2026 NFC West preview
STACKED extracted the fantasy-relevant player signal from this podcast and kept the full transcript here for context.
1 hr 52 min
Duration
Estimated from transcript
Sep 4, 2026
Published
Fri, September 4, 2026
24
Player insights
21
Players mentioned
Topics
Davante AdamsPuka NacuaRashid ShaheedBlake CorumBrady RussellBrock PurdyChristian McCaffreyCJ DanielsGeorge HolaniGeorge KittleJadarian PriceJaxon Smith-NjigbaJimmy GaroppoloKyren Williams
Player analysis
Player insights
Blake Corum
PositiveBreakout11:13
Blake Corum is expected to see an increased role in 2026, potentially narrowing the 114-carry gap from last year; he offers an explosive element (16% explosive run rate) that the Rams plan to utilize more frequently.
Insight pageBrady Russell
NegativeRole47:55
With Robbie Uts injured, Brady Russell is expected to take over fullback duties, likely leading to more split-zone and H-back usage compared to the traditional backfield usage seen last year.
Insight pageBrock Purdy
PositiveProjection61:41
The source highlights Brock Purdy as a top 5 to 10 EPA per play quarterback who missed half of last season; the expectation is for a high-performing offense if he remains healthy.
Insight pageChristian McCaffrey
NegativeInjury62:33
The source notes no alarming news regarding Christian McCaffrey's health in the last 10 days, though they acknowledge potential wear and tear in his body based on last year's underlying numbers.
Insight pageCJ Daniels
PositiveSleeper16:10
CJ Daniels, a sixth-round pick, is generating positive buzz in camp; while typically a long shot, the Rams' history of utilizing late-round picks makes him a player to watch.
Insight pageDavante Adams
PositiveProjection3:14
Devante Adams is viewed as an elite receiver, especially if he enters the season healthier than he was at the start of last year; he is expected to be a primary target funnel for the Rams.
Insight pageNegativeRole25:51
Davante Adams is 33 years old and is a major piece of the offense, but his age and potential for injury or decline are concerns; he struggled with a hamstring issue late last season that hindered his performance.
Insight pageGeorge Holani
NegativeUsage52:33
George Helani may see playing time in obvious passing situations if Jadarian Price struggles with pass protection, though this is not expected to significantly impact Price's pass-catching opportunities.
Insight pageGeorge Kittle
PositiveInjury62:30
George Kittle is already on the 53-man roster, which the source describes as incredibly encouraging for his health status.
Insight pageJadarian Price
PositiveBreakout44:04
The source is excited about rookie Jadarian Price filling the primary running back role, noting that he is a first-round talent who should handle the lion's share of the work quickly.
Insight pageJaxon Smith-Njigba
PositiveUsage45:12
Clint Kubiak effectively weaponized Jaxon Smith-Njigba last season, utilizing him in various roles including out of empty sets, which significantly impacted the offense's success.
Insight pageJimmy Garoppolo
PositiveDepth Chart28:42
The source suggests that if Matthew Stafford were to miss time, Jimmy Garoppolo should be the one to get the call over Stetson Bennett or Ty Simpson.
Insight pageKyren Williams
PositiveUsage10:54
Kyron Williams remains a highly reliable 'singles and doubles hitter' for the Rams, though his workload may see a slight shift as the team looks to incorporate more explosive elements via Blake Corum.
Insight pageMatthew Stafford
NegativeInjury25:51
Matthew Stafford is 38 years old and has a history of injury issues during his time in Los Angeles, which remains a concern for the team's outlook.
Insight pageMike Evans
PositiveRole62:41
Mike Evans is expected to unlock the 49ers' offense by providing a vertical threat outside the numbers, a role the team lacked last year. He remains a top-tier contested catch threat.
Insight pagePuka Nacua
PositiveUsage11:00
Puka Nacua remains a central pillar of the Rams' offense, having accounted for a significant portion of the team's 57% target share alongside Devante Adams and Kyron Williams last year; he is expected to continue as a primary target funnel.
Insight pageNegativeRole26:19
Puka Nacua is noted for playing with reckless abandon and has faced off-field concerns, making him a player whose reliability is questioned.
Insight pageRashid Shaheed
NegativeUsage19:47
The source references Rashid Shaheed as a player to ask about the Rams' special teams performance, highlighting his involvement in high-leverage special teams scenarios.
Insight pagePositiveUsage43:30
The Seahawks expect Rashid Shaheed's role to increase significantly this season, as evidenced by the $17 million annual contract he received despite limited production in the second half of last year.
Insight pageSam Darnold
NegativeUsage50:16
Sam Darnold's comfort level with a 'five-out' passing attack is a question mark, as he historically prefers shotgun sets and has not been as comfortable with the quick-rhythm passing concepts often associated with that formation.
Insight pageStetson Bennett
NegativeDepth Chart28:46
The source explicitly states that Stetson Bennett is not good enough for the Rams' current championship-contending status.
Insight pageTerrance Ferguson
PositiveBreakout11:19
Terrence Ferguson is a prime candidate for a breakout role as the Rams look to diversify their offense; he led all tight ends in yards per catch and air yards per target last year and offers mismatch potential in the slot and out wide.
Insight pageTrevor Lawrence
NegativeMatchup37:15
The Seahawks' defense dominated Trevor Lawrence and the Jaguars' pass protection plan in a game last season, leaving Lawrence with no opportunities.
Insight pageTy Simpson
NegativeDepth Chart27:15
Ty Simpson was drafted by the Rams, but the source argues that the pick did not bolster the team's immediate Super Bowl chances as well as a tackle would have; he is currently in a battle for the backup role.
Insight pageFull transcript
Episode Transcript
0:00Welcome to The Athletic Football Show brought to you by the U.S.
0:03Bank Smartly Visa Signature Card. I'm Robert Mays and we did it.
0:07Eight division previews in the books, the NFC West, our eighth and final show.
0:11Really enjoy doing these every single year. Sincerely appreciate everyone who checked out all of these.
0:15A fascinating division to end things with. Two Super Bowl favorites, including the defending Super Bowl champion Seahawks.
0:20Really enjoyed digging into the Cardinals and Niners as well.
0:23Let's get to it with me, Dave and Derek right now.
0:26We made it. Eight divisions in. Eighth and final division preview today breaking down the NFC West.
0:31Just the Super Bowl champion from last year, the Super Bowl favorite from this year, the Niners that are in the playoffs every year.
0:37Just a casual way to wrap things up. Save the best for last.
0:41It's a lot. And honestly, I think the fact too that we do this in Super Bowl odds order, the fact that
0:47we're going to end this, not even just like with a, obviously a team in a tough division, but with the team
0:53that might have the first overall pick is at least actually an intriguing way to end this for a division.
0:59Do you want to flip this one? It would make the most sense, but it's, I think it's kind of funny to end it with.
1:06We can't, no, we can't save the two best teams in the league.
1:10No. Consistency is important to me. Consistency is important.
1:12These are one of my favorite things we do all year.
1:15Sincerely appreciate everyone who tuned into all of these.
1:18Sincerely appreciate the work everyone did behind the scenes on this stuff, especially Katie Duffy, our producer who put in and just
1:24unfathomable amount of work to get all those YouTube videos turned around in a single day.
1:28The fact that we had 32 of those with the production value that we do, she deserves an unbelievable amount of credit for that.
1:35So produce a live show in the middle of all of that as well.
1:39Yes. So you're the goat, Katie. Uh, everyone behind the scenes, it was a lot of work and I I'm really proud of them when they're done.
1:46And so I hope you guys are enjoying them.
1:49I think they're really a great way to end the off season.
1:52Just something to really sink your teeth into, uh, about every single team in the league.
1:57And we're going to wrap it up with four teams that I'm very excited to talk about.
2:01Let's kick things off with the Los Angeles Rams.
2:04Again, we are doing this in order of divisional odds, the same way we've done all of the divisions.
2:09Just want to make that extremely clear as we kick this thing off mostly for the audio audience, the Rams off season
2:15in 60 seconds, hired Nathan and promoted Nathan shield house to offensive coordinator brought in miles, Garrett, Aaron Donald, Trent McDuffie, and Jalen Watson.
2:22When I do these, I do them just very quickly and do them.
2:26It's kind of the same process for every team.
2:28Just casually typing in miles, Garrett and Aaron Donald's in the same space that I later typed in Kendrick born and Elijah
2:34Wilkinson in the exact same way was very funny.
2:37Please don't leave off trading for Tutu Atwell back either, by the way, that is a funny, like a McVay.
2:43Like I need, I need one of my guys.
2:45Let's throw Tutu Atwell. Three all pros. And that guy that caught like two passes for us last year, but God, we love him.
2:52Lost Kobe Duran, Nakella Weatherspoon in the draft, Ty Simpson in the first round, Max Clare in the second round, Keegan Trost in the third round.
2:59For all these teams were kicking things off with what you were most excited about as it relates to this team in 2026.
3:05Derek, why don't you kick us off? What are you most excited about with the 2026 Los Angeles Rams?
3:11Pick literally anything. I mean, they have the MVP quarterback.
3:14They have maybe the best play caller in the NFL, Apukanukua and Devante Adams, especially if he is a little bit healthier
3:20at the start of this year, is as good as it gets.
3:23The defense was already one of the best in the NFL, and then it signed an all pro corner, the best pass
3:29rusher in the NFL and brought back Aaron Donald, who knows exactly what he's going to be.
3:34But just the fact that he's back is an unbelievable, uh, addition to this team.
3:38So like it's, it's very rare that going into a season, you can make a case that does not at all feel
3:44like a stretch that they could be the best offense and the best defense.
3:48Usually you get like the best offense and they can be a good defense, but it'll be like seven to eight.
3:54The fact that they have pretty strong cases to be number one at both, it's a pretty rare place for a team to be.
4:01You would, you might have a better handle on this than I do.
4:04I was trying to think of the last time that a team came into a season with expectations quite this high.
4:10Like I'm sure the Patriots had expectations like this on them a few times, but this is not a common occurrence at all.
4:17And like, I mean, another one that comes to mind is I know how it turned out, which makes it funny is
4:23the 2011 Eagles or was it 2010, the dream team Eagles.
4:26It was 2010, 2010. Yeah. That was, but even that, and I know it didn't live up to the expectations, but that
4:32was like an amalgamation of things, joining a new team.
4:35This is just adding things to a team that was already on the cusp of playing in a super bowl.
4:40Like you very much had the evidence that this was a great team before you added the best defender in football and
4:47an all pro corner and Aaron Donald, whatever he is at this point in time.
4:51I mean there, I'm sure there's precedent for it if you're willing to look hard enough, but it's been a minute.
4:57I mean, I think there's just not precedent for it because the Aaron Donald part of it is really what takes it
5:03all over the top, but the miles Garrett thing, and who knows what Aaron Donald will be, but the prospect of the,
5:09one of the best football players we have ever seen, right?
5:12The defining defensive player of his generation at joining forces with the current best defense player in the NFL and the best
5:18player of the next generation is insane. I mean, I, again, I don't know what exactly to expect from Aaron Donald, but
5:24the idea that these two guys are going to be playing together on the same defense next to each other on third
5:30and eight in the divisional round with potentially the season on the line and we get to watch this.
5:36It's amazing. It's a real gift for football fans.
5:38And I, I've been on record saying that there's part of me that wishes we could have just let the Aaron Donald
5:44experience be crystallized because the idea of this man saying to Sean McVay, I'm full.
5:49I don't need more of this. And walking away at the top of the sport is a rare opportunity that we don't
5:55often get, but now that that is gone and we're just sitting in this reality, I'm very excited to experience it.
6:01When Aaron Donald said that the Rams had bounced back from a dismal Superbowl hangover to be solid.
6:06And I think that 2023 season was really special to those guys.
6:09I bet that I'm, I absolutely bet that it was, but I also bet Aaron Donald didn't ever think the Rams would
6:15be in position to add somebody like miles to their defensive front.
6:18I think there's a lot of things that his kids didn't see him play.
6:22They're older now. I just think there are a lot of elements as to why he wanted to come back.
6:28And I'm very excited to watch it. But the other, I mean, everything else about the defense, you talk about them having
6:34the chance to be the best defense in the league.
6:37You go back and you look at, I was rewatching the NFC championship game last night and the ways that then Seahawks
6:43were able to attack them over the course of that game, which by the way, we'll get to the Seahawks part of it.
6:49The performance from Sam Darnold and Clint Kubiak in that NFC championship game is blacked out.
6:54They were both incredible in how they attacked them in that game.
6:57But the first big play of the game, Rashid Shahid one-on-one against Darius Williams down the right sideline on a goal ball.
7:03And that is one of the reasons that you go out and trade for Trent McDuffie, that you go sign Jalen Watson.
7:10And the other part of it, and this came up when I was there, them just talking about watching a team like
7:16Seattle and seeing the physicality that they had throughout their entire secondary.
7:19I think when you look at the moves for McDuffie, for Watson, the first place your mind goes is coverage quality compared to what we had last year.
7:27That's part of it. But I think it's about an increase in size and just overall physicality, including against the run.
7:33Because against this team now, even before Aaron Donald got there, the ball's coming out fast.
7:37You're adding Miles Garrett to a team that already has Byron Young, Kobe Turner, Braden Fisk, Puna Ford, and now Aaron Donald was involved in this thing.
7:45And so the ability of the corners to tackle, I think, was at front of mind and how they ended up building that room.
7:51And so having that sort of cornerback group now compared to what you had a year ago, plus Miles Garrett and Aaron Donald, it's just a ridiculous situation.
7:59I'm incredibly excited to see it. Because yeah, Jalen Watson, 6'1", 200 pounds.
8:03He's a big boy. And that's the exact opposite from what they had with their outside cornerback spots last year, except for Akella Weatherspoon.
8:10But Akella Weatherspoon can't move the way that he used to.
8:13Yes, exactly. Darius Williams and Kobe Durant are both small men and Emmanuel Forbes.
8:17They were small in the corner last year. Forbes gets top billing there.
8:20I think the most film prep I did for this was going back and watching the Rams defense.
8:25Some of the tackle attempts from Emmanuel Forbes. It's tough.
8:28And I know Trent McDuffie is not big, but he gets after it.
8:32Yes, he is a physical. It's why he was so good in the nickel when he played there for the Kansas City Chiefs.
8:38His lower half. He's just so put together for a shorter player.
8:41And I think that was one of the reasons that they wanted to seek him out, because they thought he could hold
8:48up in all the ways they wanted him to.
8:50I mean, Kobe Durant's giving up like 15 or so pounds on Trent McDuffie.
8:54Even for a DB, he's like a bigger, more physical body type.
8:57Totally. And the other part of the defense that is my last thing that I'm excited about, because I was going to
9:03go with the whole defense as to what I was excited to watch, because I think the front obviously changes everything.
9:09And one of the reasons that they wanted to go get Myles Garrett is that beyond the overall impact of a player
9:15like Myles Garrett, they missed the world where defense offenses could only do so much to them.
9:20When Aaron Donald was on the field, the playbook was limited.
9:23There were certain things you just couldn't do when he was on the field.
9:27By getting Myles Garrett, they stepped back into a world they were already very familiar with because of the way that Aaron Donald shaped the complexion of games.
9:35But the other part was just the defensive, the secondary, not only the quality added, the flexibility they now have on the back end is wild.
9:42Because you have how many guys you could theoretically step down and have them play in the nickel.
9:47You could play as much dime as you want with this group.
9:51You have Quentin Lake can play there. Trent McDuffie can play there.
9:54Based on situation, you can just have so many different permutations of what that secondary is going to look like behind that defensive line.
10:01It's a compelling group of defensive players. We can just leave it at that.
10:05Chris Shula already led the league in dime. And that was before they did this.
10:09What the splits are going to look like is going to be fun.
10:12Let's get to what we're watching over the first month of the season with the Los Angeles Rams.
10:17For each of these teams, we're going to pick something that is a question, a curiosity, something that you want an answer on early in the year.
10:25Dave, why don't you start us off? What are you watching the first month of the season with the Los Angeles Rams?
10:31The personnel ads distract from all of the fun little ways that this team is exciting.
10:36Like to take it back to defense for one minute, it's funny to think what we might be saying about a guy
10:42like Josiah Stewart if Aaron Donald and Miles Garrett were here, right?
10:45And in the same way, like when the offense has the reigning MVP, an offensive player of the year caliber receiver in
10:51Puka, Devontae, Kyron Williams has been what he's been.
10:54And it's still easy to forget that there's 40% of the offense that you've got to figure out here.
10:59And we're very intrigued to see how it goes because that's how they split it up.
11:04Puka, Devontae, and Kyron accounted for 57% of the targets in this offense last year.
11:08And even with Blake Corum having an emergent year, Kyron still did 60%, 65% of the work in the backfield.
11:13So what does that look like for the other 40%?
11:16We've talked a lot about Terrence Ferguson this summer.
11:19What does that actually look like? They have an absolutely loaded tight end room.
11:23Like all the other guys out snapped Terrence Ferguson as a rookie anyway, whether it's Higby, whether it's Parkinson, whether it's Davis Allen.
11:29And by the way, I had another like surreal moment last night where I was looking through it and I was like,
11:35I can't believe the Rams drafted Max Clare 61st overall.
11:38And he's like fourth on the depth chart. He's very best.
11:41Redshirt. Yeah. He's an apatop for this year. It's absolutely crazy how deep they go.
11:45You have Corum there. They brought Tutu Atwell back.
11:48And so let's not overthink it. This offense is going to funnel through Puka, Devontae, and Kyron Williams.
11:53But there are some fun players that they can work with, with the other parts of how this offense is going to look.
11:59Terrence Ferguson for me being really the most exciting.
12:02I don't want to get my expectations too high.
12:04That's how you wind up being disappointed when it doesn't quite look as good as you wanted it to.
12:09But in the opportunities he got, which is small because he caught 11 passes, but he led all tight ends and yards
12:16per catch and air yards per target. And like by significant margins, like he gives them something that nobody else does if they're going to see this through.
12:23And I trust that they are. To me, what's most intriguing about this, and mine was just the new wrinkles that are coming on offense.
12:30And I think he's a very good expression of that.
12:33How does his role diversify and expand beyond the things that you're talking about?
12:37Sure. Because I think that is the most important question.
12:40Last year, we've talked about this. He was the vertical presence in the 13 personnel stuff that kind of helped it come alive.
12:46But if he truly is going to be the third most important receiver on this team, it has to be more nuanced and diverse than that.
12:54The breadth of what you're asking him to do.
12:56And I think there are two things that come to mind as to how that can expand.
13:01One, it's actually the blocking because that allows him to be on the field in more situations.
13:06So this was a team last year that the reason you skip over 12 personnel is that there's no benefit to it, right?
13:12By going to 13, you get base defense. By being in 12 when it's 50-50 base nickel, you don't know what you're getting.
13:18And it's hard to figure out where exactly your advantages are.
13:22But if Ferguson becomes a guy that's a capable enough blocker, where if they're going to play nickel to your 12, you
13:28can start running the ball the way that you want to.
13:31That unlocks something they weren't able to do before.
13:33And I think that's something they'll probably at least thought, think about exploring.
13:37The thought about exploring over camp, we'll see if it was good enough to actually put into practice.
13:42But the other part is underneath change of direction sort of route options and whether he can do a little bit more of that.
13:49Because then, even if they're in nickel, is that your best pass catching group with him as the third receiver?
13:54So that stuff is all theoretical. We haven't seen any of it.
13:58But those are the ways that you can kind of add a couple new wrinkles to this thing if he can do some more of that stuff.
14:05He was in line half the time last year, but he was in the slot 30% of the time.
14:10They even motioned him out wide. And again, this is a small snap count.
14:14So it's an unreliable sample size. But like they moved him out wide as well.
14:18Like so I'm really hopeful that we're going to see that.
14:22And this is going to be a pretty diverse usage for Terrence Ferguson.
14:25And I kind of think that we can get there.
14:28Like I really liked him coming out of the draft.
14:31I think, too, they really like him because they were a team that really wanted Brock Bowers and they could not get Brock Bowers.
14:37And he does a little he's not as good, you know, Bowers in terms of movement is just a special, special player.
14:44But I think there is some of that dynamic ability with a guy like Terrence Ferguson to be able to split him out a little bit more.
14:51And I think why I'm pretty bullish on them using him a lot more, at least in terms of like target share,
14:57there is no clear wide receiver three on that.
15:00It would be like Jordan Whittington, who is like a good Puka Nakua fill in.
15:04But it's not he's not giving you something else.
15:07Puka is already giving you exactly Ferguson. And you I think you could make an argument that if he based on what
15:13the conversations I was having when I was there again, if you're trying to use a guy like on like option routes
15:19or like whips on third down, he might be your best guy right now for some of that stuff.
15:24And so I think that's the argument as to why we could see more of him, because that skill set just doesn't really exist within the offense.
15:32Exactly. It does not exist at wide receiver or again, tight end for them.
15:36Like none of the other tight ends really offer you that.
15:39So it's just kind of easy to see, assuming he takes some sort of leap, how they can piece him into the offense pretty seamlessly.
15:46Kanata Mumfield got a surprisingly high snap count for a day three pick on one of the best teams in football.
15:51Maybe he's okay, though. No, I don't have to talk shit about Kanata Mumfield.
15:55But if you could replace that with somebody that gives you more diversity and mismatchability like a Terrence Ferguson could, I could see the appeal of that.
16:03I also again, I wouldn't say this for a lot of teams, but just last year, Kanata Mumfield had this role for the Rams.
16:10I hear all this great stuff about CJ Daniels, their sixth round pick out of Miami.
16:14Normally, I'd roll my eyes at that. But the Rams are not afraid to try shit like that shouldn't surprise you if they think that highly of him.
16:22The other guy I would throw in that where the wrinkles coming from, I think we'll see more Blake Horn this year.
16:28I don't think there will be a 114 carry split between Kyron Williams and Blake Corum this year.
16:33You look at the numbers from last year, it's very easy to see why that might get a little bit closer because
16:39Blake Corum is just giving you something that's a little bit different.
16:43Explosive run rate per next gen last year, Kyron Williams at 10%, Blake Corum at about 16%.
16:47Kyron had 23 or 26 runs of 10 plus yards, Blake Corum had 23 on 114 fewer carries.
16:52And it's also some of the things I feel like we're seeing them do more of schematically in the run game.
16:58This was a duo, duo, duo team over the last couple of years.
17:02Duo mid zone. It was very downhill. And I feel like with Corum, you started to see them add a little bit more counter.
17:09And I think this year, a little bit more outside zone to be explosive because he, it gives you an explosive element
17:15in the run game that Kyron for all of his benefits just doesn't really give you.
17:19And so I think those are the two areas, both with Ferguson and Corum and the ways that I could see this
17:25team kind of ideating and evolving from last year to this year.
17:29Yeah. Kyron is like the most reliable singles and doubles hitter, maybe at the position.
17:33Like he is phenomenal at that, especially within the way that the offense functions.
17:37If they want to get this ball out of the park a little bit more, Blake Corum does give them that.
17:43What was yours, Derek? What are you watching the first month of the season?
17:47Yeah, mine was the DBs that we talked about a little bit.
17:50You talked about the flexibility that you talked about, I think is the big thing.
17:54Like the fact that, you know, it's not even.
17:57So I think one of it is the body types.
17:59Like if you want to play different kinds of dime, like you can put Jalen McCullough on the field and he can do that.
18:06He can be your dime backer or he's a blitzer.
18:09He's a good blitzer. Yeah, he's like not that different.
18:12That's why when Lake was hurt and he kind of filled into that, I thought pretty well.
18:16If you want to move McDuffie inside and have Forbes play on the outside, like it's not ideal.
18:21But if you know you're getting passed, like Forbes can cover is just amount of how much is he going to be
18:28able to tackle for you in the run game and stuff like that.
18:31And so, you know, if he's only out there on third and nine and yeah, this third and nine is like, I feel okay about that.
18:38And so I just think the fact that they have so much flexibility on the back end, I just want to see
18:45how quickly it gives them a little bit of juice.
18:47And then you talked about it too. This was a team that they just got bullied in so many ways.
18:53Like whether it was like, cause when we did the Packers preview, I talked about, it was like targets of six plus
18:59air yards outside the numbers against wide receivers. The Packers were one of the worst in the league.
19:04If you look at all those stats, the Rams are only like a couple of spots around that.
19:09It was that Eagles game. Yes. Think about what they did.
19:12The Panthers game sticks out to me. The Lions were able to do this.
19:16Like the teams that were willing to be like, we will challenge your shorter, lesser corners beat the shit out of them.
19:22And I just, I think that that's going to be a lot tougher with the talent that they have out there now.
19:28David, there was one more thing you wanted to talk about and what you're watching over the first month of the season.
19:35I'm giving you the floor. You can roll your eyes.
19:37I'm not. This is very important for a team of this caliber.
19:41I think we need to talk about the special teams.
19:44And if you disagree or if you're snickering like Robert, I'm not at all.
19:47This is very important. Ask Rashid Shahid. I'm not getting.
19:50Ask Rashid Shahid about the Rams special teams or Jalen Carter.
19:53Or Sean McVay. Didn't the team change their kicker like midway through last season?
19:57They sure did. Well, they also. They changed their coordinator.
20:00So let's talk about this because it's January, February.
20:03We're prepping for the Super Bowl. We're doing all this stuff.
20:06The Rams changed out their special teams coordinator. And I'm like, well, that makes sense.
20:10And they should. And good for them. And then the Rams do the McDuffie trade.
20:14They do the Garrett trade. Everything about the Rams this year is like the town.
20:18Like we're getting the not f***ing around crew. So I just kind of assumed that Sean McVay went out and got somebody who was like the shit.
20:26Like the best special teams coordinator in the league.
20:28Bubba Ventrone is the guy they hired. They brought him over from Cleveland.
20:32I don't know him. I'm sure he's a great guy.
20:35The Browns were dead last in special teams TVO last year.
20:38And over the course of his time in Cleveland, they have not been overly good.
20:42So I think there's context that's worth bringing up with that.
20:45Let's do it then because it surprised me when I looked into it.
20:49I think the Browns organizationally do not value special teams and how they build the roster in the same way that other teams do.
20:55That's an interesting note. Like in terms of who the back end guys are?
20:59Like in terms of who's doing the special teams.
21:02Correct. Sure. That's an interesting note. And I did have in my notes here because, I mean, the Browns were, they were
21:08horrendous in all of the special teams categories. And like I said, not just last year, but going back over the last few years, it's 32, it's 30.
21:16But that's an interesting point because another thing the Rams did besides just hire Bubba Ventrone is they brought in Grant Stewart,
21:22who was fantastic for Detroit as a key special teamer.
21:25He's been a pro bowler, hasn't he? Yeah. He's been a phenomenal special teamer, and these are some of the most unheralded
21:31but useful players in the NFL where I think he played 13 snaps of defense for Detroit last year.
21:36But he was on every team. He was on all eight special teams.
21:40Kick, kick return, punt, punt return, field goal, field goal block.
21:43And those guys are crucial, A, for adjustments, making sure things are going the right way and representing the coach on the
21:49field, and B, just for executing it at a high level.
21:52So that's actually encouraging to hear because as soon as I saw that the Rams signed Grant Stewart, I was like, okay,
21:58well, even if Bubba Ventrone's units in Cleveland haven't been very good, they clearly prioritized adding like an ass kicker to their special teams units.
22:05Yes. I do think it's useful context. And just understanding why those numbers might look the way that they do.
22:11And that's some of the quieter stuff, but like we remember like the Rams lost to the Eagles game because of their special teams.
22:17Like a punt return against Seattle and that Eagles game.
22:20Like, yes, the margins were so like they could have hosted the NFC title game.
22:24Like it if you don't screw up four or five special teams plays over the course of the year, it could have been there for you.
22:32So I think this has a lot of significance and I'm actually, I feel better about it than I did when I
22:38was researching it because I was looking through it last night and I was like, well, the Brown special teams don't give
22:44me a whole lot of hope for this being better.
22:47But okay, you soothed my concerns a little bit because if I had to guess, this is going to loom large in
22:53at least a game or two for the Rams.
22:55I'm just looking at it right now. When he was in Indy, three of the four seasons that he was in Indy,
23:02they finished as a top half of the league special teams unit.
23:05But his last season in Indy, I think they were like 26.
23:08And you know what? As fun as it would be, Jay Harbaugh in Seattle had them at number two in special teams DVOA.
23:15Like as fun as it would be to really be the best special teams unit in the league, as long as they're
23:21not embarrassingly bad, it'll probably be fine. As long as it's not your Achilles heel.
23:25It clears the bar. I think that's the most important consideration.
23:28And it has been their Achilles heel at times in the McVay era.
23:32Let's keep talking about Achilles heels. For each of these teams, we're going to talk about what is keeping us up at night with this team in 2026.
23:40Derek, why don't you kick us off? What is keeping you up at night about the Los Angeles Rams?
23:45I mean, we could talk about some of the, you know, Stafford's still old and Devontae Adams is old and all that.
23:51I think to me it's just that you've created a scenario where anything but winning the Super Bowl is a disappointment and a failure.
23:58That like never happens. Man, I've said it all season.
24:00It worries me. It never happens. If their speeches at the parade aren't good, I'm going to be disappointed.
24:06Like that is the level of expectation with this team.
24:09It's just like, again, like that level of the NFL is a pressure cooker to begin with.
24:13The fact that you have created an extra layer that really nobody else has ever stepped into or is equipped to handle.
24:19I just think, look, if anybody's built for it, I think it is Sean McVay.
24:24It's Matthew Stafford. It's these guys who have done really high pressure stuff before.
24:28But it is a lot. And it's a lot with a lot of new pieces, which I think is the other thing that is interesting.
24:35I think it puts a lot on Sean McVay in a different way than normal, where the messaging, how you make sure
24:41you try to maintain that edge becomes really important.
24:43And I think it's just important to reframe it in these sorts of terms over and over and over again.
24:49Austin Mock at The Athletic had Super Bowl odds and just percentages that he put out this week.
24:54And his are right in line with a lot of what the industry has said.
24:5815% chance for the Rams to win the Super Bowl coming into the year.
25:02It's a small number. Yes. That is not a big number.
25:05It's the biggest number. But 15%, something that happens one and a half times out of every 10, is not a likely outcome.
25:11What's the next biggest number, though? Do you know?
25:14I think that's probably like 8% or 9%. But still double everybody else.
25:18But still, isolated is a remote occurrence to do something 15% of the time.
25:21And we still think that's the only acceptable outcome.
25:24Yes. And I don't think that's crazy. That's what you have to do if you're Sean McVay.
25:29It's more often than not, almost always, I'm going to say it's incredibly hard to win a Super Bowl.
25:34It's okay to give some of these teams and some of these players a little bit more grace than we do.
25:40This is not one of those times. Correct. Correct.
25:42So, have fun managing that over the next five months.
25:45What's keeping you up and out about the Rams?
25:48Similar. I mean, if you want to go away from just the expectations, I mean, this is an old roster.
25:53My guy Jimmy Kemski over at Philly Voice did the math when all the rosters became finalized.
25:58They're tied for the third oldest roster in the NFL.
26:01They're 26.9 years old on average. Devontae is 33.
26:03Stafford's 38. And we know has had some injury issues over his time in L.A.
26:08Miles Garrett is turning 30. It's funny. Like, they don't need Aaron Donald.
26:11Like, they would be Super Bowl favorites if Aaron Donald hadn't decided to do this.
26:15But he is a 35-year-old major piece of this team at this point.
26:19Pook is not old, but just plays with a reckless abandon and has not been completely trustworthy off the field either.
26:25So that's another wrinkle that you got to throw in there.
26:28And so it's a lot of stuff to keep on the track.
26:31It's a lot of potentially leaky parts that could break on you at some point during the season.
26:36I'm mostly where Derek's at. To put a finer point on it, I'll just throw out the reliability of the offensive line
26:42and the depth of the offensive line overall. I mean, them losing Rob—having to move on from Rob Havenstein essentially in the
26:49middle of last season, that's easier to do when you feel like you can go to a guy like Warren McClendon and be okay.
26:55The third tackle that they might have to turn to if something goes wrong might not even be on this roster right now.
27:02You know what, though? I thought about that. On my drive in, I was thinking about that very situation.
27:07And, of course, over a long enough timeline, it might be the right call.
27:11But Monroe Freeling could be on this team and they chose Ty Simpson instead.
27:15And you're telling me. Like, how sorry am I supposed to feel for the Rams?
27:19Oh, this is a—it's a self-inflicted thing, 100%. They did not bolster their chances of winning the Super Bowl this year with making that pick.
27:26The fact that he was in a battle to be the backup, it seems like it might be trending in a direction
27:32where they would turn to him if they had to.
27:35But even in that situation, if Stafford's missing six games this year and they know that, I wonder if Jimmy G gets the call.
27:42And he should. It's—Stutson Bennett is not—where this team is, that's not good enough.
27:46And whatever Ty Simpson is going to give them is not good enough.
27:49And, like, I think in most cases and in most teams, and maybe I said this on draft night, I don't know.
27:55To draft a Ty Simpson when your team is already good and trying to walk the line between winning championships and winning for the future, I get it.
28:03It's what the Packers were doing when they drafted Jordan Love.
28:06It's what the Chiefs were doing when they drafted Patrick Mahomes.
28:09I just think the math is different when you are so far into trying to win the championship this way.
28:15Like, at this point, it just makes more sense to me to commit.
28:19They hadn't made the Garrett trade at that point.
28:21But they keep saying that, like— Yeah. They were dancing around it.
28:24They were dancing around it. They were thinking about it.
28:27I'm with you. I would have done everything I could to protect myself with that pick if this year was as important
28:33as they were making it out to be. But I think you could also make the argument on the other side that
28:39finding an off-ramp quarterback when you're in this situation is incredibly difficult, and that's why they decided to do it.
28:45I am the biggest Ty Simpson fan on this show, so I'm not going to—I'm certainly—I'm not trying to kill the pick,
28:51but I can't throw out sympathy for the Rams being thin at tackle when they had a chance to fix it and decide— Or receiver.
28:58Quarterback was more important. Yeah. They're thin at tackle.
29:01They're thin at receiver. They had the opportunity to address both of those things.
29:05And that's an underrated one. I know Devontae Adams, like, scored a bunch of touchdowns last year, but, like, I think this
29:11team maybe gets to and wins the Super Bowl if Adams doesn't slow down at the end of the season.
29:16Like, he had the—I think it was a hamstring issue, and he just wasn't able to get back to 100%.
29:22Who knows how much that carries into this season or if he gets a little bit more banged up or just one
29:28more year of NFL football slows him down. 34 years old.
29:3134 at receiver. And when you are a huge part of the offense, that is an old player.
29:36I think that concerns me less because if they feel like they need to, the Rams could probably find a useful receiver for a third-round pick in November.
29:44Tackle might be a little harder to do that.
29:46That's a—yeah, that's fair. Nobody's trading their tackles like that.
29:49The other thing I'd throw out, this is much more specific, but I think it is a little bit tied to the quality of the offensive line overall.
29:57We've seen Stafford's performance vacillate from year to year based on how the offensive line is playing.
30:02And so even if this group takes a small step back, because this isn't an offensive line, especially a tackle that's full of star players.
30:09They're full of—it's an acceptable level of offensive line play.
30:12And so if you take a small step back from that, how much shakier do things feel?
30:16Where I think you feel that the most. This is a decidedly below-average team on third down last year.
30:22When they're not dictating with under center play action, being able to have everything on the table at all times on early
30:28downs, it's a slightly different version of the offense.
30:30And I think that's the area where you feel the offensive line the most because when it's third and eight and they're
30:36having to drop back, you sense that this is an offensive line that's built very differently than most offensive lines in the
30:43league and most offensive lines on good teams. Alaric Jackson was a seventh-round pick or undrafted?
30:47I think he was undrafted. So undrafted, and then Warren McClendie was a fifth-round pick.
30:51Fifth-round pick. This team is very, very different than a lot of other teams around the league.
30:5664 tackles in the NFL, more than half of them were first-round picks.
31:00This team is an outlier. And so you're going to feel that potentially in most situations, but especially on third down where
31:06they were not very good last year. Let's talk about what success looks like for the Los Angeles Rams.
31:11We can breeze through this pretty quickly. Come on.
31:14Yeah, do the thing. That's it. This is the only team where that is the answer, but that is absolutely the answer.
31:20They have to win the Super Bowl for this to be a success, which is always a fun place to be as you go into a season.
31:27All right, guys, before we get to the Seahawks preview, let's take a quick break.
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31:52Let's get to the Super Bowl champion Seattle Seahawks.
31:54Our preview for the 2026 Seahawks. They're offseason in 60 seconds.
31:57Hired Brian Flurry as the offensive coordinator. Brought in Dante Fowler and Rodney Thomas.
32:01This lost Boye Mafe, Kenneth Walker, Reek Wollin, and Kobe Bryant all in free agency.
32:05Drafted Jadarian Price, Bud Clark, and Julian Hill in the first three rounds.
32:09Derek, what are you most excited about with the 2026 Seahawks?
32:12I mean, this can still be the best defense in football.
32:15And I've hemmed and hawed a little bit over, you know, you lose Boye Mafe for Dante Fowler.
32:20It's a little bit of a downgrade. What's he going to look like without Reek Wollin?
32:25And we'll talk about that later. But, like, so long as Mike McDonald is still there and this front looks the way
32:31that it looks like, they can be the best defense in football any given week and any given year.
32:36And so I'm just incredibly excited to see them.
32:39And I think the one thing I wanted to talk about, just about, like, why they feel the way that they feel.
32:45When I think of Houston and their defense, it's like a Western who can draw their pistol faster.
32:50And they just do it faster every time because that's just how they're built.
32:54Trying to play against the Seahawks is like trying to play poker.
32:57And they're just ahead of you every single step.
32:59Like, you just are, you can never get into the right call against them because they always find a way to just kind of abuse what you're doing.
33:07And so I just think, like, they're a defense that because Houston plays so fast, like some of their success rate is
33:13a tick higher on passing down stuff. But the Seahawks don't get beat with explosive plays.
33:18You can get Houston every now and then because a guy will chase something, whatever it may be.
33:23Just more single eye overall. Yes, and that's going to be part of it.
33:27And Seattle had the lowest rate of explosive plays on dropbacks last year.
33:30And they didn't give up very many against the run either.
33:34Like, you just, it's hard to flip the field against a team like this.
33:37It's very funny that you said that because I actually use that exact same analogy when talking about Mike McDonald several different
33:44times on the training camp tour this year. Just talking about how he is the best poker player.
33:49Yeah. Like, his ability, that's all you're doing as a play caller.
33:52Is you're essentially just playing odds and playing probabilities every single time over and over and over again, 70, 80 times a week.
33:58And he is the best at it. His ability to bucket information and make decisions based on what you do formationally in
34:05a certain down and distance, what your tendencies are.
34:07His understanding and synthesis of that information in real time is part of what makes him really, really special.
34:12And I think the way they play sets them up to do that on top of everything he's giving you as a play caller.
34:19And that's kind of where I landed. My answer to this, what am I most excited about?
34:24This is a special defensive coach. This is what we've wanted on that side of the ball.
34:29This is an answer to what McVay and Shanahan have been offensively for the last 10 years.
34:33That is what Mike McDonald is and what he has proven to be over the last three years.
34:38What he did in Seattle to me is very similar to what Kyle Shanahan did in Atlanta, where you get there.
34:44It's year one. You're a middle of the pack sort of team.
34:48You're figuring out what you want to be. It's an uneven experience.
34:51And then in year two, this thing takes off like a rocket ship because you know exactly what you need to be with that current personnel.
34:58And I just think that he's a really special coach.
35:01And I think the core of players they have unlocks everything he wants to be and how they want to play.
35:07You talk about that Texans front, more specifically, just being faster than you.
35:10The Seahawks front is just tougher than you. Yes, they are meaner.
35:14They want it. They are just tougher than you.
35:16We talk about glass eaters. That could be a misused phrase with some guys in the NFL.
35:21That combination of dudes they have, including the edge players, it is unlike anything in the league.
35:26And that is where it starts. The talent and the depth that they have up front and their ability to cycle through these waves of players.
35:33And even the idea of losing Boyamafe and then going out and getting Dante Fowler because you know you need a fourth one.
35:39Like they are so cognizant of how that depth is important and how they have to wield it.
35:45And what that allows them to do is just different than any other defense in the league.
35:49I said this on the defensive draft show. Per next gen, 34.5% rushing success rate out of two high structures last year.
35:55It's the best in the league. And they saw the second most of them.
35:59They play with the lightest boxes in football, them in Philly.
36:02And they have the best run defense in the league.
36:05Those two things should not be compatible. And because of who they have up front, it is.
36:10And then you have a coach who is the best situational play caller on that side of the ball in the league.
36:16So if you ever in third and eights and there is a slight Death Star-like vulnerability to your pass protection, he's going to find it every single time.
36:24I've said this to add a bunch over the course of this offseason.
36:28The three best blitzing teams of the next gen era in EPA per play are the 2023 Browns, the 2023 Ravens, and the 2025 Seahawks.
36:35He has two of them. And the other one had Miles Garrett, which like Jim Schwartz is a really good play caller.
36:41But like that helps a lot. It's funny you brought up Star Wars because I was thinking about the fact that they call this defense the dark side.
36:48Yeah, there it is. Yeah. Is Mike McDonald the Sith?
36:51Like showing up to balance out the force from all these like Jedi's doing offensive.
36:55If you're Sean McVay or Kyle Shanahan or Liam Cohn, yes, he is.
36:59Yes, he is. I mean, speaking of Liam Cohn, one of the best games they had in terms of like picking on
37:05what an offense was doing in pass protection. And I made a video about it during the year.
37:10You can go find it on our YouTube channel.
37:13What they did to the Jags pass protection plan?
37:15Disgusting. I mean, Trevor Lawrence did not have a shot that entire game.
37:19I know I said it a lot during the season last year.
37:22But yeah, it just it felt like they were playing with 16 guys like all the time.
37:27And we'll get to it. It feels a little thinner to me right now, but we haven't played a game yet.
37:33Like that could change in a hurry. Let's do the positive version of that first, because I think when you look at a defense that now is.
37:40Starting to Okada from day one and has. But I think the way that you can spin this in a positive way and optimistically is.
37:47We have a defense in a system and a coach that is made a player player like Drake Thomas, who would be
37:54in back half of the roster guy. I think in a lot of situations a more than viable piece to this thing,
38:00because he knows exactly how to use him. Right.
38:02Like the ways that they ask Drake Thomas to play make him a positive for this defense and not a liability.
38:08And so even if you can look at the depth chart and say, hey, they're a little weaker here and maybe they're
38:14it's they're a little bit thinner here. This is the situation where it just matters to me a little bit less because
38:20of how good they've been at hiding those vulnerabilities because of how they specifically ask those guys to play within the system.
38:27And not only that, to bring it back to Mike McDonald, just his ability as a play caller and his ability to.
38:33See things ahead of time and be in the right call and forecast what the offense is going to do.
38:38I just my own tendency is to lean on personnel more so than coaching, but I'm absolutely.
38:43Trusting Mike McDonald in this situation where he even if he even if he does wind up having lesser personnel this year,
38:49he'll make it work the same way. We sit here and talk all the time about how Kyle Shanahan can have a
38:55top 10 offense with whatever you throw him together with him.
38:58I I'm starting to feel that way about Mike McDonald.
39:01When we do that, we're doing movie references. Jeff Bridges from Iron Man.
39:05It's like he built that thing in a cave like with scraps like that's where we're at with Mike McDonald right now.
39:11And I choose to believe it, even if the personnel was maybe a slight takedown from where it was last year.
39:17But by the way, 85 percent of the personnel is still really, really good.
39:21I don't mean to give the impression that we talk about like they might take a step back.
39:26It's just that they might not be a historic defense and that's OK.
39:29OK, but I knew we were going to talk extensively about the defense, but I do think it's worth having a conversation
39:35about the offense because with all the oxygen that McDonald and the defense take up.
39:40To me, at least it feels easy to just sort of put the offense on the back burner as like, oh, they were good enough to do this.
39:47I think I'm excited about the fact that I think the Seattle offense can be a lot better than that.
39:53Like they can be a lot better than they're good enough to not get in the way.
39:58And I feel like that is the reputation that they have after the back half of last year in the playoffs.
40:04I don't think that's fair. And I think it stems from changing the play caller.
40:08Obviously, Clint Kubiak goes to Las Vegas. But I love that Mike McDonald seemed to handle this problem in the most pragmatic
40:14way possible, where he was basically like, what can I do that's going to keep me from having to think overly much about this?
40:21And that's go get a guy that's versed in the same offense from the same tree and even the same team that Clint Kubiak used to work for.
40:29Like Brian Fleury, short of somebody who's done this extensively already, is probably the closest you can get to just keeping that train running.
40:35And I admire the search for continuity. Let's talk about that because that's my what I'm watching over the first month of
40:41the season is what Brian Fleury's version of this offense looks like.
40:45I think there's a lot in what you just said.
40:48I think some of the schematic, the schematic carryover is part of it.
40:51I also think the other part of it is that in Brian Fleury, I think Mike McDonald has found someone who thinks
40:57about things in the way that he does. And I think it's more than just schematic continuity.
41:02I think he's also somebody they tabbed as the right person for the job based on how his mind works and how he wants to approach these things.
41:10And we talked the other day about Mike McDonald being thorough and inventive in the way that he hires people.
41:15So I can't say I'm surprised to hear that.
41:18We talked about this on the new Play Caller show.
41:21Brian Fleury's background is fascinating. He was the run game coordinator and tight end coach in San Francisco.
41:26He had been on that offensive staff for a couple different years in a couple of roles.
41:31Before he was in San Francisco, he was the head of football research for the Dolphins for several years.
41:36And so he just spent all of his time figuring out esoteric situational football considerations as like somebody that worked in an analytics department.
41:43And then before that, he was a position coach on defense.
41:46I can't remember anybody who has had a background like this before.
41:49And so I think that just the way his brain works and how he looks at offensive football is just different based
41:55on what his experience is than really anybody I've seen come in to be an offensive play caller in the league as long as I've been doing this.
42:03Also, in addition to the defensive background and the analyst background with Miami, my ears at this point just perk up when I hear tight ends coach.
42:10It's a very good path to being a good offensive coordinator.
42:14If you need a refresher on what that means, this is an unscientific list of important offensive minds that spent significant time as a tight ends coach.
42:21Sean McVay, Ben Johnson, Kevin Stefanski, Dan Campbell, Drew Petsing, Nick Caley.
42:24Wes Phillips doesn't call plays, but he was a tight ends coach for a long time.
42:29He's an OC in Minnesota. And Declan Doyle was a tight ends coach before Ben Johnson brought him over.
42:34It's not a guarantee that you're going to be good at this.
42:38But the mesh of understanding blocking concepts and understanding how the offensive line works combined with the need to understand route concepts and how everything ties together.
42:45It's just a job that lends itself to really understanding how all this shit works.
42:49It's a holistic view of the offense. It is a holistic approach and you have to think about it in that way.
42:55The stuff with Fleury, I'm of two minds about it.
42:58Because overall, I agree with you in the sense that I do think there's a level to this offense that they could
43:04reach if they did not reach last year. A lot of that's based on continuity.
43:09Yes. The offensive line coming back in its entirety.
43:11The quality of the offensive line from last year.
43:14Gray's able going into year two. The way that the tackles played.
43:17Feel very good about all of that. Offensive line coach comes back, which that doesn't always happen.
43:22John Benton is still there. Before he was retained as the Raiders hired a different offensive line coach.
43:27I think Rick Dennison is there. So you have that sort of continuity.
43:30The year two pass catchers, and I'm including Rashid Shaheed in that in a way.
43:35He was only there for half the season. They paid him $17 million a year for 15 catches over the second half of the year.
43:42And I know he had huge special teams value, but you don't pay him that contract without the anticipation that his role goes up.
43:48Yeah. So Shaheed, Elijah Arroyo in year two, Torrey Horton in year two.
43:52It's just a deeper collection of pass catchers than they had for most of last season.
43:56They're bringing everything back with the exception of the play caller and just the running back.
44:01And Kenneth Walker. But like, if you're plugging a hole on your offense, and ironically, I didn't really want them to draft
44:07a running back in the first round. But now that they did it, that's the hole that I would most like to fill with a rookie.
44:14You know, like just plugging a first round talent like Jadarian Price in there.
44:18I'm not overly worried about the drop off, especially knowing that Charbonnet will be back at some point during the year.
44:24I'm excited about the personnel. I'm excited about the play caller and just I'm curious about him.
44:29The one thing that holds me back has nothing to do with Brian Fleury or the quality of the Seahawks offense.
44:35It's just really tapping back into the idea that Clint Kubiak was awesome last year.
44:39Like that, that it's not to take away from this group.
44:42It's to really give a lot of respect to the job that he did.
44:46So we talked about this in real time. I knew that the Seahawks offensive floor would get raised structurally.
44:51If you're going to be in a place where the run and pass game is tied together, you're going to be a play action heavy personnel team.
44:59You're going to dictate the way the games are played.
45:01You're going to look significantly better than you did the year before where your offensive approach was the exact opposite of that.
45:08That structure, play calling is different. He did both of them at such an incredibly high level.
45:12The ways that he weaponized JSN in that NFC Championship game, all the ways he used him over the course of the
45:18season, some of the stuff that they did out of empty, just the buttons he was pressing in the right moment so
45:25often over the course of the year. That's hard.
45:27Not that many guys get to that level. Not that many guys, to me, had as demonstrative and obvious an impact on
45:33the quality of their offense as an offensive play caller last year as Clint Kubiak did.
45:38And I don't think it's disrespectful to wonder if Brian Fleury is going to be able to do that, even if I'm
45:44bullish on what he could potentially do in this role.
45:47That's fair. And we've been frustrated so much by play callers not harnessing talented units in Philadelphia.
45:51It's not a guarantee that just because you have continuity that it's always going to be as good from year to year.
45:58But I don't think it's going to be that sort of vacillation.
46:01But even if it's a step back, a slight step back, what does that mean?
46:05But with the amount of continuity that they have in personnel and and some of this is just a deep seated trust in Mike McDonald.
46:12And the fact that I don't think this is a scheme overhaul.
46:15I just I'm optimistic that this can be better than it's getting credit for at the I agree with that level.
46:21I definitely agree with that. I think they can be a top 10 offense.
46:25I think they absolutely can be. Yeah, there's there.
46:28I'm probably a little bit less optimistic on there, but like it's on the table.
46:32And I was like, I just think that this is a case to where I don't know how much Mike McDonald is
46:38involved in the offense, but with as much as he is involved in everything and just how smart he is, I imagine
46:44he has a little bit of tinkering of like we want to keep some things this way if we can.
46:50Hey, this is what worked for this guy. This is what worked for that guy.
46:54And so I think that'll work. And also, too, I know the Ryan Grubb hiring his first year was obviously a disaster.
47:00I think sometimes like the first hire on a guy's first staff is just not going to be good.
47:05And I think that he's learned so many lessons from that, obviously going to Kubiak, which is much more NFL.
47:11And then what you say where he's it's very clearly staying within like a very NFL offense with Brian Fleury.
47:17Then going also for a guy who has such a unique background that it's like I think he's clearly learned something about
47:23how he wants this thing to go and be put together.
47:26That I am fully on board and believe in the choice.
47:29Yeah, it's mostly just about respecting how good Kubiak was last year.
47:32Talking about what it'll look like just very quickly.
47:35A couple of things that I wonder what the blend is.
47:38I do think they'll carry over a huge portion of what they did a year ago for obvious reasons.
47:43It worked quarterback is comfortable with it and he's familiar with it.
47:46The play caller is there are certain things. I wonder if we see a little bit more that feel different.
47:52First one is just the way they use the fullback.
47:55Robbie Uts is hurt. He's out. And so you're going to Brady Russell, who they kept on the 53.
48:00Those guys are like 35 pounds difference between them.
48:03And it was a lot of lead zone. A lot of lead zone.
48:06And they were doing that in the preseason where it was Brady Russell's in the eye and they're running just lead plays with him.
48:13I assume as we get deeper into the season, we see more fullback usage that is akin to the way the Niners use their fullback.
48:20Split zone type. Split zone type stuff. He's lined up as an H-back.
48:24If you look at the usage overall, Uts was used almost exclusively in the backfield last year.
48:28Use check is it's almost exactly a split between backfield slot and inline.
48:32I think we'll see a little bit more of that.
48:35And I think that, to me, leads into how the run game might feel a little bit different.
48:40Seattle last year was 29th in the NFL in motion at the snap rate on their runs per next gen.
48:45The Niners are sixth. Just think about all of those slam plays where you're changing the formation strength right away.
48:51That, to me, is one, an expression of how the Niners run game was built with the run game coordinator that's now here.
48:57And two, think about if you were an outside linebacker's position coach in the NFL.
49:02How tuned in are you to how difficult that type of run game is for that position specifically?
49:07And so that's the type of thing I think we see maybe a little bit more of with this version of the offense.
49:13And then the last thing is, and you were going to talk about this too, the Niners were a team that got
49:19five out in the route more than any team in the NFL on a rate basis.
49:24Some of that is McCaffrey, but it's also you realizing the benefits of playing that way and what it does to space as you attack defenses.
49:31Seattle was not that sort of team last year.
49:33Heavy personnel, play action, chuck it down the field.
49:36With Price, do we see them get five out and use the back as a receiver in ways that aren't just screens?
49:42Where he's just part of a, we're getting four out, this is how the concept works.
49:47Because the Niners did a lot more of that than Seattle did last year.
49:50And I think just like looking at their roster, unless Shaheed just takes like a massive step for them and they really
49:57figure out his role, that probably is their like most obvious path to some sort of change.
50:01And to me, it's, I don't even really necessarily worry about can the offensive line handle that?
50:06Or is Darian Price going to be that level of pass catcher, even though he really didn't do it in college?
50:12To me, I wonder like how much is Sam Darnold going to be comfortable with that?
50:16Because last year, if I was reading True Media correctly, 46.1% of his passes were from the gun.
50:21Only Matthew Stafford was lower than that. And when he was in the gun, he was 20th out of 26 of qualifying quarterbacks in shotgun EPA per dropback.
50:29And that falls a little bit to 22nd if you take out the empty stuff.
50:33Which I do think like empty versus gun is a little bit different.
50:37It's different. Just like what you're asking the quarterback to do is different.
50:41And to be fair, Darnold's success rate out of the gun was pretty high.
50:45It was top 10. But that's because again, he's, I think if you're going to be in the gun, he's a little bit more comfortable.
50:52Quick game is okay. Maybe I can chuck a go ball.
50:55But when it's a little bit more five out in the route, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, that's just not ever what he's been super comfortable with.
51:02That's what the Niners quarterbacks are good at. It's what the Niners quarterbacks are excellent at.
51:07And so I wonder how much, and I don't expect him to be like Purdy or anything.
51:11I don't expect it to be that. But if that can be 5% more of the offense and it works for you,
51:18that's kind of what I'm interested in. That's my assumption.
51:20I don't think it's going to be a situation where it's a huge percentage of what they do for two reasons.
51:26One, I think one of the reasons that the Niners went so far away from the play action world compared to what the Seahawks do now.
51:33Like if you look at the Niners play action rates over the last five years, they are not a play action team anymore.
51:40They're not. They're an under center team, but they're not a play action team as much anymore.
51:45Because honestly, Purdy couldn't do what Darnold does in the play action.
51:48He doesn't have the arm for it. Purdy is so good at cycling through that stuff quickly that it's, you're playing to
51:54the quarterback strengths and you have the best pass catcher back in the league.
51:58So you remove both of those things. You shouldn't do it to the same level that the Niners are doing it.
52:04But I think incorporating it as a part of the offense in order to keep diversifying, because Sam was there in 23
52:10when they started incorporating all this stuff. It's not foreign to him.
52:13Right. I think it's just a matter of how much you lean into it based on the pieces that you have, including the quarterback.
52:20Dave, what are you watching the first month of the season?
52:23We covered, I mean, Jesus, I think we covered everything you could possibly have to say about the Seahawks offense right there.
52:29But Jadarian Price and what he looks like. And Emmanuel Wilson is here.
52:33I guess that's worth mentioning George Helani, too. But I hope if you drafted him 32nd overall, that Jadarian Price is going
52:39to do the lion's share of this quickly. And what does he look like?
52:43It's a great point on Derek's part. They've said up at Seahawks camp that he can do receiver stuff and have a larger role doing that.
52:50It's not what he did in college. Something like 15 career catches is just not what Notre Dame did.
52:56So how quickly he adapts to that, how quickly he adapts to all of the intricacies of playing running back in the NFL, pass protection.
53:03Like if he's going to be out there most of the time, or do you have to take him off the field in obvious passing situations?
53:10Hopefully not. But I think that's going to be a situation where Helani does play in those situations.
53:15And this is something the fantasy community has done a really good job of hammering home all summer.
53:20Most running back receptions happen on early downs. You're not throwing the ball to the back on third down on purpose.
53:26Right. So what you're asking the back to do on third down is to protect.
53:30If you want to unleash Jadarian Price as a pass catcher, early downs is when you're going to do most of that.
53:36And so the idea of Helani playing on third down doesn't take away from a lot of the best pass catching opportunities you'd be giving to Jadarian Price.
53:44No, I don't worry about the pass catching opportunities.
53:46I just, I hate having a running back where if I know I need to throw, he probably needs to come off
53:53the field because it just makes me predictable. Like if you've got to bring George Helani in because you don't trust Jadarian
53:59Price to like get across and bring and pick up the blitzer.
54:02I think most of that stuff is in defined passing situations though, where you're going to be using him.
54:07It's second and long. It's third down. Like that's my assumption.
54:10Yeah. Dave, what is keeping you up at night about the 2026 Seattle Seahawks?
54:14I think Derek and I are in lockstep on this and have been, but, and it's, it's nitpicking, but that's what we're
54:20doing when you're talking about the reigning Super Bowl champs.
54:23But the depth chart on defense, particularly in the secondary, looks a little bit thin.
54:27And if you don't believe me, just let the Seahawks show you with their actions.
54:32They went after Terry and Arnold, who was in the middle of a B&E kidnapping fiasco looking for help.
54:37He got put on the commissioner's exempt list. So he can't help you.
54:41They bring in Trayvon Diggs, who's been banged up and hasn't been the same player the last few years.
54:46They cut him. Then John Schneider says they're interested in bringing him back to the practice squad.
54:51And then they do a trade for Avery Smith, who is an impressive undrafted corner down for the Chargers.
54:56They are screaming at us that they don't love their cornerback depth chart.
55:00And I understand why losing Reek Willen is a big deal.
55:03I loved the job that Josh Jobe did last year, and he deserves the contract that they gave him in free agency.
55:09But, and you know who, it reminds me of Riley Moss, who we talked so much about, who was, he was targeted like 120 times last year.
55:16Because you have, you're going to get targeted a lot, and you're going to get beat a lot.
55:21And like the mark of a good CB2, CB3 is, can you live with that?
55:26And are you getting as good as you get?
55:28Josh Jobe was excellent last year as the guy who was like, well, we don't want to go with Spoon, and we might not want to try Reek.
55:36Like, where are we going with this? And he was up to that challenge, particularly, I thought he was so excellent in the postseason.
55:43Oh my God, yeah. But now, if he moves up a rung, because Reek's not here, and like, especially when Spoon moves
55:49inside, which I assume he's still going to do plenty of, who's that other guy?
55:53And teams are going to circle him in bright red ink and say, Avery Smith is an undrafted rookie, and they're playing
55:59him because Julian Neal didn't have a training camp.
56:02We're going at that guy. And even Mike McDonald might not be able to deal with the problems that come with that.
56:08Yeah. And I think part of their excitement about being able to play, they want to play, it's like, okay, if Spoon
56:14can play on the outside and Jobe can play on the other side, we want Nick Hammond Wari to be our starting nickel.
56:20He's like iffy to play week one. He's hurt.
56:23He hasn't played all summer. He had an ankle surgery in July and like didn't get cleared until earlier in August.
56:29And then he really, again, Brady Henderson of ESPN was like he might not play week one, which is why they've been
56:35so scrambling trying to get guys into the building.
56:37And so you just look at like their safety depth chart.
56:40They don't really have a ton of guys. The corners right now on the outside, outside of Devin Witherspoon are Nehemiah Pritchett,
56:47who's played like 200-ish snaps the last two years for this team.
56:50And then Julian Neal, who's a third round pick.
56:52I have some amount of faith, obviously, that like McDonald can get something out of them and it won't sink.
56:58But again, the difference between it won't sink and we can get by and we have Tariq Woolen as the corner three is it's a huge, huge difference.
57:06You know what I think about a lot when I'm prepping for stuff like this and thinking about the Seahawks?
57:11They were banged up when they played Tampa last year.
57:14Got smoked. And even the mighty Seahawks looked like that when they were down a few guys.
57:19And that's going to happen anyway over the course of a 17-game season.
57:23But it's especially problematic when you're already kind of scrambling before you've even started playing.
57:27Yeah, you look at it right now. I mean, I think he – I want to say that even when I was
57:33back on the practice field like last week, he passed a physical in mid-August.
57:37But he has not been practicing for most of the offseason.
57:40And so even if he's theoretically healthy early in the season, we have a second-year player who did not practice the entire offseason.
57:46So that's worth mentioning. Julian Neal, like you said, Dave, is banged up for most of training camp.
57:51Bud Clark is already on IR. And so the guys that you drafted to theoretically be some of these depth pieces that
57:57could bolster you in these areas, you are not going to be able to rely on.
58:02And the quarterback depth becomes even more worrisome in a world where you don't have him in worry and you feel compelled
58:08to play Witherspoon inside until he gets back. And so it's just so much thinner than it was.
58:13Last year, you could live with Tai Okada for stretches and all this other stuff because those guys were the depth pieces.
58:19Now they're starting from day one. But what does that look like for an extended period of time?
58:24So I'm in the exact same boat. We're already digging into the defensive back depth before the season has even started.
58:30And that's what would be keeping me up at night.
58:33Another thing I think is worth noting is just the average age of the D-line room is 29.
58:38And that's including everybody. Like Riley Mills is a young player.
58:41Mike Morris is a young player. If you just go by the seven or eight dudes that we expect to do the
58:47heavy lifting, the average jumps up to 30. Byron Murphy and Derek Hall are really the only young guys among the real contributors.
58:54Tank Lawrence is 34. Jaron Reed is 33. Leonard Williams and Dante Fowler are 32.
58:58Chinen Uwosu turns 30 during the season. It's always a consideration.
59:01And you mentioned this. DeMarcus Lawrence has been banged up.
59:04He's had his fair share of injury problems. And the superpower of this team is those waves and waves of guys.
59:10And you can blink and look up in week seven and it doesn't look quite as good because two of those guys are out.
59:16Let's talk about what success looks like for the 2026 Seahawks.
59:19Derek, what do you got? I mean, I think it's make it back to the NFC championship.
59:24And I know that there's a lot of change here.
59:27And we just talked about how thin the defense is.
59:30But to me, the NFC is like it's the Rams and the Seahawks.
59:33And then it's a handful of teams we think might be good.
59:37But these are really the only two where I'm positive that they should be pretty good.
59:41Which is that informs my answer. Get back to the Rams playoff game.
59:45However, that may. Yeah, wherever it happens. Sure, that counts.
59:48No, that's a really good way. Get back to the Rams playoff game because it could happen in the divisional round.
59:53If you're a wildcard team, one of these teams is going to be a wildcard team.
59:58So get back to that game against the Rams.
60:00Don't lose to like the Cowboys or the Lions in the wildcard round.
60:04Make sure that the Rams have to beat you to get to the Super Bowl.
60:08Yes. Improve it. That's good. Since 2000, six defending champions have gotten back to the Super Bowl.
60:13Five of those teams were built around a Mount Rushmore quarterback, Mahomes or Brady.
60:17The one team that wasn't was the Seahawks. So there's some fun juju for you.
60:21And they should have won it again. They should.
60:24Yeah. One play away. Wow. It's doable. I don't think it's fair to expect the Seahawks to get back to the Super Bowl.
60:30I said, I like your answer, but I said, make a good faith effort at repeating.
60:34Don't go out. Don't go out sad in the wildcard round.
60:38At least get to the divisional round of the playoffs.
60:40And of the 26 defending champions since 2000, I think six have lost in the divisional round.
60:45One more is lost in the conference championship. And then the six that got to the Super Bowl.
60:50So about half are good enough to at least win a playoff game.
60:54I think this roster is good enough to at least win you a playoff game.
60:58I think anything short of a divisional round would feel kind of disappointing.
61:02We deserve another three rounds of Ram Seahawks. Oh, my God.
61:05Especially this version. We deserve it. And I want it.
61:07That sounds so fun. I wish they were starting the season against each other.
61:11But you don't want to waste those ratings on week one.
61:14It's okay. All right. Before we get to the Niners, let's take our second quick break.
61:19Let's get to the San Francisco 49ers. Our preview for the 2026 Niners.
61:22Brought in Raheem Morris as the defensive coordinator. Signed Mike Evans, Christian Kirk, traded for Osa Digizua, Dre Greenlaw, Debo Samuel, and just traded for Jarrett Patterson.
61:30Lost Kendrick Bourne, Jordan Elliott, and Jawan Jennings in free agency in the draft.
61:34John Stribbling in the second round. Romello Height, Kalen Black, and Carver Willis.
61:38What are you most excited about, Dave, with the 2026 San Francisco 49ers?
61:41Kyle Shanahan drawing up ball plays for a healthy Brock Purdy, and I hope a healthier skill group.
61:46And I say Brock Purdy first because I think it's easy to forget after a nine-month offseason that he missed half of the year last year.
61:53The guy who's been a top five to 10 EPA per play quarterback missed half the season.
61:58And on top of that, the 49ers were leaning on Kendrick Bourne, Demarcus Robinson, and Jake Conjus to play meaningful roles in their offense.
62:05Top 10 offense. Hey, if Purdy's out there, I feel good about it.
62:09To your point, you know where they ranked the one year in the last five that they haven't been top 10 in EPA?
62:15Was it 11th? It was 11th. 2024, when they were also beat to shit, they finished 11th.
62:20They finished second in offensive DVOA last year. They're going to be good.
62:23Barring another complete health collapse, which unfortunately you can't rule out.
62:26No, you can't. But if we can just get moderately decent health.
62:30I mean, George Kittle's already on the 53. That's incredibly encouraging.
62:33Christian McCaffrey, I haven't heard anything overly alarming in the last 10 days.
62:36A little looser. A little looser than he was in the most of our guests.
62:41And Mike Evans, I don't know if that existential dread is ever going to go away, just given his age and his own injury history.
62:48We'll talk about it. But this could be a really, really fun offense because it always is.
62:52And I'm just banking on them having better luck than they have the last two years.
62:57I mean, mine is just an extension of this.
62:59Like, for one, Kyle Shanahan, especially I think over the last three or four years, the offense has always looked different.
63:05There's been something that they've been able to iterate.
63:08I'm just excited for Kyle Shanahan to go all the way back to step one where he has like a real X receiver now.
63:14When is the last time he had one? It might be Julio Jones.
63:18No, Ayuk was a real X receiver. I think in this is different.
63:22The Ayuk phase feels like it never happened at this point.
63:25It didn't happen at all. He was not a I'm running by you down the sideline as a vertical player in the way that Mike Evans still is.
63:33Mike Evans can still take a goal ball or like pluck it off somebody's head.
63:37Can we talk about this? That is not who Brandon Ayuk was.
63:40These notes are later on in my notebook, but maybe it's just been so long since Kyle Shanahan had this guy.
63:46What do you think it's going to look like?
63:49Mike Evans over the last four years has run nine routes, go balls on 23% of his routes going back to like 2022.
63:55It's top 20 among all qualified receivers. The Niners, I mean, obviously everybody throws go balls, but that's not what they've done.
64:01But that's recent years. That's why he's there. Yeah, because if you look at the way the teams are starting to play
64:07against them, especially in the back half of the season, they could not threaten teams outside the numbers down the field.
64:13The Seahawks knew that and it completely defanged them offensively.
64:16Having somebody that is a viable threat in that area of the field where you have to account for them uncorking some
64:22of those to that guy is the way for this offense to be fully unlocked again.
64:27That's why he's here. However, they had to become a condensed like two by two shotgun offense.
64:31Like that's what it all became. And it was like, we're going to get everybody out.
64:36We're going to condense the thing. Then we're going to spread it out.
64:39Purdy's going to go one, two, three, four, five.
64:42He's going to hit somebody. I do think and I don't have the numbers on it, but I would wager they had
64:48some of the fewest routes from my receiver where he aligned on the outside.
64:52Like they just did not do that a whole lot because Shanahan's always played a little bit tighter, but like especially because they don't have a guy.
64:59They just didn't do it. And then the other thing that I would add, according to FTN, you're the 49ers receivers last
65:06year who had at least a 45% contested catch rate.
65:08Ricky Pearsall is not going to play. Kendrick Bourne is on a different team in the division now.
65:13Juwan Jennings also on a different team. He's with the Minnesota Vikings.
65:17The last time Mike Evans qualified for the stat, which was in 2024, he was at 54.5%.
65:22Like they just haven't had a ball winner, really.
65:24I mean, they don't on the roster now if Mike Evans isn't going to be that, even if they did have some guys like that last year.
65:32Even with your point about IU, it just feels like it's been forever since I've seen a receiver like this play in Kyle Shanahan's offense.
65:39So last year, the Niners were in condensed formations on 64.6% of their plays.
65:42No other team in the league was above 54.2%.
65:45That would be the Seattle Seahawks. So it was a 10 percentage point difference.
65:49There was a bigger gap between them and Seattle at number two than there was between Seattle and the Jaguars, who were
65:553, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 in 10th.
65:58And there's another stuff I want to look up now because you're something down a rabbit hole, but I think that's enough to get your point across.
66:05And that's one of those things that like you love that Kyle Shanahan is so good at this that they can have a top five offense doing that.
66:13I don't think he or they want to live that way.
66:16I think that was a like we figured something out in the moment and we're going to get by with what we can.
66:22But like I think if he wants to, he wants to have more pitches in his bag.
66:27You think Kyle Shanahan's tired of having to scramble all this together?
66:31Probably. Well, just think about playing Seattle. Just think about playing Seattle in the way that Seattle wants to play.
66:36If you're a team that can only throw the ball in the short and intermediate area of the field over the middle
66:42of the field against a Seattle defense that turns that area into a snake pit, it's going to be a bad time for you.
66:49It felt. And you couldn't run the ball either.
66:51Yes. That here, that's the problem though, which we can talk about if you want to.
66:56That, that's not keeping me up at night. There's bigger picture things that are keeping me up at night.
67:01That is the one caveat to this idea of, man, this offense can just get back rolling again.
67:06And Mike Evans doesn't help him. Isn't up in the run game.
67:10The run game was very average last year. You have a running back that had a lot of touches.
67:15You have an offensive line that is solid, but it's going to be starting a rookie at left guard.
67:20And they did not assert themselves on the ground last season in the way that they had previously.
67:25And if you look at some of McCaffrey's underlying numbers from last year, there's some wear and tear in that body.
67:31I just try not to think about it. But that, if that's, if we're, but if we're talking about like, all right,
67:37well, if the team is going to play against you and they're going to be in all of these umbrella coverages, and
67:43they're going to be in all of these light boxes, the ability to tack outside, vertically outside the numbers is one way
67:50that you can feel different than last year. But if you can't run the ball in those situations, then that still could
67:56be a fatal flaw that we see carry over from last year to this year.
68:00Maybe, maybe the ability to push the ball down the field, loosen some of that stuff up a little bit.
68:05But against Seattle, does it really? They're playing that way either way.
68:09Against the best teams, it probably is not going to help you a whole lot.
68:13The other thing worth mentioning, I love that the year they went and got Mike Evans, they also drafted the 6-2, 2-15 receiver that runs a 4-3-6.
68:21That's the other part of it too, is that he has way more outside giddy-up than a Jawan Jennings did.
68:26And so now do you have two guys that theoretically could give you that, that you didn't have last year?
68:32I'm banking all of this on preseason hype, but the way that they were targeting him and what he did in the preseason.
68:38He looked good. If Sribling is ready to go quickly, then the Niners have so much more juice than I've associated them
68:44with, with them over the last like two or three years.
68:47And post-Pearsall. Like the idea of Pearsall with Evans, then it was a situation where, all right, you can bring Sribling along slowly.
68:54He could be a role player. Now he's going to need to be more than that.
68:58But the encouraging part of the summer is, it seems like he might be ready to be more than that.
69:04And I don't want to overreact to camp hype in a couple of preseason games, but this would be a situation where maybe it's worth doing that.
69:1118 preseason targets and doing shit with those targets feels meaningful, especially given what the depth chart looks like.
69:17Yes, exactly. If Pearsall was healthy and he was doing that, I'm like, okay, well, that's fun to remember for November.
69:23But I think it accelerates it a little bit with the injury.
69:26We know what Debo is at this point. Sribling is the second most important receiver on the team right now.
69:31And we're a Mike Evans hammy away from him being the most important receiver on the team, which is a different conversation.
69:38Let's talk about what we're watching the first month of the season with the Niners.
69:42Derek, what do you got for me? I mean, this may be borders on keeping me up at night, but can this team generate pressure or not?
69:49And I think that we will find out pretty soon.
69:52Obviously, last year they were not playing with Nick Bosa for a lot of the season.
69:57Not playing with Fred Warner, which I think weirdly is going to hurt some of your pressures if quarterbacks just think that
70:03they can get the ball out over the middle of the field a little bit easier and in coverage.
70:08But last year, when they were rushing for, this team was 30th in pressure rate and 31st in sack rate.
70:14They were a little bit better by EPA per dropback because I've said a handful of times before, the secondary is not bad.
70:20Yeah, it's good. It's just that the front was not helping them in any sort of meaningful way.
70:25And so I think you bring in a guy like Oso Digizua, who has a lot of pop to him.
70:31Nick Bosa, you hope, comes back in. I think asking for Pro Bowl stuff from him right away is probably a lot.
70:37But if he can just be better than all the guys they had last year, and I think he will be, I think that goes a long way.
70:45Maybe Romello Height can give you a little bit something like there's reason to believe this pass rush can get off the ground.
70:51I'm just excited to see if that means like, are they going back to average?
70:55Or is this back to a unit that like you are a little bit scared about when you get into third downs?
71:01I know this is a small sample size because Bosa got hurt in like week three.
71:06But I'm comfortable leaning on it because Nick Bosa has been incredible for most of his career.
71:11Their pressure rate was 10 points higher when he was on the field last year than when he was off.
71:16It was they were up near 40 percent. They were in the top half of the league in pressure rate in the early season before he got hurt.
71:24And they fell all the way down to 31st.
71:27I don't know if it's going to be that good over a 17 game sample size, but adding Osa certainly doesn't hurt.
71:33And and so I just if if he's there and you add Osa to it, I just I think this will be
71:39functional, which it was not functional last year. It was like the whole problem with their defense, because to your point, there
71:45were so many fun things that happened with the back seven last year just because they didn't have a choice.
71:51But the inability of the front to do anything made it look way worse than it would have otherwise.
71:56And obviously, Fred Warner as well. I just think if they look like who they are or who we know them to
72:02be, I just think it completely changes the calculus for this defense.
72:05Not to say it'll be top five in the league, but it'll be a functional, solid NFL defense.
72:10And it was not that last year, no matter how much I enjoyed watching the young guys try.
72:15It was not. It was bad. It was actively bad for almost the entire season, especially after losing both of those guys.
72:22I'll take mine as like a slight pivot off of that.
72:25What do we get from this defense? And I asked that on a couple of different fronts.
72:29We haven't really talked about the fact that Raheem Morris is the defensive coordinator for this team now.
72:34We just that hasn't really come up. It's kind of like they the old joke was when Nick Saban coached at Alabama, like Nick Saban's coach resuscitation program.
72:42That's what the D.C. job in San Francisco has become.
72:45And even including Brandon Staley was there for a year before he got the job in New Orleans.
72:50And so I I wonder what it looks like.
72:53Like Raheem Morris schematically comes from a very different place than Robert Sala does.
72:56And so do we see more five man fronts?
72:59Do we see a different coverage menu? Like what does the Raheem Morris version of this defense look like in the preseason?
73:05It mostly looks like a lot of four down nickel stuff.
73:08But I've heard that they've been experimenting based on stories people have written from training camp with more five down stuff, walking the linebacker down.
73:15So how much front diversity do we see and just how different is the defense and how different does it feel compared
73:21to what we saw Sala do and what they've done for the most part over the last several years?
73:27That's question one. The other question is, how good is it?
73:30Because even if the pass rush is better and I don't want to start talking about the injury stuff yet because we're
73:36saving what's keeping us up at night. Bosa hasn't played.
73:39He hasn't practiced. He said yesterday he thinks he'll be able to play week one.
73:43But he's had tendinitis in that knee the entire summer and is a guy that has had trouble staying healthy.
73:48So the idea that he could be a slightly diminished version of himself.
73:52Odigizu, great. Mikel Williams, starting the year on the Pup List.
73:55Yeah, he's out until week five. So now we're already chipping away at the defensive line depth.
74:00And even if the pass rush is going to get better, this team finished dead last in run defense success rate last year.
74:06Fred Warner helps that, obviously. But the interior of the defensive line, to me, as a run defense unit, is still incredibly concerning.
74:13When we went back and we watched the defense from last year, I think there was some optimism about what Mikel Williams
74:19could be with a little bit more development. That development is already stunted coming into year two.
74:24But then the other defensive front guys on that team that were rookies last year, it wasn't good.
74:29No. And so that front, Odigizu is 280. Yeah, he's not.
74:32He's a penetrator. Yeah. And he's good at that.
74:34He is good at that. He's great at that.
74:37But this is the worst run defense in the league last year by success rate per next gen.
74:42How much better does that get? Can Fred Warner save you there?
74:45Is that enough? Maybe. But I am worried about some of the other elements of the defense.
74:50And by the way, talk about the secondary, Renato Green also missing the first game.
74:54Yeah. After hurting his hamstring in the playoffs. Not great.
74:57What's your level of belief that being back in San Francisco, standing next to Fred Warner will make Dre Greenlaw a more viable player?
75:04I think he's probably going to be fine. I don't think he'll be worse than Dee Winters.
75:08Yes. I mean, that's all it needs to be.
75:11To me, it's more about the front. The front is where my concern lies.
75:15Yes. I think if three other spots on the defense are better, you feel totally fine about Dre Greenlaw just slotting in
75:21for whatever Dee Winters gave you last year. You're still going to be able to move Oso Adigizu around.
75:26And I do think that Alfred Collins needs to take a step as what they hope to be more of their like space eating sort of guy.
75:34I think the hope is that you are incrementally better as a success rate run defense.
75:38But that a guy like Oso Adigizu and being able to send Dre Greenlaw a little bit, that just gets you into the backfield a couple more times.
75:46If we can get more second and twelves, we can start the snowball effect there.
75:50And I think that that's a lot of what it comes down to to me because they just weren't able to do
75:56a whole lot of that last year either. I'm looking at it right now just because I'm curious.
76:01Plays hit behind the line of scrimmage. They were like a bottom 12 unit.
76:0536.6% of snaps. Which doesn't sound crazy, but think about how they play.
76:09It has to be better with what you are trying to accomplish.
76:12I mean, let's, for example, let's talk about other teams that play this sort of system.
76:17Okay. The Niners last year were at 36.6%. The Browns were at 47.6%.
76:20That led the league. Right. But that's the type of defense we're talking about.
76:24Houston kind of right in the middle at 41%.
76:27So these teams that play those attacking fronts, in order for that to work for you, you have to be making negative plays.
76:33And they just weren't making a ton of them.
76:36They had a 15.8% stuff rate last year, which is also a below average rate.
76:40And so those numbers can't be below average if you're also going to be small.
76:44Yeah. Let's talk about what is keeping us up at night with these San Francisco 49ers.
76:49I'll start. This thing feels rickety as hell. Mm-hmm.
76:51You know, it feels like a wooden roller coaster.
76:54It's like I'm riding, what is it? What's the one at Six Flags?
76:57American Eagle. So I'm riding the American Eagle with Six Flags Great America.
77:01In Dallas, it's the Texas Giant. It's so fun.
77:03At Busch Gardens in Florida, it was Guazi until they replaced it.
77:07Now it's Iron Guazi because they just made it.
77:09That's right. Because you should replace it when it starts feeling rickety.
77:13Wooden roller coasters are so much more fun. I actually do enjoy it.
77:16I do enjoy the feel of a wooden roller coaster.
77:19The Viper over there at Six Flags is wonderful.
77:21But this thing feels pretty rickety. We've touched on a lot of them.
77:25But just reading through all of the considerations here.
77:28Bosa still not practicing. Tendonitis in the same knee where he tore his ACL last year.
77:32Christian McCaffrey missing a huge chunk of training camp coming off a 400-touch season.
77:36There have been 15 seasons where a running back has touched the ball at least 375 times since 2010.
77:41About half of those seasons involved dramatic fall-offs in production for those players the next year.
77:46Derrick Henry in 2021. Christian McCaffrey himself in 2020.
77:48DeMarco Murray in 2015. Josh Jacobs in 2023. Saquon last year still ran for 1,000 yards.
77:53You think Saquon looked right last year? Oh, no.
77:55It was not the same. So we have a 30-year-old back that touched the ball 400 times last year that already has
78:01been banged up for stretches of his career. And I think that's the other thing.
78:06I think in some cases you could maybe get me there on a guy who had this amount of volume still being okay.
78:12Christian McCaffrey has done exactly this already where he's had this sort of workload.
78:16He's always been a pretty high workload guy. And he was six years younger.
78:20Yes. We've seen this story before. Yeah. Mike Evans missed nine games last year, three the year before that.
78:25Some different part of his body is wrapped after every single practice.
78:29We've had an ankle. We've had a quad. It's all over the place.
78:32Michael Williams is on the pup list. Ronaldo Green was hurt in the final preseason game.
78:37I'm worried about this. Did we mention Drake Greenlaw?
78:39No. Missing most of the last season? And that happens with Drake Greenlaw.
78:43I am concerned. As somebody who has the Niners in the wins pool and the offenses draft, I am officially concerned.
78:49When it's bad in San Francisco, it's really bad.
78:51Like, we've never seen an 8-9 Kyle Shanahan 49ers team.
78:54It's either abysmal. It's either 6 or 13. It's either abysmal or they're in the divisional round of the playoffs.
79:00No in between. To be fair, the injury situation was terrible last year and they were in the divisional round of the
79:06playoffs if you're trying to be generous. And that might happen again.
79:09But what's keeping me up at night is that the best version of this team is potentially scary.
79:14They're a team that could potentially make some noise.
79:17I just don't know how realistic it is for us to realize the best version of this team.
79:22And that's the thing. Even if you can say, oh, well, they did it last year.
79:26They can do it again. Maybe. And they won, what, 12 games last year?
79:3013 maybe? 12. Did anyone really think that they were going to get through like the Seahawks and the Rams like that?
79:36They got blown away by the Seahawks in those final two games.
79:39Twice in a row. Yes, exactly. All right. The regular season finale was not getting blown away.
79:44The offense was wiped off the field. Yeah, but the defense held their own, but the offense looked like they couldn't play.
79:50The fluke fumble in the red zone changed the entire complexion of that game.
79:54The final score is whatever. I'm talking about the offensive performance and what you felt from the offense by the end of that game.
80:01Compare week. A much more healthy unit than the defense was.
80:04Compare week 18 or whatever it was, the divisional round.
80:07The playoff game was crazy. It's unbelievable. Anyway, we're arguing over some of this.
80:11This is not about the final score. This is about how the offense felt.
80:15We had like a BB gun against the tank situation in both of those games for the next season.
80:20Niners offense. That is what it felt like. Yeah, that's fair.
80:23I do. Everything you just said is right. Particularly for me, I worry about Mike Evans because the rest of these guys are like dyed in the wool.
80:3149ers. Even McCaffrey has been there long enough now that he feels like a Niner.
80:35I would hate it so much. And I'm obviously really excited about what this could look like for Mike Evans, like working
80:41with Kyle Shanahan, playing with Brock Purdy can be their downfield stretcher.
80:45But also, it's just so easy to daydream about him running like 20-yard digs and just getting these huge chunk gains.
80:50It's going to suck. If Mike Evans... The greatest Buccaneer of all time, probably?
80:54Oh, yeah. Yeah. Oh, whoa. Offensively. Hold on. Yeah.
80:57On offense. Hold on. Yeah. Offensively by far. Derrick Brooks was pretty good.
81:00John Linton. Okay. Ronday. Brooks and Sapp. The greatest offensive Buccaneer of all time.
81:04I don't even think that's a conversation. Let's just leave it at the greatest offensive Buccaneers.
81:09Yeah. Who else would it even be? Like, work done.
81:12Work done. Mike Goldstadt? Yeah. That's what we're talking about.
81:14He is a... He was a lifelong Buc. The image of him in that uniform doing cool shit for the Buccaneers.
81:20And if in five years they're using a photo of Niner Mike Evans the way that we do with, like, Celtics Shaq...
81:26Yeah. Oh, man. Oh, that's tough. That's disgusting. I don't want to be like, oh, man, remember when we were dumb enough
81:33to be excited about Niner Mike Evans? Ravens, the Andre Hopkins.
81:36I'm with you on that. So, like, if this goes bad, I'm just going to spend the whole time thinking, like, we could have just...
81:43You could have just stayed in Tampa and we would have this pristine image of Mike Evans.
81:47And so I just... I need him specifically to stay healthy.
81:50Because I'm at peace with all these other guys being banged up because that's what happens to the Niners.
81:56I am not. Sure. Well, you have something invested in this.
81:59I've got nothing invested in them, really. I don't think.
82:02So I'm good. What's keeping you up at night?
82:04Same thing? I mean, it's... I think this one is one of the easier ones that we've done for any of the 32 teams.
82:11It really is just injury. Because I obviously trust the coaching, especially on offensive side of the ball.
82:16Like, they have enough star players that if they can stay 70% as healthy as you want all these guys to, they
82:22are going to be an 11-win team. It's just a matter of, like, that feels really...
82:26That just does not feel like the most likely outcome, I would say.
82:30That's going to be fine. What does success look like, Dave, for the 2026 San Francisco 49ers?
82:35I really hate the position that this team puts you in because we just outlined all the reasons why we shouldn't have
82:41high expectations for this team or the ways that it could go sideways.
82:45And also, they got a lot of young players.
82:47And I think it's worth noting that, you know, we have this concrete image of the 2022 through 2023 for Niners.
82:53These teams that were in Super Bowls and it's CMC and George Kittle and Trent Williams and Nick Bosa and Debo Samuel.
82:59They are cycling the roster over. Like, young talent is coming into this team.
83:03Whether it's the rookies that played defense last year or you're excited about stripling.
83:07Michael Williams will be back at some point. For any other team, you could come up with a way that this season
83:13is successful if those guys just develop and you surpass some expectations.
83:16But for where this franchise has been and where the core of players has been, is anything short of a championship going to make anybody feel better?
83:24I love that you're doing this because I had such a hard time answering the question for this exact reason.
83:30What are you supposed to tell Trent Williams, Christian McCaffrey, Nick Bosa, Fred Warner, and Mike Evans if this thing, you're like,
83:36hey, our rookies got, our rookies had a good season and we went nine and eight and next year is going to be great.
83:42You think any of them want to hear that shit?
83:45You're 100% right. And that's why I didn't know the answer because for most teams with their preseason expectations, be like, oh,
83:51you know, you get to the divisional round. Great.
83:54You know, get to the divisional round. You feel good about it.
83:57And not feel like you're going to get blown out by the Seahawks.
84:01But even if that happens, let's just say this team gets the divisional round.
84:05They go punch for punch, haymaker for haymaker with the Seahawks or the Rams and they lose.
84:10Is that success? No, we're going to be having the when is Kyle Shanahan going to do it conversations.
84:15And think about all the guys who might not be on the team next year.
84:19The stuff that makes this team good at its best, other than and I meant to mention to like Hurdy's young and he's under contract and that's exciting.
84:27But again, the core that made these teams so special, they're they're aging out.
84:31They're closer to the end of their careers than the beginning by a long shot.
84:35I mean, part of me is still amazed that Trent Williams is still playing NFL football with all should be at this level.
84:41And I think even if they're good, we've already seen the best football from Mike Evans, Trent Williams, George Kittle, Christian McCaffrey.
84:47We've probably Nick Bosa too. We've already seen their best football and they can still be really good.
84:53But the best is gone. They're victims of their own success.
84:56Like because of how close they've been without a trophy to show for it.
84:59That's all I can think about is like, what are you and what are you supposed to tell fans that have been
85:06within a completion to Brandon Iuke in overtime of the Super Bowl away from winning a championship that like going 10 and
85:12seven and having some dudes for next year? Like, is that supposed to make you feel better?
85:17It wouldn't make me feel better. It was the hardest team to come up with the right answer for, for everything that you're saying.
85:23What did you say? I mean, I wouldn't have.
85:26I think it is like, this is weirdly a roster where the expectations are like you should.
85:30Again, I think I'm not going to put winning the Super Bowl on most.
85:34I think if you get there, there's we at least think about this team a little bit differently.
85:39But like, even though this is not typically a roster, I would describe that to like you should you should probably try to get there.
85:46I fully do not expect them to get there.
85:49That's what I'm saying. I don't either. I don't either.
85:52We've done 30 other teams at this point with every other team that we've talked about the way that we framed success
85:58feels achievable in a very real way. Like it's within their grasp to to get there with this team.
86:03Theoretically, it's true. But it what you just outlined as success feels as far off for this team as anything that we have said about anybody else.
86:11And I disagree with nothing that you said. Yeah, it's a tough spot to be.
86:15And it sucks to be that close that many times.
86:18I don't know what else to say. Great. Let's get to the Arizona Cardinals.
86:22Our preview for the 2026 Arizona Cardinals. They're offseason in 60 seconds.
86:25Hired Michael Fleur as their head coach. Kept Nick Rawls as the defensive coordinator.
86:29Signed Isaac Salamalu, Kendrick Bourne, Elijah Wilkinson, Tyler Algier, Andrew Wingard, Roy Lopez, Andrew Billings, and Jack Gibbons in free agency.
86:35Lost Dalvin Tomlinson, Calais Campbell, Jalen Thompson, and Evan Brown.
86:38In the draft, Jeremiah Love in the first round.
86:40Chase Besontas in the second round. I already on IR, sadly.
86:43And Carson Beck in the third round. Derek, what are you most excited about as it relates to the Arizona Cardinals?
86:49I know this was kind of true last year and they still weren't a very good team.
86:54But like the offense is really talented. Like they have a lot of dudes.
86:58Like you draft Jeremiah Love third overall. And we'll see what you know when he looks fully healthy this year.
87:03But I like he's an exceptional bag, especially as a home run hitter, which I think if there was any issue with
87:09this team, like finding just can we give this guy the ball and he will make it an explosive play.
87:15The fact that they now have that, I think, in Jeremiah Love is exciting.
87:19Trey McBride, probably the best tight end in football, at least for now until Colson Loveland takes that takes the crown.
87:25Atta boy. And then Michael Wilson, who they just extended, who is a really good wide receiver.
87:29And then listen, I know Marvin Harrison Jr. is not what we wanted from the fourth overall pick.
87:34He's like a he's a solid NFL starting wide receiver and still one that I do think that there's a chance that
87:41he can get a little bit better, even if the ceiling's not ever as high as we wanted to be.
87:46Just do the old draft thing and flip Michael Wilson and Marvin Harrison.
87:50Yeah, right. You got one for overall. You got the other one later.
87:53That brings me to mine. I'm very excited about the skill position talent.
87:57I am even more excited about the skill position talent filter to the ideas of this offense.
88:02Yeah, because if we're going to figure out what that next gear potentially looks like for Marvin Harrison, this offense to me
88:08is a way to potentially realize some of that stuff.
88:11We've said it a lot over the course of the summer.
88:14If you think about the way the Rams play and the way that the Cardinals play, you could not find two offenses
88:20that are more different in the ways that they approach some of this stuff.
88:24The Cardinals were in spread formations on 28% of their snaps last year per next gen.
88:28That was the third highest rate in the league.
88:31They were condensed 30 and a half percent of the time.
88:34The Rams were in spread looks on 7.3% of their snaps last year.
88:38That was the second lowest rate in the league.
88:40The Cardinals were using motion at the snap on 20.6% of their snaps last season.
88:44That was the lowest rate in the NFL. Now, the Rams were at 54.7%, which was the third highest rate in the league.
88:51More than double. Two and a half times. The Rams threw 133 passes last year to a receiver who was in motion at the snap.
88:58No other team in the league had more than 95.
89:01The Cardinals did it 18 times. That's crazy. That's gross.
89:03It's not, I don't even, it's not even a value thing.
89:06This isn't even a good bad. It is a, it is a stylistic difference.
89:10It seems kind of bad considering how good offenses that do that more often look most of the time.
89:16And for them, I think it's the combination of stylistic difference.
89:19And also like when you're behind 14 points in every game, doing all the like motion stuff and like, you know, trying to play that way.
89:26I think it's just going to be a little bit harder.
89:29You might be a little bit more spread out and we just got to chuck it.
89:33And we'll talk about the defense later. But I think even just having the starting point being that the offense wants to feel that way.
89:40This is just going to look and feel so much different than it did last year.
89:45And I think for Marvin Harrison Jr. Specifically, this is a change that could unlock a different version of him.
89:50Marvin Harrison Jr. Stuck outside the numbers as a static X receiver.
89:54And you asking, he's a good route runner. He's not a contested catch player.
89:58That is not where he, that's not where you see the benefits.
90:01Having him in some more condensed formations, running more digs, in breakers, just quick hitting stuff over the middle of the field.
90:07I think he can be good at that. I think that's what he should do.
90:11And I think this offense is going to ask him to do more of that than the previous offense did.
90:17And so I'm with you on a baseline level.
90:20I think there's a decent amount of offensive talent here.
90:22I think that combined with the fact that we're going to see them use differently is a worthwhile reason to get excited about this team.
90:29Harrison has been very complimentary of Mike LaFleur and the new coaching staff in general.
90:34So it seems like he's excited about the change.
90:36What are you most excited about with the 2026 Cardinals?
90:39It's going to sound kind of passive aggressive because I'm paraphrasing Vincent Vega from the classic Pulp Fiction.
90:44But I got to see what a number three overall running back looks like.
90:48If that's what we're going to do. Well, then I want to see Jeremiah Love look really good because and I understand Monty Austin for its logic.
90:55We talked about it and maybe not overthinking it when you're in that slot.
90:59But there are things that they could have done to set a foundation for themselves beyond try to drop a running back into this situation.
91:06And they didn't do it. And I'll give them the credit of saying because I know like this, this offensive line isn't exciting.
91:13But where did they spend their money this year?
91:15Isaac Sumalo is that left guard now. Thirty million dollar contract.
91:18Paris Johnson, Isaac Sumalo and Yalta Froholt. You can have some fun running to the left.
91:23Maybe just go left. Don't worry about the right side of the office.
91:26They really like Isaiah Adams. They really like Isaiah Adams.
91:29So Chase Pesontis is out for the year now anyway.
91:32But even before that happened, I talked to people in Phoenix who were like, yeah, Isaiah Adams might hold him off anyway.
91:38That was the plan. Yeah. The plan was for Isaiah.
91:41They're really excited about Isaiah Adams. The Pesontis thing was going to be Adams and Pesontis starting maybe next year as a
91:47guard duo of the future where they drafted Pesontis not thinking he's going to start right away.
91:52They drafted him being like, that's the best player.
91:54Like that is the best player available. Salamalo is already on the roster.
91:58We can't pass up on this guy. We think he's a first rounder.
92:01He was close. I'm choosing to believe this can be fun because they used a number three overall pick on a running back.
92:08And I hate to bring it up because it's a bummer, but the last running back to get drafted that highly was Saquon.
92:14And we know how that went. And he was transcendent at times in New York.
92:19But did that wind up feeling like the best way to use a top three pick?
92:23Not really. And I want better than that for Jeremiah Love.
92:26I'm choosing to believe this can be fun. But I want it to be fun.
92:30I want to be excited about this. And it needs to be to justify a decision like that.
92:35And I think I feel that way about the whole offense and the whole skill position group.
92:40Like I want this to be fun. Michael Wilson making $25 million a year, I think is a very not surprising at all, by the way.
92:47Because when I was looking at that situation before that contract got signed today, and if I'm Michael Wilson and they're offering
92:53me something like that, you could have played out the string.
92:56Why can't you be Alec Pierce next year? Why can't it be 30?
93:00But 25 is still a decent chunk of change.
93:03And so I think he's that sort of player where he would have been the prize if he had taken this all the way to free agency.
93:10So that combined with Harrison, Trey McBride, what you're talking about at running back, I think that there is a lot to like about this group.
93:17And this is a small one, or these are two small ones while we're here.
93:22Kendrick Bourne I do feel better about than any wide receiver three that they had last year.
93:26Not a door shed? Yeah. No, not really. He's small.
93:29So I do at least feel a little bit better about that.
93:33And then I really wanted Tyler Algier to be a starting running back somewhere.
93:36But the fact that that is your other guy who is going to get touches for Jeremiah Love, like I do think
93:43that the floor of the run game is significantly higher.
93:45Because I think, you know, there were some structural issues with the offense last year in terms of the run game.
93:51And like the offensive line wasn't as good or healthy as it was last year.
93:55But also like a million running backs for them were hurt.
93:58Like they just didn't have any of their players.
94:01And so now the fact that it's Jeremiah Love and Tyler Algier, who I'm pretty confident is a very good running back.
94:07Okay, man. Like the floor for this thing is way higher.
94:10And then if Love is healthy, fully healthy by October, and he can really give you some of those home runs, I can see the vision.
94:17Kendrick Bourne was undrafted in 2017 and is going on year 10.
94:21He's had a great career. Exceptional career. He got paid $10 million to go add to the receiver room in Arizona.
94:27Like my favorite type of football player. Well, part of that is Michael Fleur loves Kendrick Bourne.
94:31And Kendrick Bourne loves him. He said it when they signed him.
94:35LeFleur was on that staff in San Francisco when Kendrick Bourne got there.
94:38And so Michael Fleur loves Kendrick Bourne. Two wrinkles that I want to just mention before we kind of close the book on the offense for right now.
94:46I think Wilson is a really good fit within this scheme because of what he's willing to do as a blocker.
94:52Like him being in that puka-esque Z role where you're asking him to do a lot of the dirty work.
94:58He's willing to do that. That is not a square peg in a round hole.
95:02That's going to be a pretty seamless fit. But there is a reason I have Michael Wilson on every fantasy team I've drafted over the last month.
95:09The other part, how much 13 do we see?
95:12And the trade for Hunter Long, they just traded for Hunter Long.
95:15Okay. And I think that is a we need a third tight end.
95:19Because I think that is actually similar to the conversation we're having about the Rams where if you're in 12th and it's Trey McBride and Elijah Higgins.
95:26And they're playing nickel, where's your advantage? If you're in 13, I think Elijah Higgins actually becomes a really interesting player.
95:32He used to be a wide receiver. Because he is, I think, a potent pass-catching option within the right offense.
95:38And the Cardinals have used a ton of 13 personnel over the last couple years.
95:42But I think for this group specifically, that is where I think you feel the impact Elijah Higgins could make a little
95:48bit more than you would as that pass-catching option in 12th personnel.
95:52And then when Ryman gets back, the group changes.
95:54Obviously because Ryman becomes an extra offense. He is really good.
95:57He's just not healthy. He just hasn't missed most of the last season, unfortunately.
96:01Let's talk about what we're watching the first month of the season with the Arizona Cardinals.
96:06Dave, what do you got for me? How feisty is a healthy Cardinals defense?
96:09And really, how feisty are the Cardinals if they're healthy at all?
96:13I'm stealing this shamelessly from the FDN Almanac. Thank you to those guys who do such a great job.
96:18The 2025 Cardinals lost the second highest number of adjusted games due to injury in the 25-year history of them charting that statistic.
96:25That's how banged up they were last year. Froholt was the only member of their offensive line that started all 17 games.
96:31Five different DBs went to injured reserve for a significant amount of time.
96:34Mack Wilson missed half the season. Walter Nolan tore his meniscus in December after looking really promising in the second half of the year.
96:41Will Johnson missed a month or more of the season, the second-round cornerback.
96:45Who else am I missing? I mean, their running back room was completely decimated over the course of the year.
96:50James Conner and Trey Benson both were out. If you pull up the chart of, like, injured, out for the week, on
96:56IR period, it's just a wall of red when you look at the Cardinals.
97:00That doesn't even include the fact that the week one starting quarterback missed half the year.
97:05And we know by now that that wasn't really injury-related.
97:08But you sit Kyler Murray down in November. Just a brutal year in terms of production loss, particularly on the defensive side of the ball.
97:15And there are guys here that are worth being excited about.
97:18Josh Sweat quietly was worth the contract that they gave him, even though you wouldn't know it.
97:22Walter Nolan, for that brief flash. I mean, Robert, you drafted him second overall.
97:26I'm going to talk about it in about two seconds.
97:29In the breakout player draft. Maybe we'll finally see a healthy, productive Darius Robinson.
97:33Garrett Williams back healthy. I mean, there's all kinds of intriguing pieces here, if they can stay on the field long enough to show it.
97:40The fact that Garrett Williams is back, and it sounds like he's going to play early in the season coming off that Achilles, that's pretty remarkable.
97:47He's been practicing for a couple weeks now, and so he's trending to being available.
97:51Achilles are made out of silly putty now. It's amazing.
97:54Because that was one of the things I was most worried about, is those end-of-season injuries being like, how long are those going to linger into the year?
98:02Nolan had most of an offseason. He came back really quickly, and then the fact that Garrett Williams is already back, that makes me feel much better.
98:10So I'm with you. I think a healthy version of this defense looks dramatically better.
98:14The defense, before it got banged up last year, was fine.
98:17Yeah, it was fine. They were like the middle-of-the-pack unit.
98:20It was fine. The first thing I wanted to mention about the defense that I think is interesting is just the dynamics
98:26going on between the defensive coordinator and the head coach.
98:29They kept Nick Rollis, which I'm always interested in.
98:31That is always an eyebrow-raising move when the incoming coach keeps a guy.
98:35And you know what else? There's another layer to that.
98:37He played against them twice a year. And so the fact that he had to face this defense twice a year and
98:44was willing to keep the defensive coordinator, I think, says a lot about what they feel about the quality of the defensive coordinator.
98:50There's a chance that they looked elsewhere, and a better option might not have been there.
98:55But the fact that they were willing to do this, I think, does say something.
98:59Do you remember two years ago when Brock Purdy lost to the Vikings?
99:02And after the game, the mics picked him up saying, like, this is an insane defense.
99:07Like, what the heck is this? Maybe that's what Mike LaFleur said.
99:10I think that's right. I feel like they're because – I mean, it is one of the weirder defenses in the NFL.
99:16Them and the Vikings are probably one and two.
99:19And so them keeping him, I think, is interesting.
99:21And for a defensive – this can happen where you're a defensive coordinator.
99:25Nick Rollis is only 33. He's been a defensive coordinator for the only three years he's been in Arizona.
99:30He's still a very young coach. It's different than being a defensive coordinator for an offensive-minded head coach because you are not
99:36getting the perspective of what it is like for the offense to go against you.
99:41And so I think the feedback that Nick Rollis has gotten from Mike LaFleur starting early in the offseason and then all
99:47the way through the offseason is different than he ever would have gotten when he was working under Jonathan Gannon.
99:52And that's not Jonathan Gannon's fault. It's just the dynamics at play.
99:56And what I think is really interesting is that the Rams' mindset all the time offensively is how do we keep this
100:02thing as streamlined as we possibly can? Like no superfluous bullshit.
100:05What do we need and how can we dress that up 25 different ways?
100:09The Cardinals' defense, the volume and breadth of it was extensive.
100:12And I think having an offensive coach who thinks that way of, I'm eliminating everything I don't need.
100:17And extending that thought process and mindset to the defense is interesting.
100:20And I will be very curious about what sort of impact that potentially has on what this version of the weird-ass Nick Rollis approach actually looks like.
100:28Yeah. And like they're just one of those defenses too where like they played more three safety than just about anybody.
100:34And the three safety stuff to me often feels like the six offensive line thing where it's like, did you really want to play that way?
100:41Or did you just kind of arrive at a spot where this happened to be the best way to get guys on the field?
100:48I think they really want to play that way.
100:50Really? Yeah. That feels fake to me. I'm sorry.
100:53That's what makes it so fun. It is like a cool, unique oddity.
100:56To me, that feels like one of those things that is like not a lasting way to live in the NFL.
101:02I think it's two things. I think it allows you to disguise in a way that really no other defense in the
101:08NFL can because they're not willing to lean into it that way.
101:12And I think it is an expression of one specific player in his skill set.
101:16Buda is a pretty special player. Yes. Like the fact that he can kind of just, I feel like teams have dabbled
101:22before with like, we'll just have this roving safety and he'll figure it out.
101:26And it's like Buda Baker is about the only guy that has like really successfully done that at a high level.
101:32You know, obviously Kyle Hamilton and like Derwin James could, but Buda Baker is a pretty special player.
101:37I think it's about one disguise and about being able to get beats on coverages before the snap happens.
101:42But it's also, I was talking to, I can't remember which coach I was talking to this about over the course of
101:48the summer, but we were talking about too high structures and what they do to run fits.
101:53And so having three safeties and not knowing where Buda is going to end up on any play can with your run stuff.
101:59And so I think they, I think they believe there are benefits to it in ways that other teams cannot enjoy because
102:06of how they're structured and what the ways they're willing to play.
102:09And maybe this is a me problem, but like I did study their defense a little bit this off season.
102:14Cause I was watching Cody Simon, actually, who we can talk about in a little bit.
102:19Um, I think that's one of those things that like the offense doesn't know how it's going to fit.
102:24And I think sometimes the guys, the defense doesn't know exactly how it's going to fit.
102:29And I'm like, if you've got the dudes for it, it works.
102:32But I think whether or not Arizona actually does in the backend outside of Buda Baker, I think I'm a little bit
102:38less certain really quickly on Buda Baker, by the way.
102:41Do you realize he's made eight Pro Bowls? Like he has like a hall of fame career.
102:46Maybe I don't know if we realized that I didn't until I pulled it up.
102:50I was like, that's, that's a lot. I know we say this and he's probably got room for a couple more.
102:56We say this about a lot of guys, but like criminally just under, under noticed because of the fact that Arizona just
103:02hasn't had a whole lot to get excited about for the vast majority of his career.
103:06He got there not long after the 2015 team.
103:09After they were insane. Yeah. He got there not long after that.
103:12And then they built their way up. But even like 2021 was as good as it got.
103:17And that was a wildcard team. Mm-hmm. Sucks. But yeah, I, you're, you're not wrong.
103:21He's been outstanding for forever. What I'm watching the first month of the season is also defense related.
103:26What do we get from the 2025 rookies? Mm-hmm.
103:29That it's simple to me because I do think you have 2026 rookies, 2025.
103:33Oh, like this year two guys. Because they only got one guy this year who was in the sixth round.
103:38He probably is not going to play. So I, because I do think Garrett Williams, Buda Baker, Josh Sweat, Mack Wilson, even
103:44a combination of Zayvon Collins, Denzel Burke and Max Melton in that second outside corner spot.
103:49I think there are a lot of capable defensive players on this team.
103:53Who are the difference makers? Who are the needle movers?
103:55The guys who I think have the best opportunity to be that are Walter Nolan and Will Johnson.
104:00Absolutely. Do they become those players? That, that's what I'm watching.
104:03Like where, because even if you feel if the defense is healthier, you can reach a certain baseline of quality based on the guys that are there.
104:11The thing that's going to allow you to punch through that is having guys that actually change things for you on that side of the ball.
104:18And those are the two guys who are going to be able to do it.
104:22This has been a theme during all of these previews.
104:25I'm always very quick to say, let's give these guys a lot of leeway.
104:29If they're coming back from injury, you're not just going to hop in there and make a difference.
104:34You remember Walter Nolan debuted against Dallas like midway through last year.
104:37Right off the bat as a rookie, he was just like, holy shit.
104:41All right. I guess he doesn't need a ramp up period.
104:44I, and I've been chasing that high ever since.
104:47And that's the high I want to chase in the first month of the season.
104:51And there are, those are the two premier rookies from that class, but they still have a bunch of like Kobe Simon
104:57will start at linebacker again this off season. He, there were some up and down moments with him, but I think athletically
105:03you, you, at least I saw it. Like, I do think that he looks like a guy who has not that he's
105:09ever going to be a star, but can be a totally solid will linebacker for you.
105:14Jordan Birch. They drafted in the third round last year, had a couple of moments last season.
105:19Denzel Burke was like shockingly. Okay. When he had to play for them, they really like their cornerback depth on the outside.
105:25The fact that they feel like they, with Melton and Burke, they have two realistic options.
105:29That's a luxury. And Burke is Dave. You would, you would especially know this.
105:33There's just this thing that happens sometimes with draft prospects.
105:36Denzel Burke early in his college career, people were like, that's going to be a first round pick.
105:41Like he's going to be a guy. He's the next one up at Ohio state, whatever it was going to be.
105:47Just never really panned out that way. Happens all the time.
105:50You get to the NFL and it's like, oh, nevermind.
105:53He does have, you know, maybe not first round talent, but it's like he, that is an NFL starting caliber player.
105:58Especially at programs like Ohio state where the next first round pick is coming to get benched.
106:03He's coming behind you immediately. And I think the Darius Robinson's also named to mention he, his career has been weird up
106:09to this point, but still a young player. Like there are some guys that you could reasonably expect as young pieces to take a step.
106:16And it's really Darius Robinson's second NFL season at this point.
106:19I mean, you think about the games that he's missed.
106:22Let's talk about what's keeping us up at night about the Arizona Cardinals.
106:26Derek, what do you got for me? It's the flip side of a lot of things that we just said.
106:31Like I'm, I'm just worried that we are going to get through another season with this team where all of the defensive
106:38talent still feels like kind of abstract and theoretical.
106:40And it's just bits. It's just these flashes. It's these moments of like, ah, you know, he was good at this.
106:46And then he missed a bunch of time or had this part of his game never really came together.
106:51And if it all comes together, if all seven dominoes fall, this can be like a top 14 ish style of defense.
106:57They can be totally solid. It's just a lot of guys with injury history.
107:01It's a lot of young and project D players who you're not sure if they're going to take that next step.
107:07And I think we're baking that in because it's a little bit of, you know, same defensive coordinator guys who have shown flashes.
107:14But I'm just worried that they've spent so many resources here to get this thing off the ground.
107:19And it's just another year of like, ah, you know, maybe.
107:22I'm the same way, but on the other side, specifically, well, specifically weird spot for a team to be in.
107:27It's Marv for me. I mean, he was so hyped coming out of college.
107:31Like he didn't have a draft process. That's how highly regarded he was and how confident we were in his ability.
107:37Amazing college player. And it definitely hasn't been bad.
107:40If you go look at the stats, like it's not this catastrophe that I think people make it out to be, but he was a top five pick.
107:47And if Michael Fleur, who bare minimum, like he's he's coming from from that world, he's coached with Shanahan, he's coached with McVay.
107:54He's Matt LaFleur's brother. If a if a well-respected offensive coach like this can't unlock the higher level and for all the
108:00reasons you just mentioned about how they might make it easier on him and get him moving around a little bit more often.
108:06If it doesn't look the way it's supposed to this year, then I just I worry that it's over.
108:12And that sucks because he was such a highly anticipated prospect.
108:15And. We'll see like Malik neighbors has his own concerns, but that's mainly injury related.
108:19Yeah, there's no concerns about what Malik neighbors when he's when he's healthy.
108:23Malik neighbors looks like how we thought he might.
108:25Yeah. And so not getting that after three years with Marvin Harrison would be a tough pill to swallow.
108:30I think I'm just in a place where is it theoretical in the coaching staff to like that way you just said about Michael Fleur?
108:37Like what if he isn't a difference maker? Sure.
108:40What if like this is the swing you took in the next stage of your franchise and you're not getting the returns
108:46you thought you were going to get by dipping into this system and plucking off of that tree?
108:51Because everything else is kind of like there's no like specific thing about the team because who cares?
108:56Like if a team wins three games this year, we'll talk about success.
109:00There's nothing specific that's keeping me up. It's more about what if this wasn't the right pivot?
109:04What if this isn't the right group? If that's the case and now you're drawn dead again, that would be the thing
109:11that would be keeping me up at night. Yeah.
109:13Even though I do have faith in it. I have some amount of faith in it again because it is a really talented offense.
109:20Like I just keeping up at night a little bit too.
109:23If I had a second one, it would be like, you're not certain that this offense is a quarterback away.
109:28That would be kind of freaky. Yeah. That would be freaky.
109:32So let's do with success. Yeah. What a success for the 2026 Arizona Cardinals.
109:35You do feel like you are a quarterback away.
109:38Yes. That's a good way to put it. I said, I just, all the young guys we just mentioned, I want love Nolan and Marv to look awesome.
109:46And I want to be talking about Mike LaFleur for reasons that have nothing to do with him being Matt LaFleur's brother
109:52or playing Jeremiah love too much in the preseason or playing Jeremiah love too much in the preseason.
109:57If you come out of this feeling excited about at least a few of the young big time draft picks and you're
110:03like, yeah, Mike LaFleur is a guy. That's, that's enough for me.
110:06Proof of concept on offense. The foursome you have on that side of the ball is truly formidable.
110:11Looks the scariest it has since you drafted Marvin Harrison Jr.
110:15Your young picks on defense, a couple of them turn into needle moving players.
110:18And we cannot wait to see who plays quarterback for this team next year.
110:22That's a lot, but it's going to be a lot when you don't have a clear like wins goal.
110:28You know what I mean? Like it's got to be like a little bit more.
110:32Maybe it's only three of those need to happen.
110:34But that to me is the best case scenario.
110:37Those are what you're shooting for. Cardinal season can look like.
110:40Another way to say the same thing. Let's spend the spring being excited about which quarterback goes there instead of the litany
110:46of think pieces about whether we should abolish the draft rather than subject a quarterback to Arizona.
110:51Because that'll happen if this looks like shit. Their schedule is brutal, right?
110:54Like they could win very few games and still have a successful season.
110:58The wins and losses are immaterial to me. If all of those things happen, they can win three games.
111:03I wouldn't give a shit because that's possible. There is a chance that they are just like the 18th best offense, the
111:1020th best defense, and they win four games because their schedule is brutal.
111:13I mean, I know it didn't. I know how it wound up aging, obviously, but Jonathan Gannon's first season was exactly that.
111:19Yeah, they went four and 13. It was like, I don't care if you're paying attention.
111:24This isn't bad. And so it's definitely doable. All right.
111:27That is all we've got. 32 team previews in the books.
111:30NFC West is all done. Sincerely appreciate all of you for tuning in and being a part of this.
111:35It is a, it's a fun two weeks. I really enjoy doing this.
111:39It's one of my favorite things that we do on the show.
111:42So thank you to everyone for tuning in and sticking around with us.
111:46That is all we've got. We will be back on Monday with the wins pool draft that we recorded at the live
111:52show this week, dropping in your audio feeds. I cannot wait to be embarrassed and terrified the entire season.
111:57That's all we got. Appreciate you guys listening. We'll talk to you soon.
112:01Thanks for tuning in. Make sure to hit that subscribe or follow button so you never miss an episode.
112:06If you enjoyed what you heard, please like, comment, and leave a rating.
112:10We'll see you next time.
