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Well, we are almost halfway through the 2024 regular season, which means we don't know everything, but we think we know a lot.And that is the general theme of today's show, is things we think we know after week seven.
EJ, buddy, my wonderful co-host, how are you?
I feel settled because of that.There's a lot of unsettled time in the beginning of the NFL season, especially September.
Most of September is we don't really know what we don't really know, or we thought things were going to be true and they turn out to not be true.Feels like yesterday, a lot of good or mid teams beat the crap out of bad teams.
And because of that, at least the bottom of the league is a little bit more settled.
And that has me on, I would just say, more sure footing. The overall bottom tier of the NFL, I think, has been solidified at this point, but even within the bottom tier of the NFL, there is tiers of bad, right?
So like Carolina is kind of its own realm of awful. The Patriots are really bad, the Browns are really bad, although potentially might get better via addition from subtraction, but Carolina is bad, almost hopelessly bad.
We've talked about all those one-win teams last week, and I think just even within that group, there's levels to this. There's also levels to good teams.
I think there's a bunch of really good teams in the league but I'd say there's a pack of four or five at the very top that seem like true contenders and then another probably eight teams that that are there but still kind of feel like they're a year away.
Like I would throw Houston into that category.It's like they're gonna be there.They're five and two
it just doesn't feel like it's it's all the way together like the offensive line isn't playing well CJ Stroud sans Nico Collins isn't isn't quite playing like Houston feels like they're like a division round team whereas there's four to five teams that feel like minimum conference championship right so like I would throw Detroit in there obviously Kansas City dare I say Buffalo Baltimore
There's just there's tears within tears and that's that's kind of the point is when you get to mid October, those tears and especially the tears within tears become clear.
Now, speaking of the Lions, we are going to get to Jared Goff in just a second, but I do want to thank underdog fantasy for making this show possible in the first place.
If you're not familiar with underdog and you want to play pickums this year, this is actually a perfect time to do it because there's NBA pickum starting up.You got hockey.There's still.
little bit of baseball left now that we have the World Series solidified between the Dodgers and the Yankees.
Uh and of course, you have football every Thursday, Sunday, and Monday and reflecting that variety of sports in this prime part of the sports calendar, there's a bunch of different options for new customer pickums uh for free picks this week.
So, you got LeBron on Tuesday which I think this episode is going live on Tuesday.You got Wemby on Wednesday and then you got Stafford on on Thursday for TNF.
So whether you're doing NBA pick-ems or whether you're doing baseball pick-ems or whether you're doing NFL pick-ems, there is something for everybody.You can see my cat walking in the background because he's very lonely right now.
But I do want to thank Underdog for making this show possible.
Again, use promo code BOOTLEG, either at the link in the description below or at the QR code on the screen, and you'll get up to $1,000 in deposit bonuses and any of those free picks that I just talked about.
So, with all that being said, thank you again to Underdog.Let's talk about Jared Goff.Now, EJ. going into this Detroit, Minnesota game.We talked about how both teams are kind of a funky matchup for each other, which sort of proved to be true.
It was a very close game.It was a back and forth, all out war, which you kind of expect for a divisional matchup, but this wasn't just a divisional matchup.It felt like a playoff game.It felt like a game between two of the four best teams in the NFC.
And a lot of what we talked about when kind of previewing that game showed up in this game, right, we talked about the importance of Minnesota getting pressured with four, and then leaving seven and coverage and not blitzing over and over and over again because if you blitz golf over and over and over again he's going to shred you.
He's very good against the blitz. And I know a lot of people in the comments for that video were like, oh, if you're trying to rush with four against the Lions offensive line, you're dead in the water as it is.
I think what I forgot to mention when we were going through that is that the Lions going into week seven, if you're talking about pass blocking efficiency, you know, pressure percentage allowed against four man rushes, they were 18th in the NFL.
They weren't like a great pass blocking offensive line against four man rushes or really even against blitzes either.Like they were they were allowing a bunch of pressure.
They're just really dominant in terms of run blocking, which is why overall their offensive line is one of the three best in the NFL.But in terms of pass pro, it hasn't been amazing this year.
And so that's why I brought up like, hey, if you can get pressure with four, like historically, it's not about blitzing golf, it's about getting pressure on cough, and then playing coverage.
Well, Flores decided that he was still going to blitz golf, specifically on 58% of his dropbacks.I'm kind of reading my own tweet here because I pulled this data last night.
58% of his dropbacks, he blitz golf and on those dropbacks, he went 14 of 16 for a buck 49 and a touchdown. That is a 9.3 yards per attempt and a 126.3 rating.So.Goff still very good against the Blitz.Here's the difference in the game, though.
Going into week seven.Again, if you rushed with four and got pressure, Goff was a very different quarterback in this game.
Where the Lions, offensive line was still struggling in pass pro, they allowed the fourth highest pressure percentage across the entire NFL in week seven.They still didn't block that great.
However, on four man rushes, golf was eight of nine for a buck 31 in the touchdown.So it didn't matter if you got pressure.And I think that's the overall theme here is
Goff had his best game of the season when he absolutely needed to, to the point where the one thing that was working against him this year no longer worked.If you blitzed him, he lit you up.If you didn't blitz him, he lit you up.
If you didn't get pressure, he really lit you up.And even if you got pressure, he was very good. There's not a lot of answers for that.
If you can't blitz, if you can't play coverage, if it doesn't matter if you're getting pressure or not, and he's still that accurate, getting explosive plays, converting on third down, getting gotta have it drives in the end of the game.
Like that is an unbelievable, indefensible performance.Flores tried everything, nothing worked.And that is why I propose this question to you, EJ.Seven weeks into the NFL season, Jared Goff, MVP frontrunner?
Has to be in the conversation, and if you don't mention his name in the first three, I don't really want to hear your arguments because they're probably from the past.They're probably from things he used to do, maybe all the way back in LA.
That is long and gone for what we saw yesterday.This was a terrific game and that needs to be said.This isn't like the Vikings screwed it up and the Lions took advantage.The Vikings pushed the Lions to the limit and the Lions answered every time.
And that is makes this one of the front runners for best game in the NFL season in the early going.
And back to your question about golf kind of seems like Ben Johnson is descended from Swiss watchmakers at this point with all the precision and timing in his offense.But I'm going to give you a stat that might blow your mind.
Ben Johnson has not thrown a single pass this year. But he is directing the guy that is throwing the passes.And he needs that guy to do very specific things.Now, some people will translate that to say, oh, he's just a marionette.He's not.
Again, Jared Goff is executing Ben Johnson's vision at an extremely high level, higher than we've probably ever seen him operate any vision. of offense before this, and that has to vault him into the MVP category.
He is still doing all the things Ben needs him to do.And even when Ben's plan doesn't work out, as you said, he's still making plays.And that's the kind of performance you're going to see on a team that's leading in its own conference
and looking to get to the Super Bowl and win it.Jared Goff is that guy.I'm going to give you another stat.This one's not a joke stat.This is a real stat, but it sounds like a joke stat, which is ridiculous.
The Lions offense is the only team with more offensive touchdowns, 18, than incompletions, 16, in a four-game span since the merger
Wait, so that whole commander's like Jayden Daniels has more scoring drives than incompletions thing, so they did that but over a longer period of time against a Brian Flores defense by the way.
Yes, this is ridiculous.More touchdowns than incomplete passes over a month of NFL football games. That right.It just doesn't seem possible.It seems like a joke.It seems fake.That's the level they're executing at.
And if they hadn't been executing at that level, they wouldn't have beaten the Vikings.Vikings played a very good, strong game all the way through.It's not like they fell apart going into the fourth quarter and just fell flat on their face.
They put up as good a fight as they could, and the Lions were better. They are right now the class of the NFL in terms of matching up on a neutral field.
I have as much confidence in that Dan Campbell led team to beat anybody on any field on any day right now.Now again, as you said, we're only halfway through the season.Lots of things can change and will change injuries.
Teams will rise and fall, but right now the Lions are playing some of the best football in the NFL and they're being driven by Jared Goff's performance.
I'm curious, so I looked it up because I was like, what is the adjusted completion percentage over the last four games?Because that takes out drops and batted passes, throwaways.Over Goff's last four games, his passer rating is 144.8.
His adjusted completion percentage is 87.2%. He has 53 first downs, well a big time throw percentage of 4.1.Went 81 of 98 for 1137 yards.10 TDs, 1 INT. That is on, I can't remember the last time I saw a quarterback do anything like that.
Like maybe Rogers in his like unreal heater stretches, but even then I don't know if Rogers ever completed like 87% of his passes.Like that is unbelievable.Like truly unbelievable.
So how can you take those numbers and then pick anybody else for MVP right now?Like, I don't know that you can. Like maybe Lamar, Lamar might be the only one who I think is in that that same category.
But we're talking about golf versus already a two time MVP winner, and we're like, I don't know, could go either way.Like that's that's the level that he's playing at right now.So yes, the Aiden Hutchinson injury matters a lot.
It definitely will matter a lot for their pass rush.But if you have a quarterback playing like that, where the ball basically doesn't hit the ground for a month, it's hard not to pick them to be the class of the NFC right now.
Like I'm sorry, like that is historically ridiculous, like truly historically ridiculous.So good on you, Jared Goff, good on you.
Now the other MVP front runner, although this is more of a front runner if you're looking at the Vegas books, not necessarily front runner in terms of fan perspective, is Patrick Mahomes.
And he has had a lot of picks this year, more picks than touchdowns.And yet he is still, again, one of the favorites to win MVP.
And I think there's been kind of a disconnect between Mahomes' box scores versus the perception of MVP versus the team being 6-0. And a lot of that confusion I think comes from people saying, how is this team so ugly.
So, to a degree hard to watch, and yet so unbeatable.And how is my homes, so mediocre in terms of box scores but also. the only quarterback who probably could have guided this team to 6-0.
How do you mesh all this together to make it make sense, right?And I think that's where people have struggled because this chief seems so weird and ugly but also dominant while also being not dominant at the same time, right?
And so I did a bunch of research last night and I was trying to to look at efficiency-based stats.Tom Brady had a very good day commentating that game, in my opinion.I think it was the best commentary game that he's had.
And he just kept talking about how the offense never goes backwards.They always go forward.It's always positive gains.It's setting up easier third downs.It's never putting themselves in bad down and distance situations.
Like, yes, there's the turnovers, but the rest of the game, it's we march forward, we march forward, we march forward.
And so with that in mind, I was looking at the Chiefs offense last night and I pulled up a collection of numbers that all kind of painted this picture for why this works, even though when you're watching it, it seems like it shouldn't, right?
And I want to say off the top, yes, this team does turn the ball over quite a bit.They have the fifth most offensive turnovers in the NFL at 11.They have the fourth highest percentage of their drives ending in turnovers.
However, at the same time, if they are not turning it over, they are scoring.They have the fourth highest average time of possession so their defense is always well rested.
They are fourth in positive EPA percentage in terms of all of their plays getting positive EPA.They are fourth in third down conversion percentage.
They are 7th in terms of scoring drive percentage, so 4th in turnover percentage, but also 7th in scoring drive percentage, which translates to them never punting.OK, they are the 4th lowest in terms of punt percentage.
They actually have a better or lower punt percentage than Detroit. who we just talked about, you know, having more touchdowns and incompletions over the last month, they don't punt as much as Detroit does.
And they have the second fewest plays that go for no gain or loss.As Tom said, they don't go backwards.When you package that efficiency minus the turnover drives, which again, out of all their drives this year, they've only had 11.
When you package that efficiency and just relentlessly putting points on the board, even without explosive plays, and you throw in their defense, which is 6th and rushing allowed, 7th and passing allowed, 7th and points allowed, their 9th and yards per play allowed at 4.8, their 10th and EPA per play allowed, their 15th in pressures, but 12th in pressure percentage,
Like they are a team that grinds you down and they make you be the worst version of yourself.They make you have to be just as efficient as they are in your ugliness.And if you can't be ugly efficient like they are, you're not going to beat them.
I get that there was a couple wonky games early in the year with the the Bengals call and you know the Ravens with the toe by inches like yes that it's going to happen like they do do blood magic over there I get it.But every other game.
It was just them dragging you down into the mud and saying, hey, If you want to beat us, you also have to be seventh in scoring efficiency.You also have to play good defense.
You also have to pop a couple big returns and play the field position battle with us.If you can't be efficient in your ugliness, you are going to lose.
And that is how they keep winning because there's a very short list of teams that can do that with them.And a couple of the teams that could do that with them, they've already beaten them. So I don't see this stopping.
I see this as sustainable because they're the only team that I think can sustain it.And yes, Mahomes has had some really ugly turnovers.I get it.
But in those four or five plays a game that you really need him to be Superman to keep this offense on track in their efficient ugliness, he's gonna do it.And he's gonna challenge you to do the same thing back to his own defense.
So that is why they keep winning. It's because they make you be ugly and they make you have to thrive while being ugly and they do that better than anybody else.
They are an absolutely efficient killing machine at this point.They are so finely honed to that edge that you just described that it is so scary that other teams fall apart against them for that reason.
There's so much pressure that you cannot make a mistake against Kansas City, that teams play tight and therefore they make more mistakes.Example from yesterday.So San Francisco has a chance to extend a drive.IUK has a bad drop.
In a vacuum, that's not a big deal.Happens to teams all the time, happens to good teams all the time.By itself, not a thing.Eh, drive stalled against a good defense, no big deal.
Literally on the ensuing kick, San Francisco doubles down, massive breakdown on the return.Casey could shut up with a short field.Now you're defending that offense.Casey puts up points, rinse, lather, repeat. They just keep grinding forward.
They wait for you to make an error or two stack a couple because you get nervous because you think one is too many.Then you make three in a row and they just grind you down.Kansas City is like a vice that only turns one way.
Very true, because they make less mistakes than you do.So every turn of the vice is one that makes your side tighter and gives them more space to breathe.And that's it's like a boa constrictor.It just doesn't go the other way.
And then on top of that, as you mentioned, it's my homes. He's unreal.Yeah, he's had a lot of turnovers, but he always gets exactly what he needs to hurt you.
And we've seen this over and over again, just enough yards on a scramble for the first, just enough on some pass versus the blitz to complete it and make it a three yard gain instead of a seven yard loss.
It's so predictable and impossible to comprehend.And I agree with you about Brady at a very good day yesterday.And in the third quarter, he was just laughing like a color commentator was just laughing because there's nothing else to do.
It's just impossible.You're watching something impossible.Your brain can't comprehend how it always happens one way.And Brady was just giggling.He actually said it.He's like, what are you going to do? because you can play Mahomes perfectly correctly.
You can make zero mistakes, and he's still gonna tilt the field to favor the Chiefs, and that is so demoralizing on top of this play style that the Chiefs have, which is this one-way vice that only compresses you, only compounds your mistakes, and then occasionally, even when you try and rise up and break out of that,
Mahomes goes, yeah, but I'm still Mahomes.And that combination, I'm with you, feels sustainable.It feels deadly.
It feels like they're going to end up right where they've been for basically all of Mahomes' starting career with the Chiefs, which we already know is exceptional. and just feels like it's going to continue.
And it's got to be so maddening to be a good player in the AFC right now, because you're like, we can do everything right and we're still not going to beat that.
And it's got to be really frustrating for defenses, too, because you saw on that really big run that Mahomes had.You saw that teams or that the entire 49ers defense was really concerned about getting a flag.
right like he was going out of bounds and they kind of slowed up like they didn't want to get tagged with a late hit penalty and then he just turned back and kept going and they're like what the **** like okay if he's going to do that we should be allowed to light him up but they're terrified of lighting it up because they don't want to get a penalty and and it's like a it's a catch twenty-two when you're against my homes right and I'm and this is not me trying to turn it into a oh the refs always favored Casey because Casey gets plenty of back breaking penalties themselves
but teams are so worried about giving him that extra chance through penalties that they give him the extra chance by just letting him take off and keep going.
It's like he's still going to get the extra yardage either way, but that is the dilemma that he creates.It's like an aura of fear that he has around him.I
I'm just in awe of it like it's and I think the reason why Brady giggles when he watches my homes is because it reminds him of of the Patriots.It reminds him of those Brady era Patriots that were also ugly in a lot of years.
Like I think back to that 2016 team.It's it's very similar, right?Play good defense, have a ground game, be efficient.You know, rely on Gronk to just like.
make a crazy play when you absolutely need him to, just like the Chiefs do with Kelsey or occasionally Meikle or Worthy, right?But like, I think it reminds Brady a lot of what made those Patriots teams a boa constrictor in their own right.
and uh it's it's just a hard formula to beat it's a really hard formula to beat and it's extremely frustrating for opposing fans because you can kind of see it coming and yet there's nothing you can do to stop it so i don't know man chiefs are still
still the class of the NFL.It doesn't look like it in a lot of ways but they still are and I think people just have to accept that.At least until somebody knocks them off the throne.
Uh which may by the way be the next team that we're gonna talk about.Buffalo.I don't wanna overstep and say that the Bills offense was bad because they weren't.But you could tell that there was a missing piece.
You could tell that they just needed one more guy and Buffalo knew it and so they went and got one more guy.
They took advantage of the Cleveland fire sale and they went and got Amari and now even though the Bills offense in my opinion was already good, Now they feel complete.Now they feel like they can win in multiple ways.
If they want to get into a shootout, they can do that.If they want to do that kind of grimy, ugly efficiency style game, you know, say if they're playing KC, I think they can do that too.I didn't think they had the ability to win a shootout.
Now they can.And I think ultimately that is why the Amari pickup for them could prove to be extraordinarily valuable because it gives them that versatility.
I think these two things play together.A lot of times when you see a team make a midseason trade, it's out of desperation.We're not going to be able to win unless or we can't win without. The Bills didn't make this trade from that stance.
They learned how to win without the thing that they got.The thing that they got just makes them better.
So the Bills replaced in aggregate a lot of digs production, but the one thing they lost and couldn't replace was his ability to line up as an outside wide receiver, dictate one-on-one coverage with structure and matchup, and then have a fairly high probability that the receiver was gonna win.
They didn't have that guy.Keon's still learning and he's always going to be playing through contact.That's just his playing style.And that's a lower percentage reception most of the time.And it's not Shakir's game.So they didn't have that ability.
They're still winning. They were still a sort of varied and multiplicative offense that was building a base and a foundation and learning how to win.And we've talked about this earlier this season.That made them better.It made them more versatile.
It made them less susceptible to one guy not having a good day.So they did all that.And then they added Amari on top of that. The exact thing that they lost with digs is exactly what Amari can do.Line up one-on-one, win with a high probability.
It's not that they're going to throw to him all the time.Again, it's not that desperate move where, okay, now 80% of our offense is going to funnel through Amari.
It's only going to be three or four times a game, but it's going to be when they need it.It's a thing they didn't have, and he does it as well as anybody in the NFL.
And so they could do all this other stuff in the aggregate that they learned how to do in that absence.And now they added a piece on top of it.And it makes this addition really, really dangerous.
We talked in the off season about how, you know, Buffalo is going to try to become more 12 personnel oriented team.It was going to be more yak oriented.
It was less about bombing it down the field and more so about just like running the ball and getting easy completions and, and doing kind of that chiefs style of offense.Right.
And, and their EPA has been like really high, especially in the first month of the season, they were a top, uh, top team in the NFL in terms of EPA per play.I think they were like third or fourth.Right.
So it was working like they were they were moving the ball, they were scoring, they were efficient, all that kind of stuff.
The problem was, if they needed to go into 11 personnel and kind of get back into that old bills era of offense, where it's like, hey, we're spreading you out and we're throwing it down the field, they couldn't do it right.
The Texans and the Jets games both made it very clear they needed another receiver, especially in the Texans game where Shakir was out and Keon was not ready to carry that whole operation by himself. So they needed at least one more receiver.
And you know, speaking about 11 personnel versus 12 personnel, this is typically a team in the past years that was about 72, 73% 11 personnel by choice, not by necessity.This year they were down to about 61, 62%.
So again, moving more towards that 12 personnel style that we talked about over summer, but they couldn't play 11.They didn't have enough good guys to play 11 when they really had to.
And if you're just looking at 12 personnel versus 11 personnel for them, like I'm talking pre-Amari acquisition in terms of yards per play, they were eighth best in terms of yards per play when they were in 12 personnel.
Like I said, very successful there.They were 16th in 11 personnel pre-Amari acquisition.This week, by the way, when they were in 11 personnel, they were third.So that was what was missing, right?It was just the ability
to field that type of offense in the situations where they needed to.And remember, they kind of started slow this week.Like it was a close game at halftime.
And then they really they're like, fuck it, let's just throw all these receivers on the field.And let's just throw the ball all over the yard and make them keep up and they couldn't do it.And then they kind of opened up that lead late.But
Like now it's a complete bills team.They're not going to rely on that every single week.I still think they kind of want to be that.You know, run the ball, grind you out, tight end, heavy offense, but when they need that extra pitch.
or that extra club in the bag, whatever other sports analogy you want to use.Now they have it.
And I wouldn't be surprised if this acquisition is ultimately what leads Buffalo to being, you know, in the final four in the AFC when all said and done, because what other teams now, you know, can beat you offensively in this many ways, maybe three of them, two of them.
I don't think Casey like Casey, Casey has to win in Casey's way.Yeah, they wouldn't be able to like they don't have the weapons to keep up with Buffalo with all these weapons.Baltimore might be able to do it.
You know, if Lamar is having like a ridiculous Lamar kind of day, I think Cincinnati to a degree. if their receivers are healthy can do it.Houston, if they could just get their head out of their ass, maybe.
But like there's very few teams in this conference that I think can beat you offensively in as many ways as Buffalo.So ultimately, I think that acquisition is going to be proven to be a season changer for them.
The other thing it does that I really love is that it puts everybody else in the right spot. Mm hmm.It's that pecking order that we talk about, right?And you can't line up and just leave a spot empty.That's not how offense works.
So you got to put somebody there.And they were rotating guys through that position that brought some of that ability, but not all of that ability.
And Amari is clearly, I mean, from the moment he stepped off the plane in Buffalo, the guy that fits in that spot in the offense.
And then there's this cascade of dropping everybody else into a spot where they're going to be maximized and used better.So it's this kind of force multiplier.It's not just about that one ability.
It's about what he does to put everybody else in a better spot.And I love that.I think it's a very underrated aspect of this acquisition.
Now, final thing we think we know.Emphasis on the word think we know for our week seven recap here. I want to talk about the Browns and I want to talk about the Deshaun injury.
Not because I think it's going to have like a hugely substantive impact on their season this year.Like the team is just not great, right?They have drops problem.They have a pass protection problem.
Like I don't think Jameis is going to be the savior that that somehow rattles off a bunch of wins and they end up with a seven seed like it's not going to happen.
They might be better than the worst offense that we've seen in 20 years, but I don't think it's going to be a playoff team.
But the reason why I want to bring up the Deshaun injury is because of a little known cap mechanism that I didn't even know about until this week that might theoretically, potentially, maybe possibly provide cap relief for the Browns because of this Achilles injury.
Cause you know, going into the year, you know, we were looking at the dead cap hits and we're like, this is, this is bad.Like the Browns entire plan was to have Deshaun play well enough to justify an extension.
So they could keep spreading out this cap it, which I think a dead cap hit of like 172 million this year, something like that.Um, or next year, I think it's 172. It's bad.It's just straight up bad.And so we're like, oh, they're fucked.
There's no way out of this, right?What I didn't know about, and what I think most people probably weren't aware of, was that teams are allowed, per the CBA, to purchase insurance on contracts.
You have to have an owner that's willing to spend the premiums on it. which is why not every team in the NFL does it, because you kind of need a cash rich owner to do it, which obviously Jimmy Haslam is.
And the Browns did this with Conklin before to get cap relief from Conklin's injuries.
The Jets apparently did not do it with the Rodgers injury last year, so they didn't get cap relief for this year from Rodgers blown Achilles last year, which was kind of the basis of the ESPN article that is what first made me aware of this.
But per the CBA, you can purchase insurance on high dollar value contracts and then the premiums that you're paying don't count towards the cap.
And if that player gets injured, you then get cap relief the following year based on the amount of games that that player misses and based on their salary, right?So it's especially good for players that have a high base salary like Deshaun does.
Now, Jason from Over the Cap, who's the founder of Over the Cap, he has it sourced that the Browns only have $13.9 million of Watson's 2024 money insured, but almost the entirety of his 2025 salary is insured.That's $46 million.
I'm going to be conservative and let's say $40 million is insured, because by definition, that's almost the entirety.We don't know the exact number.Jason does.
He estimates that they can get about half of this year's 14 million in relief towards next year.So that's 7 million in relief for next year.And then the 2026 relief is going to depend on how many games to Sean misses next year.
It's an Achilles, we assume he's going to miss games next year.If he has wink, wink, nudge, nudge setbacks.And it takes him a long time to get back on the field.
Every single time Deshaun misses a game, the Browns are getting cap relief in 2026, which by 2026, so I'm talking after next season, going into the final year of Deshaun's deal, his dead money hit is about 99.8 million.
So let's call it a hundred million.
So, if he misses, let's say, 75% of next season, they could potentially get $30 million in cap relief towards 2026, which lowers the dead cap hit to about $70 million, which is less, mind you, than the dead cap hit that the Broncos took for Russell Wilson.
So all that to say is Deshaun Watson rupturing his Achilles potentially gives the Browns a mechanism to get out of this deal at minimum after 2025 while still like not completely gutting the roster or
Maybe, potentially, if the 7 million matters enough to them, they can try to get out of it in 2025.I don't think they will, because they're incentivized to just keep him on IR next year.
But I think what it does do is it sets the stage for the Browns to just draft a rookie quarterback this year.
play him in 2025, keep Deshaun on IR, take the cap relief in 2026, finally jettison that deal, and then do whatever they can to juggle all their money for the next 18 months or whatever it is just to get to that day and sort of kind of keep the team together.
I'm not saying it's going to be easy.They got to hit a lot of green lights while threading a lot of needles.But because of this insurance mechanism, it is possible for the Browns to recover from this trade with a decent amount of their team intact.
For everybody watching at home, this is not why we started a football podcast.
I never thought I'd be talking accounting on a football podcast, but here we are.
But here we are.It is important.It is something that matters.Certainly, if you're a Browns fan, it matters a lot.If you're looking at the league finances, it matters a lot too. This entire situation is like a crash.
Everyone knows is coming in a lot of ways.The accident already occurred.Now everybody's flying through the air just trying to make the end result like the least awful one possible.And depending on who you are, that result varies.
It's still going to be really bad and very painful, but hopefully it won't completely destroy you.That's what the Browns are hoping.
That's what you've outlined is that they might possibly maybe be able to make this not a complete and total nuclear fireball, which at this point is probably the best possible outcome for Cleveland.
And from a football sense, it's hard not to see the Browns getting better because Deshaun was playing at a historically awful level.And we don't mean for this season.We mean in the last like 25 years, Deshaun Watson was bottoming out.
So for everybody that's been in my mentions saying, oh, it was Amari's drops.It was this.It was that.No. Deshawn was playing like garbage this year, and even the quarterbacks, they're going to roll out in relief.
It's hard not to imagine the Browns overall having a better result.But as you said, is that better result going to be good?No, it's not.
The Browns do have a lot of other problems, but they are going to be getting something more from their quarterback play. In an off-field sense, it's about mitigating the damage with the injury insurance clauses.
Yeah, it might take some of the sting out of what is a historically awful boondoggle.This is one of the worst decisions by an owner ever, and very clearly this is on the owner.
This was brought on by the hubris of Jimmy Haslam, and he thought this was going to work. And it didn't.It blew up in his face in historic fashion.This is as bad a situation pending Cat Balloon as we've seen pretty much ever in the league.
So the translation, the Browns ownership made this mess and now they're just going to have to sit in it for a while.It might not be as bad or as deep or as hot. But it ain't great.It's going to last a while.
It's because they made the choices they made and they are going to have to deal with it.It's not going to be nice or fun or go away.It just might not be the nuclear cesspool we thought it was.
I think what makes it even worse and the reason why Browns fans are even more upset is every time they watch a Tampa game and they see Baker play well, it just twists the knife a little bit more.
I'm not saying that Baker didn't have his own missteps in Cleveland.He did.He did.We'll be fair.
But to see where he's at right now and to see where the Bucs are at right now, which by the way, we brought up the Lions being, you know, one of the two, three best in the NFC.Guess who beat the Lions?The Bucs.
And they beat them pretty handily, right? And that's because Baker played extremely well, and he's been playing extremely well.Like Goff's one of the MVP frontrunners, so is Baker.
And with each passing week, I just think Browns fans get more and more upset because he was their guy. like he was Cleveland, he's doing the commercials in the Brown Stadium.You have national ad campaigns based in the Browns Stadium.
For a decade, more than a decade, could you ever imagine that?I couldn't.No.
Like Joe Thomas wasn't going to get an insurance commercial campaign featuring the quarterback, which historically for the Browns is a thing like they have the Browns jerseys with those placards and however many names stringing down the back of them.
I mean, to imagine a Browns quarterback in the Browns Stadium again, headlining a national ad campaign that were good, by the way, Baker is very good on camera.Yeah, not really a thinkable thing, and certainly not in the current circumstance.
And like, I've been to a game in Cleveland, you know, during the Baker era.It was that Arizona game, which is where everybody got hurt.And Baker hurt his shoulder again.That was the year he was playing through a completely shredded shoulder.
But, you know, I was tailgating in Muni a lot.Like, Browns fans loved Baker. Loved Baker because he loved them and just to see three years later Where he's at and where they're at.
It's just it's heartbreaking stuff Not not for Haslam, but for the fans like truly for the fans.It's heartbreaking stuff.So I don't know man.
I Don't get through it, but it's gonna take a while it's gonna take a while and are they gonna be able to draft a quarterback and
in this class that's as good as even Baker was in Cleveland, because obviously Baker's playing better now than he did in Cleveland.But could they even get a guy who's going to play at Cleveland Baker level?I don't know.
Have you seen Carson Beck play football recently?I'm not feeling pretty good about that.So it's just tough.It's just tough. know, what can you do?What can you do?Uh alright, I think that'll wrap it up for this week.
Kind of a short show but short and sweet.Uh I do wanna thank all of our executive producers for Bootleg Football over on our Patreon, Fitzy, Andrew, Connor, Iken, Liam, and Mike.Once again, thank you to all of you for your support.
Thank you to Underdog for supporting this show and making it possible.Thank you to our clothing partner, Homage, where, you know, if you're a down bad Browns fan and you wanna get uh
Browns gear or bootleg gear or any other NFL gear or college football gear.Maybe you're an Ohio State fan.They got a bunch of Ohio State gear there too.You can use either the QR code on the screen or the link in the description below.
Literally anything you get on Amage's site doesn't have to be bootleg related, but we will get a cut of it if you use our link.So appreciate that as well.EJ, any parting words?
I think it's an interesting look.It might not be what everybody's looking for, but let us know in the comments.We're trying to change it up a little bit here in the middle of the season as the league progresses.
Straight recaps are one thing, and we certainly took plenty of license talking through those and with those, but these sort of theme based shows. You all have responded to him certainly by watching him over the last couple of weeks.
If you have ideas for future ones, we're already cooking up some of those for the coming weeks.Let us know if this works for you because we have a lot of fun doing them.And if you enjoy them, then it's a perfect marriage.
There was a prompt that I sent EJ that Kevin Clark tweeted out that we might shamelessly rip off because I thought it was so good, but it's like perfect for a midseason show.
And Kevin Clark asked, what does the national media get wrong about your team this year? I think we might do a show also revolving around that question.And obviously credit to Kevin for coming up with it.But I loved that prompt.
So if you guys have an answer for that, what does the national media get wrong about your team?Drop it in the comments below, because I think following week eight at the week eight midpoint, we'll probably do something around that question.
All right, we're going to get out of here.Thank you again so much for watching and listening, however you happen to be consuming the show.We appreciate all of you dearly.And with that, we'll see you soon.
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