If you are the fan of a competent NFL franchise, this show is not for you because today we are talking about the bottom of the barrel.There are six teams that currently have one win now that we are third of the way through the season.
They're all battling for that number one pick, mostly against their will. And we're going to talk about all of them today, as well as one team that doesn't have one win, but it sure kind of feels like they should.
And that's the Dallas Cowboys, who just got the absolute hell beat out of them by Detroit.So six objectively bad teams and one possibly bad team on the docket today.
We're going to talk about how to fix them, what the major problems are, and if any of these situations are able to be turned around. if not within this season, at least by next season.
But before we get into all that, EJ, buddy, my co-host, how are you?
I'm okay, I'm doing better than a lot of these teams and doing pretty darn well because my team has climbed out of this territory after, oh, decades of existing here.
So I have experience, I'm familiar with these situations, and we are going to talk about some teams and whether or not we think that situation will last a long time for them or, like you said, is easily fixable.
Yes, we we root for the Texans and the Bears around here, so trust me, we know pain.We know what it's like to be at the bottom of the pile.Cowboys fans, however, do not.This is relatively new territory for them.
We're used to the Cowboys being either good and then disappointing in the playoffs or just painfully average.Very rarely.Do they seem outright bad? This seems like a bad Cowboys team.I know they're 3-3.I kind of don't care.
This seems like a really objectively bad Cowboys team.Looking at their upcoming schedule, I think it's very possible they start like 3-7, 4-8, somewhere in that realm.And that might be the upper range of where they're going to be this season.
Because even if you're looking back at the games they've already played, I think they're lucky to be three and three, to be honest.They can't stop the run.They can't run the ball.
Their offense is extraordinarily reliant on Dak and CD being the two best players on the field.And when they're not the two best players on the field, this team gets completely run over.They're not physical.They're not deep.
You know, they took a couple injuries to their defensive line and their pass rush completely disappeared because all their depth is now in Washington.Like Dan Quinn took it with him.The offensive line hasn't been as good this year.
Even, you know, franchise legends like Zach Martin, like Martin's coming off the worst game I've seen him play. I don't know, maybe half a decade, I would say.So, literally nothing is going right here.
And, you know, you have one of the elite teams in the NFL, Detroit, come to town, who had, for good reason, an axe to grind, and they just emptied every single bullet in that magazine straight into the corpse of the Dallas Cowboys.
I don't really know where to go from here. Part of me thinks, okay, blow it up, but it's not like they really have the financial freedom to like truly blow it up.I don't know.This feels just like a listless franchise.
That's doomed to have a new coaching staff next year with also like not a whole lot of substantive changes that are actually going to fix their issues.I don't know, man.It's, it's kind of bleak.
We talk about those teams that are really stuck in the middle and Dallas is really stuck in the middle.
They can beat bad teams, but the reason they're even on this list with their current record and quite frankly, a lot of the current talent that they have on their team, a lot of people would think that would exempt them from this episode.
is the feeling you get watching that team when they play a good team.When they do play a competent, well-stocked roster that is playing well together as a team.When those teams come to town, it never feels close.
It doesn't feel like they have a shot in those games.Now, can they run over a team like the Steelers?Well, I wouldn't even call it running over, but they did beat them. They survived them, sure.
They survived them, and they've gotten closer in garbage time at the end of some of the other games to make the score look a little better, but that's always what it feels like.
It feels like we're patching over the holes, we're not really fixing the structural issues underneath, and it doesn't feel like they're real competitors.It reminds me of a couple years ago when we called out the Vikings as
overrated or frauds that they had this great record and we really thought they weren't going to survive in the playoffs and they didn't.They were one and done.The Cowboys feel like that, except they don't have the great record.
It's sort of on display that they can't compete against good teams.We have plenty of evidence suggesting that.And I'm with you.The path forward is difficult because of the money they've spent, how they've spent it.
the roster depth or lack thereof, it doesn't necessarily feel like a quick fix.And sort of through all of that, I really don't think Mike McCarthy is the guy to take a struggling franchise and sort of unbuild and rebuild it.
Like that doesn't feel like his MO.He feels more like, hey, I've got a good roster.I can do pretty well with it as a coach.
This feels much deeper than that, and I don't really think they have the people in place, they don't have the financial flexibility, so I think there's a lot more questions than answers here, and while that may not be obvious due to their roster, whenever you watch them go head-to-head with a good team, it becomes painfully obvious really, really fast.
With their lack of toughness and physicality in the trenches, I don't want to say lack of talent, because they do have talent.It's just not playing well.They've invested in the offensive and defensive lines many times over the last several years.
They're just not playing well.But with their lack of toughness and discipline on the offensive line and defensive line going up against, and this is just the rest of their schedule, right?
49ers, Falcons, Eagles, Texans, Commanders, rematch with the Giants.Then they got the Bengals.I mean that just feels like two very similar teams looking at each other in the mirror.Then you got the Panthers, winnable game.
Then the Buccaneers, not a winnable game to me.Another rematch with the Eagles and then finishing it off with the Commanders.How many of those games do they
realistically win like three maybe just because of how soft they are on the offensive defensive line
I feel like the only teams that they can really compete with are the teams that either A, have such a disadvantage at quarterback and receiver, like say the Steelers, that Dak and CD can just get something going and kind of take over the game by themselves, or B, they can go toe-to-toe with the teams that are equally bad in the trenches.
like carolina in some aspects it's like one of the only pass rushes that's that's going to be worse or one of the only defensive fronts is going to be worse than dallas this year so again i i feel like this is a six win team that is extraordinarily below average i don't think they're going to be good or bad enough to land a top five pick they're not going to be good enough to make the playoffs
So they're just kind of in this no man's land where they have an extremely expensive quarterback, an extremely expensive receiver, about to be an extremely expensive edge rusher, which in my opinion, I wouldn't rule out a trade of Michael Parsons at this point, just to get assets so that they can
you know, manage the cap a little bit better without having literally three of the five most expensive players in the league and nothing else on this roster when they're not close to competing.
And I think Mike is a great player, but like the cap does exist.Like they have to, they have to take that into account.And I feel like they need depth more than they need one edge rusher right now.
So I wouldn't be surprised if Micah got moved and then they try to use their own relatively high first round pick as well as probably a couple first round picks and maybe another second round pick from a Micah trade and a whole bunch of extra money that gets freed up by not having to pay Micah to just try to rebuild the roster as a whole because the roster
as a whole is not in a good place right now.And they're going up against, for their next 11 games, a bunch of other rosters that are way better than them.
Like even the Commanders, I don't think the Commanders are all the way there yet, but they're better than what the Cowboys are rolling out there right now.So I don't know.It's just bleak.It's just bleak.
Before we move on, I do want to ask you, would you also trade Micah?Am I crazy for even throwing that out there?Because I don't see a lot of other options for what to do.
In a vacuum, no, I don't.But this isn't a vacuum.Like you said, the cap is real.The roster limitations are real, especially the offensive limitations.You talked about DAC and CD, and they are amazing.They are great together.
You can double CD all day.You can literally send true doubles CDs away all day long and feel pretty good about your chances against the Cowboys. Because who else is going to step up and really hurt you?And the answer is nobody right now.
They don't necessarily have a back on the roster that's going to do that.They have a good tight end.They have some complimentary wide receivers that are more like threes and fours.
who are absolutely NFL players and can provide some excitement for sure but in the absence of taking away their top threat just doubling CD straight up all day nobody else can turn the tables and pretty much any competent DC in the league can say yeah we're gonna make sure that CD doesn't kill us and we're gonna try and make them kill us in another way and right now Dallas doesn't have another punch to go to so
because of the financial limitations, because of that limitation on offense, they don't have a lot of choices.Elite addressers are very difficult to find, but MICA gives you the flexibility, both in picks and money, to try and address that.
Then it's really on the front office, both the pro scouting staff and the college scouting staff, to come up with some options to sort of fill that out and make it so it's not true.Go ahead, double CD.
We're gonna pivot to X, Y, or Z that they don't have right now. And that makes them, in a lot of ways, at least in NFL terms, quote unquote, easy to beat.
And I know Cowboys fans are gonna be like, well, we'll never be able to find another edge rusher like Micah again.Like, you know, they don't, they don't grow on trees.Well,
You were on the clock needing an edge rusher when TJ Watt was there and you took Taco Charlton over him.So it's not like opportunities never come around to get edge rushers in the draft.
You just actually have to, you know, take the good ones to put it mildly.So I don't know.I just feel like they're not, they're not a Micah Parsons away from being a good defense.They're not a number two receiver away from being a good offense.
It'll help, but it's not all the way there. They're just, they're just listless, you know, they're the Jaguars with a better record to me.And that's, that's about as strong of an indictment as I can probably give.
We are going to talk about the Jags too, by the way, I promise they're like the first one win team we're going to get into.And I think all the comparisons of Dallas are going to make sense as we get into it, because they are. Good God, it's tough.
Before we get into them though, I do want to thank Underdog Fantasy for sponsoring this show in the first place.
And as a reminder, if you are a fan of a bad football team and you want to make your Sundays slightly more entertaining, first of all, you can do pick-ems with players that are not on your favorite team.That'll probably make your life a lot better.
Or you can do pick-ems with players that are going against your team and just rely on your team continuing to suck while also making money.So, you know, even if your team loses, at least you're paying for lunch.So EJ helped me out here.
I'm really trying to find like a positive spin on this for being a fan of a bad football team.
I think that's actually a good way for NFL fans to escape.
As, again, fans of franchises that have spent a good amount of their time below average, it's nice to look at other well-run, competent, dangerous franchises and say, yeah, that guy's going to do something today because his coach knows what to do with him.
And then, like you said, profit from that.
Yeah, you're just relying on what you know to be true, which is that your team sucks.So if you haven't done Pick'ems before, the new customer special for this week is Bo' Nicks.
So if you're brand new to Underdog Fantasy, you can use either the QR code on the screen or the link in the description and use promo code BOOTLEG.You'll get up to $1,000 in deposit bonuses and that Bo' Nicks free pick.I think that's going up through
Friday and then they're doing a different new customer free pick starting on Friday that I can't remember off the top of my head.Actually, hold on.I have it on the calendar.Aaron Rodgers.
Speaking of hard offenses to watch, but you know we assume he can at least get half a yard.So again, if you don't enjoy watching football this year, you can make it slightly more entertaining by doing pickums on the side.
But in the absence of that, if you find yourself forced.To watch the Jaguars attempt to play football.Say you're watching another 630 AM London game, at least 630 for us, 930 for for all these coasters.
we should at least prepare you for what you're about to watch because this is oh boy i'm gonna i'm gonna try to be really really diplomatic with my words because i don't enjoy when when people get fired like i i get it they're all millionaires everybody says ah don't feel sorry for millionaires it's not about the millionaires like it's not about doug peterson it's about all the assistants that are obviously going to get let go when doug peterson gets let go and like those are not millionaires and they got kids they got families like
it's tough to like root for people to get uprooted and have their lives uh you know thrown on completely different trajectories but at the same time if you watch the chags play everybody's getting fired like everybody is getting fired there is no way out at this point the season is over the season is done nothing is working the offense isn't working the defense isn't working you know doug peterson is saying we need a culture change when it's like doug
You're supposed to be the one changing the culture.What do we pay you for?You know, the fans are over it.I think Trent Baalke is also going to get fired because the roster is just not there right now.Like there is no positives to look at here.
There's at least like a couple positives with Dallas.There's no positives to look at with the Jacksonville Jaguars other than like Brian Thomas Jr.is a really fun player who they don't throw the ball enough to.
I am grasping at straws to find any hope for Jacksonville right now.And I thought we were down on them in the summer preview series.I have never been less hopeful about this team than I am right now.It is bad.
The culture change piece is not off base and you're correct.It's the guy responsible for that culture change saying we need culture change.Well, yeah, we all know we can see that.
My hope in Jacksonville lies in the fact that they do have a bunch of good players on offense and on defense.Are they playing up to their potential?Absolutely not.
I put out a tweet yesterday during the Bears game that said the Jags are playing disaster ball right now. They are absolutely making it so hard on themselves.Penalties, missed opportunities, backing themselves up, not hitting things that are open.
They dropped four touchdowns yesterday.Everybody's like, Trevor sucks.I'm like, they dropped four touchdowns.
Here's what's crazy about that.That's normal for them.I know.Even when Calvin Ripley was there.They didn't even blink. You could do a five minute cut up of just like Calvin Ridley almost scoring touchdowns last year.And like this is normal.
Like their second in terms of red zone penalties, they get down there and then they do a hold or they do a false start and they set themselves back and they can't close it.
Like this team, when it comes to like situational football is the worst situational football team in the NFL.And it's not even really close. Like, the coaching job is so bad.Like, if you get that outcoached by Matt Eberfloos, you're getting fired.
And it's not only him.Like, the coaching and front office combo, which is where we'll start with all these teams, I'm not sure about either side here.We had serious reservations about Trent Baalke a couple years ago.
Peterson, we were willing to sort of give some more time to and see if it got better.It largely hasn't.And in fact, it's gotten worse.That's not great.That feels to me like a clean sweep is really the only answer here.
The type and volume of mistakes that they make has me pointing a finger at again at coaching.You are undisciplined as a team. You do not play great situational football.That is your coach's job more than anything.
People say, oh, players have to make plays.That's true.Like you can't get out there and make Gabe catch the ball.He has to do it on his own.
But all the other stuff that does point to coaching eventually, when it all stacks up, it's not one penalty here or there.It is systemic.
It's a habit at this point for Jacksonville, and they certainly don't play well enough as a team on either side of the ball to overcome that kind of thing.
So when you dump it all in and mix and stir, the end results on the field is pretty hopeless, not great.You look at it, you think a lot of careers, quite frankly, are being wasted.
And that's never something you want to feel or say or think about your team.But it's impossible to watch the Jacksonville Jaguars this year without feeling or thinking or saying those things.
From a schematic perspective. I feel like, like Ryan Nielsen struggles tie into press Taylor struggles.
And when you have both coordinators, like it's one thing if you have two coordinators that kind of feed off of each other, like, you know, say Ben Johnson and Aaron Glenn and in a good way, in a good way, they feed off each other in a bad way.
Because if you're looking at Ryan Nielsen's defense, they are I think it's third. Yeah, I'm looking at right now third and cover one.
So man coverage, right in terms of proportion of all their coverage snaps that are man coverage, the third and cover one, without Tyson Campbell, their best corner, they don't have anybody else who's really good at man coverage.
So they're calling something repeatedly over and over and over again that they're not good at. so their DBs are constantly being lit up.
They are 27th in terms of pressure rate, so their pass rush isn't that good, while also being dead last in blitz rate, so they're not blitzing enough to help out their pass rush, because they can't get home with four, but they're not willing to send five or six.
So you have a bunch of guys covering that can't cover and a bunch of guys rushing that can't rush.And then you wonder why they're one of the worst defenses in the NFL in virtually every single metric.
And then I think it's second worst EPA per play, which I like the grandfather stat of everything, right?Takes everything into account.They're second worst in terms of EPA per play, only in front of the Rams, who we're also going to talk about today.
But part of the reason why that defense is so bad is because they're on the field so much because Jacksonville Refuses to run the ball even though they're pretty good at running the ball Like if you're looking at all of their their rushing offense stats there, I think it's 28th in carries Let me double check on that Yeah 28th in carries while also being third in terms of yards per carry their top 10 in explosive run rate but bottom 10 and overall run percentage and
And it's not even like they're getting a bunch of light boxes because they're always behind, which I know they are always behind, but like teams are still like not really giving them light boxes because they know they're good at running the ball.
Like, I think they only have, or they're 17th in terms of light box percentage.So like, it's not like they're running into easy defenses to run on, but they're really good at it.They just don't do it.
So you kind of put everything onto Trevor's plate and say, OK, you go get us the explosive plays.But again, we're only going to throw it to BTJ seven times a game, even though we probably should be throwing it to him double digits.
We want you to go get explosive plays, throwing it to everybody else.You know, throw it to Gabe Davis, throw it to Christian Kirk.
We're not going to utilize our two good running backs and especially not going to utilize Tank Bigsby enough, even though I think Bigsby is the better back on that team.
And we're going to try to be like a super pass heavy offense that isn't good enough to be a pass heavy offense.We're going to ignore what we do well, which means we're going to stall out or in some cases just go three and out.
And then we're going to put our bad defense back on the field.They're going to give up seven points.And then we really got to throw. So I feel like both these coordinators are making each other worse in certain ways.
And Doug Peterson is not, he's not taking control of the ship to get things back in line.The culture is bad.The talent isn't there.Their young quarterback, who I think could be very, very good in this league, is not being set up for success at all.
They already paid him, so it's not like they're about to have a bunch of cap flexibility.They're not.Where do you go?Where do you go?Like, I still think it's a desirable job, but not that desirable.Like, if you look at their situation.
If the GM stays, I would agree it is less desirable.If it's a clean sheet, I'm with you.I think Trevor has enough talent that I am not willing to throw the baby out with the bathwater here.
Again, if he doesn't have four drops yesterday, he throws four touchdowns.He looks good enough to win with if you build up what's around him and start to get some more discipline. in their approach.
What you talk about with the coordinators is something we highlighted on our preview show on my other podcast, Bear Arrow, when we were leading into the Chicago game and we said, hey, they run the ball really well, but they just never do it.
And instead, they're not as good at passing the ball and they do that a lot more.That's poor coaching on a very basic level.
is keeping yourself away from your own strengths and not being willing to flex and look at what you're actually good at and the players you actually have on the field who are performing well like tank and say hey we should feature him like btj hey we should maximize some opportunities for him
Now, they did get Evan Ingram back this week, and he does make that offense look very much different.He is a glue guy that you can throw to a lot, pick up some first downs, pick up some chunk plays.
But even with him, all the other stuff didn't go away.The sort of regressive traits in the red zone, the drops, the mistakes, and the end result was they got walked, like dog walked off the field in London. And they're too good for that.
So there is some talent here.You talked about the defensive line and their pass rush.I really feel like there is talent on that line and a coaching change might be an answer there.
If you could get a young Chris Kosurik, right, to work with the talent that they have on their defensive line. Heinz Allen, Roy Robertson Harris, Trevon Walker even.
Like, those guys are getting good individual stats, but they're not playing great as a team.I mean, the statistics reflect that.So, I feel like, clean sweep at the top, get yourself a new GM.
It's not the most desirable job, but it's not the least desirable job either.See if you can tune Trevor back up into being a mid-pack quarterback. get some of the mistakes out of there, get that culture change that Peterson says, well, I don't know.
In teaching, we call that lack of classroom control, right?It feels like Peterson lacks classroom control.He's got these students or coordinators or whatever, and he's like, I don't know, they just won't listen.
It's your job as the guy at the front of the room to say, hey, straighten up.We need to run the ball a little bit more.We need a little bit more emphasis here.Whatever you're doing with the default defensive lineman, we need a tweak.
Like, it's not hopeless from a talent perspective, but it feels hopeless under the current structure.So that structure has to change.
You mentioned that it's not the most desirable job opening, but it's also not the least desirable job opening.Our next team we're talking about probably is the least desirable job opening.
At least if all of these were going to become available, right?To be head coach or GM.That's the Cleveland Browns. The Cleveland Browns are in trouble.And it's not just because of the Deshaun thing.Like the Deshaun thing is the elephant in the room.
Like we know the money is, is damn near impossible to deal with.Uh, especially when you're not getting NFL starter quality play.Like he's not a top 40 quarterback in the NFL right now.Right.I think they've gone, what was it?
20 over 26 on their last 26 third down, something like that.
Mr. Coleman, I have a stat here that speaks to this, huh?Because every week we talk about how Deshaun is not a top tier NFL starter and that he might not even be a top 32 starter.So Mike Sandoe came out with a stat this week that blew my doors off.
Watson's EPA, we just talked about EPA, per pass play ranks 590th out of 592 quarterbacks who started their first six games of a season since 2000.590 out of 592?590 out of 592.So think of any quarterback that you thought was absolute trash.
Just not, shouldn't even be in the league. He's worse than that through his first six games.I'm really curious who 591 is now.Yeah, right?I want to look up the names of the last two, but why?You're talking about almost 600 quarterbacks.
And Deshawn's EPA is second worst out of 600 since the turn of the century.Let's be honest about this.We're not talking about average NFL quarterback play.We are talking about quarterback play that is so bad that Kevin Stefanski can't do anything.
And he's taking a lot of criticism for having a simplified offense.What he's trying to do is simplify an offense down to the point where Deshaun can do something in it, and that's not possible.He can't go low enough right now.
So while we say this is the elephant in the room, this is the elephant in the room.And Stefanski came out today and unfortunately said, and I regret to report this, I still think Deshaun Watson gives us the best chance to win.
What that tells me is he cannot say anything else.He is being told to say that because there is no way as a football coach at any level, I'm talking about Pop Warner up to the NFL, there is no way you look at what Deshaun's doing and say that.
Like it's just not possible to determine that.
I feel really bad for Browns fans. Well, at least some Browns like there are some Browns fans that that are still like ride or die.Defending it and there's no hope for them, but there are Browns fans that going back to last year.
You know, like they have eyes.They saw this wasn't working.They knew it wasn't working.They knew what they were in for for this season and like you know they had like a vague hint of hope of like.You know, maybe it'll work out, but.
But they've known that this train's been coming down the tracks, and they've known that they can't get out of it.And I feel really bad for them, because they didn't sign up for this.
They didn't sign up to be one of the worst records in the NFL, and have one of the worst financial situations in the NFL, and have the worst quarterback situation in the NFL.
And there's not a whole lot of hope for the future because it's all tied into one of the worst owners in the NFL, NGB Haslam, who is extremely impulsive and you could very easily argue is the person who caused this in the first place by ponying up and demanding
That they do this to acquire Deshawn in the first place, even while knowing everything else that was going on off the field.Like, they were like, oh yeah, no, we're fine.
Like, was the line like, I asked my wife and daughters if they approved, you know, that horseshit.Like, they knew, they knew what they were acquiring. And they still did it anyway, because Jimmy Haslam does Jimmy Haslam shit.
It's the same reason why they drafted Johnny Menzel in the first round, even though 31 other teams were not going to touch him in the first round, and Jimmy Haslam thought he knew better.He just does this.He does this kind of stuff.
And I feel bad for Browns fans, because they're stuck with him. Like there is no way to fire your owner.If it was just the case of, Oh, we have a bad head coach.We have a bad GM, which I'm still not convinced they do.
Uh, or, Oh, we have a bad quarterback.Like, yeah, you can fix that.You can't fix bad ownership. Like, is it any wonder the commanders have turned it around the second they got rid of Dan Snyder?
Like, bad ownership kills NFL teams, and the Browns are doomed to that fate.And they're the ones I feel bad for. Like, I don't feel bad for Jimmy Haslam because, like, it's his own fault.
I feel bad for the for the Browns fans that have been there for decades and decades and decades before Jimmy showed up and they just wanted hope.Right.
They just wanted that feeling they had during that Baker-Mayfield playoff run to happen every year.And they got one year of it.And then Jimmy said, nah, let's go get that asshole and give him a quarter billion guaranteed. It's just awful, man.
It's just awful.But as bad as all that is, it's not even their only problem.Nope.
Like, if you're looking at the rest of the team, like, they have a pass rush issue because all of their edge rushers outside of Myles Garrett, I don't see a long-term future with the team.Like, Zidarius is 32.He's going to be 33 next year.
His productivity has really dipped because, again, he's getting older.You know, they hope that Isaiah McGuire is going to be good eventually, but Like they don't, they don't have the type of pass rush they used to.
Their interior defensive line, I think it has some really fun like penetrating types, but they're not really good against the run.
And this is a team that's given up the fourth most explosive runs in the entire league this year, partially because they just penetrate and penetrate and penetrate and basically give offenses favorable angles to block them.
So they get, you know, hit by all these pin and poles and jet sweeps and everything like that.And the entire defensive line is just upfield, not able to do anything about it.They isolate their DBs in space and make them tackle and they can't.
And oh, by the way, speaking of their DBs, they play the most man coverage in the NFL again, and their DBs have dropped off a cliff. Martin Emerson's getting picked on this year.He's given up like four touchdowns, at least three that I know of.
The fourth one's kind of debatable, but he's given up at least three touchdowns this year so far.Greg Newsom's gotten picked on in man.Denzel Ward's the only corner that's really held up for them.Actually, more than held up.
He's played really, really well for them.But again, if you only have one corner playing really well in a defense that calls the most man coverage in the NFL, you're gonna lose, especially when you don't have a pass rush. So like what?What do you do?
Like what do you do if you don't have a historically good defense like they had last year to make up for the fact that they can't score?You're dead in the water and oh, by the way, the offensive line is banked up in bad too so.
Or there is there anything going right on this team?I'm not sure there is other than like a few bright spots on the roster, but.
Like not nearly enough to make them a winning organization, let alone an organization that has any sort of plan or hope beyond 2024.Like, if you think it's bad now, like, what do you think it's going to be in 2025 and 2026?
Like this could be like, this could be even by Brown standards, the worst three year stretch in their franchise's history.And that's saying a lot.
It's really hard because windows close quickly in the NFL.Two years ago, we were bullish on this roster. We said openly and many times we thought it was one of the very best in the NFL.
Top three pretty easily in terms of talent, end to end, pretty much every unit was loaded.The offensive line, as you mentioned, it's banged up and it's not as loaded as it used to be.
They are not at the same level they were when they were being heralded as the best line in the NFL, which they were for a time.
if Cooper's traded, which is possible, that wide receiver, the remaining wide receiver unit as it stands now looks underwhelming.And that's putting it nicely.
God, the Jerry Judy deals really blown up in their face, hasn't it?
I mean, you're looking at Jerry, Judy and Elijah Moore.Now, we liked Elijah Moore a lot, but his pro career has not panned out the way we thought it would.And neither of those guys are alphas.
So if you take the one alpha out of the room, you're left with, you know, twos and threes or threes and fours, depending on how you see it.
And that's not even talking about the quarterback situation, which I do feel like is the brightest light in the room, but not the only light going on.There's lots of things when you lift up the corner of the rug here where you go, ugh.
Chubb coming back from another major knee injury at 28, not a sure thing.He already had a very serious one that nobody thought he would come back from.He came back and was one of the best backs in the NFL.Can he do it again close to 30?
You know, at this point, he kind of seems like Frank Gore, he seems like he'll just keep going no matter what.But that's not a sure thing either.You talked about the defensive line, it's got some dudes, but it doesn't really have depth.
And again, they've had injuries.So the depth comes into play, and they don't play very well. Linebackers are pretty good, three deep, but depth would be good, you know, down the board.
And the secondary is this two sides of a coin thing where they have, if you're talking about individual talent, I think it's one of the most individually talented secondaries in the league, but secondaries don't play well based on only individual talent.
You have to play well as a team, and the other two-thirds of the corners are not really holding up their end of the bargain this year.
So a secondary we thought of as loaded with guys on guys only two years ago is now looking kind of thin because these high level starters are not playing at a high level outside of Denzel Ward.So there's a lot of cracks in the foundation.
And this is what happens with NFL windows if you squander them or have bad luck for any particular reason.And look, we talked about it at the top of the segment.
Browns made plenty of their own bad luck here with a terrible, historically terrible quarterback choice. you squander the window.Guys get old, contracts run out, it happens really fast.
And then you basically have to decide, is this a full teardown, like all the way to the top?Or is this a partial teardown?We think we can just go to the studs and, you know, put up some new cladding here and we'll be okay.
And those are difficult decisions for teams, but the Browns I'm with you, They're not going anywhere this year with the quarterback play they've gotten.
They don't have anything on tap next year that's going to change that, that we can see functionally.The money is a significant problem and everything's just going to be a year older and more broken.What do you really do?
And it's hard to start a teardown in advance, but they take usually about the same amount of time.And if you don't start it now, you're just kicking that can down the road.
And that's the reality staring Cleveland in the face, which I don't think a lot of people think is the case. But if you, again, lift up the corner of the rug and shine a light here, that's what you see.
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Jags had a window, you know, they came back, had that big playoff win against the Chargers, started the next year 8-3, you know, were in line for the first seed, and then completely collapsed, and that collapsed has spilled over into now.
Cleveland's had a couple little mini-windows, one with Baker, one, weirdly enough, with Joe Flacco, but, like, they've had windows to go on runs. And now you look at where they're at.
Dallas had like a three year long window where they were one of the best records in the NFL.You know, 12 win seasons back to back to back years, tons of talent.You know, they would absolutely steamroll really bad teams.
And then somewhere along the way they would trip themselves in January.And then it was always like, ah, we'll get them next year.We're still loaded.And then you just run into 2024 where you look around
and they're not loaded anymore and the Emperor has no clothes.So again, those three teams had windows recently that slam shut.They don't anymore.I don't know when they're going to be able to open those windows again.
It's kind of tough to see the light at the end of the tunnel. The next team we're talking about, though, had a window that was open for more than three years.In fact, that window was open for a couple decades, and they did a lot with that window.
They won a bunch of Super Bowls.They went to a bunch of conference championship games.I think they went to, was it 11 in a row, something like that, conference championship games.They were the dynasty.
They had multiple dynasties within that dynasty, you could even argue.And it wasn't until, you know, there was a changing of the guard at quarterback that that dynasty finally crumbled.
And they've just been kind of wandering through the wilderness for the last half decade, trying to figure out how to get it back. They went through Cam Newton.They went through Mac Jones.
There was like a weird kind of Bailey Zappi mini era in there that I'm still not 100% sure what was going on with that.Is that a Bailey Zappi short joke? I mean, he's not the biggest guy.He's not the biggest guy.
And then, you know, you had the Jacoby Brissett kind of spinoff that we had in the beginning of the year.And that all cumulatively led to this week, where Drake May took the field and made his first start.
And I think Drake May is the first of these quarterbacks of all the different ones they've tried since the end of the Brady era, which was 2019, I think it was, right?So we're about four to five years since then.
Drake May is the first of these quarterbacks that you can honestly look at him and say, I think that's the one.Like, he looks like he belongs.He obviously has the requisite talent.Like, he's way more talented than Mac Jones ever was.
I know Mac Jones was also a first-round pick, but if we're being realistic about it, as prospects, May was a way better prospect than Mac Jones.And there was physically a ceiling on what Mac was gonna give you.
And there is a ceiling with May, but it's pretty darn up there, like physically speaking.He's got the arm, he's got the mobility.He is one of the most physically talented quarterbacks in the league.The tape was great.
He put up two really, really strong years as a starter at North Carolina, and he was seen consensus as a top five player in the draft.Mack Jones was not when Mack was coming out. You know, Bailey Zappi was not that quality of prospect.
Jacoby Brissett, like we've always known what Jacoby is.Cam Newton, like his shoulder was shredded by the time he got to the Patriots.So like, Drake May is the first quarterback since Tom Brady.
that has the talent and the pedigree that makes you think possibly, maybe, could be the one to open that window back up.And then he played. I'm not saying every throw was perfect.
There were a couple he wants back, like that first pick was, say, not ideal.But when he launched that ball to Keishon Butte, you know, that go ball down the sideline for the touchdown on Derek Stingley, who's one of the best corners in the NFL.
And you saw him look at Boutte get even with Stingley.And again, it was a wide split.He's like, ah, I can't put this on the sideline.I have to throw him back inside.I have to trust him to go get it and adjust to this ball.
I'm going to put it in a spot where Stingley's not going to be able to track it.And he launched that ball.I mean, he put it way out in front of Boutte and he put it back inside so that he can kind of run back to where the space was.
And he grabbed it for a touchdown.That was the first time. Through this entire saga all these different quarterbacks.
They've tried where I was like Shit they might have something here like this might actually be the one to get them out of this because they have been in the deep dark For the last half decade.
There's still issues Like there's there's still plenty of issues but Drake may actually Somehow gives me hope that New England's finally on the right track
It's funny how fast the script flips because we were all extremely worried about Drake May's first start going against a very good Texans pass rush with a very bad offensive line unit.
So far this year in front of him, we all thought, oh, this could be a bloodbath.This is not a great way for a high quarterback pick to make his debut.And like you said, then he played.Mistakes are going to be made.He's a rookie quarterback.
First touchdown, I thought, oh, that's nice.Comes in, gets a little spark, leads him on a scoring drive.Cool.I get it.That's nice.That's what I said.
Second touchdown, I was like, okay, this doesn't look the same as New England has looked pretty much all year.This is starting to look different.Third touchdown, I was like, all right. We were all really worried about how this was gonna go.
And all things considered, it's going extremely well for a rookie in his first NFL start.There was a spark there, there was a life in the entire offense that we haven't seen.And it's very much the old Bill Parcells quote, right?
If they don't bite when they're puppies, they're just not gonna bite, right?If you see a quarterback come in, even if the, you know, series of situations, all of the things surrounding him are terrible.
You still see those plays, you still see those flashes and you go, ooh, all right.And then it's about whether they can build off of those, whether they can not make the same mistakes twice.
Because look, we saw that with Will Levis when he came in last year.We saw the flashes and we went, oh, there's some stuff you can build on.He's got some stuff to work on. We'll talk about that in a minute.
But with Drake, there was hope, and the Patriots haven't had hope, and the rest of the team played better around him, even though the situation wasn't ideal, even though the pass rush was good.
And I think guys who are on the field, on the opposing side, are going to look back at that game and go, man, we're really glad we got him early before he started to heat up.
And that is not something the Patriots have had over this last four or five years.It is extremely important.Is it everything, like you said? No, the coaching and front office, look, it's new.I'm not going to pass judgment on them.
They're not even a full year into this.We'll see how it goes over several cycles.That's the way you judge those things.The defense is in solid shape.Do they need help?They do.They need edge firepower in a very bad way.
The offensive line played better yesterday.Are they going to play better, you know, throughout the year with the talent they have currently assembled? Nope, they need some investment there too.
They need some more pass catchers, especially a deep threat.
We saw May's arm certainly on tape, and it doesn't really feel like the Patriots have a good, consistent deep speed compliment, and they're gonna need that, because Drake can leverage it in a way that all those other guys that you mentioned couldn't.
So there are pieces they need to put together here, but we say it all the time.If you don't have a quarterback, you're not going anywhere. And the Patriots, for the most part, since Brady's been gone, have not had a quarterback.
They might have a quarterback now, so they can start looking at all these other needs, and they have one superpower on their side, one of the most valuable in the entire league. a rookie quarterback contract.
And if he turns out to be able to play well, they've got the resources over the next, again, we talked about it, windows are short two to three years to build up that supporting cast around them and see what they've really got here.
And that is probably the most important thing that came out of yesterday, really for Patriots fans in the last four or five years.
And you know, we say, oh, the offensive line played better.What that really means is they were only the 10th worst in terms of pressure percentage allowed, not the worst.
Like he still got lit up.And that's why I was worried about playing him against Houston, because I'm like,
Buddy, we're gonna put him out there against Will Anderson and Tennille Hunter behind statistically one of the three worst offensive lines in the league.It was more so just about being worried about his ribcage than anything else.He got hit a lot.
Like, 14 pressures was seventh most given up in the NFL.But he stood in there, and he took it.
And yes, there were growing pains, there were some mistakes, but like you said, the flashes were there, and they were certainly there with enough frequency that made me think, okay. Just get him through this year healthy.
Let him see some live bullets.Let him get used to the speed.Let him make some mistakes.Honestly, some of these mistakes might be good for him.But also just let him learn how to be a pro.
And then we can get into, you know, the 2025 offseason and use the flexibility of this quarterback contract and all the cap space they're going to have, which they have a ton of space.
You know, then we can use that flexibility to build a team around him that is not going to get him killed.And we hope that he takes a year to jump, right?
Um, as far as what they should prioritize getting for him, like a true left tackle, like a star left tackle.I know easier said than done.
There's a few coming out in this draft or really a couple coming out and it's just not like the deepest tackle class, but they exist.Like they do exist.And this is nothing against Vardarian Lowe.
I think he has played so much better this year than anybody expected Vardarian Lowe to play, but he's still like,
capable backup, like spot starter, if a guy gets hurt, you can survive with type of left tackle, not, okay, we can count on him as our every week starter type left tackle.
He's like a boy, I'm not even gonna say he's Braxton Jones, because even then, like I still rely on Braxton Jones more than Vidarian Lowe, but he's kind of that type of tackle, right?
Where you're really not gonna say no, if you have an option to upgrade.
And that's in draft parlance.That's what he is vaderian low is not keeping me from drafting Anybody I think has superior talent like i'm not looking at my roster and going well We got vaderian low.
So i'm not really looking at tackle No, if if you've got the chance to go after a very good left tackle You bring him in and you know worst flash best case scenario is they compete Like that's not a terrible thing to have but low is not a guy that is going to keep you
from looking at that spot on your roster.
It's like when Chargers fans were like, why would we take Joe Alt?We have Trey Pipkins.It's like, oh, buddy, that's not the same.That's not the same at all.No, no, no, don't do that.You take the better one, right?
But Vidarian's not been their biggest issue up front.It's really been the interior.There's been kind of a I'm not even sure if the Patriots know what they want for their interior trio.
You know, for starters, David Andrews, we're not sure if he's coming back.Nasty, nasty injury that even like he's going to try to come back, but it's still unsure if he's going to be able to, because he said he.
Ripped his rotator cuff off the bone, I think was the words that he like.It just sounds.It sounds hard for a center to come back from that, considering how much they actually, you know, use their shoulders every single play.
And then at the guard spots, they really wanted Aladin Robinson to work out.And he was just giving up pressure like crazy.
So on when he was at guard, and then you got Michael Jordan at left guard, which is interesting because in the summer, it seemed like they really wanted CeeDee So to be a starter for them.And then they settled on Michael Jordan.
And I know they really like Michael Jordan, but I'm still not sure if even the Patriots know what they want their trio to be, because their trio now is different than the trio they envisioned in the summer.
And credit to them for making changes on the fly and trying to just find a combination that works.But we are already up to 11 different Patriots offensive linemen that have at least 30 pass rush reps, and we're six weeks into the season.
So they've just been trying to figure it out, and I'm still not sure if they even know what they want. And then at right tackle, you know, again, let's just say they need help.So if they, this off season, spent a bunch of money, i.e.
Carolina, to bring in guys that they know they can just plug and play and start and not worry about it.And then also spend like one premium pick on a tackle. I would feel a lot better about their offensive line.Like they're cobbling it together.
They're making it work, but it's still like not really like they're just surviving.They're not thriving.Carolina recently went through this and now you look at Carolina this year and they are the best pressure percentage allowed in the NFL.
So it is possible to remake an offensive line.New England is going to have to do that. Secondarily, they need a true, consistent deep threat.They need their own Will Fuller.I like Jalen Polk a lot.I don't see him as that.
Like, he is more Jacoby Myers, not Will Fuller.And, you know, I look at all the cut-ups of him against press coverage and, like,
I just, I don't think he has the gas to, like, really get over the top consistently on, like, really, really talented NFL press corners that all run, like, 4-3-9.Like, you need gas outside.
I could even see them, if they want a vertical threat that has great deep ball tracking ability and has worked with Drake before, I could see them reaching out to the Colts and seeing how much they want Josh Downs.
and just throw something out there because I don't think they're going to get Pickens from from the Steelers because the Steelers don't have any receivers.
They kind of need George Pickens and obviously the IU thing is not was not going to happen, but they still need that like they still need an outside receiver with vertical ability to pair with Polk who is more of that like strong number two Jacoby Myers type as well as Pop Douglas who's like your dynamic slot player.
I also think they need, as you mentioned, an every down edge, because Josh Uche is not an every down edge.He is a pass rushing role player, but they need their new Matt Judon, who can also play on early downs.They don't have that.
So like this is still at least one off season away from having that structure around Drake May.Like they're not close.Well, I shouldn't say they're not close.They're not there, but the shopping list is manageable.
Like it is manageable to get all of that in one off season.It's going to be expensive.It's going to cost premium picks, but they can do it.
They can do it.Houston did.Yeah, it's possible.It's not going to be cheap because we're talking about premium positions, talking about tackle, edge rusher.
Luckily, I think they can get by a corner and really number one slash number two wide receiver, depending on how they see that within their own organization. Those are three of the five most expensive positions in football.
So it's not going to be cheap and they're probably not going to be one and done with any of them.But that's the road map.At least they have a defined road map to say this is what we need to do.We know it's going to be expensive.
They do have the money, unlike a Cleveland.So the pieces are there.It's not impossible as we look at the sort of sum total of these situations like it's doable. They gotta manage it.They can't waste a lot of things, but it is possible.
See?It is possible to be positive-ish about some of these teams.Like, some of them have more hope than others, and the Patriots have more hope than maybe everybody other than...
Well, yeah, maybe everybody that we've talked about so far, if you're looking at, like, even if you're looking at Dallas, like they already have the quarterback and receiver situation figured out, but they don't have the money situation figured out.
And they don't have the defensive line situation figured out.So like, you could argue that by 2026, the Patriots are going to be in a much better spot than Dallas, but we'll see, you know, that's kind of the fun of
tracking these situations long-term is you never really know how it's going to end up based on what you're projecting.
But back to another situation that is, I don't want to say bleaker than New England, but definitely murkier than New England, Tennessee Titans.We came into this year looking at this Titans roster and yes, a lot of it hinged on is Will Levis good?
Like, we don't know.Like, is Will Levis good? And I think the general theme of us watching the Titans this year was finding out that answer.Like, is he the guy who can elevate this roster that they invested a lot into?
You know, you acquire Legere as Sneed, you acquire Calvin Ridley, like they spent a bunch of money.You still got DeAndre Hopkins there.You know, they had some pieces that we really liked with Harold Landry and
uh Jeffrey Simmons you know they they make the deal for Ernest Jones and we're like okay like this is a this is a roster we really like is Will Levis the guy because if he is the guy we're going to find out pretty quickly because we think this team is good enough that that he should be able to show that well six weeks into this season we have our answer
No, Will Levis is, is not the guy.Like he, he cannot be the guy.I refuse to believe he is the guy because the tape has been so bad that it's not like bottom five quarterback play in the NFL, like Deshaun, but it's not that far off.
He can't see the field.Like if we're just talking about, you know, can he look at a coverage and know what he's seeing?I don't think he can, because he consistently makes really bad decisions.There's guys running open that he straight up misses.
I'm not even talking like misses as a thrower, which he does, like he's not accurate either, but I'm talking does not see them running wide open, whether he's in the pocket or out of the pocket.I don't know what he's looking at.
He makes terrible, terrible decisions under pressure. Some of the turnovers are the ugliest, most meme-worthy turnovers you'll ever see, like, truthfully. Like he's just not good.He is not a starting quarterback in the NFL.
And I was really, really hoping that we would see something in the first third of the season.
Like just show me something that we can bank on, that can give us hope that, you know, potentially like, hey, maybe they found a diamond in the rough, a second round quarterback that becomes a starter, like a long-term starter, like an Andy Dalton type.
I mean, he's more talented than Andy Dalton physically, but he's not as good of a quarterback as Andy was.But like, you know, like maybe they can get lucky and that's what Will Levis will be for them.
And all the money they spent on the roster will then be elevated because they have this young quarterback.No, he's not good.It's not working.He threw, what was it?29 times in this game for less than 125 yards. His yards per attempt, I think, was 3.6.
It was below 4.It's just not working, EJ.And if this isn't working, the Titans are dead in the water.Truly, they are dead in the water if Will Levis does not work out.And so far, he is not working out.
Well, there were a lot of other teams that don't have the answer at quarterback.They were hoping Will Levis could be that answer.He might be that answer at some point, but that point is far down the road and we can't see it from here.
He is a work in progress.If you're, you know, house shopping, if you're the Titans and you see this one with the realtor, it comes with the needs work label, right?You talk about the physical talent.
There's a ton of physical talent and what the Titans hoped for was that they could connect that physical talent.
hone it down and hope that he could manage the aspects of quarterbacking in the NFL that are really important, like ball security and vision and the ability to string together drives.
And right now, the extremely high highs of his physical talent are wildly overshadowed or completely overshadowed by the wildness, which is the one thing that's pervasive when you watch the tape from this year is the absolute
What in the hell wildness to quarterbacking that just can't really be overcome in the NFL.We talk about two or three or four plays that turn every game.If you're not making the basic ones, you're not four plays away.You're 10 or 15 plays away.
And that means you're going to lose way more than you're going to win.To put it in perspective.
This is where Commander's fans were with Sam Howell last year in the second half of the year, where he was making plays, but occasionally, often enough that it was problematic, he'd still go off the map and just throw a terrible turnover.
And he couldn't limit that as the season went on.And right now, I would say Levis as a quarterback is less developed than that. and still adding all those turnovers on top.And that's not something that a young team can overcome.
And certainly I don't think something that a rookie head coach can overcome.So the answer is the Titan don't have the answer at quarterback, which puts them in the same bucket as quite a few teams in the NFL.
But that just means you have to go back to the well, just because you took a shot and it didn't work out.That doesn't really matter.
You have to keep taking shots no matter what they are until you get that guy, because if you don't, you're not going anywhere. How's the rest of this roster?Well, the offensive line has a ton of young talent.
It's not playing particularly well together, but I'll give that a little bit of time to come together.Wide receiver is solid.They have a lot of options, but they do not have the guy.
If you're talking about developing a quarterback, young or old, he's got to have a go-to guy.I don't feel like that guy is on the Titans roster right now.They have a lot of good complimentary receiving threats at this point in their careers.
Tight end is solid, but not great.So overall, the offense is pretty average.And if you don't have a quarterback, he's not going to elevate all those players around him.Defensive line.DL is beastly inside.You got Simmons and Sweat.
That is a very nice place to start, but they need more edge juice.They are not getting edge rush pressure right now. I like Ernest Jones.
You mentioned him as a free or trade pickup from the Rams, but I wouldn't be opposed to another linebacker inside.And the secondary has a lot of talent.We'll see if Brownlee is the answer is the answer outside.
That's really something that they can use this season to do.And if not, they'll need another.But again, they could get by with a little bit of edge help, a little bit of linebacking help, maybe another outside corner.
That's not a huge shopping list for a defense on offense. They need the alpha wide receiver and look, until they get a quarterback, we're not really going to see what they have anyways.
And on the receiver thing, you know, they brought in Calvin Ridley to be that guy.But the problem is, I don't think Calvin Ridley is a good fit with Levis.You know, if Levis was more accurate, like, okay, this can work because Ridley's getting open.
But if you're looking at, you know, even just last game, like last game, there were, I think I counted four balls that went off Ridley's hands that you, you can't technically count as a drop because they were tough catches.
And it's not like, you know, hit them right in the numbers and it just bounced off.It wasn't like that.Like they were tough catches. But his hands were on them.
And if Levis was more accurate and gave him more catchable balls, he probably would have brought them in.
But also like you're paying Calvin Ridley all this money to help out a young quarterback that is not very accurate, that doesn't have, you know, C.J.Stroud level ball placement.
And DeAndre Hopkins doesn't have the juice anymore to get open like Calvin Ridley can, but Hop has the hands, you know, to kind of, what's the word, you know, give him like a margin of error in terms of where he places the ball.
Calvin Ridley doesn't give you a margin of error.It has to be a perfectly placed football or he's not going to catch it.
So I feel like Ridley doesn't have a good fit with Levis right now because Ridley is not going to, you know, dig balls off the turf that Levis puts in bad places.
He's not going to help him out and help him be productive even if he's not completely accurate.Like everything has to be perfect or it's not going to work.
So if you're going to make this all work, like you just need that kind of margin for error out there at the receiver position, or, or you're just going to end up with, with Calvin Ridley stat lines over and over and over again, where he has six targets and no catches on the entire day against a very vulnerable Colts secondary.
That isn't that good either. So I don't know, man, it's it's a tough, tough situation.I even look at some of the money they've spent on defense, which they have spent a lot of money on this defense.
You know, they acquired the Jerry Snead, who is not playing as well in Tennessee as he did in Kansas City.He is their most targeted corner. And also is on pace for only three forced incompletions the entire season.
He only has one so far, and we're six games into this thing, or five games into this thing, because they had a bye week.
But he's on pace for three pass breakups, which is less than 20% of the number that he had last year in Kansas City, while being their most targeted corner. and giving up the most touchdowns in that secondary so far.I don't know, man.
That signing hasn't worked out super well.Their highest paid player is Harold Landry who has four sacks, yes, but two of them are unblocked.
You have another one where it was on a stunt where Rogers was just forced to run into him and he got a sack on a stunt.And then there was another one where he got run around the back of the pocket.
and just stuck with it and got an effort sack so yes he has four sacks but are any of those sacks like he went one-on-one against a tackle and beat him and got the sack no his pass rush win rate is four percent it's not good
Uh, Jeffrey Simmons, their second highest paid player has seven pressures in four games.
I know he's playing with an elbow injury, but like when your most productive game was this week with the elbow injury and the entire first three weeks that you played, you got three pressures. That's not good either.
And like we know Jeff Simmons is a really good player.We know Harold Landry has been a really good player in the past.We know LeJarrius Sneed has been a really good player in the past.They're not playing like they're paid.
Top down, you look at the Titans, quarterback is bad. high dollar acquisition at receiver doesn't fit with him because he needs perfectly thrown footballs to make it work.
You spent a bunch of money on defense and none of them are playing like they're paid.Like what's, what can you really hang your hat on with this Titans team?I don't really know.Like I don't really know what you're supposed to hang your hat on here.
Uh, like Tony Pollard's playing well. Great.Other than that, I don't know, man.I don't know.It's, it's a, it's a weird kind of murky situation.
I still think that out of some of the teams we've talked about so far, they have the better odds of turning it around.
But they're not, they're not great odds.They're not amazing.
I feel like they're one of those teams that, you know, we're going to talk about one of these teams in a second with the Panthers, but you know, we've seen it a little bit with the Colts too.You get some competent.
middle of the pack quarterbacking you get andy dalton or joe flacco to come in and run things and oh my god it looks so much better this looks like a professional football team i kind of feel like the titans are in that category where they could play a lot better if they were stringing some drives together on offense and just not
flinging it all over the yard and having almost no hope of completing it.
Like even if they just put some basic drives together, keeps the defense off the field, maybe puts a few points on the board, gives them a little bit more margin for error, and then sort of a rising tide lifts all boats.
And that's just average quarterback play.So I feel like they might not be as far away as they look right now, because right now, I'm with you, they look much farther away than the roster says they probably are.
Boy, does quarterback play matter in this league?They're not getting it right now.And kind of as a result, it's a cascading failure and nothing looks great.
The offensive line, even with, you know, bringing in legendary offensive line coach in Callahan, uh, and spending a top pick on a left tackle.You're only as good as your weakest link.
And their weakest link is Nicholas Petit Frere, who is statistically the second worst offensive tackle in the entire NFL in terms of, uh, past blocking efficiency.Uh, he is the second highest pressure percentage allowed.
You know who number one is by the way.
I do, but I was just gonna be kind for your sake and not bring that up.
Stone Forsythe, baby! Bootleg legend.He's given up like 35 pressures.Yeah.
Avert your eyes type stuff.Trust me.Oh man.
So, you know, he's not as bad as Stone Forsyth, but you know, he's worse than every other tackle in the NFL.So it, you know, it almost doesn't matter how well the rest of the line plays and they've been like mostly okay.
When you have a right tackle that gets beat almost every time. Like, yeah, you're still gonna be under a lot of pressure.That's why, as a unit, they're still the third highest pressure percentage allowed.Individually, most of them are doing okay.
It's just you look at Nicholas Petit-Freyre and you're like, good God, like it's terrible. Speaking of bad offensive line play, by the way, next team on the docket, we're gonna keep this one relatively quick because it's the easiest one to explain.
The Rams have one win. If the Rams were fully healthy, they would not have just one win.I know that seems like a cop-out, but if you're looking at the quality of the players that they have injured, they're pretty important, right?
Puka and Cooper Cup and, you know, they've taken so many injuries to the offensive line. You know, Matthew Stafford, he's still playing, but he's Matthew Stafford.So he's playing through injury because he's him.Um, it's just, it's rough.
It's really rough.And I think if the Rams were fully healthy, I'm not saying that they would be at the top of the NFC.Cause they also have their own issues, especially on defense.They wouldn't only have one win.So I kind of chalk it up to that.
I chalk it up very heavily to that because again, all injuries and injury reports are not created equal in terms of the amount of quality you lose.It's not just number of starts.It's the quality of those starts as well.
And if you're talking about quality starts, the Rams have lost to injury this year.They're right there at the top of the list. And a lot of that's going to rebound now.Stafford, you talked about, he's playing very well right now.
He is still playing very well, but he's doing everything he can with not a lot around him.And at some point, and I know I've been saying this like a broken record for the last four years, he will have to drop off.
All that stuff is going to add up or he's just going to walk away.He's going to say, hey, I've done enough.And then you're back in the bin with a lot of these other teams.
trying to solve the quarterback problem because I don't think the heir apparent is currently on the Rams roster.So you can wait for next year to sort of rebound to we'll call it normalcy with a lot of these injured starters returning.
The defense, the young defensive line they have is amazing.Really, really good. Everything else on defense is pretty suspect.They thought they could get by without Ernest Jones.They thought they'd be fine at linebacker.They're not fine at linebacker.
The safeties and the corners are, I'd say, sort of batting above their weight right now. But like, oh, they can't cover that.They're pretty light.So really, I love the young defensive line and all the investment there.
And that is one way to build a defense.They've got a lot of investment to do on that side of the ball in the second two levels of the defense in order to be functional, to be middle of the pack, to be reasonably good.
So on offense, they can wait for a lot of those injured starters to return on defense.They got to continue investing in ways that they typically haven't, especially at linebacker.And then the Stafford question just kind of hangs over them.
You know, if he keeps soldiering on, awesome.If he doesn't, that's a major question they're going to have to address.
Yeah, I know you're trying to be nice.This I'm trying to be socks.
This secondary sucks so bad. Especially compared to how it's been in recent years.Again, we talk about windows closing and let's talk about a mini window just for the RAM secondary, not for their whole team.
Look at where their secondary was two years ago, three years ago.This is a pretty quality secondary.They had a lot of guys.They've had a ton of attrition.They've let some guys go.They've let some contracts expire.I get that.What's left is needs work.
They have no explosiveness on the back end.They had explosiveness on the second level in Ernest Jones.He was an impact player for them at linebacker, and I'm still not 100% sure what happened there.I don't know what brought about
That that because he said he was willing to play like without a new deal this year.I don't know what happened.I really don't know what happened like they thought they had answers behind Ernest Jones.
They don't like they really don't have answers behind him and I don't know if that was just because of
you know bad in-house evaluation of their depth players or thinking that they could coach him up or what but like roseboom is like literally statistically one of the worst coverage linebackers in the entire nfl and i'm not saying that ernest jones was fred warner out there but he could cover and he could better than that rush he's better than that he's one of the best pass rushing linebackers in the nfl and he was a big part of their pass rush last year
Like, he gave them answers for teams that, you know, would try to go back on backer because he would just whip every single running back and pass pro.
And I feel like the only thing they can hang their hat on right now, defensively, is, you know, if—it's a big if—
If a game is close enough where they can rush the passer and they're not just having the ball run on them over and over and over again because they're behind, but if the game is close enough where they actually can rush the passer, they can rush the passer.
That's all they can do.They cannot cover anybody.It's why their defense is the worst in the NFL in terms of EPA per play allowed.
Like even worse than as bad as you think since he is as bad as you think the commanders are the Rams are worse Like they don't they don't need just one DB.
They need like five new DBs in one year I Will give a shout out to Quentin Lake because he is trying to hold the world up by himself.He is playing solid football, but again Secondaries are a lot like offensive lines
If you have failures all over the place, if there are multiple holes popping open in the dam, you can only plug so many of them with your own hands.
And in doing so, you're probably not doing your primary job, whatever it is in that defense, as well as you would be, because you're trying to do a little bit to the left and a little bit to the right, and therefore you get spread too thin, and the whole thing falls apart.
Quentin Lake, solid football player.Again, if you surround him with more talent, I think he's a serviceable dude.At this point, I feel bad for all the guys in that secondary because week after week, it looks really rough.
I think out of every team we've talked about today, the Rams are the most realistic one to bounce back and have a very, very strong 2025.But for 2024, ugh.
this year might already be over kind of before it even began, which is unfortunate because I picked them to go to the Super Bowl, but we won't mention that again. But like they could bounce back very strongly 2025 like the bones are there.
They're not going to be there for very long like they're they're at the end of their window, but it's still sort of kind of open, but it's next year's it like next year is the last one to me.Alright, last team.
Of course, the Carolina Panthers, the only other team that also has one win in the NFL, and this one is interesting, cause it's not.It's not the most dire. I mean, it is dire.
How about, let me rephrase it is dire, but it's not, Oh my God, there's no way out of this dire.Like I, I do see a path forward.The problem is it is a very, very hard path to walk.
And it requires, it requires the Panthers to do something that they already failed to do, which is evaluate quarterback talent in the draft. If you're looking at offensive line, like they rebuilt the offensive line.
They have an offensive line that a lot of teams would love to have right now.Second best, or not second best, the best in the NFL in terms of pressure percentage allowed.They have some young weapons that we really, really like.
Deontay Johnson, like we both really like Liget.We're both big fans of Chuba.
Um, they took Jatavian Sanders out of Texas last year, who was a receiving tight end that we think, you know, has some potential here, not to be like a Sam Laporta type, but still to be like an effective receiving tight in the NFL, but very good offensive line running back receivers.
We like, uh, they could still use some depth depth there, but like they have guys, you know, the issue though, is they don't have a quarterback and they don't have a pass rush.
And this is a quarterback class that I'm not sure they're going to be able to find anybody that's better than what they have now.So unfortunately for Panthers fans, they might have to endure another year of this kind of murky.
Bryce Young, Andy Dalton situation ship under center that we don't really know.We don't really know if they have an answer a quarterback on the roster.Well, we think we think they don't.
All I think they can realistically fix this offseason is their pass rush because this is a loaded defensive line class in the draft.
But I'm not sure they're going to be able to really dig themselves out of the major hole, which is quarterback until 2026.The problem is that relies on them being bad enough in 2025 to get the guy in 2026.
And once they fix their pass rush, when you take into account everything else that we listed off that we think is pretty decent, I'm not sure they're going to be bad enough to get the guy in 2026.
They might unfortunately be really bad now, really average next year, which means they're not going to get the quarterback, which means they're doomed into this cycle of then becoming really bad and then really average and then really bad and then really average.
Like, this situation is kind of the hardest one because other than them intentionally tanking for, like, archmanning, I'm not sure there's, like, a true long-term way out of this.
You've put me in an odd situation here where I get to be the bright light of hope.Of hope?I know.I'm not used to it.We're expanding our horizons here, Brett.All right.So here's the way I see that they can get out of this.If they do.
Again, it's a narrow path.It's difficult to walk.It is for all NFL teams. Go after edge talent in this draft.Double dip if you have to because I'm not sure that there's a quarterback in this draft that you love.
If there is, say there's some guy in the second or third round, right?That he's a Spencer Rattler type in terms of where he ends up in the draft and Canales loves him.
Sure, spend a pick on that, but your high picks get some pass rush because this draft is full of them and there's some real talent there. You've got a decent offensive line.You've got decent pass catchers across the board.
You've got running backs you can work with.Quarterback, yes, is the hole.But if anybody in the NFL is equipped to take a quarterback that somebody else didn't like and turn them into gold, it's Dave Canales.He's literally done it twice.
Did it with Geno.He did it with Baker. That's a pretty good resume.
If anybody can weasel their way out of this with some other quarterback that some other team discards and gives up on, it might be Canales because that's what he's going to have to do for all the reasons you laid out.
They're going to play themselves into purgatory next year. Their offensive line is way better.That's a great start.They're going to get some young fire breathers on the pass rush.
They're going to get their best player back from injury on the defensive line next year.Like they could play themselves into the middle of the pack very, very quickly.
To accelerate beyond that, you need some good quarterback play, which we don't see on the roster. Canalis is the guy that's shown the ability to do that.He's gonna have to do it again.
It's not easy and it's not guaranteed, but that's the one way I see that they could sneak themselves back into being a, you know, bottom tier, but playoff team is resurrecting yet another quarterback off the scrap heap and having them play at the top of their capacity for a year or two.
I could see them making a serious effort to try to get Darnold back, if Darnold's even willing to go there.
I don't know if he is, but, you know, and that also requires Minnesota to be comfortable with letting Darnold walk away, which at this point, I'm not even sure the Vikings would allow that to happen.
It's very possible that they extend him for a couple years while JJ still continues to sit and develop and say,
hey you're winning here you're playing well here you've got a good situation you know we'll give you two years 25 a year uh you know so you can you can make some good money and then you know you'll be what he'll be like 29 or something like that when that's maybe 30.
He's extremely young still which is crazy with all the stops.
Right, so I don't even know if they'll be able to get Darnold.I don't think Cleveland... Cleveland, if they're smart, is not going to let Jameis walk outside the building because they might need him sooner rather than later.
So there's not a whole lot of great options for them to get.They might have to do the Dalton thing again for one more year.I don't know, but... Like, they need pass rush like I need oxygen.They're the worst pass rush in the NFL.
Literally 32nd out of 32 teams in pressure percentage.I think secondary, like, their secondary is better than I think statistically they look.Like, if you're just watching them on film, they have to cover for so long.
because their pass rush is so bad that if you just give them anything up front, I think their secondary statistically would be a lot more impressive.
But boy, that pass rush is so bad and their quarterback situation is so bad that they're just gonna be dead in the water until they fix those two things.Lucky for them, this is a very, very, very, very good pass rush class.
So they could get one, they could get two of them.Fuck it, three.Like I don't care, just attack it. Take one on every day of the draft.
And we've, we've seen teams do that.Take the, we call it the shotgun approach, right?You know, maybe you pick up one that you like as a cast off and free agency, you know, the second wave of a free agency, you draft one, two, three of them.
Maybe you pick up a UDFA as well.You just make competition at that spot because you know, it's the thing that you have to do to empower the rest of that side of the ball to really function, to work.
Alrighty, Jay.Fun show.Before we wrap it up, though, we are bringing back an old favorite for a one-time appearance.
Indeed, this one is in honor of Liam, one of our executive producers, who reached out last week and just made sure we were doing all right.He arranged through me to give us a nice little gift.
And Liam was a huge fan of Bootleg Shot of the Week during the time that we had that section on the show.So here is Kyle Hamilton absolutely lighting up Terry McLaurin.Yes, a flag was thrown, but they picked it up so it qualifies under the old rules.
As a result, I'm going to be breaking into this very cute little bottle of Jameson that Liam sent along in a lovely care package.What are you going to be drinking?
I also have Jameson on me to keep the Irish theme.This is the stout edition of Jameson, which I have never shot before, by the way.So we're going to see how that goes.
But it's JMO.It's only 40.
Big thanks to Liam and everybody else who reached out last week.We deeply appreciate it.And we too like Shot of the Week and it's fun to bring them back.
Here's to the classics, the good oldies, the new soon-to-be oldies, and of course, everybody that supports the show.We deeply appreciate it.
And to you, Fatty, wherever you are, this one's for you, bud.Ooh, you know what?That goes down better as a shot than I expected.
I'm so glad to hear that because you so rarely say it.
Like, it's not like an elite Jameson shot, like Black Barrel, like Black Barrel's like an elite Jameson shot.That's acceptable.I would do that again.
Well, I'm glad to hear it because a lot of alcohol you're gonna show you're like, I'm never doing that again.
Well, to be fair, I also do a lot of overproofs and, like, cask strengths, and I don't know if you've ever tried to shoot something that's 120, but you're just pouring lava down your throat.But this is nice.It's 80.
Yeah, as a matter of fact, I have, and, you know, largely I've given up on that, but... A nice way to end the show.Hope you enjoyed this one.Sometimes we like going off script and doing more of a concept episode instead of just game recaps.
We figured this was a good way to talk around some of the teams at the bottom of the league that we're not going to be talking about so much down the stretch and to give fans of those teams a little insight into how far away we think they might actually be.
I also want to echo EJ's sentiment.Thank you to everybody who is potentially very down bad right now, if you're a fan of any of these teams who sat here and listened to this whole show.
I know it's the most negative show we've ever done, but we weren't trying to do this just to be dicks.We were doing this to try to give context for why these teams are bad and if maybe any of them have any avenues to be fixed.
And some of them do, admittedly. So again, we're not doing it to tear down teams.We're just trying to do it to give insight into why bad teams are bad.So hopefully you guys enjoyed this.
Again, thank you to all of our executive producers for Bootleg Football, Andrew, Connor, Aiken, Liam, and Mike.Once again, could not do this without you guys.Thank you to Underdog for being our main show sponsor.
Again, check them out at the link in the description below or at the QR code on the screen.You'll get up to $1,000 in deposit bonuses and for the next four days or so before it flips over to Aaron Rodgers, you get a Bo' Nicks new customer free pick.
So you can either get that or Rodgers, depending on when you see this show.Thank you to Homage, our clothing partner, as well.
If you want to shop for any NFL gear for your team or any team or your college team or bootleg gear, you can also find that at the link in the description.
Whatever you buy, doesn't even need to be bootleg gear, but whatever you buy, we will get a cut of that as well. So I think that's everything.Once again, thank you for watching and listening wherever you have to be watching and listening.
And with that, see you next time.
