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- [00:00]
Dave Hellman
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- [00:30]
Robert Mays
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- [00:57]
Derek Klasson
Qualifying credit required.
- [01:03]
Sponsor/Ad Voice
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- [01:56]
Robert Mays
To the Athletic Football show. The division previews are here. Very excited about this. We're kicking things off with the NFC East Me, Derek Classen, Dave Hellman breaking down all four teams hit a bunch of different categories as we have in our pre division previews over the years. What we're watching the first month of the season, what we're most excited about, the biggest swing points this team has. What's keeping us up at night about these teams and what what does a successful season look like for every team in the NFC East? Let's dig into that right now. We are finally here. It is time for the division previews on the Athletic football Show. And Derek, there was really no other place we could start other than the division that houses the defending super bowl champions. So we are doing the NFC east today.
- [02:46]
Derek Klasson
I mean, that's one of those things. Like the NFL gets that right every year, right? We open the season with, you know, the games coming off of whoever won the Super Bowl. And so I feel like it's, it's only right that we do the same thing here.
- [02:57]
Robert Mays
I didn't mean to make you do the Cowboys on like our first big show of the year game. I think it just kind of happened to land that way. That wasn't even in front of mind for me whatsoever.
- [03:06]
Dave Hellman
I think that's best though, and just get it out of the way. Like, I don't, I don't want to linger on it. I don't want to have to think about it. We can just rip the band aid off, talk through it and we can carry on with more uplifting teams later.
- [03:20]
Robert Mays
Done this over the last couple years. There's going to be a bunch of categories for all of these teams. Some of them are carryovers from last year, some of them are new. But we're going to have a lot of fun with all the new ones that we are, including here. So let's start here. It is our Preview for the 2025 Philadelphia Eagles. If you guys are watching on YouTube, we would love if you liked and subscribed to the channel, please let us know your thoughts. Where we're wrong about this stuff, where we might be right, who you agree, who you disagree with, all of that fun stuff. Let's dig into it. The Eagles off season in 60 seconds extended Nick Sirianni promoted Kevin Patulo to their offensive coordinator after losing Kellen Moore to the New Orleans Saints as their head coach. Extended Cam Jurgens, extended Saquan Barkley way earlier than they needed to. Brock Bat brought bat Zach bond on a three year, $51 million deal with $34 million guaranteed. Traded for John Mei. Recently acquired Jacorian Bennett from the Raiders to be in their corner Mix small deals and free agency for Azizo Jalari, Josh Uche Adori and they traded Kenyon Green for CJ Gardner. Johnson drafted Jihad Campbell in the first round, Andrew Makuba, the safety in the second round, Ty Robinson and defensive tackle in the fourth round. Losses in free agency. There are a lot of them. Milton Williams, Josh Sweat, Darius Slay, Makai Becton, Isaiah Rogers and the aforementioned C.J. gardner Johnson. I'm going to try to keep all of those under a minute. I think I can do it this year.
- [04:38]
Dave Hellman
That was impressive.
- [04:39]
Robert Mays
Start our previews for every one of these teams with what we are excited about in 2025. Just a heads up, not all three of us are going to answer every single one of these questions. These shows would be seven hours long if we did that. So just because one of us doesn't have an answer to this doesn't mean we're not excited about a particular team. I just want to get ahead of that as quickly as we can. Dave, why don't you kick it off here? What are you most excited about watching with the 2025 Philadelphia Eagles?
- [05:07]
Dave Hellman
I think I'm just excited to see if the Eagles can keep being right and if they can keep staying ahead of schedule and in particular, general manager Howie Roseman. I just feel like my favorite thing about the Philadelphia Eagles over the last four or five years, other than just that they're good at football, is this more than most others, feels like a team that has prepared for the future excellently. Like they are making decisions one and two and in some cases even three years down the line that are bearing fruit. That can be as obvious as drafting Jalen hurts when Carson Wentz is still on your team, that could be drafting Cam Jurgens while Jason Kelsey is still playing at an all pro level and saying, hey, it might not be for a while, but at some point this guy's gonna step in and be our center of the future and being right about it. By the way, that's drafting Nicobe Dean while TJ Edwards is doing a good job in the middle of your defense. That's drafting Nolan Smith while Hassan Reddick and Josh Sweat are still doing their thing. That is setting aside a draft pick for a future year when you don't need to and then using it to help you acquire Jalen Carter, which is the type of thing that super bowl contenders are not supposed to be capable of. But this team has had a blueprint and a roadmap that has been one or two years ahead of time, I would say since probably 2020. And nobody's going to be right 100% of the time, but Howie Roseman has been so right so often and what's his reward for that? Having to do it again basically. Like that is. That's the challenge. Like now it's okay. Nolan Smith is fun when he's in a complimentary role. Can he step up and be part of your, like a core part of your Pass rush. Can you deal with the loss of Milton Williams in free agency? Is Tyler Steen gonna step up and be a great guard the way that Cam Jurgens was a great center and on and on and on. So it's been incredibly impressive. I'm excited to see if they can keep doing it because being right about so many of these personnel moves I think is why they've played in two Super Bowls in the last few years. But you got to keep being right about that stuff to stay ahead of the curve and remain one of the best teams in the league.
- [07:28]
Robert Mays
We'll touch on this in a few different areas, but there are so many young guys stepping into those roles this year that have become waiting in the wings, the J Links Hunts of the world. And I think there are already some of those spots, Dave, where there's. They're not happy with how this is going. That's why the Jacorian Bennett trade happens because they're a little bit worried about Keely Ringo taking that job. So I think the hit rate this year is probably going to be a little bit mixed. But even if they get two or three of those, they put themselves in position considering the state of their offense and the amount of continuity there to again Derek, maybe be the most talented team in the league even with all those young guys stepping in.
- [08:02]
Derek Klasson
Well and I think for me part of like the planning for the future is I think what we see with most other contenders is you have your one year of greatness and then it's probably not that's easy the next year unless you have Patrick Mahomes and you're at that point, you're cheating. But again, we've mentioned this with the Niners like a million times. They'll have a year where they win 12, 13 games and the next year do they win like eight and they miss the playoffs. But if you're down year for Philly because of how well you've like built ahead of time, is a 10 win team that can still win the division, 11 win team that can still win the division. That's a pretty good dang good down year if you can. Again, some of these rookies show promise and then again for 20, 26 you can kind of reload and try to get back to the super bowl like you do every couple years.
- [08:41]
Robert Mays
It seems they do have the benefit of being able to throw the money around that they're able to throw around and being able to retain most of their really, really good players helps here. You know, there are some teams where Zach Bond has the season out of nowhere that he had. You don't budget for that and you just lose Zach Bond in free agency.
- [08:59]
Derek Klasson
Zach Bond, the Bengal does not stay in Cincinnati. Like. Correct.
- [09:03]
Robert Mays
That's not in the Cards. The Eagles are able to do that. And I will say the hit rate has been excellent. And they do a very good job of having a lot of draft picks. They're always finding those thirds or fourths in the couch cushions, mostly thanks to Mickey Loomis. And that's how they volume shoot. Right? I mean, that. That's what this team does. They. They're so proactive. The hit rate, if you actually look at it like, we remember all the trades that work. We remember the Ronald Darby trade and we remember the C.J. gardner Johnson trade. There are plenty of, like, Ugo Amati trades waiting back there that didn't actually work, but because they do so many of them, it doesn't really matter. And that's kind of how the Bryce Huff thing was last year, because the Zach Bond thing works. We don't talk about Bryce Huff doing absolutely nothing for the Eagles on a massive deal and then getting traded. So I do think that the batting average is probably lower than we give Howie Roseman credit for, but he's taken so many at bats that this team is consistently in a very good spot.
- [09:57]
Dave Hellman
And I don't think you can have this conversation without mentioning, like, they whiffed on Justin Jefferson. I'm well aware that the Eagles are fallible when it.
- [10:06]
Robert Mays
That was like two Super Bowls ago.
- [10:08]
Dave Hellman
Exactly. And when you do it with this regularity and this, like, I think the, the volume point is a great one because if you just put up enough, you're going to get where you want to go with even an above average hit rate. And for the record, yeah, the Bryce Huff thing is bad, but to even bail on that early enough that you get a draft pick back for it by trading him to San Francisco. It's stuff like that that I like to see where even your failures, you can, like, mitigate them enough to help you out in the long run. And I just. It's definitely not perfect, but it's.
- [10:43]
Derek Klasson
It.
- [10:43]
Dave Hellman
It's been a heater, in my opinion, for about four or five years at this point. And Howie Roseman's been doing this long enough to know he would probably admit, off the record at least, that he knows he can't do this forever. Like, there's gonna be some bad whiffs and maybe it'll be this draft class where it's like Ah. If we had just done this differently, maybe the defense would have been another level better, you know, and. Hold on. Yeah.
- [11:07]
Robert Mays
Whoa, whoa, whoa.
- [11:07]
Derek Klasson
What are we saying about.
- [11:09]
Dave Hellman
It's just an example. I'm just. I love that idea. And we talk about it with other contenders all the time, where it's like, see, this is why you've got to nail your draft picks. You've got to do this, you got to do that. And the Eagles are not perfect, but I think they're doing it better than pretty much everybody else over the last four or five years.
- [11:26]
Robert Mays
There's plenty to be excited about in a bunch of different areas, and we could easily throw out, like watching Saquon Barkley again. The amount of pure talent that they have on offense, we'll get to a lot of that stuff over the course of this show. But the thing that comes to mind first for me is I'm very excited to see what the young core of this defense does and whether they can take another step together. When we were going into last season, we had no idea who Cooper DeJean was going to be, who Quinon Mitchell was going to be. Jalen Carter had a promising year one and then takes a huge step in year two. Nolan Smith goes from being truly just a rotational piece to somebody that I feel like is an attitude channeler for that entire defense. Like, what he does and the play style he comes with, it just seeps into everything about that front and how they feel. And I just didn't necessarily expect that from year two Nolan Smith, but that's exactly what we got.
- [12:16]
Derek Klasson
And then he's their DNA guy. Like, Nolan Smith has become their DNA guy.
- [12:20]
Robert Mays
He was the DNA changer that we did not anticipate last year. And then Zach Bond. It was funny, I was talking to a defensive coach when I was there early in training camp, and I was like, all right, when did you guys know that Zach Bond would be Zach Bond? And he goes, I think it was August, like June, July 30, so pretty early in camp. And he goes, anybody that tells you we knew it this time last year is lying to you. Like, we knew that he would be a good player. We knew that we had a good off ball linebacker, starting caliber off ball linebacker in our hands. And then the game started and it was like, holy shit. And I think there were a lot of those holy shit moments with these Eagles defenders that we had never really seen in those roles before. And so the steps they can take individually and then collectively, I'm looking forward to that. Quinn Mitchell Especially and talking to people there, I think that he has come in with just a real amount of confidence in what he's seeing. And just the year one to you two transition can be big for a lot of guys, but I think it could be especially big for him. And there was one other element of this that I thought was particularly compelling. When I was talking to people around the league just about that Eagles defense last year, and it was. I was actually talking to another defensive coach about this, and he was mentioning how the Eagles blended a couple different worlds and how they play up front, because Vic has always been. Vic doesn't come from like a penetrating one gap world necessarily, with the way his fronts typically play. But there are guys on those Eagles defenses that their outside linebackers, coaches, Jeremiah Washburn, who is Jim Washburn's son, and Jim Washburn is like the godfather of those wide nine penetrating defensive fronts. And so there's still a little bit of that DNA with how their position coaches are. And they kind of blended those two things together. Where somebody told me there, it's like you don't want Jalen Carter eating blocks. You know, we have to make sure that we're putting those guys in positions to really get after it. And so when you play that way and when you allocate that level of freedom to your front players, the guys behind them have to play off of them. There has to be a reaction and a certain fluidity the way that they're seeing things. Well, that sort of like subtle mind meld only gets accentuated as you play together longer. So I just feel like there's so many cool little pockets of this defense, Derek, that even if they were the best defense in the league last year, and that may not happen again because of some of the weaknesses, there are pockets to this thing that I'm really excited to see how it grows moving forward.
- [14:39]
Derek Klasson
I'm incredibly excited for it because I think the defense that comes to mind is how many times last year with the Bengals did we talk about, like, okay, Luana Rumo's defense is doing so much and putting so much on these guys, but they're just not quite, like, mentally there to handle it. It was a lot of young guys that they were trying to bring in and bring along all of the Eagles defenders on top of being very good athletes, like, DeJean's a great athlete. Quinon Mitchell's a great athlete. Obviously, guys like Carter are really good athletes. They're just really smart players. Like Zach Bond is incredibly smart. Nakobe Dean can be like the general of a defense. And I think you saw some of that last year. Like Cooper DeJean, you saw that in the game that he played against the Bengals, how smart he was. Quinion Mitchell, same thing. He has some of the best clicking clothes already for like a young corner just trusting what he sees and going. Which I think in the Vic Fangio defense as a corner is like kind of priority number one in terms of the way that you need to play. So I'm just incredibly excited about one. All of the guys that they have, but even the guys that they brought in this year, I'm. Everyone knows I'm like number one in the fan club for Jihad Campbell. And I think he's looked pretty solid in this preseason. Like I was. I was actually just texting someone earlier. Like, if he was like 10% more violent, he would be a Kaiju. Like he would be a complete monster of a player. And so hopefully we get there and then even I think Andrew Makuba at safety, you know, he's a little bit smaller, but I think he. He's a pretty well put together player already. So I'm just. They've got a lot of stuff going on. I do think you need a really, really big year at a quarter to fill in for some of the guys they lost. But I'm still pretty confident this is going to be a good unit.
- [16:07]
Robert Mays
With all these teams, we're going to talk about the swing points that potentially exist. Where does this season hinge maybe for each of these individual teams? Derek, you're going to kick us off here. What is the swing point in mind that you have for the Philadelphia Eagles?
- [16:21]
Derek Klasson
It feels crazy to say the offensive line for the Eagles because they've been like the best in the league for five years now. But there's just a little bit more uncertainty, I think, along the interior than we are used to with them. Like, Landon Dickerson is a great player, but he had a little bit of a meniscus issue and they're saying that he should be ready ish by like week one, but that's just. You don't know how much of that stuff is going to linger and when he is clearly your best interior player, I think if he's, you know, 20% worse than he normally would be, I think that can hurt you a little bit. Juergens, you know, he's fine, he's solid. And then on the right side it's probably going to be Tyler Steen, who has been this slow burn development player for them. And I think he's been solid when he's been asked to play. But I think Makai Becton, even if there were some ups and downs in pass pro last year, was a mover in the run game. And I think that that was part of why Saquon Barkley was able to run for 2,000 yards. I think it's a little bit to be determined if Tyler Steen is going to be that. So I think there's a chance when you have Jeff Stoutland that all this stuff could work out and there's nothing to worry about. But I do think that there's a chance that it's a little bit more rocky than we are used to.
- [17:24]
Dave Hellman
If you hadn't said it, I was going to say Jeff Stoutland. I mean, not to. Not to say those concerns aren't valid, but I think I've reached the point where Jeff, with Jeff Stoutland, where I'm like, I trust that this will be okay. Even if it's not like rock solid from the word go, I trust that this will be okay.
- [17:43]
Robert Mays
It's funny that they did the Kenyan green thing is like a heat check after the Mackay Becton things. And I was like, completely, Robert.
- [17:49]
Dave Hellman
Like, the minute they did it, I was like, oh, cool, they're gonna fix this guy now. Like, that's just. That was my gut reaction when that news came down. It doesn't sound like he's going to start, but if he needs to play, I bet it'll be serviceable. That's just how I feel.
- [18:02]
Robert Mays
If Landon Dickerson can come back at close to 100% early in the season and they're really just working through Tyler Steen as the new piece along that offensive line. I have a decent amount of faith that this can get fixed. There aren't that many question marks with this Eagles team, especially on offense. I mean, the offensive line is really the only thing other than that we're rolling back with the same group of superstars that we're used to on that offense. The big change is that they are again transitioning to a new offensive coordinator with Kevin Patullo coming in. He was their passing game coordinator over the last few years. And this is a team that it's been a mixed bag. They went to Brian Johnson after the 2022 Super bowl appearance. That offense was disjointed, it was dysfunctional, never really found itself. They struggled in pass protection. They struggled against the blitz that lasted one year. They go out and get Kellen Moore. They are so good again. They go to and win the super bowl and then lose another offensive coordinator. So there's a chance that Kevin Petull is not long for this role with the Philadelphia Eagles if we have a similar set of results. But because it's been a little bit mixed with the guys who've come in, I think that we have to pay attention and talk about this. Patuo has an interesting background. He's like a Chan Gailey guy. So I mean that's. I don't think there's going to be a lot of Chan Gailey DNA being inserted, being inserted into the Philadelphia Eagles offense. I don't think we're going to see a lot of like 4 wide spread offense from this team. But I think the one thing that is worth remembering there and thinking about is that Jan Gailey is willing to try some weird. Right? Just there is some interesting ideas that Shane Gailey is willing to throw around. And so I think that as just a general guiding principle is something to keep in mind. But the other interesting element of this is that Patula, even though he was the passing game coordinator, he's also been the associate head coach over the last couple years and he's kind of been Sirianni's like right hand guy, Dave, where he's in a lot of meetings that assistants aren't normally in. He's part of conversations that a lot of assistants aren't normally a part of. And so he's more of a piece of the fabric of the organization than a passing game coordinator typically would be. So this isn't somebody that you're really kicking upstairs that's not used to being a big part of how big decisions get made. And so I think that's just something to keep in mind as we think about what type of coach and the standing he has within the building that they're elevating to this sort of position.
- [20:15]
Dave Hellman
Correct me if I'm wrong, but he, he came over with Sirianni from the.
- [20:19]
Robert Mays
One of Sirianni guys.
- [20:20]
Dave Hellman
Yes. Like this is his dude going way back. So it is funny and I don't have a take on this. I think it's a hard thing to know. But I do think it's interesting that they tried the continuity thing. Like they elevated Brian Johnson from their staff in 2023. It did not work. They go outside the organization on both sides of the ball to like just get proven guys with track records that have done this a lot at a high level and it worked. And now they're going back to, you know, the continuity and the guy that's been here and the guy that knows Sirianni really, really well. That's not to say that it will or won' but I think it's funny how they've kind of flip flopped the philosophy on these two hires.
- [21:02]
Derek Klasson
I think my take on that is I, I had the initial inclination to be a little bit worried about for the same, for the same reason like remembering the Brian Johnson experience, but that was also like Sirianni's first rodeo with something like that. And I think that this time it being again a guy that he's a little bit more comfortable with, has worked with for a very long time, it just feels like there's going to be a little bit more of the right give and take with that role that I have, I have a little bit more. I also just trust Sirianni as a coach more. I did like two, three years ago.
- [21:29]
Robert Mays
In general, what's 100% worth mentioning and a couple different things just based on conversations I had with people when I was there. I think when Brian Johnson took over as a first time play caller, I think Sirianni was inclined to hover a little bit to be a little bit more involved with the offense than he might have been with Shane Steichen. I don't think that's happening with Kevin Pitullo now there as the offensive coordinator. I think that Sirianni is going to be able to take the same sort of step back he took with Kellen Moore. When it comes to the offense, I think the biggest difference between moving to Brian Johnson than Moving to to chem 2 after Kellen Moore is that when they moved to Kellen last year they did a lot of cleaning out of the offense like they did a lot of, okay, let's throw everything out onto the table here, figure out what works and start pruning stuff. They didn't really do that after they moved on from Shane Steichen. And so I think that this last year was the hard look in the mirror off season and now I think that they're going to be able to just roll with the type of offense that they had last year because they've accounted for a lot of those weaknesses. So I think we're going to see the same sort offensive identity and approach this year that we saw last year. Maybe just dressed up with a few more things, maybe a little bit more motion, maybe a little bit more formation diversity, but I don't think they're going to be trying to reinvent the wheel here. I think they learned last year we can do kind of whatever we want to do right. Like this doesn't have to be a. Oh well, if they're in light boxes, we have to run the ball. If they're reloading the box, we have to throw the ball. Our players are better than yours and we're going to be able to dictate the terms of how this game is going to go. And I think that was an important lesson for them last year. I feel like some of the specifics, like cleaning up some progression stuff with Jalen hurts making things a little bit quicker and simpler, but I don't think you're going to see anything from this offense that shocks you when it comes to structure. I think there's going to be a lot of the greatest hits that we've seen over the last couple years. Derek.
- [23:15]
Derek Klasson
Yeah, I'm kind of in the same boat.
- [23:18]
Robert Mays
What's keeping us up at night about the 2025 Philadelphia Eagles? We did this last year. Just the point of anxiety you have about this team heading into the season. Dave, why don't you kick us off here?
- [23:32]
Dave Hellman
Last year was arguably the healthiest year of Saquon Barkley's career, at least one of them. And by the end of it, if you include the playoffs, he touched the football 482 times. And I know like for, for the purposes of stat keeping and record books, we only use regular season. So if you look it up, you'll see, you know, it was like 378, but my guy touched the ball more than a hundred times in the playoff run. Like that stuff matters just from a physical toll standpoint. He's missed multiple games due to injury in four of his seven NFL seasons. So we know that the, the durability was an issue when he was with the New York Giants. Obviously he's got a better supporting cast in Philadelphia that plays a role in it. But it still feels worth mentioning that he nearly had 500 touches last season. And just out of curiosity, I went back and I looked up running backs who have had that kind of workload in the recent past. Ironically, back in the day, this stuff used to happen all the time.
- [24:38]
Derek Klasson
Oh yeah, the Larry Johnson's and like, oh yeah, disgusting.
- [24:42]
Dave Hellman
When you go look like Ladanian Tomlinson, Edron James, Curtis Martin. Yeah, the, the Kansas City running backs back in the day. But really since like the 2011 CBA, it's not very many dudes and only the super mutants really farewell when this happens. Like Derek Henry does it all the time without it even mattering. So that's awesome for he's never going to die.
- [25:04]
Robert Mays
He doesn't count X Men.
- [25:06]
Dave Hellman
You can.
- [25:06]
Robert Mays
You can handle 500 touches in a season.
- [25:09]
Dave Hellman
Derrick Henry and Adrian Peterson used to do this type of shit all the time. Good for them. But other backs, okay, just for instance, Josh Jacobs 2022393 touches the next year saw his yards per carry dip by a yard and a half and missed a month of the season with a quad injury. Jonathan Taylor 372 touches in 2021. Dealt with an ankle for the next year and a half that sent him to IR during the 2022 or the 2020. Yeah, 2022 season lingered. What you got? You got Arian Foster, who dealt with a back injury after 460 touches in 2012. He only played half of that year. And the list goes on and on. Not everybody fell off a cliff the year after. There were plenty of successful guys. Like I mentioned, Derrick Henry, Ezekiel Elliott was just fine after having a similar workload in 2016. But by and large it can be problematic when you're taking on this type of workload. We already know that Saquon Barkley has had a history with injuries. I'm not wishing this on him. I really hope it doesn't happen, but you'd be crazy not to be worrying about that a little bit after the amount of work that he did for the Eagles last year.
- [26:22]
Robert Mays
This is one of the oldest like football analytics conversations of my lifetime. I mean, the curse of 370 is something that Aaron Schatz wrote about for Football Outsiders 21 years ago. Like, this is a conversation we've been having for a very long time and for the most part guys are not as effective and often get hurt after getting this sort of workload. It's just what the history will tell you. The question is whether Saquon Barkley is one of those alien type guys where it just doesn't matter. And after last season, Derek I am tempted to think that he might just be one of those guys where it might not matter.
- [26:57]
Derek Klasson
I want to believe he is because physically he is insane. But the reason actually why I'm willing to buy it a little bit is one, he obviously just ridiculous athlete. But also even though you are still getting touched and hit that often, it's not like he's running into a brick wall every play. Like he is playing in a pretty favorable situation where he's able to get out into space and maybe take some lighter tackles than if he was just running into straight into the face of a linebacker at 2 yards. So that probably helps A little bit. But I will say I'd be shocked if he's 95% as good as he was last year. It's probably going to be more like 85% which to be fair, I mean that's still what, like the fourth best running back in the league. So it's probably fine.
- [27:41]
Robert Mays
And also just think about the amount of huge long touchdown runs this team scored last year. I mean you look at it compared to other teams, they had 25 carries of 20 plus yards last year. But I mean when you look at plays of 50 plus yards, he had 1, 2, 3, 4. Yeah, he had four 50 plus yard touchdown runs last year. 68, 70, 72, 65 and then one 55 yard run. So if they don't get those sorts of huge explosive runs, what does that do to the complexion of the offense? They're still good down to down. But this is a team that really did rely on those very rare like outlier explosive plays on the ground that most teams just do not get, period.
- [28:25]
Derek Klasson
Especially in the second half. Like how at some point last year, like maybe By like week 12, I was like, you just know that in the end of the third quarter Saquon Barkley is going to put the dagger in a team. And I just, it might be hard to continue to do that when you touch the ball 500 times the year before.
- [28:40]
Robert Mays
Yeah, so. And it's again, we're talking about if he's 90%, what does that do for the offense and if he misses time. I don't think Will Shipley is Saquon Barkley. No, the offensive line can be great, but I think Saquon was doing so much more for that offense, obviously. But when you. The offensive line has been very good for a long time. I think Saquon was a perfect example last year of what an elite running back behind an elite offensive line can actually do. What's keeping me up at night? And this is really the weak point of the roster as we head into the season here. It's just the young pieces in the secondary. I mean that second outside corner spot, I don't know how you can feel good about that right now. I again, I was there on July 30th and I was asking about that position. I was, it was unsettled then. And I asked someone, I was like, would you be open to looking outside of the building to solve that if you don't feel like a Dory Jackson or Keely Ringo can get you there? And the answer was essentially like always, like, what do you, it's going back to the conversation we just had. It's like always, like, we will take shots at this to fix it it. And so they trade for Jacori and Bennett and we'll see how that shakes out. But based on what Brooks Cabina, our Eagles writer, wrote this weekend, there's still no defined starter at that spot. Like, he's obviously been behind Bennett has because he came really late and they made that trade because they weren't happy with the other guys. And so that's going to be a question until it's not. And then that second safety spot, you know, Sidney Brown is going to be there right now. That's what currently he is penciled into play there. Well, we'll see what happens with Andrew Makuba, but when they're in nickel, which this team wants to be a nickel essentially all the time because Cooper Dean gives them flexibility there, you're going to have a question mark at that other safety spot until it's not. This is shocking, but true. Reed Blankenship is the oldest player in the secondary for the Eagles. He is 26 years old.
- [30:27]
Derek Klasson
That makes sense when you sell on his rookie contract, it makes 26 years old.
- [30:33]
Robert Mays
So there's just a lot of youth and a lot of questions with that position group specifically, even when you consider how good the good players are.
- [30:40]
Derek Klasson
And I'm glad you went to Reed Blankenship because this was also what is keeping me up at night with the Eagles. And the way I want to frame it is very simple. Reed Blankenship is cool when he's your worst DB on the field in nickel, when he is your third best DB on the field in nickel. I think the secondary is not quite as full as it needs to be and obviously that could change. Maybe Makuba is great, maybe Jacquardian Bennett really sips up whatever it is. But like, if I had to pick today, who is the third best defensive back in that room right now, it's Reed Blankenship. That makes me feel a lot worse than when he was the worst guy in that unit.
- [31:14]
Robert Mays
Couple more categories here for each of these teams. We're going to talk about what we're watching in the first month of the season when these teams actually take the field. What is the number one thing we have in mind that we want to find out? Derek, what is that for you in the Philadelphia Eagles?
- [31:28]
Derek Klasson
This is kind of like a little bit granular, but like, so I like their edge room, right? Like, Nolan Smith is awesome. I. I was pining all offseason for somebody to sign Azizo Jalari, and the Eagles have obviously went out and did that. Josh Uche is a solid pass rusher. Jlix Hunt, I think, showed some stuff last year. The problem is all of these guys are like 250 pounds or lighter, and they are coming off of a season where their best defensive end last year was Josh Sweat, who was like 265 closer to 270 pounds, a guy who could really sit there, set the edge and like hold his spot. And I think Nolan Smith, for his size, does a very good job of that. But the rest of the guys, I think it can be a little bit more to be determined. Like, I would like to see more from Jalex Hunt there. I know for a fact Joshua Uche doesn't really do that. That's not what you brought him in for. And then I think Azizo Jalari is like a decent, can like bend under guys and kind of make some interesting plays against the run, but he's not like Josh Sweat, where he can just. Just throw the kickstand and be a problem. And so I just wonder a little bit what the. What this edge room looks like. If they just really don't have that much size to them, what they're betting.
- [32:31]
Robert Mays
On at that spot is just length, just pure length. Even if those guys are a little bit lighter, every single one of those dudes, Jalex Hunt, Azizo Jalari, they're just long, long players at that spot. Whether that's enough or they need a little bit more beef as part of that rotation, we will find out. But based on how they've built that room, it seems like that's the bet that they're making. What I'm watching over the first month of the season, do we see any new wrinkles with this defense? With some of the position changes and some of the new guys that are coming in, what does Jihad Campbell do right? Are we going to see Jihad Campbell as a pass rusher? Do we see them blitz a little bit more? Because they have Jihad Campbell and Milton Williams and Josh Sweat are no longer here in base. Sounds like Cooper De Jean is going to be playing a little bit of safety. How does that go? Are we excited about that? Does he transition there? Well, I think he might, but again, that's a new wrinkle for this team. And then the other part of this is not really specific, but more just big picture. When I was there, I was asking somebody on the defensive staff just about Vic Fangio and on a very simple level, like, what makes Vic Fangio Vic Fangio. And he was saying that in his experience, Fangio studies and understands himself better than any coordinator that he's ever been around. Like, when he's transitioning from season to season, he understands and can kind of see around the curve for how offenses are going to respond, respond to him in ways that other defensive coaches just can't. Where when they went from like San Francisco to Chicago and there were tiny situational things where, okay, in the red zone, we know these are the beaters that they're going to be bringing because of what we did last year. How do we make sure that we're actually on the front foot in the adjustments we're making against all of that? And so them trying to figure out, all right, this is who we were a year ago. How do we make sure that we're ready for whatever next step in evolution offenses are going to take to attack us there? I'm just curious what that looks like for the Eagles. If I could say what the offensive evolutions were and what the defensive responses were, I would be Vic Fangio. I can't do that. But I am curious to see what that cat and mouse game looks like as this defense transitions into year two.
- [34:31]
Dave Hellman
One thing I want to bring up with that, too, and I was thinking about it just when I was looking at the Eagles defense. Cause obviously you got a healthy amount of turnover from a Super bowl team, and we know he's a good player. Right. But I wonder how much the Eagles are willing to put on Jalen Carter in year three. And I feel like it's not the type of thing that they would say on the record, because you. You don't want to put that type of expectation on a guy who's still a young player, but if they feel like he is that Chris Jones type of defensive tackle, that can just change the feel of your defense almost on his own, I wonder how that affects the rest of things. And, you know, as big of a jump as he took in year two, if you can expect even more of that in year three, it obviously can just make so many things so much easier.
- [35:22]
Robert Mays
I think the expectation for him is defense player of the year. Yeah, I think that's the type of ceiling we're talking about with Jalen Carter in year three. And what they need him to be as they transition to a bunch of new guys in that front. Speaking of new guys in that front, for each of these teams, we're going to try to find, like, an important supporting character that we think is going to be huge for this team's chances this year, but it's a little bit further off the radar. Derek, Mine for the Eagles is Morrow Jomo your guy.
- [35:47]
Derek Klasson
Moro speaking my language. I love this.
- [35:50]
Dave Hellman
True to the brain.
- [35:50]
Robert Mays
He was a rotational defensive tackle last year, played about 270 snaps. There's actually almost as many as Milton Williams played last year, which is actually kind of funny against the pass. So Milton Williams played 303 passing snaps last year. Moro Joma played 268. Moro Jomo better pass rush win rate according to PFF than Milton Williams had last year. So if he can come in and I'm not saying replicate, but get close to the production that Milton Williams had over the course of the regular season, that goes a long way in this defense being able to stave off the regression that is probably coming for it, at least in some way after the season that they had last year.
- [36:29]
Derek Klasson
Yeah, like, I, I, we'll see what he is as a run defender because I do think Milton Williams gave them a little bit more there. But if he could, yeah, be relatively what Milton Williams was as a pass rusher, which, like, I really think he can like a. Jomo is incredibly quick. He's explosive. You see some of the moves. Like, I just, he's a guy I'm incredibly excited about. So if that, what did you say, like 270 snaps, if that kicks up by a hundred or so and he gets a few more chances to get after it, like, I'm pretty excited for what that's going to look like for all these teams.
- [36:57]
Robert Mays
We're rounding this out with which count what counts as a successful season for each one. Derek, what is a successful season for the Philadelphia Eagles?
- [37:07]
Derek Klasson
I think it's, you know, we want to say, oh, go back and repeat because this team is great. I think realistically, when you are a Super bowl team, you're probably going to have some degree of, of a hangover. So to me, it's just win the division again, which I think even with some degree of step back is like extremely on the table for them. And then just some of the new guys on defense that we've talked about, like, really showing some signs for, like, okay, we can keep this going for a handful more years. Like that, to me is a pretty.
- [37:28]
Robert Mays
Successful year, pretty modest ambitions. Dave, what did you.
- [37:32]
Derek Klasson
I just, I don't think repeating is realistic.
- [37:34]
Robert Mays
Like, it's just, I don't think repeating is realistic. I don't think they have to repeat. But I think winning the division and having the young guys look good when you just won the super bowl with the most talented roster in the league. I want more from yourself.
- [37:46]
Dave Hellman
I can feel already. And we'll like, we'll get into this as we do predictions and during the season, like, I think that I think a lot more of the Eagles than at least Derek does and maybe Robert too. Like I think a lot of this team, I said it's, it's hard to put super bowl on anybody, right? So I can't go all the way to super bowl. But it's, I mean they clearly have a three or four year window to win another super bowl. And like this counts. Like this, this would count as a missed opportunity, I think if they don't at least push for it. And so winning the super bowl is a hard expectation to put on anybody. I'll say bare minimum, I think this team should be in the Final Four, like get back to conference championship game weekend. I think they are that talented that anything less than that I would call a wasted season.
- [38:30]
Derek Klasson
I want to be clear. I would pick them to make the final four and I will be doing that when we get there. But it's just like, say it with your chest, Eric.
- [38:36]
Robert Mays
Come on, man.
- [38:37]
Derek Klasson
They win like 11 games and just win like a, or lose like a weird wild card game. But I'm like, ah, whatever, it's fine.
- [38:44]
Dave Hellman
I'm sure the city of Philadelphia will.
- [38:46]
Derek Klasson
Say, ah, well, they're never fine unless they get the team that they booed.
- [38:50]
Robert Mays
The Eagles in the 2018 after the first half of the season, on the opener. On the season opener on Thursday night after they won the super bowl, they booed them off the field in the first half. So I think 11 games in a first round playoff loss would not be good enough for the city of Philadelphia. I also said championship Sunday. I think repeating is hard, but we know that typically championship Sunday is a marker of who the best teams in the league are. And then after that, it requires a lot of luck, it requires a lot of chance. If they can get back to the Final Four, I think that is success for this version of the Eagles. All right, before we get to the Washington Commanders, let's take a quick break.
- [39:25]
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Dave Hellman
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- [41:18]
Robert Mays
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Dave Hellman
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- [43:17]
Robert Mays
It's time for our Preview for the 2025 Washington Commanders on the Athletic Football Show. Please like and subscribe to the channel if you have not already. Let us know your thoughts in the comments. Anything you might disagree with who you think is going to win this division. Any players that we're not thinking enough about. The Washington Commanders off season in 60 seconds. We're doing this for every single team. Terry McClordin currently holding in Acquired Laramie Tunsil from the Texans for four picks, including a 2026 second and a 2025 third. Acquired Debo Samuel from the Niners for a 2025 fifth round pick Sanjayvon Kinlaw three years $45 million $30 million guaranteed signed Von Miller one year $6 million brought back Marcus Mariota, one of the highest paid backups in the league Brought back Bobby Wagner 1 year 9 million Zach Ertz 1 year 6.2 million brought back John Bates we'll talk about a little 21 million 11 million guaranteed small deals in free agency for Jonathan Jones, Will Harris, Andrea Wise, all of whom will be in the mix on that defense in the draft. Josh connerly, offensive tackle, 29th overall Trey Amos, the corner in the second round, 61st overall wide receiver Jalen Lane, fourth round, 128th overall. Again, they did not have a third round pick because of the Laramie Tunsil, trade Jonathan Allen, Diami Brown, Jeremy Chin, Dante Fowler, all lost in the off season to free agency. Well, they cut Jonathan Allen, but he's on a new team now. What are you most excited about, Dave, for the 2025 Washington Commanders? I have a feeling I know where you're going with this.
- [44:44]
Dave Hellman
Let me see if I can hit the listeners with the next level analysis that they've come to expect from the Athletic Football Show. I'm excited about year two of Jaden Daniels and what that means and what it could look like. You're talking about a quarterback who's capable of throwing for 4,000 yards and rushing for a thousand yards in the same season. I think that's on the table for him. Like it is a thing that I can imagine happen, maybe only if Terry McLaurin never comes back to camp, but it is, it's on the table. If he plays, if, if he progresses from his rookie year, then we can officially, I mean some people already feel this way, but we can officially start talking about him as a top five quarterback in the NFL playing for a legacy franchise, a franchise that went so long without something to be excited about. All that kind of ties in for me. Like, like it's not just Jaden being great, but Jaden being great in a very historically good football market that hasn't had a whole lot to be excited about. And he's only turning 25 this year. So if he cements himself as the guy that we think he is, what, what else is that? Like, what could be more exciting than that?
- [45:54]
Robert Mays
I asked when I was there where they thought he needed to get better and no one had a good answer. For me it was kind of like, well, by the end of last season he was already one of the best players in the league. And I think that it was an honest answer. I'm curious from your vant point, Derek, when you see Jaden Daniels going from year one to year two, the small gaps in his game that you want to see him fill in, what are those for you?
- [46:14]
Derek Klasson
He for as much as he can bail himself out of trouble, he still creates a lot of trouble for himself by hanging in the pocket. And I think being not late on stuff like when the ball comes out, he's usually on time but sometimes the ball just doesn't come out and he hangs onto the ball. And he still took for as exciting as everything was, he still took like a pretty equivalent to like Caleb Williams level sack rate. And I think it's just obviously Caleb didn't have all the good plays to counter that bad. It was like in terms of plays where he was pressured. It's the pressure to sack ratio was like kind of similar.
- [46:48]
Robert Mays
Go ahead, keep going.
- [46:49]
Derek Klasson
He just didn't get pressured nearly as much because the Bears were awful and.
- [46:53]
Dave Hellman
Robert's pulling this up right now.
- [46:54]
Derek Klasson
Washington did a much better job of, of their past protection plans and obviously Jaden's part of that. He did a really good job of beating the blitz, but like when Jaden Daniels got pressured, he took a lot of sacks and I think that that needs to get cleaned up. And then still this is like a me thing, I think more than Jaden Daniels thing. I still want to see some more aggressive throws in like the 12 to 20 range over the middle of the field. And I don't think he needs that to be an elite quarterback. I think he can be perfectly fine without it. Joe Burrow was for a large swath of his career until really last year, but I still want to see a little bit more of that.
- [47:25]
Robert Mays
Selfishly, Jane Daniels had a 22.2% pressure to sacrate last year. Caleb Williams was a 27.8%. It was still a top five rate for Jaden Daniels among quarterbacks who had at least 50% of their team snaps. But not quite as bad.
- [47:38]
Derek Klasson
Yeah, not quite as bad. But I don't know, given, given how much more help he had, I feel like that 5% gap can get, you know, close a little bit.
- [47:46]
Robert Mays
Jaden Daniels finished fifth. Caleb Williams finished second. Caleb Williams shooting for second place, though. Will Levis has the crown. 29.6% for Levis's pressures turned sacks last year. I'm really excited to see what year two of this offense can look like with Jaden Daniels. And you know, they're the way they built this thing. And we'll talk about this in a second when we just talk about resource allocation and relative strengths and weaknesses of the roster. But they just said we're going to put the best offensive line in front of him that we possibly can. Because if you look at quarterbacks around the league, truly elite quarterbacks around the league, if they're protected, they can make the most of the pass catchers. This has been true for Patrick Mahomes. It's the exact strategy that the Chiefs took after that Buck super bowl where they said, we don't care who he's throwing the ball to, it doesn't matter. Like we'll have him throw to juju Smith Schuster and we'll still win the Super Bowl. It doesn't matter as long as we're protecting him. It's exactly what the Bills have done with Josh Allen, where Josh Palmer is like the number one Bills receiver right now and they're projected to lead the league in points scored according to Vegas because they built up that offensive line. The important part of that calculus is that Jaden Daniels has to be as good as Patrick Mahomes and Josh Allen for you to make good on that. That. And so if he can firmly establish himself as in that club of quarterbacks by the end of this season, you know, I don't think he has to be an M, the MVP of the league. I don't think he has to be quite to those guys level. It took them three, four, five, six years to get to that place. But if he can be that definitive fifth best guy, fifth, sixth best guy like at the top of the next tier, which we talked about this on an entire show in July, feels kind of open, open that next tier, then I think that decision of we're going to make sure that we just have the best offensive line possible. He'll lift the pass catchers. I think that can work. If he becomes that sort of guy. Not even becomes but really asserts himself and confirms that he's that sort of guy.
- [49:34]
Derek Klasson
Yeah, if he just continues to climb up the ladder closer to that. Whereas like last year I think he was probably like for me like the eighth, ninth best quarterback and it's just like the super exciting stuff we remember and that team got a little lucky. If he climbs one or two more spots and cleans up some of that like pocket management, then yeah, he's definitively as good as they need him to be.
- [49:53]
Robert Mays
What are you excited about with the 2025 commanders, Derek, the people playing in.
- [49:58]
Derek Klasson
Front of him, the offensive line? Because I think on a roster standpoint the offensive line was mostly terrible last year. Like it was a lot of not good players like Tyler Biotish is fine at center and right guard Sam Cost me I think is a pretty solid player. But other than that it was a lot of like were hanging onto our hats and they kind of circumvented it by obviously Daniels is a really good scrambler and obviously he can be part of their run game. But they threw a lot of screens, they threw a lot of stuff that was supposed to be a lot of their goalballs were just like we're just going to chuck it up immediately. They did a really good stuff with their pass protection plans in terms of okay, we're full sliding a lot. We're changing up, like who, which tight end is staying in when we're in 12 personnel, that sort of stuff. So they did really, really well with all of that. I would like them to just not have to do as much of that and I think that that's going to be the case this year. When you bring in a Laramie Tunsil and you draft round right tackle and Josh Connerly, in theory, you don't need to do as much of the. We're adding two more tight ends to stay in pass protection and having to full slide one way and BSR protection like you just that will still be nice as like a little change up for them to keep defenses honest. But they could probably get away with more like five, you know, five and a half man protection depending on what you want to do at the back, than they were ever able to get away with last year. And then on top of that, their run game last year when you didn't include like Jaden Daniels being part of like the option game, it wasn't good. Like the straight up handoff to the run to the running back run game was bad last year. If that can go from bad to average because of guys like Connerly and guys like Laramie Tunsil, we're, we're starting to cook with some gas here.
- [51:26]
Robert Mays
I think that's spot on. I think when you talk to people there about, all right, what does this allow you to do? The, the phrase that somebody said to me was we have to be less tricked out this year than we were last year because of the guys that we have along the offensive line line. And I, I think we've talked about it a lot this off season. I think how intentional they were about going out and improving those spots. And we'll see when Sam Cosby gets back, obviously that's going to be a big question. It sounds like he's hit every single benchmark. He stayed there and rehabbed. They're very happy with the timeline of how this is going. Whether that means he's back by week two or week five, I have no idea. But they're, they're pleased with how that process has looked even though he tore his ACL in the playoffs. So if that group gets back with Cosmi early in the season and now you have improvements at both tackle spots with Tunsil and Connerly and Brandon Coleman comes in and really establishes himself at guard, which I think he has the chance to do after playing left tackle, you know, kind of on and off last year. And that group can really dominate on the ground without all those bells and whistles we saw last year. And then the pass protection can improve. When it comes to them being able to sit in the pocket, make plays later in the down without him scrambling, I think that's how you start to stave off the regression with a lot of the coin flip things that went their way last year. We talked about this on the seat at the table show. They converted 87% of their four downs last year. They were 20 of 23. They converted 45 and a half percent of their third downs last year, which was the sixth highest rate in the league. They won so many games on the last play or the last possession. There was just a team that got lucky in a lot of ways last year and manners that are hard to keep up with. But I think that they've. They're not just rolling it back and saying, oh, we were good enough last year. Look at the results. And I think that is even if they've had to accelerate their timeline a little bit, and I think there's some downsides to that. I appreciate that they're trying to get out ahead of some of these problems, and I think the offensive line is the best manifestation of that.
- [53:22]
Dave Hellman
My only commentary on that would just be specifically with offensive line play. It can be so much harder than it sounds during the summer. And I appreciate what they've done. I think it will work in the long run. But Tunsil, as good as he is, just got there. Brandon Coleman is playing guard for the first time. Cosmi has not had a camp, and unless they announced it while we were recording, the right tackle job isn't officially decided like last time I looked at this.
- [53:53]
Derek Klasson
I'm calling it, you're calling.
- [53:56]
Dave Hellman
You know what? Even if Josh Connerly wins it, you're still talking about a rookie right tackle.
- [54:01]
Derek Klasson
That's fair.
- [54:01]
Dave Hellman
I think this could be a situation where in the early going of the season at least, we're like, why doesn't this look better? What the hell? Like, they, they got all these guys. Why? This was supposed to be great and it's not great. It could, like, it could get much better by the end of the season. That is what I would expect to happen. That's typically the way things work. You need time on task, you need all these guys playing together to get that sort of consistency in chemistry. I won't be surprised if it doesn't look as beautiful as we hope, at least right away. Now, if it does, then you could really be cooking with gas. But I want to at Least throw in the possibility of that happening.
- [54:38]
Robert Mays
I think that's totally fair. I think with the right tackle situation, they're very intentional with how they do these early competitions for rookies. They don't hand anybody jobs. Even if they think those guys are projected starters. They didn't do a Jaden last year. They were playing Marcus Mariota in the first part of training camp. That is an organizational philosophy. I think Josh Connerly will probably end up being the right tackle. The other beneficial part of this with the offensive line construction is that they didn't lose any of the starters from last year. Those guys are all still there. And so this team has a lot of depth and contingencies along the offensive line that most teams don't have. If you lose Josh Connerly, your right tackle from last year is there. If you lose Brandon Coleman, your left guard from last year is there. And so there is a level of depth, I think, on the offensive and defensive line with this team. Even if the defensive line ceiling isn't that high high that a lot of other teams do not enjoy with how their rosters are constructed. I think that's at least worth mentioning. The floor is pretty high with this group. Let's get to this. Swing points for the 2025 Washington Commanders. The areas that this season could pivot on for this team. Derek, why don't you kick it off your swing point for the 2025 Washington team?
- [55:48]
Derek Klasson
I think to me, when I envision this team being good, it has to be the offense being a top five unit again and being capable of scoring 30 points. I know we're excited about the offensive line and I'm very excited about the offensive line raising the floor a little bit. If they want to make sure they can still do explosive stuff like Deebo Samuel has to be a very, very effective player for them. Because last year in terms of explosives, it was a lot of like, Jaden Daniels, please do something, or Terry McLaurin was down the field and he hit him. And like that was kind of a lot of their explosive. Like their screen game was okay, but it was really a lot of like we're either chucking it down the field or Jaden Daniels just did something insane. They did not have a lot of like other tertiary ball carrier has the ball and makes a play with the ball in his hands. Deebo Samuel, I think they brought him in exclusively to do that. So they can. They can do some of this jet stuff. Their screen game can open up a little bit more if they just hit him on a Shallow route. Instead of it going for six yards, he makes one linebacker miss and he picks up 17. Like, just little stuff like that where they have a player they trust with the ball in his hands who is not Jaden Daniels to get them chunks at a time. So I think he is like. Like, if he is who we saw, you know, four years ago, like, or at least some version of that, that, to me, is how this team maintains, like, a really, really high level of play.
- [57:00]
Robert Mays
What's nice about the Debo Samuel fit with this team is that you don't have to use your imagination about how Debo Samuel gets deployed within this offense. Like, there are plenty of offensive systems around the league, Dave, where I'm like, all right, can you make the most out of Debo Samuel? He's a specific type of player. Are you set up to deploy him in the correct ways? I do not have that question about the Washington commanders and Cliff Kingsbury. Like, they have this role within their offense. At the end of last season, it was just Diami Brown and so giving all of the Diami Brown touches to Debo Samuel we saw in the preseason game last night. I mean, they're handing jet sweeps to him and the guy when he's healthy, and I think he's lost a little bit of weight. I think he's coming into the season healthy, which is a good thing. If they can get 85, 90% of what the best version of Debo Samuel looked like in Washington and he can stay healthy, it is a boon for this offense, again, that knows exactly how to use this type of player.
- [57:53]
Dave Hellman
It was a little bit of a meme in the early going of last season that Jaden just wasn't throwing past the line of scrimmage on a regular basis. And obviously that, like, it changed, and we absolved ourselves of a lot of those concerns. But, like, those types of throws and plays are built into this offense. Cliff King very loves that type of shit, and now he's got a guy that can do it at a high level. And it's. It's so funny. I'm trying so hard not to let preseason stuff that I just watched color my opinion. Like, Deebo got that jet sweep on Monday night, and I was like, I don't know. That looks pretty good. And, like, you have to remember, like, hey, it's the preseason. This Bengals defense has. Yeah, they got some problems they got to sort through. So I'm trying not to get too excited when I see stuff like that. But it was an encouraging. It was an encouraging Sight.
- [58:42]
Robert Mays
We'll get to the rest of the pass catchers here in a minute. I think Debo is particularly important because of what the rest of that room looks like. But we're going to hit that. And another one of the categories. My swing point for this team is the pass rush. And you know, for each of these teams we're doing swing points and what's keeping you up at night. And there are subtle but important differences with that. And I think before I really started looking at it and before I started looking at some of the numbers and then going to visit Washington, the past rush is what would have been keeping me up at night. The fact that they weren't more urgent in adding edge rusher bodies to this room. And I'm not counting Von Miller in his mid-30s. But in the second round they did not get one of those edge rushers. They, most of them are gone by the time they picked in the back half of the second round. They did not go for one of the like mercenary guys that signed in the actual rhythm of free agency. The Joey Boses of the world, Josh Sweat, DeMarcus Lawrence. I think that they were probably interested in that group. They just got priced out of them. They weren't willing to go to that place. I mean, Joey Bosa and Marcus Lawrence are aging players with significant injury histories. And so I just think that market got a little bit rich for them. And so they went a completely different direction. They added added more bodies to their defensive line and I think they're just going to be very specific roles for these guys. And so they're banking on waves of players depth and situational deployment. With this group. The thought is if we can stop the run a little bit better on early downs because the players that we have and then we can get the pass rushing bodies on the field and define passing situations, are we going to be able to cobble it together in a way that makes sense? I kind of get that. Right. Like I understand the argument for it. I'd rather just have like one dude that I think can be a terror and they just do not have that guy. But if Dietrich wise can get you into more second and nines and then Von Miller can come in and be that guy off the edge. Can you kind of make that an amalgam of one player? I think that's the thought process. We'll see if it actually works out. And they were 25th in early down run defense success rate per next gen. Last year they were bottom 10 in the league and creating second and long opportunities. And so if they can be a little bit stouter there and then on third and eight, we're getting to a place where it's Von Miller, John Johnny Newton, Duron Payne, Dorrance Armstrong, Frankie Luvu, slots in there. Like do they have enough to actually get by? I think is going to go a long way in determining how good or just average this defense can be.
- [61:03]
Derek Klasson
So that's kind of the thing to me this is not. I think you can get to that. Like the run defense helps us on passing downs in two different ways. It can be the we're really good at getting teams into second and nine and second and eight because we just don't. We kind of choke out the air and we just don't give you a whole lot. Or we can be a team that's a little bit volatile and sometimes we give up second and four, but sometimes we get in the backfield. I think they have to be that kind of unit. They have to be like Arizona was a little bit of this last year, but like you have to be the we're just hoping Javon Kinlaw gets in the backfield. We're hoping Von Miller dips under a tackle and gets in the backfield. I think they have to be the that style of run defense to get into these passing down. So if they can, if their run defense success rate is the same but they get closer to like average or slightly above average in terms of getting in the backfield, that to me is how this can work out.
- [61:47]
Robert Mays
And they're willing to tap into creative methods. If the front four isn't getting there, I don't think that's off the table. This is a team that had the seventh highest blitz rate in the league last year. Per next gen. They use creepers on third down at the sixth highest rate in the league. League. I mean they're willing to get creative. If they don't think those guys are going to be able to get home. I think they're going to try to see if we can get there with this group is more than the sum of its parts. We're going to use a lot of stunts, games, etc. Before they actually tap into the we got to send more bodies at the problem. But if they have to break that glass, I think Dan Quinn and Joe with their defensive coordinator are going to be willing to do that. Let's get to what's keeping us up at night. Dave, what is keeping you up at night? About the 2025 Washington Commanders.
- [62:30]
Dave Hellman
I've mentioned it on Several occasions. And I promise Commanders fans, I'll shut up about it until we've played some games after this. But there are just a uniquely large number of players on this roster where you have to at least wonder whether the cliff is approaching. Like, you are just asking for a lot of production from a lot of older players. I also promise for these previews, my concerns won't always be so existential, but it is an alarming number of veteran players. I mean, we, we've gone over it before, but like, just, just like the. The big names playing some of the big positions. MARSHawn Lattimore is 29. Will Harris is also 29. Debo Samuel is 29. Terry McLaren is turning 30 during this, like, week two of the season. He also hasn't had a camp. Austin Eckler is still kicking around. He is 30. Laramie Tunsil just turned 31. Zach Ertz is 34. Bobby Wagner's 35. Von Miller is 36. That's so many senior citizens that are expected to play meaningful roles on one team. And hopefully they're all great. Cause the Commanders will be a more fun team if they are. But I start to worry about the cliff, about running out of juice. And some of these guys, not all of them, them, but some of these guys are playing roles where you can't really afford them to fall off a cliff. Lattimore in particular. Debo, I think, changes the ceiling of this team. McLaren goes without saying. Tunsil, I would even say Bobby Wagner. And like Von Miller doesn't need to be good for this team to be good, but him being good again is a ceiling razor. So these are important guys that have played a lot, a lot of snaps in their careers. And I, I think about it often.
- [64:24]
Robert Mays
Clearly, and guys with injury histories. Marshawn Lattimore has been banged up. Debo has been banged up. And I think that's hugely important for this team to be who it wants to be on both sides of the ball. Lattimore and Debo need to be those guys. Lattimore has the fourth highest cap hit among all cornerbacks in the league last year, and they gave away multiple picks to go get him. And I think that's also part of this, Dave, is that this is a team that's older than you think for what we consider an upstart. They have a lot of aging players. They've already traded away, like, draft picks over the next couple years. They made five picks this year. And so you're combining an older roster with fewer draft picks over the next couple years to restock the cupboard with younger players. So it's just a little bit more fragile because they've accelerated the timeline than year two of a surprise regime typically would be.
- [65:13]
Derek Klasson
Yeah, this is the team that is microwaving the window, which, like, I can respect it. I get it. It's incredibly hard to win in this league. And if you really think you can do it, it, go for it. But at the same time, we also have to recognize that, like, yeah, if half of the players that Dave mentioned fall off a little bit. And like, I know Lattimore and Debo aren't that old, but, like, given their injury history, feel three or four years older than they probably are. And then guys like Bobby Wagner, like, I understand that the name is very prevalent, but he can't run the way that he used to. He can't turn in coverage the way that he used to. And if that, you know, gets 5, 10% worse again the way that it has the past couple of years, years, you're looking at a linebacker room that is. Is Bobby Wagner, who I think really, at this stage is only really good between the tackles. And then like, Frankie Luvo is a really fun player, but he's also a very specific player. And if Bobby's not going to potentially play as well, then that starts to become like, a little bit more. Fragile is the right word. Like, that just becomes more fragile than it feels when you look at the depth chart right now.
- [66:07]
Robert Mays
Speaking of fragile, the thing that's keeping me up at night is the pass catcher situation beyond Deebo Samuel and Terry McLaurin. Debo Samuel, who again has struggled to stay healthy in recent years. Years. And can get banged up at a moment's notice. Terry McCormin, who still is not practicing with this team because of the hold in. And if they. We get back in a couple days and it's two weeks that he gets to practice, hopefully you get the terror corn that we saw last year, but we've seen this. I mean, Brandon Ayuk was not the same guy last year after sitting out the majority of training camp with that contract dispute. And so if you're getting a slightly diminished version of Terry McCormick and Debo Samuel gets banged up. Have you looked at the wide receiver depth chart for this team beyond those two guys? Yeah.
- [66:50]
Derek Klasson
Any of it.
- [66:51]
Robert Mays
The next guy up would be Noah Brown, who's also hurt. He's currently hurt. We're talking about Luke McAffrey, Chris Moore, Michael Gallup, K.J. osborne, and Jaylen Lane, who they drafted in the fourth round. Like we are very close. The receiving core was bad last year when it comes to the talent and we are very close to it being that group again without Noah Brown and Diami Brown, who were the next two guys up among that group. That is concerning to me. And if Debo stays healthy and that's why he is the swing point on this team for Derek, if he stays healthy and plays well, all of this stuff matters a little bit less. But the current state of that room, we are one Debo Samuel injury away from me being very, very worried about how this is going be to go.
- [67:35]
Dave Hellman
The point that you made, Robert, was a good one about the Chiefs prioritizing protection for Mahomes and like he can win with juju Smith, Schuster. It's worth pointing out they gave him phenomenal weapons for the first four years of his career before they did that to him. Like they were very confident. He was the best quarterback in the world before they started sending Tyreek Hill out of town and making do with guys that aren't as good as you'd prefer prefer. Jaden Daniels in year two probably needs better pass catchers. Like even, even with Terry McLaren and Debo there. It's. It's good, it's fine, it's not great. And I know you can't have everything, but he's a little early in his career for me to feel comfortable asking that of him. Like I think it would be better if he had some difference makers we.
- [68:23]
Robert Mays
Talked about with a couple other position groups. There are some teams that wield the rookie quarterback contract with big money guys. That's. That's how they use the advantage. This team has sort of done that, right? Lattimore, Lar, Debo to an extent, even though they split up the cap hits. But one of the other ways they've wielded it is with depth for some of these mid tier veterans that other teams just don't have the flexibility for the Dietrich Wise's of the world, Allegretti Wiley, the guys that were starters but now are backups and are on these mid tier contracts. This team has depth and flexibility at multiple different position groups that I do think insulates it a little bit. They do not have that at receiver. Receiver is the spot where they absolutely have none of that. And that's what leaves me a little bit worried because I do that Jaden Daniels is a very good quarterback. I'm not sure he's. We can take Luke McCaffrey to the Super Bowl. Good.
- [69:10]
Derek Klasson
Yeah. There's only like three of those and it's not a. It's no shame on him if he's not one of those guys yet. That's okay.
- [69:17]
Robert Mays
Derek, what are you watching in the first month of the season for the Washington Commanders? We're hitting this for every single team.
- [69:24]
Derek Klasson
I just want to see what the secondary is supposed to be because I think last year, obviously first year of. Of Dan Quinn with this defense, it was not a corner room that I think he wanted. Like Mike Singer still having to play outside to fix a lot of issues they had. Benjamin Saint just who is like the opposite to me of what a Dan Quinn corner is supposed to like, what he's good at. Like Saint Juice to me is a cover to. We play zone, we put hands on people and it's like, well, Dan Quinn wants to play single high and play man coverage. And now he's gotten a little bit better at bringing some pressures and cover two stuff. But like in his heart of hearts, I know what Dan Quinn wants.
- [69:56]
Robert Mays
That's what they want to do.
- [69:58]
Derek Klasson
Yeah, exactly. And like this. Now the guys that they have now. Now you draft Trey Amos, who to me is like a put hands on you man coverage corner. They draft or they signed Jonathan Jones, who his entire time in New England was a put hands on you get on the line of scrimmage man coverage corner. San Rasil is now supposed to go back to the nickel. So I just want to see like, are they going to go back to being more of a. We're going to play a lot more single high main coverage and just hope our four or five man pass rush gets home to you. And that's. That's kind of what I'm looking for.
- [70:25]
Robert Mays
When I was talking to people there about what they needed to do better on defense this year. Year, rushing the passer was not what they said it was. We want to play better man coverage. We want to be the man coverage team that we aspire to be. They played it at the fifth highest rate in the NFL last year, which was actually higher than I thought because they weren't leaning into it early in the season. But then when Lattimore got there, they were more willing to say, okay, it's time for us to play the way that we want to play. Mixed bag. They were bottom 10 in success rate when they didn't get pressure last year. They were fourth in success rate when they did get pressure last year. So I think the hope is that normalizes a little bit even if we're not getting home because we're bringing extra pressure. Can we still hold up in man coverage? And the corner room obviously was different when Latimore got there, but when you compare the cornerback room at the start of training camp this year to the start of training camp last year, it's entirely different. Like, Mikey Saner still was really the only guy that they're playing, and it's not even in the same spot. And so him moving back to the nickel and just getting a focus on that. And now you have a combination of Amos and Jones on the outside. We'll see what happens there. I think Amos eventually becomes the starter there, even if he's not getting it from day one. We've talked about Lattimore. And so if that group can really be a strength of this team compared to the weakness, the defined weakness it was last year, then I think that they can start playing the style that they want to and they can be a team that lives in man coverage even if they're not heating up the quarterback because they're blitzing a ton. What I'm watching over the first month of the season is what happens against man coverage on offense. It was the man coverage questions on both sides of the ball. Because when I'm thinking about how I would challenge this offense in Jaden Daniels, teams are scared to play man coverage against scrambling quarterbacks. But if you look at the numbers, it doesn't really bear that out. Like, scrambles aren't more effective against man than they are against zone. And Jaden Daniels actually had a higher scramble rate against zone coverage last year than he had against man coverage. And so when I'm looking at this receiver group, and if we want to make the same comparison to, you know, the Mahomes Allen type teams that have skimped on the past catchers and really built up the offensive line, what teams have done against both of those is they have really cranked up the man coverage and challenged the pass catchers. It's like, if your pass catchers are not going to be a strength of your team, can we make them beat us? That's what man coverage tells you. And even if we like Deebo in his specific role, last year, Debo was 92nd among 120 wide receivers and tight ends that had at least 50 targets targets in EPA per target against man coverage. That is not what he does well. And that's one of the reasons that teams started doing it so heavily against the Niners. The Washington's best receiver last year on a rate basis against man coverage was Olamide is a Kias. He is no longer here. And so this is a group that Zach Ertz Debo where if you're playing a lot of soft zone, they can hurt you. If you're challenging those guys, what does it look like? And if you look at Jaden's numbers against man last year, he was 19th and EPA per drop back on non scrambles last year against man coverage. And so now with an entire year of game plan stuff, an entire year of how do we focus on this team? Are we going to see more control rushes where you're crushing the pocket a little bit playing man, trying to keep him contained and say we're going to make the receivers on this team beat us. And so that's what I'm looking for if teams start leaning into the plan that we saw from like the same Steelers last year against this team, a game where Washington's offense really struggled. Not everyone's set up to do that, but if we see more game plans tailored that way, does this team have the firepower and the flexibility to respond well to more of those man coverage looks where they struggled a little bit last year relative to how well they did against zone.
- [74:02]
Derek Klasson
And I'm like kind of dubious of that because again, Debo Samuel, even if Debo Samuel has a good year, that's never what it's looked like for Deebo Samuel is beating man coverage. So like that is certainly part of it. We talked about all the other other options like Zachary, your starting tight end is not beating man coverage. All of the other tertiary receivers probably aren't. And then even though I think McLaurin can, I think some of the success that they had against man coverage last year was like, oh, Terry McLaurin has a one on one. I'm just going to hit him down the field. Well, what if your deep ball success falls a little bit? Because that stuff, even though Jayden Daniels I think is a very good deep passer, what if you just get like a little bit more unlucky there and that hurts you a little bit? So like that's, I think bringing up their, their ability to beat man coverage is, is pretty important.
- [74:42]
Dave Hellman
What I'm hearing is Jaden's gotta get a little more comfortable living in the tight window world, which, which is my.
- [74:49]
Derek Klasson
Other criticism of him. I, he does need to do that.
- [74:52]
Robert Mays
But if you don't have the receivers you trust in that world, does that work? And I think that's the problem with this team. If teams start challenging them a little bit more. And one of the other elements of this is this team does not use a lot of motion in a motion heavy world because of the 10 tempo that they play with. And so I think that playing a little bit more man against them because you're not having to worry about some of the buttons other teams can press to take advantage of man coverage. There's a lot of things stacking up to I want to see defenses challenge them and I want to see how they respond. The most important supporting character for this team. And I promise you I wanted to talk about this guy before his highlight blocks on Monday Night Football last night. I'm going with blocking tight end John Bates and I want to talk about him for a few different reasons here. This team last year they defenses account for them in a unique way in the run game. They even to their 12 personnel because of Zach Erz and because of how spread out they play. They saw the fourth lightest boxes in the league last season to their 12 personnel. They had 84 carries into nickel out of 12 last year Washington did only the Chiefs, Eagles and Ravens had more more and they were second in the NFL and EPA per carry on those runs. And Bates is a big part of that because of how they can weaponize him as a blocker. And this comes in two different forms. If you watch the way that they use him, he truly and he got paid $7 million a year this off season do exactly this. He can hold up at the point of attack against edge rushers in a way that most tight ends in the NFL just cannot do anymore. If you want him one on one to handle an edge rusher, he can do it, which is a rarity these days. But the other thing, Derek, that just sticks out to me when I watch him. He's incredible moving to the second level and blocking in space. And so if you watch this run game, they do a lot of leaving the end man on the line of scrimmage because they're doing a ton of read stuff with Jaden Daniels. And so you'll see John Bates influence the N man on the line of scrimmage and then move to the second level. And his ability to track guys in space and then stick and then maintain contact with them no matter what's happening is incredibly impressive. Like he is just he has this strange ability to be able to track down guys and latch onto them in whether it's corners, safeties, linebackers. As he's moving to the second level, he is like perfectly tailored to be a weapon in the run game for this team specifically. And I am not surprised at all that he got rewarded this offseason for exactly that.
- [77:20]
Derek Klasson
Yeah, he's like outside of the truly. Truly, like special blocking tight ends, the George Kittles, like Rob Gronkowski at truly his peak. Usually tight ends fall into the line of like, they're a really good athlete so they can get to the right spot and they can just be a roadblock or like, if we're running straight behind them, they can move people a little bit the way that, like, I don't know, Darnell Washington can. The John Bates is where they are actually very good in space and can move linebackers once they get to the second level, which again, in that Monday night game we saw it, he put Demetrius Knight and pushed him into Logan Wilson, who was trying to scrape over the top like that. The fact that he does that like regularly, and I know Knight's a rookie and stuff, but like, that is something Bates can do. It's a huge part of their offense because they can. This is a run game that wants to be diverse. So if they want to do some of this, they're running gunpowder behind him and he's got to like, help on it and then climb up to the second level, he can do that. If they want to run some of the arc reed stuff where they're getting him out, moving in space to go be kind of a cavalry man in front of Jaden Daniels out on the perimeter on some of his runs, he can absolutely do some of that stuff. So I think when we talk about the offensive line hopefully being a better run blocking unit with guys like Connerly and guys like Tunsil, I think having Bates a part of that equation is a big part of it for them.
- [78:33]
Robert Mays
Dave, who is your most important supporting character for the Washington Commanders?
- [78:37]
Dave Hellman
Well, if we're mentioning guys that starred on Monday night. Yeah. Like, this feels redundant if you watched the Bengals Commanders game. But I held off buying into the hype about Jacore Crosby Merritt for a long time, which Bill Crosby Merritt, by the way, apparently that's what he prefers to go by, which is just rules. But when you're leaving Brian Robinson home from a preseason game because you're thinking that hard about trading him, then I gotta. I gotta pay attention and I gotta take this seriously. And of course he. He broke out with an explosive touchdown run. Pretty much the main highlight of his night. But yeah, I think you saw why Commander's camp has been buzzing about this. Ryan Robinson is in fact traded. Then all bets are off in terms of like, who the lead back is in this room. I mean, eckler's still there. Chris Rodriguez also had a really nice run on Monday night against the Bengals, but this is a guy they just drafted. Clearly the regime, like, they, they brought him in, so clearly they're high on him. If Brian Robinson's not getting in the way, then I absolutely understand why. This is a name that's been, you know, buzzing around social media for the last couple of.
- [79:45]
Robert Mays
We don't typically see this. I mean, the last guy that kind of did this was Isaiah Pacheco in a backfield that didn't really have any established guys. And Brian Robinson has kind of been an established guy for this team over the last couple years. And so the fact that they're willing to move on from him for, potentially for Jacquari Crosby, merit in that role within the offense or some combination of him and Chris Rodriguez, I think says a lot about how quickly he's come along. I mean, when I was there again, it was early August and it was pretty early in training camp and they were already in a spot where they were like, we have real competition at running back because of this guy that we drafted. So not at all surprised that they are excited about him and what he's bringing to the table. Derek, what counts as a successful season for the Washington Commanders? We're answering this question for all 32 of these teams in our previews.
- [80:30]
Derek Klasson
So I think it's winning the division. And then also, like to me, the re the way they would win the division is like, I would like Cliff Kingstraight to prove to me that this is real. Like, I think if he can prove that he is a guy who is like truly built for the long term for this, that that is an extremely successful Washington season.
- [80:47]
Dave Hellman
Dave it's twofold, really. I'm going to start with the important thing. All that really matters for me when you have a 24 year old quarterback who's on the cusp of greatness is just solidifying that that is true. Like, we, and obviously CJ Stroud got his team to the playoffs last year. It wasn't a disaster, but we. I don't want to the CJ Stroud experience, I don't want to be back at the podcast table next off season. Like, well, this is, you know, life in the NFL is hard. No, like I want Jaden Daniels to be the man. I want him to look like an MVP candidate and the first guy in the next tier, you know, and on top of that, if he is that guy, then the Commanders will at least be in the mix. Like you're not going to have a quarterback that good and suck. So. So if Jaden Daniels is that dude, that is the biggest priority. But if he is, they'll, they'll be a playoff contender as long as they're on the graphic in the last weekend of the season and Jaden Daniels is awesome, then I think this was a success. Even like playoff games and wins don't necessarily matter to me this year, even if that would be fun. But if Jaden is good, all of that will come.
- [81:59]
Robert Mays
I almost think that's more important, Derek, than the Cliff Kingsbury question. Because if cling, if Cliff does it again, he's gonna be a head coach for Michigan. I mean that, that's going to be the end result of that. And so I think that Jaden kind of establishing himself as that guy is probably more important for the long term health of the Washington commanders.
- [82:14]
Derek Klasson
That is true. I guess for me it was like, I have more faith that Jaden Daniels can do that. With Cliff Kingsbury, I'm a little bit more like, let's, we'll see it again.
- [82:22]
Robert Mays
I think running back, the offensive quality and success from last year would be a good one to include as I get what makes up a successful season. To me it was just 10 wins in a playoff. Like if the offense can be good and the defense can be average and this is like a 10 or 11 win team and they get back to the playoffs began because they can win the same number of games this year and be a significantly better team that's a little bit less lucky. And I think if that's the end result, I have no issue with that whatsoever. I think that is a success and then you're building to something potentially in 2026 when you can really round out the areas of this roster that are still relative weaknesses.
- [83:02]
Dave Hellman
I think it just depends because again, to bring the Texans back up, like The Texans won 10 games and won their division and we just argued for a half hour over whether we think they're a good team. Like we just did that a week or two ago.
- [83:14]
Robert Mays
But the Texans were like the 27th best offense in the league last year as part of that equation. I think for Washington to be a success, you need to be like the seventh best offense in the league and be a ten win team.
- [83:24]
Dave Hellman
If they are a ten win team because Jaden and their offense kick ass. Then, then, then yes, I. Yes, absolutely, yes.
- [83:31]
Robert Mays
Because that's the thing that has staying power. Our 2025 Dallas Cowboys preview. If you're watching this on YouTube, we would love if you liked and subscribe. Please leave your thoughts and comments below. Anything you take issue with predictions that you have for this division, anybody you think we should be we should have talked about a little bit more as part of this conversation. We would love to hear from you. The Dallas Cowboys off season in 60 seconds hired Brian Schottenheimer as their head coach. I just forgot that happened. Hire Matt Uberfluz as a defensive coordinator. Hired Clayton Adams from the Cardinals as their offensive coordinator. Other notable Hires Nick Sorenson as the special teams coordinator. He was the defensive coordinator for the Niners last year, which is interesting. Ken Dorsey comes in as a past game specialist. We'll talk about the offensive staff a little bit later. Micah Parsons currently holding in extended Osa Diguazua 4 years $80 million 39 million guaranteed acquire George Pickens from the Steelers for a third round pick next year Jake Ferguson back on a four year $50 million deal with $28 million guaranteed Kavante Turpin back three years 13 and a half million 5 million guaranteed small deals in free agency for Solomon Thomas, Dante Fowler Jr. Robert Jones, Javante Williams. They also traded for Kenneth Murray and Kyer Elam. Everyone's cast off first round picks are now Dallas Cowboys lost DeMarcus Lawrence, Jordan Lewis, Brandon Cooks, Chauncey Golf, Rico Dowdle and Cooper Rush in free agency. As far as the draft goes, Tyler Booker, guard overall or 12th overall in the first round Donovan as Raku second round 44th overall or the Edge Siobhan Revel, cornerback, third round 76th overall Dave, what are you excited about watching with the 2025 Dallas Cowboys?
- [85:09]
Dave Hellman
Listen, there's there's a long list of malaise and things that are not exciting but about the Dallas Cowboys and we will get into the that. But I'm so fricking excited to watch Dak Prescott play with two, you could even say three quality options. Depends on how high you are on. Jake Ferguson last year was a down year. I think he's a pretty good tight end. Obviously CD Lamb and George Pickens being the headliners. I feel like, at least from my perspective, people memory hole what Dak is capable of just as a quarterback because of the playoff failure. But the bottom line is when he's got weapons in his offense, watch out. Man. He was a 4, 900 yard passer as far back as 2019. He came like a yard away from the single season franchise record when he had Amari Cooper, Michael Gallup, Randall Cobb and the oldest possible version of Jason Whitten. Then in 2021, he goes 4, 500 yards with Amari CD Cedric Wilson, injured Michael Gallup and Dalton Schultz. And then obviously years ago, he was second team All Pro, 4,500 yards, 70% passing completions. And that was just with washed Brandon Cooks. That wasn't even with somebody of George Pickens, his caliber. So top five receiver in CD Lamb, a very, very exciting young receiver in George Pickens. Everything else about the Cowboys might be a dumpster fire right now, but this passing attack should be a hell of a lot of fun. I'm so excited to watch.
- [86:45]
Derek Klasson
Watch it. I mean, it's literally that simple for them, right? Like you have like, like in 2023 again, when the, when the receiving core was theoretically worse than it's going to be than it was this year. Like Dak was the. Dak was the MVP that year until like December 8th. Basically. Like he, he for a majority of that year felt like he was going to win the mvp. And then Lamar kind of stole it towards the end. I'm just, everyone knows at this point.
- [87:12]
Robert Mays
Important caveat about them playing the worst slate of opposing defenses.
- [87:16]
Dave Hellman
That was a generous, very generous interpretation of what happened, but I was just going to let it slide. That's fine.
- [87:21]
Derek Klasson
He was fortunate to play the slate that he played, but like he was, I think he was the betting favorite for a majority of that season again because like he was allowed to go play a lot of the worst teams, but he made the most advantage of it. Like he is. Dak is a quarterback who by virtue of being incredibly aggressive when it's good, man, it's good. And I think when you have a guy like CD Lamb, who I think we all know he's good, but I think like there is, we don't forget that he can be like the third best receiver in the league, but I really would not be shocked if he was again behind Jamar Chase and Justin Jefferson. Like, if he put up, you know, 1600 yards and did something crazy, I don't think that would be off the table. George Pickens, I think, is a complicated player at times, but I think Dak is the perfect quarterback to unlock him because he will throw to him at any level, in any window. And that is the exact type of thing that Joe George Pickens does well. And then Ferguson's the same way. Ferguson doesn't really like run away from people all that much, but man, he can get up the seam and catch a contested ball and that's all the Dak wants to throw anyway. So like their passing game in terms of the players that they've collected around him. It's the first time Dak has had a good wide receiver, two in years. And I'm pretty excited to see what that looks like.
- [88:29]
Robert Mays
Again, you need a second receiver. You just, if you're going to be a real NFL offense, you need a second receiver. And it's this simple and I was talking to people when I was in Oxnard for training camp just about this and how it changes the dynamics of the offense. This is not revolutionary. This is very simple thinking about football. If you're going to cloud CD Lambside and you have a one on one matchup to the other side, do you have a player that can take advantage of that one on one matchup? And for all of the warts of George Pickens, his game. And there are plenty of concerns to be had about the long term health of George Pickens on your team based on how it went in Pittsburgh. If you throw him some one on one opportunity, fades, slants, anything where he's able to kind of use the physicality he's bringing to the table, he can win in those scenarios. He absolutely can. And so I think that having a true number two receiver, where you can find a guy that if you're going to leave him one on one, you're going to pay for it relatively often that is not something this team has been able to enjoy. And think about the other guys that you mentioned, Derek. Think about the how the Bengals offense is built. Think about how the Vikings offense is built. Those teams have number two receivers. Think about the way the Eagles are, the way the Dolphins are with Tyreek Hill. Any guy that has been like a consensus top five receiver in the league for the past couple seasons has had at least a serviceable number two receiver on his team, except for CD Lamb. So not only does this make the offense better, there is a chance that this makes CD Lamb better because of who he's getting to play with.
- [90:00]
Derek Klasson
And that's actually really important because CD Lamb, we've, I think we've talked about this maybe before but, but like I think it's really cool and admirable for what CD Lamb has been able to become in terms of really becoming more of an outside player than he was early in his career. The best ball from CD Lam is him still working from the slot. Like he is a uniquely explosive player from the slot. He has really, really good hands. He's very tough going over the middle of the field like a lot of the slot. He's part of that is because he is built bigger than a lot of other guys who would normally work out of the slot. And he's just able to go up against linebackers, safeties and take those hits like he is. Just when I envision CD Lamb at his best, it's a lot of like how the Lions treat Amon Ross St. Brown, except that CD Lamb is also more explosive with the ball in his hands like that. It's like he's kind of a special player in that way. And so if by virtue of getting Pickens in there and then some of the other tertiary receivers just taking sacrificial snaps outside, we get more Lamb back in the slot. That's how he is like goes up to be like a triple crown type of receiver receiver again.
- [91:00]
Robert Mays
The receiving group is better, but it's still mostly two guys and Jake Ferguson the deepest area of this roster and the thing that I am excited to watch and with one big caveat, when Micah Parsons comes back and Micah, pretty big is going to be back, Micah Parsons is going to play. Michael Parsons is going to be on the Cowboys. They are going to figure this out in the same way that they always do when you drop Micah Parsons back into this defense. The edge rushing group here is Micah Parsons, Donovan as a rock who they drafted in the second round and has reportedly had a very nice training camp. Marshawn E. One who they drafted in the second round, last year. Player that could potentially take a step. Sam Williams, who was David, you can attest to this was really, really exciting heading into last season before getting hurt and missing the entire year. And they now have Dante Fowler. I mean this is a group that goes like five deep on the edge potentially for the Cowboys and they're going to need it considering the state of their defensive tackle room, which we're going to talk about in a little bit. But if all of those guys become like something akin to the best version of themselves, I'm really looking forward to watching what this group can do coming off the edge.
- [92:05]
Dave Hellman
It's pretty wild how they like it's been a roller coaster for the edge rushers. Cause they were so good when Dan Quinn was there. Obviously they just like DeMarcus Lawrence leave this offseason and it looked like it was taking a downturn and you're like, ooh, edge rusher is a sneaky big need for this team team. But first of all, as much as people rag on their free agency activities, and rightfully so, they refuse to ever spend money or try to improve the team. But getting Dante Fowler back for not a lot of money after a double digit sack season. A guy that I never really thought they should have let leave for Washington in the first place considering he's never signed a major contract. Like he's, he's very nicely settling into that Leonard Floyd role where he's just like yeah, who wants to pay me a few million to rush the passer this year? Like that sounds great. So you get him back Donovan as a rock who falls in your lap. We've, we talked about him at the start of camp where you know, Dane had a top 25 grade on him and he, they get him in the second round. So eight months after thinking this position was kind of looking down a little bit, it is very, very healthy. And obviously Sam Williams as a Rocku, Marshawn Nealon's another one. Like these guys need to hit on their potential. But if even a couple of them do, this could be a very, very scary group provided one of the best football players in the entire league is is doing the majority of that work. Which I agree with you. I think he will.
- [93:30]
Derek Klasson
Yeah like if Pie in the sky pass rush, right is having what the Texans have, where you have Daniel Hunter and Will Anderson Jr. Where you have to like all pro players. But realistically the best way to get a good pass rush is you have one of those aces like a Micah Parsons and then you just fill out the depth with a bunch of these mid round picks and decent free agents and they have. Dallas has done a really, really good job of that. And the other thing too, it's not just that they have all these bodies that can really help with making sure you always have waves of guys. But like Marshawn Nyland is a pretty solid run defender. He's got some size to him. Donovan as a rock who is not the biggest guy but he's long and actually a pretty good run defender himself. So you've got all these pieces where again we'll talk about the defensive tackle's capacity to defend the run, but at least on the edge I think they actually have some decent decent guys to do that.
- [94:14]
Robert Mays
The swing points for the 2025 Cowboys, the areas of the roster, just general areas period where this season could pivot. Derek, what do you got for me? Where is this Dallas Cowboys season potentially going to swing?
- [94:27]
Derek Klasson
I think it's the young offensive line plus Clayton Adams. Like I think that combination could, could really do a lot for them. Clayton Adams I'm pretty excited about. You know we've talked about a million times over the course of the season with what Arizona. Arizona was doing with their run game last year.
- [94:39]
Robert Mays
So he was the offensive line coach in Arizona before getting this job.
- [94:43]
Derek Klasson
Yeah. And he was, you know, for as much as I think we're excited about Drew Petzing and stuff, like most of the cool stuff in Arizona was their run game. And so I'm really excited for what Adams is going to bring there in part because Dallas's run game last year felt pretty bland and was truly one of the worst in the league. So that is certainly part of it. But then this young offensive line I think is easy to get excited about because of all the capital invested into it. But like, like outside of Tyler Smith, there's not that much like, okay, I know this guy is really good. Like Tyler Smith, sight unseen, very good player. Cooper Beebe I think was promising as a young center. I think he's still more in like the league average. You want to see him take a step. Tyler Booker, I think a promising first round player. A dude who really has a lot of power to him, even if he's not the best athlete. You still don't know how a guy is going to play in his first year. And then Tyler Guyton, who showed some stuff as a rookie last year, but it was a lot of up and down and then he's been not healthy and we don't know when he's really going to come back and feel good. So there's some volatility here. It's just one of those things if, if they can get to like their 80th percentile outcome for what that could look like. Plus Clayton Adams bringing some stuff in. This could be a much different offense than I think we saw from them last year.
- [95:50]
Robert Mays
I think it's going to take a little bit of time, especially with Tyler Guyton not having practice for them to figure out what they want their identity to be, their identity to be on the ground. We talked about this on a couple other shows and discussing the Tower Guyton injury. Injury. But in talking to people when I was there at training camp and Clayton Adams specifically about the history of that Arizona run game. When they got to Arizona, the thought was not going to be we're going to have this gap scheme pinpull run game that's going to become one of the best in the league. Drew Petzing is like a wide zone guy with like from the Kevin Stefanski world. Like they did not anticipate becoming that sort of run game. It took trial and error and it took them learning their personnel and not having Tyler Guyton for all of training camp, you lose some of that experimentation time, even if you have the other guys. And I think this is going to move into the season as they figure out, all right, what is our run game? What is the best way to structure this thing, and how can we make sure we're getting the most out of these individual pieces? It might take six, eight weeks to lean into that. But based on what Clayton Adams did in Arizona, I do have faith in their ability to find the right answer and try to put these guys in the right spot spots.
- [96:57]
Dave Hellman
I think my swing point ties nicely in with all of that because it feels like it needs to happen for the Cowboys run game to be anything remotely remarkable. And it's a. It's a tough time of year to evaluate this stuff, right? Like, training camp practices are not going to give you a great idea of the run game. And starters, especially for the Cowboys, starters don't get a ton of playing time in the preseason. But I haven't seen anything come out of Cowboys camp that gives me a lot of optimism that the Cowboys have enough in the running back room. And like, you know, the. The Tyler Booker pick could mitigate that. Clayton Adams could mitigate that. But you look at it as the season is on the horizon and you're like, are Javante Williams and Miles Sanders and a couple of rookies, like, are they going to move the needle that much? Are both of those veterans even a lock to make the team? Like, does. Does Miles Sanders make the final roster here? We haven't seen Jaden Blue. He had a bone bruise in practice. He hasn't played in the preseason. I think he's going to play in the preseason finale, which is nice. The seventh round pick, Phil Mafa has had some nice moments in the preseason, but does any of that give you confidence? Like, it's easy to say, oh, somebody can run for a thousand yards if the scheme and the offensive line are good enough. But is that actually true when you have the worst running back room in the NL NFL? Or am I wrong that it's not? Like, maybe it's not, but that. That's how I feel. What, three weeks out from the start of the season, you need the best.
- [98:29]
Robert Mays
Offensive line in football, period. In order to do that right? That you need, like one of the best three or four lines in the league. You need to be like, the 2016 Cowboys. I know that team had Ezekiel Elliott, but I mean, Darren McFadden and DeMarco Murray were doing work before Ezekiel Elliott got there. DeAndre Swift got paid a lot of money because he was playing behind the Eagles offensive line.
- [98:51]
Derek Klasson
So did M. Sanders.
- [98:53]
Robert Mays
Yes. If those guys can. If that offensive line can be something close to one of the best offensive lines in the league, the running backs don't. Won't matter. I just have a lot of questions about whether that's going to be possible even in the best outcome. I think the Dallas Cowboys offensive line is like a top half of the league line, not one of the best five elite lines in the NFL.
- [99:14]
Derek Klasson
Yeah, if they're going to be like a really, really good run game, it has to be. They have to get some help from the backs. And I think I. It has to be Jaden Blue. I like Javante Both. Javante Williams. Javante Williams is coming out of a backfield that like let a bunch of their running backs go so that they could draft a running back and then sign another one in Denver. And then Miles Sanders, like the Panthers kind of signed him to be the starter and then very quickly realized that that was not going to be the case and just let Chuba Harvard basically take over the job. So it really has to be Jaden Blue. And even the complications with that is like one you already mentioned that he's, he's been a little bit banged up, so he's not probably getting as many reps as he wants. And I think that's going to be part of it. Also he was a fifth round pick and also he's 195 pounds. Even if he's good, he's not going to be your 300 touches a season type of player. And so even in the case where Jaden Blue works out, you still need to get pretty good play out of Javante Williams and Miles Sanders, which really has never happened from them outside of like truly ideal circumstances.
- [100:12]
Robert Mays
All right, well, let's, let's change the tone of this here. What's keeping you up at night, Derek, about the 2025 Dallas Cowboys?
- [100:20]
Derek Klasson
So a little bit the running back room, but to me this might be the worst secondary in the NFL and I am pretty worried about what that room looks like. Travon Diggs, I don't think is he's not going to be healthy for this season. So that is a big.
- [100:33]
Robert Mays
We've not talked about this nearly enough. No, this is legitimate talking point.
- [100:39]
Derek Klasson
Blinking red lights, caliber of bad. Because I've, I've heard it and like seen a little bit and I've tried to do some of it myself of like optimism of like Dallas can make the Playoffs because you look at the offenses like you can really start to sell yourself there. And you look at the secondary man, Kyre Elam is going to have to start at corner for them. Who the Bills, who have tried forever to try to get new corners in the building and new blood in the building at that spot, were like, we're good with this experiment. We don't want to do this anymore. Um, probably, come on. Hall is going to start for them at the nickel, which, that scares me a lot. And then their other outside corners, Daron Bland, who, like, I know he caught a bunch of picks a couple of years ago, but he is an incredibly volatile player and if he is one of your big time starting corners, that's an issue. And then their safety room is like inoffensive. Like Donovan and Wilson and Malik Hooker like have their moments, they're solid players, but that's a bigger problem when you don't have any good corners. And so I'm just really worried about what this unit's going to, to look like.
- [101:34]
Robert Mays
We'll see what happens when either Diggs or Ravel come back from injury and how quickly they can solve some of those problems. But Dave, it doesn't seem like we have any sort of clarity on the timelines for either of those guys. And so I am genuinely worried about what this group is going to look like.
- [101:50]
Dave Hellman
The Cowboys do this frequently and I think it ties back. You can find a million quotes where Jerry Jones is just an eternal optimist. Like he is a glass half full kind of guy. And why wouldn't he be with all the success, success he's had in his life, I guess. But do you know how insane it sounds to just be like, yeah, well, Trayvon destroyed his knee in December and the rookie we drafted in the third round who's never played in the NFL, like that happened in September. So, you know, they'll be back at some point in the fall and we'll just plug them in and it'll be good and that will solve that problem. Like that, respectfully, is the way that like Madden players think about football. Like, you would hear like a fan say that and be like, man, it's, it's way more complicated than that. But this appears to be the strategy of the front office of the team. And it's, it's crazy. And I mean, I know, you know, Steven Jones told reporters at training camp that they're aware that they have a cornerback issue, but this is the type of, this is a, the type of problem that needed to be fixed in the spring. And from the sounds of it, Kyrie Elam has played well at camp. Personally, don't think that's enough. So maybe this is a situation where you try to do a roster cut down trade or something. But even still trading for the last man out of somebody else's cornerback room is still not enough like this. This unit needed way more help and it, it seems too late to do anything meaningful about it. I have heard good things about Zion Childress, the undrafted rookie that they have in their camp. So I don't know, maybe they can cobble something together. But for my money, I think you're just banking on Micah Parsons in the past rush being that good. Which by the way, Micah Parsons hasn't had a camp. So it's all, it's all very weird and frustrating.
- [103:46]
Robert Mays
If you're looking for an outside corner right now, the Indianapolis Colts just did this. They need an outside corner. After losing Justin Wally, they decided Xavian Howard, who did not play football in the NFL last year, that that's the state of let's try to find an outside corner right now. There are plenty of teams trying play to to do it. The pool you're choosing from, you're not going to like it.
- [104:04]
Dave Hellman
Derek, we talked about that during the Training Camp Questions episode. I mean, if you want to do a reunion with Stefan Gilmore now that the hard part of camp is over. I'm not saying that's exciting, but it would be a hell of a lot better than what we're talking about right now.
- [104:19]
Derek Klasson
At this point. It's I would feel whatever degree comfortable more I can get with this unit that would, that's probably about as good as we're going to get. So they might as well.
- [104:29]
Robert Mays
If the corners were the only issue with this defense, personnel wise, that would be one thing. What's keeping me up at night is the current state of the defensive tackle room for the Dallas Cowboys. Our guy John Machoto, who covers the Cowboys for the Athletic, wrote this morning on August 19th that Mozzie Smith might not make the team.
- [104:45]
Derek Klasson
Oh my God. I mean.
- [104:48]
Robert Mays
So if he does, can.
- [104:50]
Dave Hellman
We say that's surprising?
- [104:52]
Derek Klasson
I was going to say good. He's been an issue for them for sure.
- [104:54]
Robert Mays
We know this. They were 32nd in the NFL in defensive EPA per carry in EPA per carry last year on defense, The Cowboys were 30th in run defense success rate per next gen. They were 23rd in success rate in the second half of the season, but they were still 31st in EPA per carry on the ground per next gen stats other than Mozzie Smith, here are the other guys vying for playing time in that defensive line rotation. Former Brown Perry on Winfrey, seventh round pick J. Toya and Tommy Akin BA Sotay. That's what we're talking about here.
- [105:24]
Derek Klasson
So two seventh round picks in a former Browns defensive tackle coming from a un that famous from a room that famously does not have good defensive tackles.
- [105:32]
Robert Mays
It's a concern. It's a huge concern and that's why I think you it was the exact right point to make Derek where the offense you can get there if the offensive line gels and Tyler Guyn comes back and this is like the seventh best offense in the league and Pickens really thrives in that situation. You can get excited about that but it's really hard to get there with the current state of the defense even if Micah Parsons comes back just because we have whole position groups where there are serious questions question marks here as we get to the evidence of the season. David, what are you watching in the first month of the season with the Dallas Cowboys?
- [106:08]
Dave Hellman
I prefer to just focus on the offense cause it's the fun side of the team and you mentioned it already, but I'm just curious to see what Tyler Guyton looks like having unfortunately not really had a ton of camp right. Like he got hurt when it was still July, it was relatively early on into camp. So that's a month plus of reps and no preseason that you're talking about for a guy who was raw last year, who struggled last year and we don't officially know whether he'll be back in time for the regular season. It's a four to six week recovery time. So if you're doing mental math, maybe he can sneak back in for the season opener. Maybe it's more realistic to think that it's week two or even week three. We'll see. But either way he's jumping into the season without as much training camp as you would prefer. And it's not as if the the Cowboys get breaks here like you open the season against the Eagles. Eagles Week 2 is the Giants, which if they got nothing else we know they got a pass rush, then it's the Bears and then it's the Packers. I mean there are no weeks off at the beginning of this season for a left tackle who hasn't played as much football as you'd prefer. So how good he looks, how he re acclimates and how the Cowboys manage that, I'm sure Clayton Adams can scheme around it as need be, but I think it's, you know, we want to watch dak throw for 350 yards a game.
- [107:30]
Derek Klasson
He's.
- [107:30]
Dave Hellman
He needs his left tackle playing well if he's going to do stuff like that.
- [107:34]
Robert Mays
Speaking of how Clayton Adams schemes this up, what I'm watching is how dynamic is this offense feel compared to how static it has felt at times over the last few years. Last season, in the short time that we saw him, I guess half the season we saw him, Dak Prescott had a 21.3% tight window throw rate per next gen. That was the highest in the NFL. Some of that is self inflicted. Some of that is the way that Dak Prescott plays football. I don't think it's an accident that Cooper Rush finished third in that exact statistic last year. This is a static offense that makes it very hard on the quarterback and that they've only become more of that over the last couple years. They had an 18.8% play action rate which is bottom 10 in the NFL. They're below average motion rate, below average shift rate. Last year they used multi tight end sets at the 29th highest rate in the NFL. NFL. This was a static offense that just didn't have a lot of variety of diversity to it. What does it look like this year? Because you compare those multi tight end sets to what the Cardinals did. The Cowboys had 180 snaps with multiple tight ends on the field last year. It was the fourth lowest rate in the league. The Cardinals had 498 of those. I don't think that's necessarily a good or bad thing. I'm just wondering, does the offense feel more dynamic and more diverse as they move to a new set of ideas? I know Brian Schottenheimer is carrying over, but the rest of the offensive staff is different. Their offensive line coach comes from the college game. He was the Kansas State offensive line coach when Cooper Bibi was there. Clayton Adams has a very different background than what the Cowboys offense looked like last season. Do we see more motion? Do we see more personnel diversity? They have a fullback on this team. What do they use that to kind of. How do they use that to kind of create layers in the run game? Do we see more motion with this team just to make things a little bit easier? Or is some, some of that static deployment and some of the way the offense feels? Is that because of Dak and the way that he wants to play? So as we change over here to a staff that I do think might be more open to, some of These ideas. Do we see a different version of the Dallas offense? Even when you're taking into account the preferences and choices of the quarterback?
- [109:40]
Derek Klasson
I think some of that is how, like, Dak. Dak likes to play. But sometimes you gotta lead these guys away from, like, their worst stuff. Like, Joe Burrow was the same way. Like, Joe Burrow has some stuff where you had to force him to throw the middle of the field a little bit more. And they had to. I know that that was a little bit different, but, like, sometimes you got to drain these guys back.
- [109:57]
Robert Mays
It's honestly not that different. And it's actually really funny because the Bengals have kind of had to incept Joe Burrow into accepting these things. Like, they've had to trick him into thinking that they're his ideas and the offense has benefited because of that. Can the Cowboys do the same thing? Can they get to a place where it's like, you know, Dak, like, we'd be better off if you were willing to do some of this stuff and then you convince him it's in his best interest. I'll be curious to see where they land. Land as part of that push and pull.
- [110:25]
Derek Klasson
Same. Yeah. If they can convince him, like, hey, man, when CD Lamb is. Has a running head start, he's going to be open more. Would you like that?
- [110:33]
Robert Mays
What counts as a successful season for the Dallas Cowboys?
- [110:37]
Dave Hellman
Dave, do you want the cynical answer or the sincere answer?
- [110:41]
Robert Mays
Let's go. Sincere answer.
- [110:43]
Dave Hellman
The sincere answer is that the offense really is that good. Dak plays like the guy that we remember from a couple years ago. This is one of the best. Best receiver duos in the league. And even with the offensive struggles, they fight their way to a winning record and maybe a playoff berth. You know, if. If they're nine and eight and the first team out of the playoffs or if they magically, you know, sneak in as a wild card, I think that would be a successful season. I mean, if they somehow managed to win the division, throw the parade. But yeah, I think a winning record and potentially a playoff berth would be. Sincere, would be good.
- [111:20]
Derek Klasson
I'm not. I'm not saying this just because they brought in Clayton Adams, but, like, if you are what the Cardinals kind of were last year, where you are a frisky, like, hovering around 500, pretty good shootout offense type of team. Sometimes you put up 35 on a team like they did against the Dolphins, sometimes you just get your shit pushed in and, like, you just don't have a good game. But I feel like they, for the most part are a frisky 89 win team. I think that's success for them.
- [111:44]
Robert Mays
Yeah, I think wild card to me is like the best case scenario where like they are a really good offense, the defense is passable and they managed to stumble into 10 wins and they get into the playoffs. That that to me is success. But I don't think they need to make the playoffs to feel good about it. I think is does the offense feel more dynamic and do we get an offensive line that feels like a young emerging unit and does that point to success moving forward with the Brian Schottenheimer regime? To me that's success for this team. Before we get to the Giants, we're going to take one more quick break. Everyone deserves to be connected. That's why T Mobile and US Cellular are joining forces. Switch to T Mobile and save up to 20% versus Verizon by getting built in benefits.
- [112:29]
Derek Klasson
They leave out.
- [112:30]
Robert Mays
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- [112:50]
Derek Klasson
Had the.
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Robert Mays
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- [113:00]
Derek Klasson
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- [113:02]
Dave Hellman
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Robert Mays
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Dave Hellman
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Robert Mays
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- [113:22]
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- [114:02]
Robert Mays
All right the New York Giants are Pre for the 2025 Giants their offseason in 60 seconds. Sign Paulson Ado 3 years 54 million Javon Holland 3 years 45 million Russell Wilson 1 year 10 million Darius Slayton 3 years 36 million 22 guaranteed to come back to this team Chauncey Goldston 3 years 18 million James Hudson Roy Robertson Harris Jamis Winston. They lost A.O. jalari, Drew Lock, Jason Pennock and Adori Jackson in free free agency. Drafted Abdul Carter with the third overall pick, Jackson Dart with the 25th overall pick. Darius Alexander, a defensive tackle with the in the third round, and running back Cam Scatterbo in the fourth round. Derek, what are you most excited about watching with the 2025 Giants?
- [114:40]
Derek Klasson
I mean, this one's pretty easy, but like, it's the front, right? It's the only obvious. It's like the only obviously good unit on this team where it's like, okay, you drafted Abdul Carter, who not just like picking him was exciting, but. But he's looked insane in the preseason. Brian Burns, we know to be a good player. Kayvon Thibodeau is fine, but if he's moving down the totem pole, I think that helps a lot. And then Dexter Lawrence is like the only defensive tackle left or no tackle in the league who could ever win defensive player of the year. So if that front is as good as we think it can be and even some of the depth pieces look nice, then, like, that's what you want to tune in to the Giants for every week?
- [115:14]
Robert Mays
Yeah, to me, Dave, that's the easy answer. Like, this group has a chance to be hellatious. This in the best case scenario, I'm very excited about. And I think the Cayman Tibeto point is a perfect one. If he's your third edge rusher and now he's the third piece, you can get all three of those guys on the field at the same time. With Dexter Lawrence, I do think that can be a driving force of this defense. Even if we have some questions about some of the other pieces, to me, that's the obvious answer. I'm going with something that I do feel like this has been a talking point for Giants fans all offseason and I am buying it a bit, little, little bit. This idea that even if Russell Wilson is an imperfect quarterback and he does end up becoming the quarterback for this team, at least he's willing to chuck it down the field in a way that Daniel Jones was not. If you look at it, last year, The Giants threw 20% 20 yard, 20 plus air yard throws, 9.6% of drop backs, which was the 27th highest rate in the league. The Steelers were seventh in the NFL and that includes the Justin Fields part of the Steeler season. So if Russ can do nothing else, it can be bombs away. And I am excited to see what Malik Neighbors and Darius Slate could look like in an offense that includes a lot More aggressiveness than the version that we got last year with Daniel Jones.
- [116:23]
Derek Klasson
I also think even though I think efficiency wise the, you know, the hit rate for the deep balls last year for Russ and really the past handful of years has not been that great. That's also been in part because he's been playing more with like George Pickens is not a run away from guys player. He is a go up and contested catch player. Cortland Sutton in Denver was kind of a lot of that player. Malik Neighbors and Darius Slayton, they're kind of more fit to the moon ball. Just give him like two yards of space to put it over the DB and run under it. That could get a little bit more of the good Russell Wilson back. I don't, you know, I don't know if that's enough to really mean anything, but it at least does like personnel wise fit him a little bit better.
- [116:59]
Dave Hellman
Neighbors did what he did with Daniel Jones, Drew lock and Tommy DeVito throwing the ball. And I feel like people don't say that enough. And even if Russ doesn't play a lot for some reason, like if it has to be Jameis Winston or Jackson Dart, like it's such a clear upgrade all through the quarterback room room, I, I mean the sky's the limit for what I think Malik Neighbors is capable of.
- [117:21]
Robert Mays
What are the swing points of the 2025 giant season? The areas where this year can pivot for the Giants. Dave, why don't you kick it off?
- [117:31]
Dave Hellman
I think it's only fair that I kick it off because I fell for the banana in the tailpipe last year where I was like, this pass rush is so cool. Brian Burns, Dexter Lawrence, Kayvon Thiboda, surely the rest of it doesn't even matter. And guess what? It mattered. So I just want to see better play from the back end of the New York secondary. Like it doesn't have to be an elite unit, but it was bottom five in the league last year. Like they did not get, like they did not get interceptions. They had five on the year. Fifth worst in pass EPA allowed in the league. They were fourth worst in yards per attempt. They allowed allowed the third highest opposing quarterback rating pick the stat. They were awful at it. And even a great pass rush can only do so much credit to them. They, they are trying, right? Like I know a lot of people aren't super high on Paulson. Adibo as like this shutdown corner. I would argue I, I don't need him to be. I just need him to raise the floor of that unit. And it's not like they put him at the top of the market, you know, like in all the numbers, his contract, 54 million total. It's, it's like top 10ish, which is an overpay. Cause that's the nature of free agency. But I don't need this guy to be all pro level for this contract to be worth it. And you could say something similar about Javon Holland. So those two, if they can at least raise the floor of this thing and let the pass rush matter, I think it could make the defense obviously much better and make this a much more serious team as a result.
- [119:08]
Robert Mays
Derek, I see you kind of like.
- [119:10]
Derek Klasson
I was gonna say, I'll be saying.
- [119:11]
Robert Mays
Shaking over there in your chair.
- [119:12]
Derek Klasson
I'll be saying more about Javon Holland later. I, I think a little bit more highly of him, I think. And I'm, I'm pretty excited about that.
- [119:17]
Robert Mays
I'm excited about Siobhan Holland. The corner spots I think are worth having some questions about. They gave Paulson Adibo a lot of money. That, that quarterback cornerback market this offseason was fascinating and we've talked about it a bunch of different times. We had like five or six guys sign the same contract and Byron Murphy was the only other second contract player. And not even really second contract, but a younger sign, that sort of deal. So Byron Murphy, and that was Byron Murphy, Carlton Davis, Char, various Ward, they all signed the same deal. All of those guys are better players than Paulson Adibo, but they're aging players, they're third contract guys. And so Paulson Debo as a second contract player gets paid at the same rate. But this idea, and this is kind of my concern about Paulson Adibo. Derek and I, we've talked about this. I think this is one of those contracts you hand out and it's like, oh, we solved this. And then that's not the case at all. And we just know that cornerback play is very volatile. And I think that he is in that group of corners where you might have to expect some volatility. I don't think it's necessarily solved because they signed Paulina Debo in free agency. Cornerback contracts in free agency are a crapshoot. They do not always work out. And in the worst case scenario, that's kind of what I'm looking at here. He absolutely could be a serviceable corner that like Dave is saying. All we have to do is raise the floor on one side of the defense. Devon Holland has to be the guy that we want him to be. We Feel good about Drew Phillips. We feel good about Tyler Newman. The pass rush is disgusting. And this becomes one of the best 12 defenses in the league. But I do think that there is some volatility with those corner spots and not only with the Debo, but then the other sec, the other outside corner spot like Dev Deontay Banks has been a huge concern as a first round pick. And so if a Debo is volatile, volatile, and then you can't rely on the other outside corner spot. That's where I think you can start to poke holes in what the ceiling of this defense looks like overall, even when you take into account how good the passer rush should be.
- [121:08]
Derek Klasson
Yeah, they're betting on the pass rush and then the inside part of the secondary with the nickel and the two safety spots, like having this cascading effect on the rest of the guys. But you know, Paulson Adiba, we'll see. I think he probably won't be bad for them, but the cornerback two spot is very, very treacherous territory, I think.
- [121:26]
Robert Mays
What is your swing point for the 2025 Giants?
- [121:29]
Derek Klasson
Derek the quarterback. It kind of has to be. And we talked about it. We've talked about it a little bit and hinted at it. And like, again, I think with the receivers that they have, there's some chance that they're up Russell Wilson. Deep ball roulette works out a little bit better for them. But even if it does, I think the other parts of Russell Wilson's game at this point are a little bit dubious. So I think it ultimately comes down to, like, do we see Jackson Dart? And what does Jackson Dart look like when he plays? And I know that he's put up insane preseason numbers and I don't want to say that he's been like secretly bad in the preseason, but it's kind of just a lot of RPOs go balls and like, screens. Like, he's not. He's made like one real throw a game, which is to be expected given the, the offense that he was coming from at Ole Miss. And I think us knowing that he was going to be a little bit of a project. So I think the swing point is basically like, do they feel like they can play him in week five or they are holding out until week 14 and hoping they have enough wins to keep him on the bench.
- [122:22]
Robert Mays
My curiosity with this, and I think when they decide to go to Jackson dart may be an expression of this. What type of limited do the Giants want? Is it the limited that Russell Wilson gives you, or is it the limited that Jackson Dart gives you because Jackson Dart has obviously looked great in the preseason. He's looked great running the old Ms. Jackson dart offense. And I do, I am open to the idea that that pairing with him and Brian D doing that sort of stuff can work. Because when you think about Brian D's history, not only do I think he's trying to find his Josh Allen from like a vibes perspective, and I do think the little bromance happening between Jackson Dart and Brian D is partially that like Jackson Dart as a dude was very well regarded in the process. And I think they're bought into him as a person, the way he carries himself, all of that. But Brian D is somebody going back to his time with Josh Allen. They used a ton of college stuff, whether that was the things that Cole Beasley was bringing, all the RPOs that they were using. Brian Dable's always been very interested in the college game and curious about it. And so he's well suited to tailor an offense around Jackson Darts strengths. You're going to run into some limitations. You can't just play that way in the NFL. Eventually it's going to be third and seven and you're going to have to make something happen. But Russell Wilson is also a limited player. Russell Wilson also is taking things off the table because he is your quarterback. So what version of limited they want? That to me is the question that they're going to have to answer as they go through this season and they run into walls with either one of those quarterbacks.
- [123:54]
Derek Klasson
To me it's like what kind of mistake are you okay with living with? Because like we know what mistakes Russell Wilson is going to make. He's going to take a lot of sacks every now and then he might, you know, turn down some stuff over the middle of the field. With Jackson Dart, there are definitely like schematic limitations to these two players that again are very different. So you kind of have to commit to one, I think as soon as possible. But to me with the mistakes with Dart, you just don't know. Like as a rookie, I mean I can say that like coming in I was like, oh, you know, his pocket presence and coming from the offense that he came from, the timing is probably going to be up and down, but you still don't know what the mistakes are going to look like until he makes them. Whereas with Russell Wilson like you, you kind of know what that music she looks like already.
- [124:32]
Dave Hellman
And that's why I kind of think Russell Wilson's gonna have a long leash. Because the limited they want is the limited that keeps them in a job. And you can like win games and maybe not look pretty, but win games. With Russell Wilson being limited the way.
- [124:47]
Robert Mays
That he is, I just don't know if that's true that I, I guess that's my question here. Is that, is that actually the version of limited that you want? Which is ironic as it wasn't Russell Wilson's whole thing being Mr. Unlimited. He is not unlimited as a quarterback. He is very limited at this stage.
- [125:03]
Dave Hellman
Well, okay, not to get into like this big existential thing about the nature of quarterback development but that's why it's such a shitty spot to be to have a first round quarterback that you want to develop with a regime that we think at least needs to win to keep their jobs. Cause like ideal, like I'd way rather throw Jackson Dart out there there if he's ready and just see what he can do and develop him and see what the ceiling looks like. But I assume Brian D. Can't really afford to do that if he wants to keep his job. And so I, I, I get your point and like I don't think that many people, I don't think there's anybody left that's like excited to watch Russell Wilson in 2025. But if it's keeping you in games and giving you a chance to be in the conversation, I think that's ultimately what a coach and GM on the hot seat would opt for in at least until Russ proves that that is not a viable strategy anymore which could happen.
- [126:00]
Derek Klasson
The, the one thing I will give in point of Jackson Dart and I think in terms of like the production, it could still be very up and down for him and I think he has a lot to learn. One like you mentioned Robert, he seemed to be very well regarded as a guy which I think will help you live through some of these ups and downs that you're going to have as a rookie. And then the other thing is like if you're going to be in a rookie that's in a tough situation like this, if you can at least live with, with getting the shit kicked out of you the way that I think Jackson Dart has already shown both in college and in the NFL, like I think those are ways that you can start to live with some of the ups and downs that you might otherwise get with a rookie.
- [126:33]
Robert Mays
I'm going to admit that I just don't really have a good feel for how I think this will go and how I think this should go in the best case scenario for The Giants. Right. Like the best thing here is that Russell Wilson is a much higher floor quarterback than Jackson. Jackson Dart, your offense is capable. With Russell Wilson, Brian Dable and Mike Kafka, you have a great defense. You don't have to do a ton on offense if you are a slightly below average offense with Russell Wilson, you have one of the best six or seven defenses in the league. You can get to like the a playoff berth right on the verge of that and these guys can keep their jobs and then, you know, we get well now we'll unleash Jackson Dart next offseason. Think about what he looked like in the preseason. We're so excited about him. Like we deserve to see this through. That to me is probably the best case scenario in a vacuum. Dave, I just don't know how realistic that is because I do think that the defense has a high ceiling, but we have not seen them do it. We just talked about some of the questions we have about the secondary and I have real questions about the offense's ability to be anything decent with Russell Wilson and everything else that's going on here. My swing point was the offensive line. Like, I just don't know what the offensive line is going to be, especially with Andrew Thomas still out. If Andrew Thomas is back and healthy, this has a chance to be a passable offensive line. But when you're shooting for the middle, you can always be worse than that. And I do think the right side specifically you have stop gap guys and Greg Van Roten and Germaine Aluminor. And so we have a below average offensive line. A league neighbor league neighbors we're very excited about. But other than that, like it's Darius Slade's a complimentary player. Theo Jackson still a very young player. It's Tyrone Chasey and Cam Scatterbo and then Russell Wilson. And is the floor on that high enough where you can just ride out the season with that group and win enough games to do it? I just don't think that's possible. I, maybe I'm too pessimistic here, but I've never bought that viewpoint of all of this.
- [128:29]
Dave Hellman
Oh, I don't really think it's possible either. I just lean toward a football coach's natural inclination to dance with the devil that he knows as opposed to put his hopes and dreams on a rookie who's never done this before.
- [128:42]
Robert Mays
But I think, I think he wants to play Jackson Dart.
- [128:44]
Derek Klasson
I don't think he knows Russell Wilson though.
- [128:46]
Robert Mays
You know, that's kind of what I mean. I, I, when You see the way the offense looks and when you see the way he talks about Jackson Dart, maybe I'm reading into this too much and this is too much of me trying to manifest something I find much more interesting than watching 17 games of Russell Wilson. But I don't know, I'm just picking up on little signs that I just, it feels like it's pointing to Jackson Dart being the more compelling choice here, not just for a football watcher, but for Brian Dabel.
- [129:14]
Dave Hellman
This is exactly why I would have either fired this regime last year or at the very least, and maybe, maybe John Mara did behind the scenes, but at the very least, I would have given them a real vote of confidence, like, hey, if you like Dart, draft him. I'm not going to fire you if you start 06 this year. And that like. So I would be so much more excited about the Giants if I was confident that the regime was going to be in place beyond 2025, just from the standpoint of like, continuity and, and maintaining a vision. So I'm, I'm with you, Robert. I just. Push comes to shove, I think desperate regimes do desperate, potentially stupid things.
- [129:55]
Robert Mays
Let's dig into this because mine, what's keeping me up at night is this exact thought. And I know this is the pessimistic outlook on it. And, and I want to make clear, I'm going to make this very clear. I didn't just forget what Brian D. Did with Daniel Jones a couple years ago there. It's been long enough now where I think the shine has come off of it and I've become just a little bit more skeptical of this regime. And I just, I'm not sure these are the right guys in New York. I have my questions about that, but the idea of Brian D. Being able to create something compelling and interesting and dynamic around Jackson Dart, again, based on his history and some of the things we've seen him do, I am open to that idea. So I don't think that's off the table. But what's keeping me up at night is that if these aren't the right guys, if we have enough evidence out there that they struggle to put together a really good offense. And it wasn't just the Daniel Jones problem. Are they doing the same thing I've watched the Bears do over and over and over again, where you've allowed a regime that's a lame duck group to do things that stretch your future and put you in a tough spot moving forward in order to save themselves or at least wave a hand at the idea of well look at the future that we're building for ourselves. We drafted a quarterback in the first round. So many first round quarterbacks when you look at the history of it come right before regimes get fired because they're often done out of desperation and I do think them deciding that they were going to go for Jackson Dart this year is a it's a hail Mary right Is a last gasp for this group and they didn't give up that much to get him and I think they deserve they should be commended for that like only giving up 2 3/3 in order to do it is a much smaller price than other teams have paid but you still gave up multiple picks and used a first round pick on a quarterback. You still spent a ton of money in free agency this year in order to shore up some holes to get decent right away and if these aren't the right guys and you've done all that for not and now you're going to be hiring a new coaching staff in front office next year who didn't pick Jackson Dart and now has far fewer resources to work with because of what you allowed this front office to to do. What does that mean for the next group And I know that is the sky is falling viewpoint here but I've seen this movie a bunch of times and I just am worried about it ending the same way that's a perfectly.
- [132:08]
Derek Klasson
Valid discuss they won like four games last year and they didn't do it.
- [132:12]
Robert Mays
Five and a half.
- [132:13]
Derek Klasson
Yeah like they're not going to be yes for a team that had like when their best season was like a okay we got we dragged Daniel Jones into the play playoffs barely and then won a very bizarre game against a funny Vikings team when that is your peak but then we've seen the lows be this where you are winning like three, four games and being truly one of the worst teams in the league like that to me scares me and that is not necessarily a regime I would have given another chance the Dable versus Shane part of it like in terms of the blame pie I do think is interesting like I think there's a chance that Dable is still a very good play caller and could either with the Giants or down the line if he gets another chance like still prove to be one of those guys who can make a good offense offense the the letting Shane pick a quarterback part of it I think is a little bit more dubious to me but I guess at this point they've just kind of been stuck riding it out with these two together and you might as well keep them tied instead of ending up in the different bear spot where you end up with the GM and the head coach like constantly out of order.
- [133:11]
Robert Mays
Thing is, Brian Dable might not be the play car. I think Mike Kafka is calling plays again for this team this year. And that's one of the other problems with this, is that the playbook they've kind of followed here. I've watched this playbook so many times. The snip snap of who's calling plays, firing coordinators, having these battles with coordinators. So many of the personality things, the stretching yourself for a first round quarterback. And the other part of this, if we're trying to lay some blame at Joe Shane's feet here, that I think is a consistent theme and it reminds me of one of the problems I've had with the Ryan polls regime in Chicago. Being not being able to properly scout your own talent to me is the marker of a troubled regime. And the fact that they let Xavier McKinney walk in free agency only to have to pay Javon Holland the next year because they let Xavier McKinney walk in free agency. There are just enough alarm bells here where I am concerned about how this is all going to end up and what it means for the multi year plan for the Giants. I know that is the most skeptical possible outlook, Dave, but it's just hard for me not to go there.
- [134:14]
Dave Hellman
I do think, you know, some of your scar tissue might be a part of that. But like it, it, it's, it's there, man. Like it, it makes sense and we can get into it there. There's a version of this Giants team that I think could be pretty feisty, but it's way easier to imagine the version that goes the way you're describing. I don't, I don't think that's unfair.
- [134:36]
Robert Mays
What are you watching, Derek? In the first month of the season as we try to put together that feisty version of the Giants, assuming we.
- [134:46]
Derek Klasson
Aren'T getting Jackson Dart in the first month of the season and assuming the pass rush is like as good as we think it is, the part of it that I'm really curious to see is like, how good is Javon Holland? Because I really think at his peak he was like about to become what felt like, you know, one of those like knocking on the door of all pro type safety and then he gets banged up a little bit. And last year was kind of the year after year for him, so he wasn't fully healthy. There's been a Lot of weird stuff in terms of like the volatility and the vibes around the Miami defense the last couple of years anyway. So it just felt like a weird spot for him to be in. He is such a good like versatile, move around ball hawking type of safety at his best. Putting that behind what is like a horrifyingly scary pass rush. There's just a chance that he gets his hand on, on the ball a lot this year and I'm very excited to see if like right out of the gate he looks like that guy again.
- [135:35]
Robert Mays
I'll extend this to the whole defense. What does the whole defense look immediately? Because if we're building that feisty Giants team, Dave, that can like sneak into a wild card, it has to start with one of the be best defenses in the league. And I think we feel good about what the pass rush can be, but the linebacker group falling into place, the interior pieces, you know, maybe being a little bit better than we thought. The run defense being a little bit better than it's been over the last couple years and the secondary coming together like I want to see it and maybe it takes a few games by mid season. What does this defense look like to me is the biggest question outside of who's playing quarterback and what does that mean is what is the ceiling for this group, period?
- [136:14]
Dave Hellman
Yeah, I think it's a name. We haven't said that. I'm interested to see what he does for an encore, which is Shane Bowen. And you know we had again like that we had expectations for, for what the pass rush would look like and how it would affect the Giants defense last year. And it, it just did not work the way that anybody would prefer. And this is talent wise, not an, not like an elite unit, certainly the pass rush rush, but like across the defense, I wouldn't say you have elite talent, but you've gotta, you've gotta cobble together better results on the back end. And that's, I'll say it one more time, if this defense was, I don't know, like 18th to 20th in the league this year across the board and like that's how the secondary performed and you're getting the results you want from the pass rush, that would be a really encouraging place. I think like that's a pretty encouraging step. And my opinion, other than the fact that there's the potential for starting all over with a new scheme next year if, if they clean house if it goes poorly.
- [137:13]
Robert Mays
I think that's your, what you're watching over the first month of the Season. Derek is essentially, can this team stay relevant for long enough for us to be interested in what they turn into over the course of the year?
- [137:23]
Derek Klasson
So that's actually what I was going to say to you. Like, 18th to 20th would be a huge improvement for them. They were one of the worst defenses in the league last year. I also think that would not be good enough for them to not be all fired by like week nine, like, because I just don't think the offense is going to be good enough for that. I think that's right for the 18th best defense to really be upholding you. Like, it has to be, I would say, like the 10th best defense for them to get enough Runway for the offense to be like, okay, we can squeak by into some of these games. And so that to me is like, I think the defense has to be like the offense. I'll give some grace. I know they're going to try to see what they can do with Jackson, Dart and some of the other young players. But the defense to me has to be like, you have enough veterans here. You've paid enough money for this to be good. It better be pretty good.
- [138:06]
Dave Hellman
Check this out, guys. And Robert, you and I have joked about this. Like, I was, I was a lot more bullish on the Giants in like, April. Like, I could see the vision. I was like, yeah, they got somebody who can get neighbors the ball and the defense looks nice. They're going to draft Abdul Carter. And then the schedule came out and I just sort of threw that take out the window because this is, this is the start for the New York Giants. It's at Commanders, at Cowboys, Chiefs, Chargers. They do get the Saints after that. But then as soon as that Saints game is over, it's both Eagles games and a road game in Denver against the Broncos. Like you, surely I'm not trying to suggest they won't win a single one of those games, but find the wins for me. Man. And then that made me curious because I'm just thinking about what I know about the New York Giants over the last decade, since 2016, which is when I would argue was the last time they were like a legitimately good team. They're 7 and 20 in September. And over that time span, 2022 is the only year where they've been within three games of 500. They've been three games below.500 or worse at their buy in eight of the last nine years. Like, with the very lone exception of 2022, they've just been an afterthought by the Time the calendar turns to like mid October. Like they have not even been able to trade wins and losses. Like they have very much gotten out to bad starts. And in late September of most years we're talking about hot seats and quarterback changes and like all the negative press that goes along along with a slow start. I need them to do I, I need them to be trading wins and losses like that's, that is what I need them to be doing. And I just, I don't see it with what the schedule gods have decreed that they get this year. Like it looks very tough is this.
- [140:02]
Derek Klasson
Like the vibes are permanently bad in New York until proven otherwise situation.
- [140:06]
Robert Mays
So that's exactly where I land with this and I know that's terrible analysis and I love sometimes we got to.
- [140:12]
Derek Klasson
Lean into the vibes, man.
- [140:13]
Robert Mays
There's nothing I want to listen to fan bases when they're trying to tell you things about the roster. And I do think that there is a contingent of Giants fans that's looking at the defense, looking at the pass rush, seeing the best case scenario there and looking at not Daniel Jones at quarterback and saying there is a path for us here and I want to be open to that. I just can't get there. And maybe I'm just spectacularly wrong about the Giants. Maybe the Giants are one of the best defenses in the league. Maybe they are a wild card team. But I do think what's hanging over them when it comes to those vibes, Derek, I just can't ignore it. And I know that's not the most high level analysis of an NFL team coming into a season, but I just can't get away from that right now. And I wish that I could. I wish I could just eject it from my brain and I just can't do it.
- [141:02]
Derek Klasson
It's hard not to. And like the Bears are the perfect example. Like the Bears were a top 10 defense last year early in the year until all of the vibes truly came crashing down. Because all this pretty much all the same factors that we're seeing with the Giants here.
- [141:14]
Robert Mays
So with that in mind, Dave, what in your mind is a successful season for the New York Giants?
- [141:20]
Dave Hellman
There's two options here. They forge the hard road and do what we all just said we don't think they can do. And they, I don't even think they need to make the playoffs. But like six to eight wins and looking compelling, competitive and like looking like a team on the rise. I think that could be a successful season. Or Jackson Dart just looks awesome in a Lost year. Like, I'm thinking if, if Jackson Dart were to look like Drake May in a year that got everybody fired.
- [141:52]
Robert Mays
Hey, Derek, just listen.
- [141:54]
Dave Hellman
I didn't say that I thought it would happen. I just said if it did happen. If Jackson Dart. If Jackson Dart looks like the type of quarterback that you can build around.
- [142:05]
Robert Mays
Like a quarterback worth building around. That's exactly what I was going to say. If he looks like a quarterback worth building around, and I think we have to be open to that idea, at.
- [142:13]
Dave Hellman
Least consider it possible.
- [142:14]
Derek Klasson
I'll at least say he's looked better. Like the preseason has looked more competent than I thought it was going to.
- [142:20]
Robert Mays
So I'm at least setting him up for success. Yes, they've done a great job of tailoring it correctly for him. And if that's the case, Dave, I agree with, with you that that's the answer for the best case scenario for the health of the New York Giants. That's not the best case scenario or the best answer for what is the successful season for Brian D. Shane. Because if you win seven games, even if Jackson Dart is showing you something, I still think it's really hard to keep your jobs in this moment. If they go 6 and 11, how well does Jackson Dart need to play for this group to be back?
- [142:53]
Dave Hellman
My counterpoint is who. Who gives a shit about that other than. And I don't want to make too much light of it because guys have to, like, relocate their families. I get all of that. But, like, if you're a Giants fan and Drake may looks like the prince who was promised, but the coaches all get fired, who. Who gives a shit?
- [143:10]
Robert Mays
We're going to give Drake.
- [143:12]
Dave Hellman
Maybe I'm getting a little like, listen, if Jackson Dart plays that way, then it doesn't. Like, that's an afterthought and like, that's the cost of doing business in the NFL, but in this world, and I don't want to want to offend Derek's sensibilities here in this world where Jackson Dart looks like the future of the York Giants, people will line up to take this job and the pass rush will still be there. You'll have the quarterback. Like, this will be a desirable job for a legacy franchise in a big market. They could go after next year's Ben Johnson and probably get him. So I'm sorry to Brian Dabel and Joe Shane, but, like, that's the cost of doing business. Like, I don't think anybody other than them is really going to care if Jackson Dart hits and they suck.
- [143:58]
Robert Mays
I like this A lot, actually, because I think I was too stuck in what is a successful season for like this regime and what they need that probably shouldn't matter. And I think the Patriots are a good comparison here where it's like they have a new coach. It didn't matter. Dre, like, Jake May looked good enough last year for you to be excited about this moving forward. And the best case scenario for me, Derek, is, is the Giants defense what we thought the Patriots defense might be last year? Right. That to me is actually when you combine the two, like, they realize the promise of a defense in a way the Patriots did not cause. They were hurt and a bunch of things started, you know, piling on top of one another. But if the defense shows this is a pass rush that can be really good over the next two to three years, we, the free agents hit. This defense is good. Jackson Dart is something. You combine those two. If you're a Giants fan, it probably doesn't matter to you who the coach is next year. That's enough for you to feel good about how this season went. I think that's right.
- [144:52]
Derek Klasson
Success for them is being like a seven win version of last year's Broncos. Like, that's. That is what success probably looks like for them with a quarterback. It's like, okay, we can do something with this. And then the defense proves it's like, okay, we've got a really good pass rush and something to build on. Obviously that's a little bit different because Sean Payton had already been there. And in this case, seven wins probably gets Brian Dable fired. But then you can go out and hire whoever you think your Sean Payton is going to be.
- [145:15]
Dave Hellman
I swear I'm. I'm really not trying to convince anybody that Jackson Dart will be Drake May, but I just want to point out out too. I just want to point out Drake May wasn't even the week one starter in New England. Like, they had to go through all this rigamarole as well. So even if Jackson Dart doesn't get on the field until the second half of the season, if he's good, that's more than enough, I think, for Giants fans.
- [145:40]
Robert Mays
But if he's on the field to the second half of the season, is this regime here to the till the end of the season? Like, and this isn't even me taking like a dower outlook here. It's just a team where I just don't know how this is going to go. I don't know how the different competing motivations and timelines and views of the coaching staff, ownership, all of this is going to play out. I've said this a couple times this offseason and I'll say it explicitly here. It's just one of the harder teams to me for me to figure out because I understand the best case scenario, but it's just really hard for me not to pay attention to the worst case scenario and where they land between the knows. I just don't have a good sense of that. That's just the long and the short of it. All right, that is it for the NFC East. A two hour and like 20 minute first division preview. The first one is always the longest. I did not expect it to be this long. It's the first time we've done this with three people. So it's a couple different elements that are leading to this being just astronomically long. The rest of these will be shorter. I'm very much looking forward to them. We will be back with the AFC east tomorrow. Tomorrow. Until then, appreciate you guys listening. We'll talk to you very soon. Everyone deserves to be connected. That's why T Mobile and US Cellular are joining forces. Switch to T Mobile and save up to 2020% versus Verizon by getting built in benefits they leave out. Check the math@t mobile.com switch and now T mobile is in US cellular stores. Savings versus Comparable Verizon plans plus the cost of optional benefits, plan features and taxes and fees vary. Savings with three plus lines include third line free via monthly bill credits credit stop if you cancel any lines.
- [147:29]
Derek Klasson
Qualifying credit required.
- [147:33]
Dave Hellman
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- [147:35]
Robert Mays
Out, you don't need a reinvention, you need a reset.
- [147:38]
Dave Hellman
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- [147:40]
Derek Klasson
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- [147:42]
Dave Hellman
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- [147:47]
Robert Mays
Move through your day.
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Derek Klasson
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- [147:51]
Robert Mays
Becomes part of your rhythm.
- [147:53]
Derek Klasson
This is your daily flow reimagined with scent.
- [147:56]
Dave Hellman
Explore moods and find your new favorites@pura.com.
- [148:00]
Derek Klasson
Moods.
- [148:03]
Robert Mays
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