2026 AFC East preview

Welcome to the Athletic Football Show presented by U.S. Bank. I'm Robert Mays. Today it is the AFC East preview. Really good conversations about some of these teams. I feel like we really chewed on what could go right, what could go wrong. Obviously the Bills and the Patriots at the top have sky-high Super Bowl aspirations. The Jets and the Dolphins are in a slightly different place, but it was fun going over what that means and what success can look like for all the teams in this division with Derek and Dave. Let's get to that conversation right now. Digging into the AFC East today, the one guy that comments on every single show that we do asking us to talk about the Bills is going to be really happy today. I almost as a bit, even though we're doing these all in divisional order, like the odds to win the division, I was almost as a bit going to skip the Bills and actually start with the Patriots. I was almost as a bit going to skip the Patriots just for his sake, but we are going to start with the Bills. It's a big Tuesday for him. Congrats to you, my man. We're going to talk about all the teams. I promise in the, in the division preview, we're going to talk about all the teams. We spent 30 minutes talking about the Raiders and Browns. I promise you, we're going to talk about all the teams. Let's dig into our preview for the 2026 Buffalo Bills. Hired Joe Brady as the head coach, Jim Leonard as the defensive coordinator, traded for DJ Moore, signed Bradley Chubb, CJ Gardner-Johnson, Dee Alford, and Mike Dana. Lost David Edwards and Reggie Gale. Gale Gilliam in free agency. In the draft, TJ Parker, Davis and Igbenosin. I do know how to say that. In the second round, Skylar Bell, Jude Lowry, and Caleb Elarms, or in the fourth round. All of those guys, except for maybe Skylar Bell, will come up in conversation, which is why I included them here. Well, let's just say Skylar Bell, excited by what I saw in the preseason. We can just leave it there. Well, I expect you would be. You said he was Jamar Chase. I have a close eye on this. I also like how I think the last episode you did, you were like, I don't want to necessarily sit here and hype up every fourth round pick. There's nothing more fun than a rookie I liked who hasn't done anything yet. For each of these teams, we're going to start this conversation with what we are most excited to watch with this team in 2026. Derek, why don't you kick us off? What are you most excited about as it relates to the 2026 Buffalo Bills? I'm in the only real addition on the offense, which is DJ Moore. And I think why I'm so excited about it. One, it's easy to say like, they just didn't have anybody the last couple of years. Them getting anybody who's like a pretty good viable wide receiver one, I think is nice. But I think this has a chance to be like the best blend of the two Josh Allens we've seen. Like from 2020 to 23, when he had Stephon Diggs, this was a chuck it up offense. Like he threw the ball 590 times a season over that stretch. Like they were one of the most pass heavy. And part of that was they couldn't run the ball very well. So of course they kind of had to. But the last two seasons without a star receiver, then leaning more into the run game, he's only thrown 470 times. It's been a lot more like, we're trying to put the limiter on this offense, see how that goes. And I think that this is kind of the blend between the two because DJ Moore is not as good as Stephon Diggs, but he's significantly better than the guys that they had before. I find it interesting that you think the run pass splits are a product of the receiver talent and not any more like overarching. I think it's a little bit of all of it. I'm curious what it is. And actually one of the, we can talk about this a little bit later, but one of the things I wanted to bring up is just, we don't know what the offense is going to look like now that Joe Brady has no limiter. I mean, I don't think my understanding, because when I was there, I asked somebody about this. It was like, do you think that McDermott was putting his thumb on the scale for how run heavy the offense was? And they were like, no, I don't think that was the case. And in part, and I believe that because even if maybe he wanted Joe Brady to run the ball a little bit more than Ken Dorsey was, he let Brian Dable live the life Brian Dable was living multiple years in a row as the offensive coordinator for this team. So even if maybe that's Sean McDermott's preference, I don't know if I fully believe that this team was as run heavy as they were. This team was as run heavy as it was because it was Sean McDermott's choice, not the way that Joe Brady wants this team to play. Also, they were really good at it. Like they, they, yes, they're extremely good at it. So, and like, even, even if Sean McDermott was the reason why they leaned into that more over the last couple of years, knowing that you can be that good, why would you try to go too far away from that? Which we're getting into the semantics of how we build the show a little bit. But when I prepped for the bills, I started off with DJ more as the thing that excited me most, and then between who I think the bills want to be and what DJ more was this past year in Chicago, not to say that he can't be good. Please don't misconstrue me. But I was like, how excited should I be? Like, this is the best receiver that Josh Allen has had since Stefan digs. But what does that mean in 2026, which is how I wound up not being as excited as I thought I was when I started prepping, I guess. We'll talk more about the DJ more thing in the offense in a bit. What was yours, Dave, that you wanted to talk about? I think it's a good question. I you were most excited to watch this season. The other big thing is Jim Leonard taking over a defense that we've watched be one way under one guy for so long. And it's not so much. They made some additions like the Alfred is there. They spent two big draft picks in the second round on defensive additions. Chauncey Gardner Johnson for as volatile as his personality is, success tends to follow him for at least a year or so. But also it's just Jim Leonard being the voice for this defense after so long. And I think it's a good question. I think long of Sean McDermott and what that means and also trying to parse through he was a college a college dc at Wisconsin and was very successful at it and he's been in the background for one of the most successful defenses in the league in Denver for the last two years what the hell does all that mean like what does Jim Leonard want an NFL defense to look like we will hit that in a second because that is what I'm watching over the first month of the season my what I'm most excited about on a pretty simple level it's just watching Josh Allen play football sure I mean he's incredible we we did and part of the reason I wanted to do this in such an explicit way I was with Joe Biscaglia in Buffalo after our after the training camp practice we watched and we did the beat writer notebook that we do from all of the stops and we made it like Bellar can attest to this he edited them we made it like 22 minutes into a 25 minute conversation and we didn't say Josh Allen's name and I think it's just because we just know what it is like we there's nothing really to talk about as it relates to Josh Allen and I wanted to put some numbers on that so Josh Allen since 2020 so the last six seasons has finished top five in total EPA among quarterbacks every single year since 2020 he has finished in the top three every year since 2021 he is absolutely the only player that has done that he's at 751 total EPA since 2020 Mahomes is at 708 no one else in the league has more than 363 Lamar missed a lot of time yeah yeah even if the peaks are just as high and I think that's what's so remarkable about what this run that Josh Allen is on there have been no valleys he has been a force of nature every single year in the regular season since this breakout happened his worst finish that entire time and the stat we're talking about is fifth it's crazy like he is and that's why I understood Dave picking the bills number one in the offense draft because you can set your watch to what Josh Allen is pretty much every single year and when I watch this team I don't think it's as simple as Josh Allen carries the bills and the rest of the bills roster is disgusting we talked about the run game they've built a real infrastructure in certain parts of the offense but I think what he is capable of it honestly reminds me a little bit of it's like the quarterback version of watching Jamar Chase where there's just this overwhelming kind of force of nature physicality to the way that they play the game and I find them terrifying because of that and so when I watch this team that's what I get excited about watching even if it's not interesting or new to say that like that is my answer about the Buffalo Bills he's a runaway cement truck playing quarterback and it's always very fun to watch and we had the same conversation with Lamar when we did the Ravens preview but Lamar has he had the down year whereas Josh is still chugging but like what Derek and I are excited about are things that within the context of the bills will help Josh Allen slay the dragon that he has been unable to slay like that's why it's exciting and I think that's what I'm excited about to add a better receiver to the offense that's why it's exciting that the defense might be better than it has been but at the core of it we should remember that we're really excited to watch Josh Allen play football and that's that's why the DJ Moore thing is exciting to me because we can get the best of both of them like if Josh Allen can be because in 20 to 2023 again it was a lot more throwing it deep it was a lot more kind of chucking it all over the yard just a lot more volume in terms of the passing game and because of it he was more up and down because that's just a lot more it's just a lot of stress on the quarterback to have to play that way he threw more picks things like that as they've taken the limit the put a little bit more of a limiter on the passing offense really not because he's an issue but the interceptions have dropped down like they've been a little bit more consistent and he I think has actually developed a lot mentally over the last couple of years and really taken ownership over what they do pre-snap getting them into the right looks setting protections all that sort of stuff so if we can get the floor being higher like it's been over the past couple of years and go back to what some of the peaks have been at his best when he's really been a throw it all over the yard quarterback it's like I don't know man maybe he just is definitively the best quarterback in the league if we can get both of those worlds to fully blend looking back at some historical EPA numbers for quarterbacks I was just curious like who else had reached that level where it's 700 over the course of a five-year span you go back and Brady and Peyton from 05 to 2010 like those are the sorts of numbers Breeze from 10 to 15 Rodgers from 10 to 15 one thing I realized though while looking back at some of that stuff this is Josh Allen's age 30 mm-hmm 2007 was Tom Brady's age 30 season Peyton Manning won the Super Bowl in his age 30 season so the guys that have lived in the stratosphere of the Josh Allen, and habits. The age 30 seasons have been pretty good for those players. Yeah. Just throwing it out there. Drew Brees was 30 when they won the Super Bowl too. There you go. There you go. So there is a through line here. For each of these teams, we're going to talk about what we are watching the first month of the season. So just a curiosity, a question, something you want an answer on early in the year. What are you watching the first month of the season with these Buffalo Bills? Yeah, Dave mentioned it a little bit earlier, but it's Jim Leonard's defense. And I think there are a couple of ways we can take it. It's like how different are the coverage is going to be and all that stuff. But to me, I'm a little bit more interested in how the front personnel works out. I think that's the most interesting thing. And how does he, what does he want to do with it? I actually think Deion Walker in a system like this, where the nose can be a little bit more explosive, move around a little bit. That's kind of what Keanu Benton was at Wisconsin when he was playing under Jim Leonard. And I think that that can work really well. TJ Sander, a lot of their other defensive linemen are like gap shooters. It's like TJ Sanders is supposed. to be that and Oliver is that when he's at his best. To get a little bit more beef at like the five tech position, they actually asked Landon Jackson to add on like 20 pounds, which I actually think works for him because around the edge, like he was probably never going to cut it. He's just not a bendy, you know, move type of edge player. But him being like that 280 pound, just like stuff against the run sort of player. I actually like that. And then the linebackers are like very specific to me, like run through space players. And so I wonder how much they try to weaponize that and just give those guys run throughs by if you just ask Ed Oliver. Cut across a guard's face. That man's probably terrified and he's not going to see whatever linebacker is coming behind him. So I think just how Jim Leonard really weaponizes a lot of unique and I think pretty good pieces for the most part on this front. The actual front, the defensive line is probably the most interesting part of this to me just because you've sought out body types for a very specific type of defense for a really long time. And I think the guy that I was most interested in that they were most interested in, like how is this going to work was Greg Rousseau. And they were open about that when I was in. They're like, that was the guy we were like, how is this going to work? And he took to it really well. That was a situation where very early on, they were just like, oh, this is going to be fine. Like he'll be able to play with his hand off the ground. He'll be an edge player for us. We're not concerned about that. The defensive, interior defensive linemen, I do think it fits those guys. Like I think them playing in more of like a slanting attacking style overall is probably good for this run defense overall, which we can talk about. I mean, that was the worst part of this entire team last year. They're bottom five in EPA per carry. Twenty nine. Nineteen percent of opponent runs went for first downs last year against the Bills. It was the second worst mark in the league per next gen behind only the Cowboys. They allowed sixty five runs of ten plus yards. Only the Giants were worse. Jesus. So I think some of that is driven by the fact that when you were in the Bills played more five down fronts last year because they were in more base looks than they had ever been before. I mean, they were playing like 60 percent base after playing 80 percent nickel. Excuse me. They're playing 60 percent nickel last year after playing like 80 percent the last two years. And you saw the five man front numbers. The next gen numbers essentially mirror that they went from playing 80 percent four man fronts in 2024 to about 61 percent last year. But those five man fronts are all just one linebacker walked up to the line of scrimmage. There's not a lot of variety involved in that. I think there's going to be a ton more front variation with this group. And I think that the group is going to feel and the scheme is going to feel more dynamic. The types of run blitzes you're seeing, the types of stunting that you're seeing. And so even if we look at these guys and like you said, maybe T.J. Sanders isn't like a two gapping five technique. The Broncos aren't really built like that. Like the Broncos, like John Franklin Myers comes from the Jets world where they play that attack style system. And so even if we think of like five technique defensive ends or four eye defensive ends in a 3-4 and we think of like Patriots guys from 20 years ago, you don't have to do that if you play with a certain amount of aggression up front. And I do think that's going to be the way they try to solve problems. I mean, even D.J. Jones, as like the Broncos knows, it's like he can hold up. He gave him an iris. But he came from the Niners. Exactly. He's like a slant, like go turn back and hit a guard sort of thing. So like I think if they take some of the flavor of that style of defense, obviously the edge players I think here are pretty different. They're a little bit longer. They're a little bit bigger than a place like Denver. But even that I think can kind of go to their advantage because I think like adding a T.J. Parker, I think can be nice for them on the edge. If Rousseau really takes to it and he's been a pretty good edge setter. But if like he really takes to it in this new defense, it's like this starts to become a front that I actually do like assuming the safeties behind them are not missing. A tackle every single run. Have we said Chubb's name yet? No. That's something to watch. Understatement of the segment so far. And he's the guy who understands the defense. He was the one guy who drafted to play in this type of defense that currently plays for the defensive line. So I think he's one of the guys that can make it come alive pretty quickly if he can stay out there. The coverage stuff I'm curious about. I mean, obviously they ran a lot of man coverage in Denver, but I think some of that is a product of having arguably the best cornerback in the world. And so when Jim Leonard was at Wisconsin, you would. Know this better than I would. It wasn't some man heavy scheme like the Broncos are running. And so where they fall between the coverage menu we saw in Denver and what he was doing at Wisconsin and how it fits these players. That to me is one of the big questions, because I think it's easy to graft a lot of the Broncos ideas onto this team. And that had that be your projection. I don't think it's as simple as that. And so that's the other part I'm watching is like on the back end, what are they actually trying to do? They ran a ton of quarters in the preseason. They were about as vanilla as you could possibly be. It was like 28 percent. So I really don't know coverage wise, like what they're going to try to be on that side of the ball, which like I wonder, too, how much of the man coverage stuff he brings, because I like they in theory maybe do have the corners to do it. They could like Benford. I think it's absolutely good enough to do it. Maxwell Harrison, when they drafted him, like that was the idea, right, that he could run with people and play man coverage. I think the offered from the nickel can handle that well enough. So like they have the guys to do it. And I'm curious, too, how much do they turn up the blitzing? Like how much do they? Oh, I think they will. I think they would be impossible not to. That's right. McDermott Worlder just doesn't do a whole lot of that. And I like it's just preseason, but they were even like second and tens were like. So on some of these early downs that are theoretically still rundowns, like I remember seeing one play. I think it was in the game against the Steelers. It's second and ten. They send one linebacker and Green Dog the other like they're sending six guys on these like relatively early downs. And so I think a little bit more of that is probably good for this defense. No one in the league blitz less often than Buffalo over the last four years per true media. And it was like below 20 percent. Even if he doesn't go whole hog like Denver Broncos style, where it's up near like 35 percent, anything is going to be more than what we've seen from the Bills in recent years. It's going to be interesting because at Wisconsin, they didn't blitz a ton, but they were just a huge simulated pressure team. And we're at a space now where I'm talking to offensive coaches in the training camp tour this year. One of the things that came up was just that simulators are less effective than they were like three or four years ago. You're almost the whole goal was to get the best of both worlds where you can pick on protections, but then still get seven guys. And now I think some of it is getting the worst of both worlds where you're not actually heating up the quarterback, but you're still leaving voids because guys vacating space and asking players who are not good coverage players to be in coverage. Exactly. And so I obviously there's still there's a time and place for that kind of stuff, but I'm not sure it will be as central to his identity here as it was when he was at Wisconsin just because the league has shifted a little bit. But I do expect I said this during the defense's draft. I picked them pretty high. I think this will be a defense, especially compared to what they have done over the last few years, where they try to make a mess, where they just try to make a mess of things, especially up front. And I think if you're undersized, which they are, that's the right way to handle this. Watching this team over the last couple of years where you had pretty static four man fronts, there's not a ton of movement. It's really easy to get picked on when you were an undersized front seven. And I actually think them being more aggressive and like you like the idea of Terrell Bernard just coming downhill and not catching blocks. I think that's the right thing to be asking him to do. You absolutely need to do more and more of that with him. Like, again, like you said, if you're going to be a we kind of sit on our heels, wait for things to come to us. You just need to be bigger than they are and tackle better than they are. And those were, I would say, two of their biggest issues the last couple of seasons. I think that's encouraging, too, because you're right. Like, that is why you drafted Maxwell Hairston. Davis and Igbenosin is there, too. To some degree, some of the stuff on the Bills back end feels more theoretical to me than proven, you know? I think definitely. And so like Hairston is. He missed three weeks of camp again. Cole Bishop had some, he showed some promise last year, but I'm not ready to say that's like a proven playmaker. I'm excited to see him in this defense. I'm excited to watch Cole Bishop in this defense. I'm excited about a lot of pieces of this, but I wouldn't want to roll the ball out there and just be like, we're better than you. Like, yeah, let's let's muck it up a little bit. Let's make it easier. I think that's what they have to do, because when the way they're playing before is the defensive approach and not on the back end. Obviously, there's so much wonky. I appreciate on the back end, but up front, it is the defensive approach of a team that has far more defensive talent than the Buffalo Bills have had over the last couple of years. My what I'm watching is obviously what Jim Leonard is doing over the first month of the season. I came prepared for that conversation. Dave, what are you watching over the first month of the season with the Bills? Like I said, we just flip flopped it. I was excited about Jim Leonard because I think highly of him as a defensive mind. Not saying DJ Moore can't be great, but I just I want to see what that looks like, because when I was digging into it, I mean, the numbers are not encouraging. For DJ Moore's second season in Chicago, and a lot of that can be explained away, right? But how much confidence should we have that it was an aberration instead of a sign of things to come? Now, you're playing with Josh Allen. That gives me a tremendous amount of confidence. And then also, Bill's receiver core just hasn't been anything special since Stefan Diggs left. DJ Moore finished with a better EPA per target over the last two years than any will Bill's receiver other than Khalil Shakir. Khalil Shakir averaged the fewest air yards per target of like any qualified receiver in the nfl so dj moore being a warm body who can catch the ball past the sticks is a new thing for the bills his a dot last year was 11.6 which is not great but it blows pretty much every other pretty good for dj moore there have been years where he's been more gadgety than that and it blows like every other bills receiver out of the water and and that's the part that i wanted to talk about i looked this up last year keon coleman led the team with 20 targets of beyond 16 air yards or 16 plus air yards no other wide receiver on the team had more than nine well i think i think dalton kinkade had like 14 but none of the other wide receivers the only other nfl teams that had a receiver with no more than 20 targets of 16 plus air yards were the jets and the commanders horrendous offenses similar similar line of thought i had the stat i found was the bills were 28th in explosive passes where the ball traveled 10 plus air yards so get get the bubble screens and stuff like that here yeah in quarterback and that's i mean steelers jets raiders browns like that's who you're talking about keeping company with if i was trying to spin this in a positive way if i was trying to provide some cope to bills fans about why this will look different than it looked last year in chicago i would do it this way in the bears offense last year in the first half of the season if you needed like a big bodied in breaking route who were you throwing the ball to i mean colston loveland was rome and like that's what you would do rome is like a bigger bodied receiver compared to dj more in the second half of the season if you needed a gadgety throw where you were trying to have a guy create after the catch who are you throwing the ball luther burton yes and on this bills team if you need a big in breaker from like a a worthwhile receiver who are you throwing the ball to it's dj more now before it was keon coleman and if you need a guy who can make something happen after the catch on a gadgety sort of completion who are you throwing the ball to dj more as well yeah and this is a play caller we know already likes dj more they did this together in carolina they the preseason is the preseason there were two completions that he had where it was like okay this is a an offensive coordinator and a play caller that knows what he is doing and how to get this guy the ball they had a play actions uh boot to the left where dj more starts on the right just runs that little drag into space they get him the ball with a runway he takes it like 15 yards after the catch he had a completion on the right side where he motions down into a stack on the not out as like a solitary X receiver where you can press him any struggles. You're giving him space to work. He runs like a deep outbreaker with a little bit of runway. It's like a 15-yard completion. That is the type of stuff where DJ Moore is still a very viable NFL receiver. And so I think if you know the right ways to tap into what he can give you, there is still meat on the bone there. There are good reasons why this happened in Chicago, but DJ Moore's target share dipped all the way to 16% last year. That's not happening. It's not going to happen. It's just not going to double that here. So even if he's not as efficient as you would prefer, I absolutely think he's going to be an improvement on what we've seen in Buffalo. I want to take a month to see exactly what it looks like. Two quick notes about the offense that were a curiosity of mine and I want to see. No fullback. So what does that mean? I'm glad you brought that up. It's part of my note for later. I'll be talking about that left fullback on a different team. No fullback. And this was a team that led the league in 22 personnel last year, used a lot of 21. That's how they got based. Defense on the field. They are the easiest candidate to say we're just going to use three tight ends to do that this year because they have the three tight ends with Kincaid, Haas, and Dawson Knox. But they were not a big 13 personnel team last year. They're one that I assume will do a ton more of it this year. The other element of the offense I want to see more of Josh Allen on under center play action within this offense. It should be the centerpiece of the passing game. It should be exactly what they are and exactly what they are good at. He was eighth in the NFL last season. In the rate that they used under center play action, that should be in the top three. 100%. That should be the foundation of how you're trying to throw the ball because then you're creating separation for guys rather than being spread out. And so I want to see them do more of that because you can say that about teams that it's not conducive to the rest of their offensive identity. It's the exact complement to what they want to be as an offense. And so I just don't understand why that notch isn't getting cranked up even more. It was last year compared to what they'd done previously. It should be even more. That should be 24-25% up near with the top teams in the league. Let's talk about what is keeping us up at night about the Buffalo Bills as we get on the eve of the season here. Dave, what is keeping you up at night about the Bills? My favorite Bob Marley song is called Waiting in Vain. And I just don't want to wait in vain for Dalton Kincaid to break out. I don't want to wait in vain for Dalton Kincaid's love. I'm worried about it. He's clearly, he's an explosive, efficient player. When he was on the field last year, he was third in the league in yards per route run among everybody. Only Puka and JSN were better than him. Fourth in EPA per target. Third in yards per target. Fourth in first downs per route run. Second in EPA per route run when you're in 11 personnel. Pick the stat and it's awesome. He just wasn't on the field that much. Yeah, the problem is how many snaps did he get in 11 personnel when he was the tight end? How many? How many? How many? And part of it. Part of it is durability, right? Like injuries have been a thing for him. But the scary thing is, it's not even just about him missing games. Like when Dalton Kincaid is healthy, you're still talking about a guy who plays like 55% of the Bills snaps. And to be drafted, whatever it was, 23rd overall and be the first tight end off the board. That's not nearly good enough for what I was hoping Dalton Kincaid could be. And you look at, I mean, we are the, we're the presidents of the Jackson Hawes fan club. And we saw what the Bills did with multiple tight ends. The splits, when they get multiple tight ends on the field are very bad for Dalton Kincaid. Like they don't want to use him in those situations. And it's, this is why I wanted to talk about Reggie Gilliam. It's, it's interesting to see how this will work with, without a fullback. Maybe this all changes, but for a team that was so good at running the ball and wants to get into those sorts of looks to run the football, Dalton Kincaid's not that useful of a player to you. And again, that's a shitty place to be for a guy you drafted that highly. Who does have real deal potential, but just how, how big can the role for him be? And it's, I mean, it's year four. I don't know the answer to that. It sounds like he has gotten stronger this off season that they think there's a little bit more there as a blocker. But do you really want to be using him in that way when he's hurt all the time? No, that's the thing. When he's proven to be banged up, I don't know how much I want him like throwing a shoulder into Max Crosby. It just doesn't seem like I would want to do that. Like he's, he almost is. It is what, it's like the DK Metcalf thing coming out of college where he's exactly what everyone who loved him and also did not love him think that he was, where it's like purely as a pass catcher. He's incredible. Like he's one of the best pass catchers in the league at his position. But today's point, like you can only really play him so much when you're in 12. He even doesn't get featured as much as you want. He still has limitations. He only played 18% of the bill snaps out of 12 personnel last year. That's crazy. That is, I was shocked when I saw how low it was. But that's not surprising to me. It is surprising to me. Because if you're, if you know you're going to get nickel to that, what advantage is he giving you? Because he's not giving you an advantage against a nickel corner. And that's the problem is that when they drafted him, it was this thing of, well, if we're in 12 and they play nickel, we can just grind them down. No, you can't. You can't do that. It's like what you've talked about with the Rams and like Terrence Ferguson. If they get into 12 and Terrence Ferguson is one of the two tight ends on the field, they don't get that much value out of him because he can't block. But when you put three, now the other guys can block and he can get vertical. That is why I think we could see. Yeah. More, more Dalton Kincaid because if they're going to play more 13 and he's just a receiver, then I actually think that's the better way to use him. And I actually do think that is a path to him being on the field more and being more important to the offense. The reason this keeps me up at night, too, is Dalton Kincaid unlocking a higher level would mean so much to the Bills aspirations. And we don't have to shy away from that. It's to win the Super Bowl. And he needs to look more like what he was drafted to be more consistent. consistently for something like that to happen and not to say it can't happen but it keeps me up it keeps me awake at night thinking like what if what if it's just more of the same in year four and then you're heading into your fifth year option year mine is broader with the same tone what if it's more of the same about how we feel about this team by the end but we get to the end of the season and their problems are no different we need rushers and pass catchers and we don't have enough of them that that's what i'm worried about where you can change the defensive coordinator you can change the head coach but the personnel issues that have plagued this team in the most important games of the year continue to plague them because i think that's a real possibility i have faith that a combination of dj moore and the usage we're talking about with dalton kincaid and bradley chubb and a healthy ed oliver like and again a scheme where you can manufacture a little bit more than they used to be able to i think that we may land in a place where those things matter less than they have in the last couple of years in the playoffs but that what's keeping me up at night is the fact that maybe it will maybe we'll be facing the exact same issues we've always faced when it becomes the highest leverage situation because this is not the first time they've tried to address pass catcher and pass rusher in an offseason they've done this for like two or three years in a row now and it's kind of fallen flat for different reasons so like it's again i have faith that it's going to be better but there's a chance that it's just it's just not mine is like in a similar vein where i was just like but what if we find out how many of the players that are going to be in the playoffs are going to be in the playoffs how much sean mcdermott was kind of holding this thing together that's the part we haven't really talked about yeah like it just i i really i we probably say this too much about head coaches but he really did feel like adult in the room they hired a lot of good coaches over his span they did what they needed to to consistently change out the offensive coaches to change things and they're not only losing McDermott they lost Aaron Cromer their offensive line coach which I think it now just puts a lot of stress on Joe Brady as now both the offensive play caller and architect and the head coach and I just worry how much of like taking away like you kind of talked about earlier some of the limiters on what the offense like what does that look like and can he really handle that and being the head coach and so maybe it's me just like being a little bit too scared about this because I've seen Sean McDermott just do this job at a high level for a long time but in the back of my mind it's something I'm worried about when you give up stability there is downside to moving on from stability potentially you get something that does feel more dynamic and exciting in a way that the I think if you want to be skeptical or be negative about the end of McDermott errors things just might have gotten stale and maybe this is a way to avoid that but at the same time when you've set a certain floor removing that guy increases the chances that it lowers your floor it can always get worse yes it's not guaranteed to get better correct and always get worse what does success look like Dave for the 2026 Buffalo Bills win the Super Bowl I tried to be nice and say get there but if you get there you think anybody's gonna feel good if you lose I don't I think people would still feel good if you get to the Super Bowl I don't think they'd feel great but that you've never done that before they getting there and showing that this is a good thing and showing that this is a good thing and showing that this is a good thing and showing that this is a good thing and showing that this is a good thing and showing that version of the team gives you a higher ceiling than any other version that when McDermott was there I still think that would be a successful season I don't think you have to win the Super Bowl for this to be success I think that is a bar you would not put for any other team except maybe the Rams yeah but they this is the team that has the quarterback that has double the EPA of anybody not named Patrick he's gonna be there next year too man he's 30 years old and he plays a physical style of football that is very very dependent on him being a transformer when nobody else is I'm not wishing that on Josh Allen but like you only get so many bites at this apple and if you get to the game and I know these guys weren't even babies when it happened these guys weren't even they weren't even blinks in their father's eye when the Bills lost four Super Bowls in a row but like when you add that on to the lore of the Bills franchise I just I don't think there's not there's not gonna be any moral victories with an MVP quarterback in his 30 30s losing the Super Bowl I just maybe that's you're one of a new staff you're one of a new staff for me if you get there to me that is a successful season it's it's anything else is not it's about Josh for me like you you can't get I mean like think about how hard it's been to even get to this point you can't just assume you're gonna be back so like I said it's harsh but I don't think anybody's gonna feel that good about losing the Super Bowl what'd you say I mean to me it's just get to the dance I think that winning the game is just like sometimes shit happens on Super Bowl Sunday but I think you have to get there and especially like I think that there have been a handful of seasons over the last couple years where like that should be the expectation for the Bills I think especially with as wide open as the AFC feels right now where Mahomes and the Chiefs are not their best like Lamar Jackson and the Ravens like I'm excited for them but they are turning over their coaching staff they might not be as good as we want like I just think that there's a lot of reason to believe that this should be the year that the Bills can come out of the AFC pretty handily all right before we get to the Patriots let's take our first quick break let's get to the New England Patriots our preview for the 2026 New England Patriots their offseason in 60 seconds Zach Kerr now the full-time defensive coordinator signed Romeo Dobbs Elijah Vera Tucker Julian Hill RIP Reggie Gilliam Kevin Byard Draymond Jones in free agency traded a first round pick for AJ Brown lost Claven Chason Stefan Diggs Kyrus Tonga Jalen Hawkins Jack Gibbons just traded Kayshaun Booty to the Houston Patriots Houston Texans in the draft Caleb Lomu in the first round Gabe Akas in the second round tight end Eli Raritan in the third round Dave what are you most excited about as it relates to the 2026 Patriots Drake May throwing two legitimately badass receivers specifically AJ Brown and I think I've gone pretty hard on my AJ Brown enthusiasm this offseason but he was 17th in yards per outrun last year all of his metrics considering the number of games he's had in the last year what the Eagles offense was are still plenty good on top of that as much as we talk about AJ Brown Romeo Dobbs finished 29th in yards per outrun last year I was curious about teams that have two receivers that finished in the top 30 there are a few obviously Dallas is a big one the Rams Detroit ironically Washington now that Stefan Diggs is there Terry McLaurin and Stefan Diggs I would not have guessed that and then New England those are the teams so like not just AJ Brown but a potential one with sky-high potential a guy that we've known can be one of the best handful of receivers in the league and Romeo Dobbs as a very very good number two I mean we saw what Drake May did with a fine receiver core last year this is an objectively good good receiver core and it's super exciting yeah I just think that this is a much better version of what they were able to do last year I think like a booty was such a he was good for side purely as a vertical player there's a lot of like curls deep stop routes digs go balls and stuff like that and I think the beauty of the two receivers that they brought in is that's also what AJ Brown is best at like he is really good at the digs to go balls and all that stuff but Romeo Dobbs is also pretty good at a lot of the stuff on that vertical outside stuff and so they can put him there is how it's going to shake out right and so but they can get the best of both of it where it's like if they want that to be the focal point of a play or of a drive or of a game they can have AJ Brown go do all that stuff and he can just win on these dig routes if they want to beat that to be a little bit more of the decoy or later into the down sort of option for Drake May and then move AJ Brown to the slot and get him moving on some of the slashing inside stuff they can do that and so this just feels like they have a little bit more pop and optionality in the offense that they really didn't before and like Stefan Diggs was good last year but I don't think he's like the one-on-one winner that he used to be he was like a sitting in a second role yes exactly you had to use him that way because because yeah exactly because booty couldn't do any of the other stuff and you think you can make an argument that at this point in his career Stefan Diggs shouldn't be asked to do the one-on-one outside the numbers vertical stem type of things I I'm curious what they do with this not only because the way that the roles shake out are interesting because they can do a little bit of both but I think if you're trying to spin this in like a slightly pessimistic way with AJ Brown he did take a step back last year it wasn't just the offensive numbers like if you look at things that are trying to isolate the performance of the receivers from the offensive infrastructure something like reception perception that Matt was talking about you know it's a step back for AJ Brown last year compared to what we've seen from him at his peak and I wonder if similar to Stefan Diggs as he's getting a little bit older in his career AJ Brown's only 29 but the knee issues are chronic at this point like they are a consistent issue it's one of the reasons the Rams ultimately didn't want to trade for him it's one of the reasons the Eagles are ready to let him go if you're going to extend his career and continue to get the best out of him asking him to do less of the stuff that you're talking about is probably the worst thing that's going to happen to him if he doesn't get the best out of him and if he doesn't get the best out of him if he doesn't get the best out of him if he doesn't get the best out of him it's not moving him inside as he gets a little bit deeper in his career and seeing if he can do it this is who he used to be like he's done all of this stuff before and so I I do think that there's a world where we get a little bit deeper into the season and even though I was trying to read about this because I was wondering were they doing things with him more inside and on the move is like a z-type receiver during training camp and it sounds like it was mostly stuff on the perimeter and I but I wonder like how much do we see over the next couple of years I don't know I don't know the course of the year because I think you can make a really strong argument that the best deployment of the Patriots receivers is pop Douglas in the slot Romeo Dobbs like a truer ex-player because he's shown that he can do it and AJ Brown being more of a move around piece than he was in Philly and I'm very curious that that's what they ultimately land on because I think you can make an argument that's what's best for him and what's best for the offense at this stage of his career I think that's a valid point about and his game is so dependent on just being a physical player and so if you have degenerative knee issues if you're worried about that he like if that diminishes it takes a serious toll on his effectiveness but if he's 29 years old I guess what I'm more briefly what I'm trying to say is how much more could you get out of him out of like the way that he has been playing and do the Patriots feel a sense of confidence that he's got a season or two left in the tank before they would have to worry about a pivot like that what are you watching Dan? Dave the first month of the season with the New England Patriots what do you want answers on who's Will Campbell really and and the full left side of the Patriots offensive line like Jared Wilson moved positions they signed Elijah Vera Tucker so the whole thing is really interesting but is Will Campbell closer to the guy that struggled throughout the playoffs after an MCL injury is he closer to what he was during the season it does he have how much room does he have to grow Will Campbell allowed 42% of his pressures and 44% of his sacks after the MCL injury we've talked about it before they were playing amazing defenses and he strained his MCL well so there are many good reasons why he looked like shit in the postseason but it's a new season and what does that look like in year two and I think the first month can give us a really good glimpse of that and that's pretty much where my mind went to I expanded it a little further like what do all of the big beefy boy shifts for the offense mean like obviously you know you mentioned Jared Wilson moving to center which was his native position coming out of college I thought he was fine last year at guard, but I think him being at center probably protects him a little bit more physically, which I think, if anything, is not the best part of his game. He doesn't have guard play strength. No. That's not his position. He had enough to get by, not enough to be like a difference maker at that position. Yes. And so I think that adding a big, beefy guard next to him and letting him move to center potentially accentuates Jared Wilson's strengths and limits his weaknesses. And so there is a chance that with AVT, with a healthy Will Campbell, with Jared Wilson at center, you upgraded all three of those positions in a way that you needed to. Because this team, and this is part of, we'll talk about this a little bit later, they did not run the ball well last year. They just didn't, especially in the playoffs. They were 25th in rushing success rate over the course of the season per next gen. They had a 36% rushing success rate in the playoffs, which was like 30th in the NFL league wide over the course of the regular season. They were not pushing people around up front. But if you get better and more physical at guard, bigger and more physical at center, and. And Will Campbell comes back healthy, is that an area of this team that can get a lot better this year? I kind of hate that the first game of the season is a Super Bowl rematch because we just watched that. But hell of an opportunity. We're going to. You don't need to watch the first month. We're going to find out in the first game whether some of this stuff is viable. You know who they play in week two? No, I don't. Pittsburgh. So. Okay. Two fronts right out of the gate that you got to prove it. Got a lot of opportunity to prove yourselves. And the last one among those, like, I include bringing in Reggie Gilliam at fullback. Absolutely. We just talked about the Bills losing him. And he's like. He's about as good as it gets in terms of, like, moving shit around in the run game. You know who else I throw in there? Raritan. Yeah. They. The combination of Hunter Henry and Austin Hooper as your tight ends this year, and it's honestly why I'm a little bit bummed Julian Hell got hurt. Yeah. Because they really did very consciously try to add more blocking bodies at tight end this year because, God bless Hunter Henry for what he is as a receiver, that's not what he is as a player. And Austin Hooper is so deep in his career. And that's never even what he was, really. No! It's like. And so they really didn't have anybody to fill that. That role within the offense. And so if you can get a little bit more of that with Raritan and you add Reggie Gilliam to the mix on top of the physicality you're potentially adding to that left side, does this feel like a sturdier group than it did a year ago? And by the way, again, we'll touch on this a little bit later, that would make me feel better. Because this is the type of stuff that I find myself a little bit worried about with this team as we've talked about them over the last couple weeks. My. What I'm watching over the first month of the season, can Zach Kerr do it again? Mm-hmm. They were really good in the back half of the year. They were really good. Really good. The last like 10 games they played, they were about as good as. Not like elite, elite defense, but like if you could slot them into that next year and they were that good. In the back half of the season, 10th in EPA per play per next gen on defense. Couple caveats to that. Here are the quarterbacks that they played in the back half of last season. Brady Cook, Quinn Ewers, Justin Fields, Joe Flacco, Jackson Dart, half a game from Snoop Huntley. The two starting. Two of the four starting quarterbacks they played in the back half of the season. They were Justin Herbert and Baker Mayfield, both of whom played on offenses that were bottom 10 in EPA per play in the back half of the season. They did not play a lot of good teams. Mm-hmm. They just didn't. And even in the playoffs, they didn't play a lot of good offenses. They got Stidham in a snow game. So they got Stidham in a snow game. They got that Justin Herbert bottom 10 offense in the back half of the season. They got CJ Stroud imploding. Mm-hmm. That's who they played in the playoffs. And then they got Sam Darnold like on a downturn. And I know he had played really well earlier in the playoffs, but like it's not like Darnold was like some earth shattering. quarterback that year. The Seahawks offense was plenty good. It was probably the best one they played over the playoffs. Yes. And the defense played well. And they played well. I'm not trying to take away from that, but there is some context to be added to what their back half of the season defensive statistics looked like. Jackson Dart, I think, was the only guy you named before Herbert and Baker who's like going to start for his team this year. Yes. Yeah. And even as backup quarterbacks, there's some pretty rough ones in there. Brady Cook and Quinn Ewers is a different sort of conversation that we're having. Brady Cook, if you expand the. You know, the threshold low enough. He is the worst quarterback in everything. Every time I pull up the stat sheet, I'm like, there's Brady Cook. All right. Who do I need to scroll up to find? The other part, other two things I'll throw out about the defense in the back half of last year, in the second half of last season against block boxes. So we've talked about this a decent amount on the previews where you have as many blockers as defenders at a given play. The Patriots were dead last in run defense success rate against block boxes in the back half of the season. They played with a lot of lighter. They played with a lot of lighter boxes early in the year. And then they started getting heavier over the course of the year, I think, because they knew they didn't have the dudes to hold up. But when they did not have more defenders than blockers on defense, they were dead last in run defense success rate. They were worse than the Bengals. They were worse than the Giants. And so there are elements of this defense. And then the last one I throw out, they blitzed 40% of the time starting in week 14 because they don't have the rushers. And that's another thing with this team. They didn't have the rushers. They didn't have the rushers last year. And now you're in a spot where your best edge player is probably Draymond Jones, who that's not what he is. He might help in the run defense. You can make an argument. The run defense gets better because of him. But then what's the tradeoff between him and Tonga? Right. Yeah, that's a great point. So I traded away their bendy guy. Not traded. Sorry. Chase on just left and free agency. But there even if you even if you get better in the run, like your bendy sack guy is gone. So that's the those are the things where it's like, OK, I do. I feel like Zach Kerr has to really do it again for this to be like a high level defense, because I just don't think there are a lot of elite players around this defense. And I think beyond the lack of elite players outside of like Gonzalez and the interior guys, I think that there are questions about just the overall quality of some of the position groups, like edge rusher being number one in that. I mean, that's the thing that is like keeping me up is like it's defensively. It is a thin. It's a thin team. It is a thin defensive line is thin, obviously, with Tonga leaving. Corey Durden played. He played a decent amount last year, but he's not the same player that I think Tonga was. And at that point, you're leaning on like Leonard Taylor and Joshua Farmer, who I think you would want to see more of going into the season beforehand. I think their linebacker group is thin even among the starters. Like, I think Christian Ellis is a pretty specific and mediocre ish level starter. And then the guys behind him, it's like KJ Bray and a sixth round rookie. And then even a corner like their other outside corners right now are, according to our lads, Channing Canada and Karon Prunty, who Prunty is a fifth round pick this year. It's like if some of these guys go. down and I think the corner is is very specifically important Carlton Davis last year that was the first time he's ever been healthy for an entire season yes it's probably just not gonna that's not an exaggeration that is factually literally true yes probably what kept us awake about the Patriots last year it was I remember Robert was like what is the point of bringing in a corner this old who gets hurt all the time and it was like yeah if it goes wrong and he misses eight games again which like it's it's what we said about Safford it's like well last year it worked out well his back is still the same Carlton Davis is still a guy who gets banged up all the time absolutely happened before last year he played 17 games last year four games missed four games missed three games missed six games missed two two three so he's missed at least a handful of games in every single season of his career and his most games played before last season was 2020 when he played 14 and so I think the expectation should be that he probably misses a little bit of time and the depth is just not really there behind him that lends itself to what's keeping me awake because you're playing games with the best thing about your defense can earnestly can somebody explain to me what's going on with Christian Gonzalez can somebody explain why he's the guy that's waiting on a contract I if I like if I'm missing something that I should know about I'd love to know he he to me is in the blank check territory of corners there are like four of them and he's one of them I got these numbers from the qualified cornerbacks Gonzo was sixth among corners in EPA per target seventh among corners in coverage success rate and he was the best in coverage DVO a in the league when he was targeted and he's 24 he just turned 24 I don't understand I mean if there's like you don't have to prove it to me if there's if there's like a latent injury concern that I don't know about I'd love to hear about it but like this just seems like a guy who the deal should have gotten done in the spring like the minute he becomes eligible you're just like yeah okay what's the top salary you got it Christian and instead Devin Witherspoon got his deal Trent McDuffie signed this year I don't know it's just this doesn't feel like it should be a hard one but as of recording he doesn't have a deal yet and he is the best thing about this Patriots defense him and the two tackles that that's what it is that's that's not fair to Milton Williams he's awesome too but Milton Williams makes a shitload of money Christian Gonzalez probably should too and when you look at what they were especially in the playoffs their numbers and man coverage in the playoffs were insane it was like two and a half yards a snap when they played man in the playoffs and you don't do that you can't do that without having Christian Gonzalez like he is a central part to the defensive identity that really carried you in the back half of the season so I'm with you on that what is keeping me up at night I've danced around this a lot over the to be and it extends to a couple different areas the first part that I think is worth pointing out we did this and kind of stumbled into the idea when we were looking at the Seahawks roster and just how well they had drafted over the last few years and you looked at all of the in-house draft picks that were central to making up the overall quality of Seattle's roster and then even if you go back to the Eagles roster the year before that teams that are winning Super Bowls how many guys that are in-house rookie contract players for the Patriots and how many guys that are in-house Patriots are actually making an impact on this team this year are set to make an impact on this team this year five like above like and i think that number is smaller if you say even just above like average starter like i thought jerry wilson will make an impact i don't know if he's above an average starter and what's will campbell is he above that line yeah i don't know and you just spent a first pick on caleb lomu who's a backup for you which like maybe in two years you see great fruits from that but like again this year it's not going to do a whole lot for you five sounds about right the 2003 and 2004 draft classes for this team are non-existent outside of christian gonzalez and drake may that's it and so it's just really hard to be a very good nfl team for an extended period of time when you are made like this when you've had to dip into free agency and the trade market to find the difference making players that you have and it is possible at the end of all this that the quarterback is so good that it doesn't matter that's impossible the 2024 draft class is so great because you would absolutely do it all over again because you have drake may yes and nobody else is on the team nobody else is even on the team they're not which is crazy not even exaggerating nobody else is on the team and they drafted like eight or nine guys that year they sure did it's not like it was a four-man draft class or whatever it's possible to do this because you still you milton williams is the type of player impact wise that you can't usually find in free agency aj brown getting him for a first round pick like you can wield these sorts of resources when you have a quarterback on a rookie contract we've watched teams do this the bangles you probably could have said something very similar about the bangles early in the joke burrow tenure like man those draft classes are a disaster like they have nobody that they drafted that they're really counting on they had to sign every single player on their defense well when you have joe burrow and jamar chase and a lot of money to throw around because your most important players are on rookie contracts you can do that so there it is possible to do this it just feels more fragile than it does for the teams that have drafted really well over the last couple years and even that's a good point though because the bangles did it for what one or two more years and then they kind of started to hit a rut and some of that is joe burrow getting hurt but it's definitely not just joe burrow getting hurt i will say this this is pure hopium i can't believe i'm just like tied to the patriots as a team i believe in after all these years and all the heartache they've put on me anyway if will campbell and jared wilson are good like what i'm that's a huge part of this by the way the 2025 draft class could make you feel a hell of a lot better absolutely those the two offensive linemen trevion henderson's going to touch the ball a lot this year i would imagine kyle williams snap count is going to go up after booty got traded i don't know man you signed romeo dobson that deal and trade a first round pick for aj brown i'm not sure kyle williams is in the cards i just mean in like over the course of a season whether it's for injury or anything else like i would imagine he's got a role to play craig woodson craig woodson is the only promising player i'm very excited about craig woodson this year and then like i said pure copium but like if gabe akis and eli raritan can do something for you early but there's a you're really banking on that as a team that i think people believe should win the super bowl or be in it this year it has to happen but if it does these last two draft classes could be could be carrying a lot of weight for you i think it's the overall roster quality and some of the misdraft classes and feeling that as you look at the depth and overall just quality across the board and then again it's the play up front on both sides of the ball they couldn't stop the run in the back half of last year and they couldn't run the ball in the back half of last year if everything you guys are saying about the interior of the offensive line and i think that's a big step forward and we talk about those physical contributors that they've added in like ancillary pieces then that changes the discussion for me but i just think you're putting so much on the quarterback and the passing game and the corners with how you are currently built that it's it's it to me just feels more fragile than it does for some of the other contending teams and that is what is keeping me up at night and has been i mean it definitely is like it it's it's so tried and true that like just winning the super bowl and being able to on both sides of the trenches like i don't know if that necessarily every team that wins the super war is the best like dominates in the trenches but it's an easy way to stay consistent and to be able to hold year over year and be that level of good those are the two biggest questions i have about the patriots are like can you hold up and run defense which i think dream on jones helps but i still don't know like without tonga like you mentioned like what is the trade-off there really like i don't know if it's necessarily any better i like the offensive line pieces but it's easy to see like maybe jared wilson is just like a slightly below average sort of player maybe will campbell does kind of have like and then you just have a bunch of average average guys and then elijah fair tucker like probably will not play a full 17 games because he just hasn't played football in a year and a half hard to count on it and even before that the in 2024 was really the only like fully healthy season he'd had he's missed time a couple of seasons before that with different uh injuries and so i do see how it can fall apart at least with the offensive line they've insulated themselves a little bit with like depth like with a bunch of guys who have done like greg van has done it before caleb lomu is a first round pick they drafted darius crown over who i think is decent like at least with the offensive line they gave themselves options the defense though i'm pretty scared about if one or two dominoes start to fall morgan moses is 35 i have my issues and questions with lomo even if he's a first round pick i i'm not sure i would feel good about him having to play this year and morgan moses is somebody that's missed time we talked about carlton davis's injury history and again avt like it'd be great if he played 15 games this year i think he's going to have a great season i think he's going to have a great season i think he's going to have a great season i think he's going to have a great season i think he's going to have a great season i think he's going to have a great season i think he's going to have a great season i think this is what is keeping me up at night i don't think this is the most likely outcome but when we've talked about the patriots a lot over the last month and i have my reservations this is these are my reservations it is funny because everything you said makes sense to me and i think i don't worry about it as much because it's dependent on expectations like i know this team was just in the super bowl but and we can transition into what makes this a successful season i'm curious about your answer to that i'm not holding them to that type of standard my measure of success for the patriots is silence the schedule frauds narrative and like get back to the playoffs like if this team reaches the divisional round of the playoffs and and loses i think that's a successful season i 100 agree with every single bit of that that was pretty much my answer verbatim if this team gets back to the playoffs they will have earned it and i know you can't objectively forecast the schedule ahead of time but it is much much better in totality than last year last year they got the nfc south for starters which they swept and they also drew the raiders titans and giants by virtue of a last place schedule and went three you know that's seven wins right there i don't i don't see that this year the nfc north replaces the nfc south on the schedule you get the entire afc west and by virtue of open uh by virtue of winning the division you open the season with seattle pittsburgh and jacksonville there's just there's no way this there's there's no way we won't know if they're good in december i think i said that a couple months ago by the time i got to the playoffs the time we get to the second half of the season we'll know if this is a legitimately good team or not and so if they get back to the playoffs we will we we can nix the whole product of your schedule narrative which offense do you feel better about the jags or the patriots oh man um i think the patriots i do think the patriots because i think it's mostly based on the quarterback it's it's a lot based on the quarterback i think trevor lawrence is good i think drake may is a true difference making sort of player and i think if if the biggest question i have for both of them is is what is the offensive line going to look like i think i'm a little bit more scared of jacksonville honestly i do think liam cone does a lot to like help them schematically that's the other whereas i think josh mcdaniels does less of that and it's a lot more i'm like can the quarterback get the ball out and throw hot but i do think that drake may is good enough at that that it it works so i would probably say the patriots but just a hair i was just curious because the offensive line concerns are probably in a similar range for both of them and so it depends on how you think about some of the other stuff i will say and again maybe they shouldn't have the prominence that it does watching their protection plan get picked on the way that it did in the super bowl bad that was another one where it's just like man i those are the types of things that you're sitting there in the back of my head if this if this is like i don't know would nine and eight be disappointing for the patriots yes i think so because what's it what success for me nine and eight and you get to the playoffs that's not happening in the afc you don't think no probably not okay i think because i think we talked about like leaving playoff teams out i think the nfc is not as hard the afc they're going to leave off like two or three pretty absolutely and so that's going to be tough all right well whatever i think you need like if they go 10 and 7 and they're the six or seven seed is that a discipline i think for me if you end the season and we're talking about them still like one of the eight to ten best teams in the league at the end of the year and then going into next season i think that's success i don't think you have to get back to the dance like that's unrealistic we knew they shouldn't have necessarily been there last year i totally agree with everything you guys are saying my the way that i think about it is that i think it's going to be a was proved that last year was real yeah right proved that last year was real and that can mean a lot of different things but if you come out and you're a top three top five offense again that is enough for me to believe that most of what happened last year and the important ways was real firmly make the playoffs like but with the way that we're talking about you at the end of this season is yeah you're absolutely one of the 10 best teams like even if you are a wild card team because you play in the division with the bills firmly make the playoffs like let's let's worry about all the other teams that are in the in the hunt graphic you're two games up on them as like a 10 or 11 win playoff team if you don't win the division and then feel like a real team in january and i think that probably involves winning a playoff game yeah i think getting to the divisional round is a good bar for me if the afc playoffs may be so loaded that they lose on wild card weekend to a really good team sure i think that that doesn't discount what could be a successful season yeah i think that version of it if everything else we said actually comes true i'd be okay with that like was the was jacksonville's season a disappointment just because they played the best game of the wild well it's different when you're coming off a super bowl appearance fair but but like if the if the pats lost a game like that in the wildcard round i'm not gonna ding them too i would that's that's that yes i think they run into the four seat texans i'm gonna be like yeah well they do that all right before we get to the jets let's take another quick break let's get to the new york jets our preview for the 2026 new york jets their offseason in 60 seconds frank reichan is the offensive coordinator brian duker and is the defensive coordinator most of their staff turned over it would take me an hour to list off all the changes traded jermaine johnson for devandre sweat traded for geno smith breeze hall back on breeze hall is just back on an extension now it was on the tag when we i made these notes for the buyer saw the offseasons list as i'm repurposing them joseph aside david on yamada demario davis kingsley anagbari dane belton nayshawn right andre cisco back well the rest of those guys over in free agency lost you tony adams like i said jermaine johnson john simpson elijah vera tucker quincy williams michael clemens and just for dave nick folk wow i don't even have that in my notes way to go kickers are people too in the draft david bailey kenyan sadiq and omar cooper jr all in the first round d'angelo pons in the second round derrick what are you most excited about as it relates to the 2026 new york jets i'm excited to see another year of this young offensive line get to step up and hopefully a run game with more normal quarterback play because i like i think there are fair questions about frank reich geno smith did not have a good year last year last year's quarterback situation in new york was like truly untenable we just had the brady cooks we just had the brady and justin fields had multiple games where he threw for fewer than 100 yards left like it was as bad as it could be take a moment and relive the broncos jets game with me i'd rather not yeah i'd just rather not i'd rather not do that at this stage in the calendar and so i think football is too close i don't know i don't need that yeah the new football is too close i'm so desperate for football that i'd be happy to turn that game on and so i just think if if the passing game can even be like the 24th best in the league just like normal low mediocre bad i do think it actually gives the run game a little bit more life and like armand membu is an 18-wheeler truck man like that guy is incredible already josh myers is a totally acceptable veteran center i thought joe tipman when he moved to guard last year when avt got hurt played pretty well that was one of those two weeks into the season revelations where i was just like oh yeah i was like all right like that that again the week one game against the steelers doing a lot of heavy lifting for any jets offensive optimism but with joe tipman specifically that's where we got our first glimpse of it they liked him enough to extend it yeah yes and now he gets an off season where it's like he's locked into being the guard now like last year was a little bit of like shuffling the chairs of like oh shit this is something i have to do and so him getting a year really settled in there i think could be nice and then olu fashanu on the left side is like i think we're all still waiting for him to like really take that step but he's a really solid player i think especially in pass protection he does a good job for them so i'm just excited that this offensive line hopefully gets a more normal environment to work in and can we can maybe see the best of them i'll extend it just to the young players the young intriguing players across the entire roster i think there's a lot of them yeah membu in year two fashanu in year three david bailey davandre sweats a really good player yeah like them getting that trade for james for jermaine johnson i really like that i think that makes a lot of sense for where they are right now and we'll see what we get from the rookie pass catchers obviously it's been a weird summer for sadiq he i do not think he's on the pop list so he will play early in the season most likely but probably in a limited role i think there are a lot of young guys i'm keeping an eye on with this team even if maybe their hopes for this season are pretty tempered for a lot of reasons when you have that many big time draft picks that tends to happen similarly i'm just if i'm looking for a reason to be optimistic or excited about the jets we need to see why aaron glenn was a hot commodity as a head coaching candidate he's calling the defense this year he did not do that there's some weird circumstances around how that wound up happening but he is calling the jets defense and considering they traded away sauce and quinn williams last year they spent a lot of resources on microwaving this thing like you might not think of the jets defense as this star studded unit it was all pretty modest investments though like they didn't break the bank for any single free agent they just signed a lot of a million of them but would considering this was one of the bottom five defenses in the nfl they spent the resources for this to be a much better unit yes i mean you you listed off the names but like having demario davis wear the green dot for you david bailey pairing with will mcdonald kingsley and iqbari and david on you on yamada are there to vandre sweat they traded for minka fitzpatrick d'angelo pons is aaron glenn's guy that's like the cornerback of his dreams and so yeah you're right they are all modest expenditures but the jets seem to have given him the resources for this to be a respectable unit and if you're gonna keep aaron glenn beyond this year that's kind of my expectation because like what are we doing here otherwise like if aaron glenn is not making a tangible difference on a defense that has some talent on it not the most in the nfl but enough to not be embarrassing which is what they were by the way we should probably mention you know we're not going to be able to do that because we're not going to be able to do that a defense that finished with no interceptions last year a defense that had 1.7 percent of opposing drives end in a turnover which again according to ftn is the worst number since 1993 that is not good 1.7 percent of opposing drives ended in a jets takeaway it really it can't be a whole lot worse than it was and the jets have spent for this to be respectable and i'm excited to see if aaron glenn can do something with that because that was the hope and the expectation when they hired him i think they tried to split the difference with their offseason moves this year between not robbing the future but also gesturing at the idea that we're giving you enough to judge the job you do as a defensive play caller and i agree that's exactly where they landed like if you look at the signings joseph osai is the only one with a real amount of guaranteed money that goes beyond this year mario davis two-year deal 15 million dollars guaranteed that's obviously a short term deal but i think it's a good deal and i think it's a good deal and i think it's a good deal and i think it's a good deal and i think it's a good deal and i think it's a good deal and i think it's a good deal and i think it's a good deal and i think it's a good deal and i think it's a good deal and i think it's a good deal and i think it's a good deal pretty much de facto one-year deal every other guy they signed anyamada kingsland barry dane belton nishan right andre cisco coming back every single other guy was a one-year contract i don't want to make it a habit of agreeing with woody johnson about really anything but if woody johnson told aaron glenn you should be able to have a middle of the pack defense with what we've provided for you this year i think i agree with that do you agree with that the front so i think can be okay the secondary concern can you even we use this term all the time can you can it be regular bad can you have the 21st defense in the league with what we've provided for you i think that's which that i think is attainable i think that i think that's doable my problem with this is the things that the jets defense should be good at under aaron glenn they were terrible at last year the only team with a worse success rate when playing man coverage per next gen last year than the jets was the chicago bears the jets signed one of the corners from the chicago bears to play for their defense this year and like to the way that their cornerback room is he's not starting because he missed all of training camp but that was something they invested in and like the way that their cornerback room is constructed it's like all guys who are like six two plus but in my mind are like not necessarily like physical like if you're gonna be like the six two plus level corner you need to be like hands on you need to be like legeria sneed at his best and like i kind of liked azaria thomas coming out of college and like brandon stevens has had his moments but they are not to me like bully you at the line of scrimmage guys and so i think if there's anything that's holding me back on this being like a pretty like at least an average defense it is the corners like that that scares me a lot just looking at the front i'm like that could be like the 11th best defense in the nfl like if everything hits the cornerback room is definitely the flaw in my grand design here but even safety dane belton is i'm not getting excited about that mink is pretty deep into his career like the entire secondary it leaves me a little itchy and that's not even what's keeping me up at night i know that glenn glenn did not have quite the same degree of hype and expectation as ben johnson but it was very much this tandem of dna changing coordinators that were so highly sought after if aaron glenn is is anything resembling that type of coach it it's enough that this shouldn't be an embarrassing defense so that's why i'm not getting excited about that because i'm not getting excited about that because i'm not getting excited about that because i'm not getting excited about that because you're watching the first month of the season as they reshape this defense in his image what does this end up looking like what are some of the other elements of that that you're keeping an eye on well and i just think too like i think reshaping in his image one they now have to vandra sweat who is just a nose tackle like one you know zero technique that they just did not have before last year was a lot of harrison phillips who at this stage in his career i just do not think can hold up at that level like at that spot and so i think bring into fondre sweat i think takes a little bit of takes a little bit of the stress off the linebackers which i think uh could be really nice for them they bring into mario davis and we talked about quincy williams i think being a nice signing now for cleveland he had worked with mike ruttenberg before who was the linebacker coach a couple years ago him and aaron glenn just clearly did not agree on how to play football like i just don't think that he was the best fit for what they were trying to do he's a very aggressive downhill player demario davis is a lot more like put together mentally he's a leader for their defense so i think him just potentially being able to get them in and out of different calls i think helps like you just have so much more and with minka back there too like he's a guy who i think is like pretty mentally i think just getting those two guys in like helps them a lot in that front demario davis is a stabilizing factor even this deep into his career i don't think can go understated he also he's still a tone setter he was there were plays in the preseason where it's like the second quarter and he's flying around like a madman i'm like you you're you don't have to do this anymore even talking multiple coaches this summer just kind of unprompted brought to mario davis up to me that coached him in new orleans and just talked about him as a leader and a locker room presence like generational all-time type stuff about what he's doing for your locker room and when you watch the jets defense last year they were lost they were lost in the wilderness and so having somebody like demario davis come in and just be at the center of that thing even if he's 70 percent of all pros in mario davis i actually do think that has a chance to make a really big difference just in how buttoned up and professional this entire thing feels i'll say this i think that can happen the fact that it needs to happen after you hired a defensive minded head coach a little probably isn't okay a little worrisome makes me re-sad that demario davis is in a situation with a rebuild instead of putting a super bowl contender over the top which is what i was hoping for back during free agency but that's water way under the bridge at this point if you're trying to shape your culture though and reshape it and pull it back from the abyss i actually do think he is the type of guy that absolutely your best shot at doing it yeah and the last thing i would say for reshaping this in in uh into kind of his image david bailey being his version of like aiden hutchinson where it's like in run defense it might not be the best thing you might be a little guessing there's a like off the edge off the weak side go get it yeah it's like okay i get why he wants that in his defense and you have osai and enigbare yeah eat some of those snaps they're good downside defensive yeah i like kingsley enigbare you you're always have demario davis was your guy if i wanted to see him on a contender mine was kingsley enigbare yeah he may play 30 snaps a game but i thought he could just be a good rotational piece on a good defense one of the bears games like where he like out a ball at the end i was like he like won them that game useful rotational player in the nfl the defense is is fairly talented for how you view the jets like they were like an all-time bad defense in a lot of ways last year yes i completely understand that dave what are you watching the first month of the season with the jets i assume we'll know really quickly whether gino has a little bit left in the tank or whether it's so over i don't even want to talk about it i know it's terrifying but there's some degree of infrastructure in place here for gino to be successful like derrick already talked about the offensive line the tackles make you feel really good garrett wilson perennially underrated breeze hall is there yeah like this looks it's it's better than i think you would give it credit for provided gino is anything resembling seattle gino and not 37th in epa per play like he was in vegas last year i don't want to step on it i don't want to step on my what's keeping me up at night relates to this is it keeping you up at night waiting to find out if gino no no it's not that it's not that it's more about the frank reich is calling plays correct and like that part of it i think is extremely fair that my cope about gino smith and how he played last year and how he might play a little bit better this year gino smith's biggest problem even when he was playing really well is he's gonna hold on to the ball and he's probably gonna get hit and take sacks the raiders offensive line last year and run game was as as bad as it could possibly be so not only are you in more third and sevens but you're in more third and sevens and you're in more third only are you in more third and sevens third and eights and stuff you just don't have a line that can ever hold up in those scenarios i don't know if the jets offensive line and run infrastructure is going to be elite but if it can at least get back to average it's like i think gino smith can play not embarrassing football the way that it looked last year i'll just do this now okay i the infrastructure the the talents around him especially up front significantly better than what was with the raiders last year even though dylan parham is one of the five offensive linemen which i do find funny okay it's significantly better and then if jonathan if chris myers or chris myers who's the center for the jets josh myers josh my god chris myers is the texans center in like 2011 if you just want to look that up katie uh so and then if chris myers gets hurt jordan meredith is now the backup center they traded for jordan meredith so now we'd get 40 percent of the way too many familiar faces i can't believe you're doing this to me the talent is undeniably better here is my concern with the frank reich stuff this is not about oh man like he didn't do a great job and that's why i have all these issues over the last five years in the nfl there have been 13 offenses that have had 90 negative 90 passing epa or worse 13 over the last five years so you essentially get two and a half a year mm-hmm two of those were coached by frank reich of the 13 in the last five years so at the matt ryan year and then the bryce young year okay and if you were trying to explain that away if you're a jets fan i understand this all right well the panthers offensive line wasn't very good in 2023 their interior was bad but you had a key quantum entire moment at the tackles and you had a small quarterback fine right like the interior line wasn't great small quarterback that's a rookie maybe explain that away a little bit in 22 yes you have a statuesque matt ryan back there the offensive line for the 2022 indianapolis colts was the same as it was for the 2023 indianapolis colts when they were one of the best seven offensive lines in the league what's the control factor here we've seen his last two times as the offensive play car the offense is bottom out to a degree that we do not often see in the nfl very similar by the way to the 2025 raiders and that is my concern here is that even with better players we see systemic things like this where the entire bottom falls out of it and he's done it twice in his last two times as a play caller that is my concern i'm open to it being better with better players a hundred percent but it is keeping me up at night that it absolutely might not be that's why this is just something i'm watching in the first month of the season i did not say i was excited because i just i'm guessing by week three or week four we'll be like gino okay looking looking good or we'll be like okay we can we can close the book on this matter and we can close the book on gino we don't have to write back this time i just don't think we properly appreciate how impossible it is to not drown in the quicksand when you're a part of one of these offenses and these offenses come every single year when you're watching them when you're living it i lived it with the 2024 bears is it's awful and there's just no getting away from it even if you've got some decent players on the team and that's another really good example a lot of the players i mean they obviously improved several spots along the offensive line but the systemic concerns were way beyond what individual talent you had on the roster i'm glad you brought up the 2024 bears because if i was trying to cope gino was passable in seattle with shane waldron as his offensive coordinator and also with um ryan grubb who lasted one year in seattle that was another team that was starting to crumble from the inside out though was a 2024 seahawks completely but you would take even the 2024 version of gino in a heartbeat over what gino was in vegas last year 100 like yeah that he would he was normal that not holy shit how is this an nfl team bad and if that's what we get out of gino and the jets this year that would be a good thing the 13 seasons of negative 90 epa the jets have two of them yeah last year of joe judge last year of bill belichick last year of lovey spicer and then the of lovey smith last year's titans or six of the other ones that is brutal that's it is we are at the end type stuff and that has been frank reich's last two stops as an offensive play caller and i will say like the panthers one i do give him credit for i've made you know my opinions on bryce young especially as a rookie he was like unplayable and then the offensive line i think was a disaster that year the colts one is the one that scares me and really more analogous to this situation yeah where it's a relatively talented offensive line you have a quarterback who's last year or two of his career probably or at least towards the end and pretty statuesque like gino's not going to move matt ryan was not going to move at that stage in his career and their arms have gone a little bit matt ryan did not have the same arm in you know 22 that he did three or four years before that and neither does gino right now compared to like 23 gino what gino showed in the preseason there's there's enough there for me to think it could be okay the arm is is totally fine it's in 22 and 23 he was flying yeah so it is a little bit different i think that's like i think that's right but to me it's again it's a little bit different i think that's a little bit different but to me it's again it's a little bit different i think that's right but to me it's again it's more about the systemic things and we i don't that didn't mean to step on what i'm what's keeping me up at night but that is what is keeping me up at night what i'm watching the first month this season just how the young pass catchers come together mason taylor year two like what does the multi-tight end stuff look like garrett wilson just being in a relatively normal offensive situation maybe for the first time in a very long time which it might not be we just might not be garrett wilson has never had a normal nfl season no garrett wilson is very good he has never been normal nfl offense high on the list of nfl players i really empathize with as much as you can empathize with a guy who's got millions and millions of guaranteed tens of millions but yes millions of guaranteed money in the bank i mean it's 40 year old aaron rogers the best quarterback who's ever thrown him a pass by far yeah it's him or like joe flacco i think so 40 year old aaron rogers is the best extended quarterback play that garrett wilson has ever had in his entire nfl career and did you enjoy watching 40 year old that jets team was even worse so i really would love this just to be a baseline level of normal for both gino's sake and for garrett wilson's sake and then we'll see what we get from the other guys like i know it's been kind of a strange summer for omar cooper and he's been kind of falling in and out of how much they're going to use him and rely on him but i think he can be a useful player in the nfl and so that entire group of young pass catchers just what do we get out of them what does the deployment look like did i not how does it unfold you might have said it did you not say your guy's name oh and ad mitchell of course obviously we have like when he was the number two receiver of course that was a big part of this so there are just a lot of guys where i'm like all right i want i want to see how this goes i i get i have reservations but i want to see how this goes derrick what is keeping you up at night about the 2026 new york jets i'm just a little bit worried that this staff feel like dead men walking a little bit and just because like i i really loved the hiring of aaron glenn when they did it because like dave said like i don't think anyone thought he was quite as good or important to the line success as ben johnson but he was an awesome defensive coordinator there and i just thought that he would be able to bring some of that here and not only was that like the defensive structure not there last year but the entire team's like culture and it just feel like they were just not put together as an nfl football team so i'm a little bit worried on that front and then they just when a team is embarrassing on one side of the ball and non-functional on the other side of the ball and fires its entire staff in the first off season you are you worried about a little bit worried about that franchise yeah and again because this will probably be the last time we can mention it a team who their head coach was a db himself a db's coach and then a defensive coordinator could not get an interception that's a little bit freaky to me and again that's partly a talent issue but even some of the worst defenses ever are going to get a couple of those and so that worries me and then again it's not like the staff that they re-hired this off cycle off season cycle gets me like super excited it's guys like frank reich where it's like it's been five years since they've probably called a good offense and so i'm just a little bit worried that this is just not gonna really go anywhere it'll probably rise to the talent of the guys they signed on defense which makes them a little bit better but i'm just worried whether or not this is a staff that can make this roster better than it looks right now that's exactly where i land just the staff might not just might not be it i talked about the frank reich stuff and then the defense last year dead last in epa per drop back last season dead last part of that is the turnovers the fact they didn't create any but they were still bottom eight in success rate and that takes the turnovers into account the corner room is concerning right and the angelo pons missed most of camp jarvis brownlee is going to be their starting nickel because pons hasn't practiced like i just i don't know how good i feel about this defensive staff's ability to get the most out of that secondary after the way that last year went and i said everything i need to say about the keeping you up at night about the 2026 new york jets this is gonna sound like i'm writing off the 2026 team and i can live with that whatever so much of your optimism as a jets fan is based around having three more first round picks to use in the upcoming draft and what keeps me awake at night is it never works out as cleanly as you want it to when you think you have a haul like this like they just picked number two in the draft in a year where you that doesn't give you a path toward a quarterback what are the odds that they're actually shitty enough to finish with the first or second overall pick or the odds that the quarterback class is as sexy as we want it to be what are the odds that the colts packers and cowboys are as bad as you want them to be i mean they had three picks in this past draft and they pick i mean they had two which was non it was a one quarterback draft and then they picked 16th and 30th or whatever it was like the cowboys are six the packers are usually a good team and we saw what the colts looked like when daniel jones was healthy i would feel so bad for jets fans if they crawl through this river of shit and at the end of it they're picking like 8th 19th and 24th because as fun as it is to make three first round picks like that's not good enough if you're trying to completely revamp this franchise and draft a quarterback of the future and all that good stuff and because we always say well we can you can use not if there's only one or two and in the like in the 2024 class where it was drake may and jane daniels and caleb williams nobody was moving off those picks because the guys are good enough to not want to move off of those picks i'm just gonna say right now i don't know if it's gonna be a problem i think they might be bad enough where they'll be in position to draft a quarterback sitting here right now i think you're probably right but like if gino can tap into it one more time like all it would take is to go five and twelve and you might be up shit creek and i know that sounds very doom or gloom but that could be true if let's say let's say it's a two quarterback class pick and fifth isn't gonna be good enough it's just not and i like you have to hope that there are four or five quarterbacks and there is there is a world where that can happen of course that is i was talking to somebody in the front office over the last month or so and then they were just saying that there's no way for us to know this now but this could absolutely be a quarterback class where there are five or six guys similar to what it looked like in the caleb williams boat next draft like that's that is very possible it's part of the hope and it's part of what i think makes for a successful season for the jets so let's dig into that what is a successful season for the 2026 jets i think it's a tough needle to thread for this team to be successful while also feeling good for 2027 but i think you could do it just it depends on what your definition of success is my definition of success has nothing to do with wins and losses for the jets this would be the case for both of the next two teams here are here are my bullet points aaron glenn shows you why he was a desirable coaching candidate david bailey looks like the number two overall pick and it's a huge quarterback draft class and arch and dante moore and lenore sellers and whoever the hell else you want to name like all of them are good and you go into 2027 feeling like you'll have a chance at a quarterback i don't think the aaron glenn part matters for success if you are the new york jets franchise the young guys look good you have an indisputable core of young pieces heading into next year no matter who the coach and quarterback are yeah i guess if you're really drilling down on it like aaron glenn being there is immaterial to like the long-term outlook but and i guess it depends on who would even be available but i'm if i'm trying to look at it in the lens of feeling good about this year's team it would be nice if you felt like you had a difference maker on that side of the table if you felt like you had a difference maker on that side of the table the football i think you need the young players to look really good and promising and if that amounts to aaron glenn turns things around such that you do feel good about him that is a great cherry on top to me that's a downstream effect right it's not a necessary component if you're a jets fan and aaron glenn does not prove to be it but david bailey looks like a monster and you get like four or five incredible splash plays out of sadiq and the tackles look great and you have like all these young guys chipping in i would still feel like that's a success yeah to me it is all about the players it's all about the players yeah i think that's right although aaron glenn being good at his job would probably go a long way toward making those guys that's the sticking point is how good can the players look if the staff is bad enough where you're automatically moving on from them halfway into the season i do overall agree though like if i was a jets fan david bailey the offensive tackles and garrett wilson are like my primary concerns like let's let's really let's get the most out of those guys and let's have garrett wilson be i'd like one of sadiq or cooper to flash before the end of the season i'd like one of those two guys to show me something or even ponds i think at least one of those other top 50 ish picks has to do something oh and also i mean this is pie in the sky but screw it like root against the colts cowboys and packers too let's get those let's go let's get those picks up the colts are a bottom-out team in a way that i think is underrated so a big we'll get to that division at some point but i agree i don't i don't wouldn't necessarily bet on it but among those three teams like the colts could absolutely be picking there's always one or two teams that just like oh shit i didn't think they were going to be i mean the cardinals last year nobody thought they were going to be that bad and then they were that bad yeah let's get to the miami dolphins our preview for the 2026 miami dolphins they're off season in 60 seconds hire jeff halfley as their head coach john eric solvin is the gm bobby slow again is the offensive coordinator signed malik willis greg dolchich cleveland farrell and a bunch of other teams for about a million dollars traded jaylen waddle for a first round pick another day three draft capital cut bradley chubb tyreek hill to attack valo alec ingold julian hill and cole strange all move on in the draft they made 10 000 picks kate and proctor chris johnson jacob rodriguez chris bell caleb douglas will casmeric kyle lewis what are you most excited about with the 2026 miami dolphins david this could be the peak of off-season cope and i think it's going to be a i know that bobby slowick is calling the offense in miami so we'll see how that goes but i'm pretty excited to watch this run game specifically when you consider the pieces on the offensive line devon achan got his extension quietly like not only explosive but very efficient considering what the dolphins were as an offense last year and malik willis obviously at the very worst and not to say that he can't add anything as a passer but you know for sure he can add an explosive element to your run game so with a very mobile quarterback who rushed for a first down 37 percent of the time over his last two years playing which admittedly not a huge sample size but a good bit more mobile than tua just for starters yeah so yeah i think you could say that a quarterback like malik willis a running back like devon achan super excited about patrick paul kate and proctor playing between him and aaron brewer the offensive line in general i just think has exciting potential this might blow up in my face but in august i'm excited to see what this looks like It's just an offense that has a chance to be very unique. And it was unique in different ways under Mike McDaniel. But I think having. I just love this framing. It's, it'll be unique. It'll be unique. This reminds me, actually, fitting because it's the AFC East. It reminds me of us talking ourselves into what the Jets could do with Justin Fields last year. It's the exact same thing. They're going to have so much fun with it. The difference is, at least, Justin Fields was never really a good passer in, like, any extended sample in the NFL. And not that Malik Willis has an extended sample. I was going to say, you're calling it an extended sample? It's not extended. It's only, like, 60-some-odd dropbacks. But at least on those dropbacks, he's, like, by far the most productive quarterback in the NFL. And obviously, that's, you know, playing on a Packers team that's really well-constructed. It was very specific game plans in, like. I think when you're pinch-hitting as a quarterback, you can get away with stuff in a one- or two-game sample that you're not going to get away with in a 17. Which, we'll talk about that later. But at least when he was doing that, it was electric. And you can at least give him some amount of praise there. And then on top of Devon Achan, who, like. I think it's underrated how. I think we watch him in the McDaniel offense, and you see all the just runway stuff that he's doing on the outside. And it's like, oh, he's incredible. He is, as a down-to-down running back, like, as good as anybody in the league. Awesome player. He is phenomenal. Awesome player. Even going back and re-watching the preseason stuff and what they were doing. Like, him as a between-the-tackles runner is so underrated. He's such a good player. That's my answer by far. It's just Devon Achan behind this offensive line. You got 320 at left tackle, 360 at left guard, an all-pro at center, 325 at right guard, and then whatever Austin Jackson is. I didn't look it up because it wasn't important. But the other four parts, 7A in year two, it's a lot of beef and a very little fast man behind it. And I'm excited to see what that looks like. I want to believe that six weeks into the season, all of us football geeks are. We'll be like, yeah, I know their record's not good, but are you watching the Dolphins run the ball? This is electric stuff. If you are an oddity, I want to tune into. Absolutely. And I think they honestly, like, they can be. Like, the receivers I have a lot more questions about, and we'll get there. But, like, if I'm just looking at quarterback, running back, and the offensive line, I'm like, that's kind of enough to be, like, an interesting offense. Dave's point about the Jets is the perfect thing to bring up, though. We were having this exact same conversation about the Jets last year. The reality. The reality is often nowhere near as fun. But, like I said, it's August. What are you watching the first month of the season with the Miami Dolphins, Derek? I mean, just, like, Bobby Slowik 2.0. And I know that, obviously, what he was, especially at the end in Houston, was, it was kind of vanilla. It was a lot of just, like, play-the-hits sort of Shanahan stuff. And the run game in particular never really got off the ground. I'm wondering how much of him being on this staff last year, and, like, not only just getting to see some of the Mike McDaniel stuff, a little bit more up close, especially, but it's, like, with these exact players for the most part. And, like, obviously, they lose Alec Ingold. It's not necessarily one for one, but the offensive line is mostly the same guy. And there's a fullback on this team. And there is a fullback, yes. They kept the fullback on their 53. And so, like, I'm just curious, like, how much has he taken from the failings that he had in Houston, then seeing one of the best run game designers in the NFL get to do this on this exact team. How much of that can he really put together and drive things forward? So, I think I'm just really, I don't even know necessarily what I think it's going to be. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what it's going to look like. Like, I don't know how much of it is it going to go back a little bit more to the stock standard Shanahan stuff. Is he going to do a lot more of the weird stuff? Because, like, by the end of last year, like, the second half, the Dolphins run game was like a wildcat, like, T formation. Like, they were just doing, like, weird, weird stuff. It was like a wing T offense. I almost kind of think you can do some of that with Malik Willis and actually let him do some more of the running. Like, I wonder how much of that they continue to hold in the offense. I think the problem is when you have to come to that in the back half of the season, when you have the guy that is at the center of all of that, it's different than I sat and watched that guy for eight weeks. Yeah. And so I wonder how much of that you can even glean. But I'm very curious about the slow 2.0 thing. That's exactly where I landed with it as well. For all the excitement we potentially have about the running game, since 2021, okay, so we have 160 NFL seasons since 2021. The Houston Texans in two years under Bobby Slowik finished 150th and 152nd. And those 160 seasons in success rate per next gen. They're really, really, really bad run games. The offensive line talent is undeniably better here by a long shot. Even if you go back like two years, the two previous years before you even got there, those Texans teams are, again, the bottom 15. The Texans have been such a bad running team for so long. It's actually kind of crazy. But Bobby Slowik, I think, did play, have a hand in that. So what does the run game look like? Because I do think that you look at the numbers, just how much zone running the Texans were doing. Back then, where Bobby Slowik comes from, even what the Dolphins were doing last year, you'd assume there'd be a decent amount of that because some big boys there. I mean, if they want, and they were doing some more pull stuff and gap scheme runs in the preseason. And so how much of that do we see? How much variety in the run game do we see? And the other part of it that I expect them to lean into more, they use a ton of multi-tight on stuff in the preseason. I think we'll keep seeing that. The name, name of which you probably know this, the Broncos, this head and they took in the Justin Jolie, Justin Jolie, the Dolphin now, so they picked him up. And as a waiver claim, so they'll have him, Kaczmarek, Dolchich, and they use a bunch of two tight end sets in the preseason. And they use a lot of fullback stuff in the preseason. In 2023, the Texans were, the Texans had a fullback on the field for 25% of their plays in 2023. That season, CJ Stroud led the NFL in the percentage of his dropbacks that came against base defense. And that was a very successful passing game compared to what you would expect. The Texans were ninth in preseason. In 2024, in the same metric, it was about an eight percentage point drop when they stopped using a fullback quite as often. And so can you diversify the run game a little bit with this offensive line? Can you play on your terms of getting heavier bodies on the field and simplifying things for your quarterback and tap into some of the things that were good about the Bobby Sloak experience in Houston, and then try to improve at some of the things that were poor in part because of your offensive line personnel? Will Kaczmarek would be high on my list of names to know if you're looking for that Jackson. Hawes sort of guy who even as a rookie is just mauling people as an extra tight end. That's a for being a, you know, a third round pick on a team that doesn't have high expectations. I think that's that's an interesting name. He's going to play. Yeah, he is. He's going to play a decent amount in part because your other tight end is Greg Dolchich, who for all for any excitement you could have about Greg Dolchich as a pass catcher. I'm not sure he's moving defensive ends by himself. No. Well, and like God knows what it receiver. So it's like you might as well start putting the tight ends on the field. Dave, what do you think? Do you watch in the first month of the season with the Dolphins? Malik Willis has thrown 89 passes the last two years. He's probably going to throw more than that in the first month of this season alone. I just what what what is this guy? I loved what he did in Green Bay. It's one of my favorite player development stories of the last few years is the Packers getting him for a flyer two years ago. Was it or three? Whatever. Twenty twenty twenty three season, right? I think it was after twenty four season into the twenty four season. Because twenty twenty three was the year where him he played him in Levis. Yeah. Played a couple of games. It's such a cool story. And obviously he got a life changing amount of money over it. But now we just see what what this is. And it's not an ideal circumstance. But as we've just laid out, I think it's it's better than than you would probably give it credit for on the surface. And so what can he do with it? What does he look like? What are who are the Dolphins primary pass catchers? How much can this running game health help him? I mean, who? Who's Malik Willis other than a surprisingly pleasant backup quarterback? That's what we know him as to this point. And so I don't think it has to be more complicated than that. I think a lot of people were excited about him potentially getting an opportunity after the way that he played in spot duty last year. So let's stay excited for the opportunity because he is getting it, even if it's in less than ideal circumstances. Not hopeless, though. Like, yeah, not a hopeless. I mean, it's it's tough, man. I mean, when even if the running game is good, the idea that you're going to be thrown into a combination of Jalen Tolbert, Malik Washington, Caleb Douglas, maybe Chris Bell, even if you have hope about what Caleb Douglas and Chris Bell can eventually become. Caleb Douglas had a couple of nice moments in the preseason. Chris Bell is much more talented in the third round prospect and should be back sooner rather than later. We're still talking about rookie receivers. Yeah, like your two most important outside pass catchers. I think even by the end of this season, let alone the long term outlook of the franchise, are rookie day three picks. Maybe. Maybe not hopeless, but certainly not good. But that's what the money's for. And I at least like in a majority of cases, the offenses and situations that really feel like they crumble and just give a guy no shot. It's the offensive line. Like it's truly one of the worst in the league. I don't think that Miami is going to get there. I think that they're talented enough that that's not where they should arrive. And so they'll at least keep him upright enough, whether or not keeping him upright so he can throw to Malik Washington does anything, probably not. But at least I think he's not going to get just, like, battle scars by Halloween. The only devil's advocate thing I would say to that is that we talk about crumbling infrastructures. That was the Texans problem in 24. Offensive line talent was a part of this. They were getting picked on by all of these teams, just manipulating them in pass protection over and over and over again. The game I think about, the game I still go back to, it's not even the playoff game where they were getting destroyed. That Packers game that season, where Jeff Halfley just ate his lunch over the course of four quarters, and they were throwing. Every weird pressure and simulated and everything under the sun at them, and they had no answer for it. That would be the. other part of slow 2.0 like have you learned a little bit about yourself and what your plan there has to look like to prevent people from picking on you because this is it keeps i keep going back to this idea of when you are in a situation like that and those are the systemic concerns the talent matters less because you feel it less and so even if the players are better how much do you feel the individual talent across the offensive line if the situation is bad and i think the situation needs to be better even if the players are from what we saw the last time bobby slowick was an offensive coordinator i mean it's a good point because like again i'm willing to leave the door open that slowick is better but we know for a fact that mike mcdaniel made this offensive line better than it was and so maybe the different maybe the dearth like the how big that gap is between those two is is bigger than i'm giving credit for what is keeping you up at night about the 2026 miami dolphins david you did our gm cook or are we going to be looking back on this draft class as a lot of disappointing players it's very similar to the jets where all i want is to be excited about some young guys and they're not all guys that john eric sullivan drafted like you want to see patrick paul continue to ascend jonah seven aya if kenneth grant had a big season how excited already on ir oh holy shit i missed that for like for the year or did the the short term i he was not on this all he's not on the starting he's not on the depth chart opening season on injury reserve is ir return you will miss the first four games of the season at least which is brutal that is already a blow against my hopes but you made 13 draft picks if i feel good about i don't know four of those guys is that setting the bar too high considering how young this team i think depends on what good means like is how good can you feel about casmeric but like if he plays a role for an offense if he's what you want him to be in that role if one of the two receivers flashes a little bit if proctor looks good like i think if four to five of those guys feel like contributing pieces by the end of it you would feel really good about this draft proctor johnson jacob rodriguez caleb douglas casmeric chris bell yeah if if most of those guys look like players and i feel like john eric sullivan really crushed this draft class that's that's my hope and that's what's keeping me awake at night because i've done this long enough to know for every time we get excited about these huge draft class classes i mean we just talked about the patriots and how only one guy from 2024 is even on the team anymore it's rare when a big draft class like this ages super well ask washington another another great example it can change the fortunes of your franchise if you do it and that's why i would be losing sleep is like are we about to reboot this team with an insanely good foundation or is this gonna look stupid in two years i mean i think for me it's and maybe i'm thinking too much because like this year doesn't really matter in terms of results but like the secondary is heinous the secondary is an indication of the overall roster quality right exactly that's just the area where i think it's most apparent yes i think the whole roster obviously has a lot of issues but you do see it the most in the secondary like they're starting five right now juju brentz at corner who flamed out in indianapolis after starting a little bit as a rookie jason marshall who was a fifth round pick for this team last year uh dante trader who was also a fifth round pick for this team last year zane anderson at safety who has played 145 snaps in five nfl seasons most of them with the packers in 2024 and then chris johnson who is your first round pick and so obviously first round pick but still a rookie and you're never entirely sure what you're gonna get out of that guy which and i think johnson played a lot outside and didn't call it and also he's a rookie as you just laid out playing in a secondary with no help no help yeah so that's not that's not great mine just extends to that thought process about the entire team it is one of the thinnest nfl rosters i can remember staring at on august 31st and we knew that was going to happen i was comparing them to a team i want to talk about a little bit when we talk about what success looks like and the team that i had in mind they were paying about 35 of the cap in dead money in year one of a reset the dolphins have 196 million dollars in dead money i mean that's what 60 percent it's it's insane i mean it's just insane you can't build an nfl roster this way and they know that they knew that they were going to have to take a disgusting stomach churning amount of medicine this year and that's exactly what's happening but when you look at it man holy shit like the secondary is a good indication of it to me do you know who's currently slated and that this always whatever the depth charts are we don't know a dolphin's be writer and so i did not check the current update on the 53 like i could for a lot of other teams do you know who is currently slated to be the edge rusher opposite chop chop robinson on the dolphins depth chart right now josh uche josh uche and that's i was gonna say him or robert beal i know is on this roster and that's the other small thing too like this this is where i think the season can get like emotionally demoralizing for them i'm sorry if that's like way too dark their edge players are all like 250 and i if you're a bad team and you're just getting slammed it's in the run game it's hard to live it's hard to live it's hard to live and and that that's that's my concern is that it's so bad yeah it's just demoralizing over the course of the year but you'd hope that you can have some flashes by the offense and that can be enough but they're they're in a really really tough spot just with the roster they could practically put on the field given the way that this team was built over the last few years they spent an insane amount of money to kick the can down the road financially and they didn't make any draft picks the dolphins didn't make any picks for the last like five years they made fewer picks than any team in the league if you look back at like the last several draft classes in 2022 the dolphins made zero top 100 picks they made two picks in the first four rounds in 2023 the dolphins made two top 100 picks and two picks in the first six rounds in 2024 you get chop robinson patrick paul and then jaylen right in the fourth round but again only two top 100 picks and then last year you get kenneth grant and jonah 7a kenneth grant already not playing like there just weren't any picks in the first four rounds and then jaylen right in the first four rounds and then jaylen right in the first four rounds and then jaylen right in the first four rounds high in the draft over the last several years and all of them essentially all of the mid-round swings did not work out so there just aren't any players on this team on top of the fact they have 200 million dollars in dead money i'm going to remember the dolphins as an example of the argument people make which there's validity to it the cap's not real in the sense that it'll never stop you from doing something you want to do the cap will absolutely you and that's what the dolphins are dealing with you got to pay the bill for it you got to pay the bill for it you got to pay the bill for it a year at least yes and for them they're paying it kind of for two years like a year and a half because next year two is still on the books for about 50 million dollars but even with that they'll have 100 million dollars in space the the consequences of your actions will come up eventually and yeah you can just clear it out you can't quickly that's the thing that's why it's worth it it to be clear it is worth it there can still be big time consequences even if they're just one year consequences but this is what your roster can look like when those decisions don't age well so what is success for the 2021 miami dolphin 2026 miami dolphins it's actually very telling for audience look be the 2021 lions yeah or the young players look good and you have some give a shit to you you have the line the line is where you can rest a lot of your faith a lot of your enthusiasm here are some players on the detroit lions that played more than 500 snaps in 2021 oh this is gonna be good jerry jacobs aj parker jaylen reeves mabin nick williams dean marlo charles harris tracy walker the third armani or warrior mizzou legend charles harris he bounced he's one of those players that bounced around for longer than you think by the way and played okay near the end of his career but still and charles harris by the way had 52 pressures on that team no one else had more than 21 that's the chop robinson yes let's take this a step further chop robinson is your charles harris except he's an in-house young player that you can really get excited about but we have seen horrendous roster situations in the nfl where you can be at least a little bit enthusiastic about it by the end if you're playing hard you're getting the most out of the talent and here's the other comparison who is the number one receiver on the 2021 detroit lions fourth round rookie around and so he did most of that in like the last eight weeks if chris bell or caleb douglas if you have that sort of guy because be the 2021 lions that is success if you're the if you're the dolphins be 80 of that i said they won three games play passable football while getting an exciting year from a lot of your young players and it would be a bonus if jeff hafley gives you some degree of confidence that he's a dude which that's partially that's the 2021 lions if it's not a dead three wins and it's a you made teams earn it as much as they possibly had to sort of three wins i think that you can live with how that looks and that's how the lions were that year yeah they were they were making teams earn it even if they only won three games that's where i sit with it all right that is all we've got for the dolphins and all we've got for the afc east we'll be back tomorrow with our next division until then appreciate you guys listening we'll talk to you soon thanks for tuning in make sure to hit that subscribe or follow button so you never miss an episode if you enjoyed what you heard please like comment and leave a rating we'll see you next time Thank you.