caleb Williams if I'm bringing Ben Johnson along for the ride. If I can assign Ben Johnson to Drake May or even replace Cliff Kingsbury with Ben Johnson, I'm going to do that. I mean, it's very close for me, given the evidence we have. And it still isn't that much either for Caleb or for Drake May. Obviously, I think we would agree that Drake May's had the superior open to this season. I also think at this point in man's recorded history that you can make a decent case that in most NFL situations, the progressive offensive play caller is more important than the guy at the trigger. I think you would rather have Kyle Shanahan, and there's been some buzz the last couple of weeks since Mac Jones has played the way he has.

8:46There's been some, did they make a mistake paying out Brock Purdy? And I think it's semi-valid because I think Kyle Shanahan would make most guys elevate their play based on what their standard is. And I think the same thing is going to happen with Ben Johnson and Caleb Williams. I think the early returns are mostly positive. What I love is that Drake May is starting to take on the vibe of a guy who is willing to take some deep shots. He's a little bit fearless. He's got a little bit of gunslinger to him. I always say that there are two basic quarterback groups, and one is the gunslinger, and one is...

9:29I've dismissed the marginalizing term that is game manager. Tom Brady and Drew Brees and Peyton Manning could be game managers. Not enough for them. What they are, assassins, lethally accurate, winning pre-snap, using their brains, making a great plan, whereas the gunslinger shoots from the hip. And I think Drake May is kind of so far this season for what it's worth, and it's still early, but I think he is starting to present as being maybe both of those things. So I'm excited about him too. I just like Caleb Williams situation a little bit better than I do Drake makes. Okay. Yeah, I go may because I just feel like it's not hyperbole to say he's been one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL through the first six weeks this season.

10:14And listen, we both know Boston, New England people. And so like I said it on the last show, it doesn't, I take no pleasure in saying this. I would much rather go the other way and be like, calm down everybody. He's going to stink. He's played six games, but I can't cheat what my eyes see. I mean, he's completing 73 % of his passes. You look at the boomer stats, you look at the nerd stats, whatever you want to look at. He's chucking it downfield. Like you said, especially this last week, whereas earlier in the season, it was like, he was playing that point guard and just executing the offense.

10:46And it's not a great situation. You know, I look at it and it's like, Kayshawn booty pop Douglas, Hunter Henry, you know, Stefan Diggs is playing on a snap count there. So, um, I look at all those things and I can't cheat with my eyes. I really, you know, I would have to think long and hard if it was legitimately like I was, you know, Hey, shield, we're giving you an expansion franchise. You get your choice of these guys. I would have to take a long time to think between Drake may and Jade and Daniel. So I've got them on just one tier above Williams. You know, Williams has the upside. Like if you put a reel of, Hey, here are his 20 best plays of the season.

11:20You'd be like, Of course, that's the guy I'm taking. I think the consistency with some of the things in this game, that's why it makes me a little bit more bullish on May than Caleb Williams right now. I don't think you're crazy. And, you know, both guys can use their legs a little bit. Drake May's probably a little more physical than either Caleb or Daniels running the ball. But, yeah, I hear what you're saying. And I do think because you made this point about Baker Mayfield. And it is funny that who the name is under center or in shotgun, either way, impacts how we react to it. Baker Mayfield is like, boy, he got himself into a great situation.

11:58He had to crawl through a river of shit and multiple NFL play spots. But he finally came through clean on the other side in Tampa as though it's not Baker Mayfield pulling off those plays, throwing the ball to Tez Johnson. And I mean, if this were, again, to go back up to New England, like you say, Tom Brady rightly got a ton of credit in the late stages of his career for making it go. Yes, he had one of the all time tight ends, but he also was throwing the ball to Danny Amendola and Julian Edelman and those cats. And it was look at how great Tom Brady is. He makes a star out of everybody. Baker Mayfield isn't afforded the same.

12:35I do think you're right. We do have to early on here. Take a look at what Drake Mays done. His rookie season was behind an atrocity of an offensive line. It's a tick better now. And I'll say one more thing about May. He really deserved to win. The Patriots deserved to win that game against Pittsburgh a few weeks ago. And I don't know what happens after the, if they had won that game versus lost it, if things play out the same. But if we say that they do, we're talking about five and one. And now they are literally the number one seed in the AFC as we have this conversation. And as it stands, they're pretty close to it because they have the tiebreaker over the bills as we speak.

13:16Yeah. When they said that on the broadcast that, you know, Patriots are now in for, I'm like, oh my gosh, is this, you know, is this really happening again with the new England Patriots? So yeah, they are in a good spot, a easy schedule going forward and looks like they've got themselves a quarterback before we go to break. Dave was that, you know, bears win that game. They're making errors throughout Troy Aikman's just like, you know, is so annoyed by some of the stuff they're doing. I thought there was no chance they were making that. Like if anybody says they thought they were making that last kick, they're lying, right?

13:46Everybody thought, all right, is this going to be a block? Is it going to be a penalty? Is he just going to hook it? But the fact that it went in and it was only a 38-yard field goal and I was legitimately shocked, that just kind of speaks to the viewing experience of this Bears team, I think. It's true, and it's funny that you would bring that up because I was texting with a San Francisco 49ers fan, my pal, the Dutch MOOC, with whom I am in a fantasy league with the sports guy, Bill Simmons. So I bet you you've heard of before. Spoiler alert, Bill Simmons lost again and once again has the worst team in our league.

14:21That is true every single year. It's remarkable that anybody can do it. It's sort of like, we'll see if Caleb Williams can reverse the curse of 60 years. Somehow in the Super Bowl era, the best quarterback that the Chicago Bears have had is Jay Cutler. somehow Bill Simmons is incapable of fielding a mediocre fantasy team. It's really wild. But watching that first half, what occurred to me in D.C. I'm talking about, was that I felt like Jaden Daniels, you could kind of squeak your eyes and kind of feel like, oh, he's having the Caleb Williams experience of 2024. The fumble, the pick, and otherwise, it felt like Caleb has kind of turned the corner here a little bit.

15:04And now Jane Daniels is having some struggles. I know he's not a hundred percent and all the rest of it, but, um, but yeah, I w I was struck by that a little bit as well. Yeah. There's no doubt if that fumble that he had at the end, if that was with the, it would have been LOL bears again, do it, you know, so you're, you're right about that. But this time bears on the winning end there and, uh, you know what they've won three in a row. So good for them. All right. We'll take a break. We come back, we get to the next tier because we had the same three guys in different order for the top three, but let's talk about the next four.

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16:18Play as any of the 48 teams in 16 real-world stadiums, and it's included in your membership. Yeah. Go to the games tab on your TV and play FIFA World Cup launch edition now. Only on Netflix. All right, we're back on the Ringer NFL show. So Bo Nix gets the ugly win Sunday morning there in London. Michael Penix Jr. gets the win against the Bills. They were underdogs. Big win for the Falcons Monday night. Spencer Rattler faced Drake May in the Patriots. And then J.J. McCarthy not playing right now, but still in the mix. Sorry, rank these four for me from guy you would most want to least want going forward.

17:00Well, Spencer Rattler obviously falls to the bottom of the pile, and he serves as a great cautionary tale along with Sam Howell, because I don't remember what year it was. It was a 2020 or 2021 where the counsel of all the draft gurus was don't take a quarterback this spring because the next QB class is loaded up and it's headlined by Sam Howell and Spencer Rattler. This is similar, not exactly the same, but a little bit of what we heard in springtime 2025. Don't take any of these guys. You don't want Cam Ward, wait it out. He would be probably the fourth or fifth guy taken in 2026. Now Arch Manning's falling away.

17:42Drew Aller, even without the injury, was no longer probably a first-round pick anymore. And I guess that would describe some of the names that we're looking at. I'm not even talking about Spencer Rattler. I will say, weirdest pick in a couple of years in the first round probably is Tyler Shuck. Why did the Saints do that? It's hard to explain how they arrived at that decision. So anyway, Rattler's at the bottom of the pile for me. I, you know, if we're, if we are including the play caller and play designer, then JJ McCarthy becomes much more appealing to me. I think it's very weird how fast I know everybody talks about this.

18:23Different guys progress at different rates, but man, it's been real fast with JJ McCarthy. He got a red shirt last year and then he played a game and a half and it's like, well, he's a bust now. He had that huge rally against the bears and then, Hey, turn the corner. Maybe we'll let's see what this kid has. Then he gets hurt. And now he's a bust and they need to move on. And they really made a mistake not keeping Sam Darnold and all the rest of it. I think he will ultimately turn the corner because if KOC saw him and liked him, I'll defer to one of the genuine QB whispers in football. As it is, though, I'm going to keep him at the bottom or second from last.

19:03Then I'll go panics. I know I'm going pretty chalky here with the way I've laid it out. Penix has a whip, undeniably. Did throw a couple of dangerous balls there in the fourth quarter that were ill-advised given that the Falcons were holding on to a lead by seven for the majority of the fourth quarter. That was not great stuff, but I don't want to obsess about a play or two as we're talking about entire careers here. The knock on Michael Penix, by the way, I'm an Indiana University graduate, And so I'm over the moon as we speak here, Fernando Mendoza and all of that. But I do remember Michael Penix in COVID defeating the Penn State Nittany Lions with that reach for the pile.

19:43That's right. Dan, if you remember that. Ironic to bring that one up because Michael Penix cannot run. And that is a liability where we are at this stage in pro football. And that is the edge I would give Bo Nix at this point is that he can take off with a little bit. But he's in, you know, just straight up a better spot has been for a year plus six games than Michael Penix has been. Nevertheless, I like Bo Nix. And again, I do defer to the notion that Sean Payton, if you buy him as one of those genuine QB whisperers, saw fit to purge Russell Wilson seeing what was upcoming in the draft. That doesn't mean that he necessarily had Bo Nix circled, but I think you can assume that if you winnow it down, that that is who he was looking at and assumed that Bo Nix was going to be there.

20:36And he was willing to move on from Russell Wilson and that heavy, you know, tens of millions of dollars to put his fate, really. Because it was not great results for Sean Payton in Denver until Bo Nix arrived. And, you know, back into last year, they sort of took off. So I'll go Bo Nix number four. generational talents though. I think there's a line after May or Caleb Williams, whoever you have one, two, three before you get the bone X. Okay. So let's take the play colors out of it because I was doing this exercise and seeing if I could, you know, sometimes you do it. You're like, can I surprise myself a little bit here?

21:13If you just swapped Spencer Rattler and Bo Nix before the season, so everything else stays the same on those teams. So right now the Broncos are four and two, the saints are one in five. I asked myself, what would those teams be? And I don't know that they would be much different. Are we sure there's a huge difference between Spencer Rattler and Bo Nix? I don't know. Is this a hot take? I'm like, are you doing a hot take? And then I'm looking at the numbers and I'm like, this doesn't feel that hot. These look very similar numbers. Rattler's in a worse situation than Nix. They can both run a little.

21:47Like you said, they can scramble a little bit. I think Rattler's more likely to lose the game for you. I think that's Bo Nix's superpower. Is that like, he's not going to take sacks. He's not going to turn the football over. He's going to operate the offense, whereas Rattler might take some more chances and create some more negative play. So I'm not saying it's exactly the same, but I don't know that there's a huge difference. Like, it's always interesting taking the guys out of the situations. I don't know that there's a huge difference there. And I'll tell you what, if the Saints call the Vikings and say, hey, Spencer Rattler for J.J.

22:20McCarthy, we're sure the Vikings don't even have a meeting. you're telling me that's a hard no i mean where are we with these hypotheticals not because of the politics and the pr and uh and and what it would say about it yeah if you can ignore all the uh the extraneous stuff i hear you and i do think that things got unwound for spencer rattler i mean think about what you know his name was pretty prominent like we talk about in the draft process maybe prematurely. But then the South Carolina stretch happened. And I was surprised ultimately that he fell as far as he did based on what we saw there, because that was sort of the, the, you know, I guess the last half decade or so of college football, what has really happened all over the country is these NIL deals.

23:15And if you spend and get the one quarterback in there, it can kind of turn your program around if you get the guy, if you get the answer at QB there. And I think that's largely what happened with South Carolina. All that being said, I mean, Rattler's got a whip on him. He's got a better straight up. I'm sure he's got more of an arm than Bo Nix. I am going to, this is, I don't want to be a pretentious ass. This is something that the NFL scouts and coaches and otherwise looked at. One guy, maybe a little bit of a reach for the Broncos where they took Bo Nix, and Spencer Rattler was a fifth-round pick.

23:57That's true. I know people miss on these things. I don't know if you heard about where Tom Brady went and all of that, but it's come up before. People mention that a lot. Because I watch football games, and it seems like it gets mentioned a lot. Yeah. But yeah, so obviously, you know, they miss on their evaluations with these guys, but that's a pretty wild swing there. I assume that the pedigree, when you're up close with the two guys, becomes imminently apparent that Nix is better than Rattler. I don't know. Maybe I'm not skeptical enough. No, yeah, I know. You're right. You probably deserve the benefit of the doubt.

24:34I had Nix fourth. I was just making the argument. I have Nix fourth. I'm not sure, like, what his ceiling is. You know, you can obviously win games with him. Like I said, he's going to avoid the negative plays. Everything else is at like an adequate level. Like he's like accuracy, solid athleticism, solid. Nothing's like, Ooh, that's his, you know, defining trait right there. Penix. I'm with you. I think the lack of running ability, he almost has to be Phillip rivers and just be like, I'm chucking this from the pocket and we're going to go downfield. And we haven't quite seen that, uh, yet to any degree, but you know, there he's only made what eight career starts.

25:09Think about, I play this game a lot, the what if thing, if I can change a play or two during the season. And I mean, you know, the Falcons just about had the Bucs beat early in the season. And if you flip that result, the Falcons are one of the stories right now, much more so than Bake and the MVP candidacy and all of that and the big rallies. the conversation in the NFC South would be like, ooh, the Falcons. It took them a season to get going here under Raheem, but now they are. Yeah, they've got to be pretty happy with where they're at. So I don't think it's done yet. I think they can win that division still.

25:49Yeah, they could have some highlights the rest of the way. I have Rattler and then I had McCarthy. My only, I'm not like, you know, there's this like Rattler Hive, you know, people. I see this probably doesn't make it on your time. It makes it on my timeline. And I'm mostly like everybody settled down. I do think he's shown he can be like close to an average starter, which you say like, shield, that's not exactly the month. But if you get a guy like that in the fifth round, that's actually a huge hit in the draft. I mean, you look at the history of quarterbacks taken on day three, and it's kind of hard to just find somebody who you're like, all right, this guy's not going to kill us if we have to play him for a season.

26:24So I've got Rattler and then I'm the guy you're making fun of and have McCarthy last. Cause I'm like, I don't know. We, I just don't know that he can be an average starter. He's played two career games. Maybe he will be, but I have less information on him than the other guy. So that's how I've ranked the final four there. So there you go. Yeah, it feels like he's this unknown entity at this point. But for what it matters, I think maybe the most overrated thing that people point to is he's a winner. Look at what he did at Michigan. I mean, talk about circumstance and all of that. But nevertheless, I do think it matters for a little something that he did come through in some big spots.