2026 NFC West preview

Welcome to the athletic football show brought to you by the US bank smartly visa signature card. I'm Robert Mays and we did eight division previews in the books. The NFC West are eighth and final show. Really enjoyed doing these every single year sincerely appreciate everyone who checked out all of these a fan a fascinating division 10 things with two Super Bowl favorites including the defending Super Bowl champion Seahawks really enjoyed digging in to the Cardinals and Niners as well let's get to it with me Dave and Derek right now we made it eight divisions in eighth and final division preview today breaking down the NFC West just the Super Bowl champion from last year the Super Bowl favorite from this year the Niners that are in the playoffs every year just a casual way to wrap things up saved the best for last it's it's a lot and honestly I think the fact too that we do this in Super Bowl odds order the fact that we're going to end this not even just like with a obviously a team in a tough division but with the team that might have the first overall pick is at least actually an intriguing way to end this for a division that otherwise you want to slip this one. Cardinals first they're gonna make the most sense but it's I think it's kind of funny to end it with we can't no we can't save the two best teams in the league. No for consistency is important to me consistency is important these are one of my favorite things we do all year sincerely appreciate everyone who tin tuned into all of these sincerely appreciate the work everyone did behind the scenes on this stuff especially Katie Duffier producer who put in and just unfathomable amount of work to get all those YouTube videos turned around in a single day the fact we had 32 of those with the production value that we do she deserves an unbelievable amount of credit for that so it's produced a lot of show in the middle of all that is yes so the go Katie everyone behind the scenes it was a lot of work and I'm really proud of them when they're done and so I hope you guys are enjoying them I think they're really a great way to end the offseason just something to really sink your teeth into on but every single team in the league and we're going to wrap it up with four teams that I'm very excited to talk about let's kick things off with the Los Angeles Rams again we're doing this in order of divisional odds the same way we've done all of the divisions just want to make that extremely clear as we kick this thing off mostly for the audio audience the Rams offseason in 60 seconds higher Nathan promoted Nathan Sheelhouse offensive coordinator brought in Miles Garrett Aaron Donald Trent McDuffie and Jalen Watson when I do these I do them just very quickly and do them it's kind of the same process for every team just casually typing in Miles Garrett and Aaron Donalds in the same space that I later typed in Kendrick Born and Elijah Wilkinson in the exact same way was very funny please don't leave off trading for 22 at well back either by the way that is a funny like I'm McVeigh like I need I need one of my guys let's go to to all the three all pros and that guy that caught like two passes for us last year but God we love them lost Kobe Durant and a Keller weather's boot in the draft high Simpson in the first round Max Claire in the second round Keegan Trost in the third round for all these teams were kicking things off with what you were most excited about as it relates to this team in 2026 Derek why don't you kick us off what are you most excited about with the 2026 Los Angeles Rams pick literally anything. I mean they have the MVP quarterback they have maybe the best player caller in the NFL Puke Nakua and Devante Adams especially if he is a little bit healthier at the start of this year is as good as it gets the defense was already one of the best in the NFL and then it signed in all pro corner the best past rushing in the NFL and brought back Aaron Donald to who knows exactly what is going to be but just the fact that he's back as an unbelievable addition to this seem so like that it's it's very rare that going into a season you can make a case that does not at all feel like a stretch that they could be the best offense and the best defense usually you get like the best offense and I think it be a good defense but it'll be like 73 the fact that they have pretty strong cases to be number one at both it's a pretty rare place for it to be you would you might have a better handle on this than I do I was trying to think of the last time that a team came into a season with expectations quite this high like I'm sure the Patriots had expectations like for a few times but this is not a common occurrence at all and like I mean another one that comes to mind is I know how it turned out which makes it funny is the 2011 Eagles or was it 2010 the dream team Eagles there's 2010 2010 yeah that was but even that and I know it didn't live up to the expectations but that was like an amalgamation of things joining a new team this is just adding things to a team that was already on the cusp of playing in a Super Bowl like you very much had the evidence that this was a great team before you added the best defender in football and an all pro corner and Aaron Donald whatever he is at this point in time I mean there I'm sure there's precedent for it if you're willing to look hard enough but it's been a minute I mean I think there's just not precedent for it because the Aaron Donald part of it is really what takes it all over the top but the Miles Garrett thing and who knows what Aaron Donald will be but the prospect of the one of the best football players we have ever seen right the defining defense player of his generation at joining forces with the current best defense player in the NFL and the best player of the next generation is insane I mean I again I don't know what exactly to expect from Aaron Donald but the idea that these two guys are going to be playing together on the same defense next to each other on third and eight in the divisional round with potentially the season on the line and we get to watch this it's amazing it's a real gift for football fans and I I've been on record saying that there's part of me that wishes we could have just let the Aaron Donald experience be crystallized because the idea of this man saying Sean McVeigh I'm full I don't need more of this and walking away at the top of the sport is a rare opportunity that we don't often get but now that that is gone and we're just sitting in this reality I'm very excited to experience it when Aaron Donald said that the Rams had bounced back from a dismal Super Bowl hangover to be solid and I think that 2023 season was really special to those guys I bet I bet I'm I absolutely bet that it was but I also bet Aaron Donald didn't ever think the Rams would be in position to add somebody like Miles Garrett to their defensive front I think there's a lot of things that his kids didn't see him play they're they they're older now I just think there are a lot of elements as to why he wanted to come back and I'm very excited to watch it at but the other I mean everything else about the defense you're talking about them having the chance to be the best defense in the league you go back and you look at I was rewatching that I've seen championship game last night and the ways that then see Oxford able to attack them over the course of that game which by the way we'll get to the see ox part of it. The performance from Sam Darnold and Clint kubiac in that NFC championship game is totally shit out they were both incredible in how they attacked them in that game but the first big play of the game or she cheated one-on-one against various Williams down the right side line on a go ball and that is one of the reasons that you go out and trade for trim McDuffie that you go sign jail in Watson and the other part of it and this came up when I was there them just talking about watching a team like Seattle and seeing the physicality that they had throughout their entire secondary I think when you look at the moves for McDuffie for a Watson the first push your mind goes is coverage quality compared to what we had last year that's part of it but I think it's about an increase in size and just overall physicality including against the run because against this team now even before Aaron Donald got there the balls coming out fast you're adding miles Garrett to a team that already has Byron Young Kobe Turner Braden Fisk Pune forward and now Aaron Donald was involved in this thing and so the ability of the corners to tackle I think was at front of mine and how they ended up building that room and so having that sort of cornerback group now compared to what you had a year ago plus miles Garrett and Aaron Donald it's just a ridiculous situation. It's I'm incredibly excited to see it because yeah, Jaylin Watson six one and a half two hundred pounds. He's a big boy and that's the exact opposite from what they had with their outside cornerback spots last year except for a color weather spoon. But I tell you whether someone can't move the way that he used to yes. Darius Williams and Kobe Durant are both small men and a manual Forbes. They were small but a quarter manual Forbes gets top billing there. I think I think the most film prep I did for this was going back and watching the Rams defense some of the tackle attention from a manual Forbes. It's it's tough and I know Trent McDuffie is not big, but he gets accurate. Yes, he is a physical. It's why he was so good in the nickel when he played there for the kids. He's just so put together for a shorter player and I think that was one of the reasons that they wanted to seek him out because they thought he could hold up in all the ways they wanted him to. I mean he's all he's Kobe Durant's getting up like 15 or so pounds on Trent McDuffie like he's a he's a yeah, even for a DB he's like a bigger more physical body type. Totally. And the other part of the defense that just my last thing that I'm excited about because I'm I was going to go with the whole defense as to what I was excited to watch because I think the front obviously changes everything and the one of the reasons that they wanted to go to Miles Garrett is that beyond the overall impact of a player like Miles Garrett, they miss the world where defense offenses could only do so much to them. When Aaron Donnell was on the field, the playbook was limited. There were certain things you just couldn't do when he was on the fields. By getting Miles Garrett, they stepped back into a world they were already very familiar with because of the way that Aaron Donnell shaped the complexion of games. But the other part was just the defensive set the secondary, not only the quality added, the flexibility they now have on the back end is wild because you have how many guys you could theoretically step down and have them play in the nickel. You could play as much dime as you want with this group. You have Quentin Lake and play there trying to make Duffy can play there. Based on situation, you can just have so many different permutations of what that secondary is going to look like behind that defensive line. It's a compelling group of defensive players. We can just leave it at that. Chris Chula already led the league in dime. And that is before they did this side. What the splits are going to look like is going to be fun. Let's get to what we're watching over the first month of the season with the Los Angeles ramps. Each of these teams are going to pick something that is a question of curiosity, something that you want an answer on early in the year. Dave, why don't you start us off? What are you watching the first month of the season with the Los Angeles Rams? The person L ads distract from all of the fun little ways that this team is exciting. Like to take it back to defense for one minute, it's funny to think what we might be saying about a guy like Josiah Stewart, if Aaron Donald and Miles Garrett were you, right? And in the same way, like when the offense has the reigning MVP, an offensive player, the year caliber receiver in Puka, Devante, Kyron Williams has been what he's been. It's still easy to forget that there's 40% of the offense that you've got to figure out here and we're very intrigued to see how it goes because that's, that's how they split it up. Puka, Devante and Kyron accounted for 57% of the targets in this offense last year. And even with Blake Korum having an emergent year, Kyron still did 60, 65% of the work in the backfield. So what does that look like for the other 40%. We've talked a lot about Terence Ferguson this summer. What does that actually look like? They have an absolutely loaded tight end room, like all the other guys out snapped Terence Ferguson as a rookie anyway, whether it's Higby, whether it's Parkinson, whether it's Davis Allen. And by the way, I had another like surreal moment last night where I was looking through it. And I was like, I can't believe the Rams drafted max Claire 61st overall. And he's like four thumbed depth chart. He's a very best. Yes, he's an app. It's absolutely crazy how deep they go. You have Korum there. They brought 22 at well back. And so let's not overthink it. This offense is going to funnel through Puka, Devante and Kyron Williams. But there are some fun players that they can work with with the, with the other parts of how this offense is going to look. Terence Ferguson for me, being really the most exciting. I don't want to get my expectations too high. That's how you wind up being disappointed when it doesn't quite look as good as you wanted to. But in the opportunities he got, which is small because he caught 11 passes, but he led all tight ends and yards per catch and ariards per target. And like by significant margins, like he gives them something that nobody else does if they're going to see this through. And I trust that they are to me what's most intriguing about this. And mine was just the new wrinkles that are coming on offense. And I think he's a very good expression of that. How does his role diversify and expand beyond the things that you're talking about? Sure. Because I think that is the most important question. Last year we've talked about this. He was the vertical presence in the 13 personnel stuff that kind of helped it come alive. But if he truly is going to be the third most important receiver on this team, it has to be more nuanced and diverse than that. The breadth of what you're asking him to do. And I think there are two things that come to mind as to how that can expand. One, it's actually the blocking because that allows him to be on the field in more situations. So this was a team last year that the reason you skip over 12 personnel is that there's no benefit to it, right? By going to 13 you get base defense. By being in 12 when it's 50, 50 base nickel, you don't know what you're getting, and it's hard to figure out where exactly your advantages are. But if Ferguson becomes a guy that's a capable enough blocker, where if they're going to play nickel to your 12, you can start running the ball the way that you want to that unlock something they weren't able to do before. And I think that's something that probably at least thought, think about exploring the thought of exploring over camp. We'll see if it was good enough to actually put into practice. But the other part is underneath change of direction sort of route options. And whether he can do a little bit more of that because then even if they're in nickel, is that your best pass pass catching group with him as the third receiver. So that stuff is all theoretical. We haven't seen any of it. But those are the ways that you can kind of add a couple of new wrinkles to this thing if he can do some more of that stuff. He was in line half the time last year, but he was in the slot 30% of the time. They even motioned him out wide. And again, this is a small snap count. So it's an unreliable sample size. But like they moved him out wide as well. Like so I'm really hopeful that we're going to see that. And this is going to be a pretty diverse usage for Terrence Ferguson. And I kind of think that we can get there. Like I really liked him coming out of the draft. I think too, they really like him because they were a team that really wanted Brock Bowers. And they could not get Brock Bowers. And he does a little he's not as good, you know, Bowers in terms of movement is just a special special player. But I think there is some of that dynamic ability with the guy like Terrence Ferguson to be able to split him out a little bit more. And I think why I'm pretty bullish on them using him a lot more at least in terms of like target share. There is no clear wide receiver through on that thing. But it would be like Jordan Whittington, who is like a good Pukka Nakua fill in. But it's not he's not giving you something else. Pukka's already giving you exactly. Targason, you I think you can make an argument that if he based on what the conversations I was having when I was there, again, if you're trying to use a guy like on like option routes or like wips on third down, he might be your best guy right now for some of that stuff. And so I think that's the argument as to why we could see more of him because that skill set just doesn't really exist within the offense. Exactly. It does not exist at wide receiver or again, tied in for them. Like none of the other tightens really off you that. So it's just kind of easy to see assuming he takes some sort of leap, how they can piece him into the offense pretty seamlessly. Canada Mumfield got a surprisingly high snap count for a day three pick on one of the best teams in football. Maybe the no, but if you could replace that with somebody that gives you more diversity and mismatch ability like a Terrence Ferguson could I could see the appeal of that. I also, again, I wouldn't say this for a lot of teams, but just last year canada Mumfield had this role for the Rams. I hear all this great stuff about CJ Daniels. There are six round pick out of Miami. Normally I'd roll my eyes at that, but the Rams are not afraid to try shit. Like that shouldn't surprise you if they think that highly of them. The other guy I would throw in that where the wrinkles coming from. I think we'll see more play Corm this year. I don't think there will be a hundred and fourteen carry split between Kyron Williams and Blake Corm this year. You look at the numbers from last year. It's very easy to see why that might get a little bit closer because Blake Corm is just giving you something that's a little bit different. Explosive run rate per next year and last year Kyron Williams at 10% Blake Corm had about 16%. Kyron had 23 or 26 rounds of 10 plus yards. Blake Corm had 23 on 114 fewer carries. And it's also some of the things I feel like we're seeing them do more of schematically in the run game. This was a duo duo duo team right over the last couple of years, duo mid zone. It was very down hill and I feel like with Corm, you started to see them add a little bit more counter. And I think this year a little bit more outside zone to be exposed because he it gives you an explosive element in the run game that Kyron for all of his benefits just doesn't really give you. And so I think those are the two areas both with Ferguson and Corm and the ways that I could see this team kind of ideating and evolving from last year to this year. Yeah. Kyron is like the most reliable singles and doubles hitter. Maybe maybe at the position like he is phenomenal with that, especially within the way that the offense functions. If they want to get this ball out of the park a little bit more Blake Corm does give them that. What was yours, Derek? What are you watching the first month of the season? Yeah. Mine was the DB's that we talked about a little bit and you talked about the flexibility that you talked about. I think it's the big thing. Like the fact that, you know, it's not even so I think one of it is the body types. Like if you want to play different kinds of dime, like you put Jalen McCullough on the field and he can do that. He can be your dimebacker or he's just what's there? He's a good look. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He's are like not that different. That's why when Lake was hurt and he kind of filled into that, I thought pretty well. If you want to move McDuffie inside and have Forbes play on the outside, like it's not ideal. But if you know you're getting passed, like Forbes can cover. It's just amount of how much is he going to be able to tackle for you in the run game and stuff like that. And so he's only out there on third nine. Yeah. That's right. I feel okay about that. And so I just think the fact that they have so much flexibility on the back end. I just want to see how quickly it gives them a little bit of juice. And then you talked about it too. This was a team that they just got bullied in so many ways. Like whether it was like, because when we did the Packers preview, I talked about it was like targets of six plus a yard outside the numbers against wider sewers. The Packers were one of the worst in the league. If you look at all those stats, the Rams are only like a couple of spots around that. It was that Eagles game. Yes. Think about what they did. The Panthers games sticks out to me. The Lions way. The teams that were willing to be like, we will challenge your shorter lesser corners, beat the shit out of them. And I just, I think that that's going to be a lot tougher with the talent that they have out there now. David, there was one more thing you wanted to talk about and what you're watching over the first month of the season. I'm giving you the floor. You can roll your eyes if you want. This is very important. For a team of this caliber, I think we need to talk about the special teams. And if you disagree or if you're snickering like Robert, I'm not at all. Asper sheet sheet. I'm not getting asked for sheet sheet about the Rams special teams or Jalen Carter or Sean McBeeh. Didn't change their kicker like midway through last season. They sure did. Yes. Well, they asked questions. They changed their coordinates. So let's talk about this because it's January, February, we're prepping for the Super Bowl. We're doing all this stuff. The Rams change out their special teams coordinator. And I'm like, well, that makes sense. And, and they should, and good for them. And then the Rams do the McDuffy trade. They do the carrot trade. Everything about the Rams this year is like the town like we're getting the not around crew. Yeah. So I just kind of assumed that Sean McVeigh went out and got somebody who was like this shit, like the best special teams coordinator in the league. Bubba Ventrone is the guy they hired. They brought him over from Cleveland. I don't know. I'm sure he's a great guy. The Browns were dead last in special teams TVOA last year. And over the course of his time in Cleveland, they have not been overly good. So I think there's context that's worth bringing up with that. Let's do it then because it surprised me when I looked into it. I think the Browns organizationally do not value special teams in how they build the roster in the same way that other teams do. That's an interesting note. I can turn to who the back end guys. Like in terms of who's doing the special team pressure. And I did have in my notes here because I mean the Browns were, they were horrendous in all of the special teams categories. And like I said, not just last year, but going back over the last few years. It's 32. It's 30. But that's an interesting point because another thing the Rams did at the sides just higher. Bubba Ventrone is they brought in Grant Stewart who was fantastic for Detroit as a key special teamer. He's been a pro player. Yeah. He's been a phenomenal special teamer and these are some of the most unheralded but useful players in the NFL where I think he played 13 snaps of defense for Detroit last year. But he was on every team. He was on all eight special teams. Kick kick return, punt, punt return, field goal, field goal block. And those guys are crucial. A for adjustments, making sure things are going the right way and representing the coach on the field. And B just for executing it at a high level. So that's actually encouraging to hear because as soon as I saw that the Rams signed Grant Stewart, I was like, okay, well, even above of Ventrone's units in Cleveland haven't been very good. They clearly prioritized adding like an ass kicker to their special teams units. Yes. I do think it's useful context and just understanding why those numbers might look the way that they do. And that's some of the quieter stuff. But like we remember like the Rams lost to the Eagles game because of their special brother. Like a punt return against Seattle and that Eagles game like yes, the margins were so like they could have hosted the NFC title game. Like it, if you don't screw up four or five special teams plays over the course of the year, it could have been there for you. So I think this has a lot of significance. And I'm actually, I feel better about it than I did when I was researching it because I was looking through it last night. And I was like, well, the Brown special teams don't give me a whole lot of hope for this being better. But okay, you soothed my concerns a little bit because if I had to guess this is going to allume large and at least a game or two for the Rams. I'm just looking at it right now when he was in Indy, three of the four seasons that he was in Indy, they finished as a top half of the league special teams unit. His last season in Indy, I think they're like 26. And you know what? As fun as it would be, Jay Harbond and Seattle had them at number two and special teams DVO like as fun as it would be to really be the best special teams unit in the league. As long as they're not embarrassingly bad, it'll probably be fine. As long as it's not your Achilles heel, it clears the bar. I think that's the most important. And it has been their Achilles heel at times in the McVeigh era. Let's keep talking about Achilles heels for each of these teams. We're going to talk about what is keeping us up at night with this team in 2026. Derek, why don't you kick us off? What is keeping you up at night about the Los Angeles Rams? I mean, we could talk about some of the, you know, Stafford still old in Davante, Adams is old all that. I think to me, it's just that you've created a scenario where anything but winning the Super Bowl is a disappointment and a failure. That like never happens. Man, I've said all of us. It worries me. It never happens. If their speeches at the parade aren't good, I'm going to be disappointed. Like that is the level of expectation with this team. It's just like, again, like that level of the NFL is a pressure cooker to begin with. The fact that you have created an extra layer that really nobody else has ever stepped into or is equipped to handle. I just think look, if anybody's built for it, I think it is Sean McVeigh. It's Matthew Stafford. It's these guys who have done really high pressure stuff before. But it is a lot. And it's a lot with a lot of new pieces, which I think is the other thing that is interesting. I think it puts a lot on Sean McVeigh in a different way than normal, where the messaging, how you make sure you try to maintain that edge becomes really important. And I think it's just important to reframe it in these sorts of terms over and over and over again. Austin Mock at the athletic had Super Blods and just percentages that he put out this week. And these are, they're his are right in line with a lot of what the industry has said, 15% chance for the Rams to win the Super Bowl coming into the year. It's a small number. Yes. That is not a big number. It's the biggest number. But 15%. Well, something that happens one and a half times out of every 10 is not a likely outcome. What's the next next biggest number, though? Do you know? I think that's probably like eight or nine percent. But still double everybody. Yes. I get your phone. It is a remote occurrence to do something 15% of the time. And we still think that's the only acceptable outcome. Yes. That's it's it's and I don't think that's crazy. That's what you have to do if you're Sean McVeigh. It's more often than not almost always. I'm going to say it's incredibly hard to win a Super Bowl. It's okay to give some of these teams and some of these players a little bit more grace than we do. This is not one of those times. Correct. So have fun managing that over the next five months. What what's keeping you up ahead about the Rams? Similar. I mean, if you want to go away from just the expectations. I mean, this is this is an old roster. My guy Jimmy Kemsky over at Philly Voice did the math when all the rosters became finalized. They're tied for the third oldest roster in the NFL. They're 26.9 years old on average. Devante is 33. Stafford's 38. And we know has had some injury issues over his time in LA. Miles Garrett is turning 30. It's funny. Like they don't need Aaron Donald. Like they would be Super Bowl favorites if Aaron Donald hadn't decided to do this. But he is a 35 year old major piece of this team at this point. Pook is not old, but just plays with a reckless abandon and has not been completely trustworthy off the field either. So that's another wrinkle that you got to throw in there. And so it's a lot of stuff to keep on the track. It's a lot of potentially leaky parts that could break on you at some point during the season. I'm mostly where Derek's at to put a finer point on it. I'll just throw out the reliability of the offensive line and the depth of the offensive line overall. Yeah. I mean, then losing Rob having to move on from Rob haven't signed essentially the middle of the last season. That's easier to do when you feel like you can go to a guy like Warmer Clendon and be okay. The third tackle that they might have to turn to if something goes wrong might not be on this roster right now. You know what though? I thought about that on my drive in. I was thinking about that very situation. And of course over a long enough timeline, it might be the right call. But Monroe Freelink could be on this team and they chose Ty Simpson. Yeah. You're telling me. Yes. Like how how sorry am I supposed to feel for the Rams? Oh, this is a it's a self-inflicted thing. 100%. They did not bolster their chances of winning the Super Bowl this year with making that pick. The fact that he was in a battle to be the backup. It seems like it might be trying to get a direction where they would turn to him if they had to. But even that in that situation, if staffers miss in six games this year and they know that, I wonder if Jimmy G gets the call. And he should. Stetson Bennett is not where this team is. That's not good enough. And whatever Ty Simpson is going to give them is not good enough. And like I think in most cases and in most teams, and maybe I said this on on draft night, I don't know, to draft the Ty Simpson when your team is already good and trying to walk the line between winning championships and winning for the future. I get it. It's what the package we're doing when they drafted Jordan love. It's what the chiefs were doing when they drafted Patrick Mahomes. I just think the math is different when you are so far into trying to win the championship this way. Like at this point, it just makes more sense to me to commit. But they keep saying that like, yeah, they were dancing. They were dancing. They were thinking about it. I'm with you. I would have done everything I could to protect myself with that pick if this year was as important as they were making it out to be. But I think you could also make the argument on the other side that finding an off ramp a quarterback when you're in this situation is incredibly difficult. And that's why they decide to do it. I am the biggest Tyson Sinfan on this show. So I'm not going to I'm certainly I'm not trying to kill the pick. But I can't I can't throw out sympathy for the Rams being thin at tackle when they had a chance to fix it and or receiver quarterback was important. Yeah, they're thin at tackle. They're thinner receiver. They had the opportunity to address both of those things. And that's an underrated one. I know Devont Adams like scored a bunch of touchdowns last year, but like I think this team maybe gets to and wins the Super Bowl. If Adams doesn't slow down at the end of the season, like he had the I think it was a hamstring issue and he just wasn't able to get back to 100% who knows how much that carries into this season or if he gets a little bit more banged up or just one more year of NFL football slows him down where there's 34 receiver and when you are a huge part of the offense, that's an old player. I think that concerns me less because if they feel like they need to, the Rams could probably find a useful receiver for a third round pick in November. Tackle might be a little harder to do that. That's a yeah, that's fair. Nobody's trading their tackles at that. The other thing out there out, this is much more specific, but I think it is a little bit tied to the quality of the offensive line overall. We've seen Stafford's performance vacillate from year to year based on how the offensive line is playing. And so even if this group takes a small step back because this isn't an offensive line, especially a tackle. It's full of star players. They're full things. It's an acceptable level of offensive line play. And so if you take a small step back from that, how much shake your do things feel, where I think you feel that the most, this is a decidedly below average team on third down last year. When they're not dictating with under center of play action, being able to have everything on the table at all times on early downs, it's a slightly different version of the offense. I think I think that's the area where you feel the offensive line the most because when it's third-nate and they're having to drop back, you sense that this is an offensive line that's built very differently than most offensive lines in the league and most offensive lines on good teams. Larry Jackson was a seven-throw pick or undrafted. He was undrafted. So undrafted. And then Warren McQuenty was a fifth, was a fifth-throw pick. The Throw pick. This is, this team is very, very different than a lot of other teams around the league. 64 tackles in the NFL. More than half of them were first-round picks. This team is an outlier. And so you're going to feel that potentially in most situations, but especially on third-down, where they were not very good last year. Let's talk about what success looks like for the Los Angeles Rams. We can breeze through this pretty quickly. Come on. Yeah, do the thing. Yeah, that's it. This is the only team where it says the answer, but that is absolutely the answer. They have to win the Super Bowl for this to be a success, which is always a fun place to be as you go into a season. All right, guys, before we get to the Seahawks preview, let's take a quick break. Are you the kind of sports fan that wants to dig into the story behind the stats? Join the Athletic Live on YouTube to cover all of the sports stories you can't stop talking about. On game days, we'll watch the biggest matchups alongside the Athletics Most Tapt-In reporters, and you can become part of the show in the interactive chat. The Athletic Live is presented by Google Gemini. Subscribe now on YouTube. Let's get to the Super Bowl Champion, Seattle Seahawks. Our preview for the 2020 Seahawks. Their offseason in 60 seconds. Higher Brian Flurry is the offensive coordinator, brought in Dante Fowler and Rodney Thomas, lost Boya Moffe, Kenneth Walker, Ric Wolland, and Kobe Bryant, all in free agency, drafted Gdarian Price, Bud Clark, and Julian Hill in the first three rounds. Derek, what are you most excited about with the 2020 Seahawks? I mean, this can still be the best defense in football, and I've hemmed in hot a little bit over, you know, you lose Boya Moffe for Dante Fowler. It's a little bit of a downgrade. What's he going to look like without Ric Wolland? And we'll talk about that later, but like so long as Mike McDonald is still there and this front looks the way that it looks like they can beat the best defense in football any given week and any given year. And so I'm just incredibly excited to see them. And I think that one thing I wanted to talk about just about like why they feel the way that they feel when I think of Houston and their defense, it's like a Western who can draw their pistol faster, and they just do it faster every time because that's just how they're built trying to play against the Seahawks is like trying to play poker, and they're just the head of you every single step. Like, you just are you can never get into the right call against them because they always find a way to just kind of abuse what you're doing. And so I just think like they're a defense that because Houston plays so fast, like some of their success rate is a tick higher on passing down stuff, but the Seahawks don't get beat with explosive plays. You can get Houston every now and then because the guy will chase something, whatever it may be. Just more single eye overall. Yes. And that's going to be part of it. And Seattle had the lowest rate of explosive plays on dropbacks last year, and they didn't give up very many against the run either. Like you just, it's hard to flip the field against the team like this. It's very funny that you said that because I actually use that exact same analogy when I'm talking about Mike McDonald several different kinds of training camp during this year, just talking about how he is the best poker player. Yeah. Like his ability. That's all you're doing as a play caller is you're essentially just playing odds and playing probabilities every single time over and over and over again, 70, 80 times a week. And he is the best at it. His ability to bucket information and make decisions based on what you do formationally in a certain down and distance, what your tendencies are, his understanding and synthesis of that information in real time is part of what makes him really, really special. And I think they're the way they play sets them up to do that on top of everything he's giving you as a play caller. And that's kind of where I landed. My answer to this, what am I most excited about? This is a special defensive coach. This is what we've wanted on that side of the ball. This is an answer to what McVeigh and Shanahan have been offensively for the last 10 years. That is what Mike McDonald is and what he has proven to be over the last three years. What he did in Seattle to me is very similar to what Kyle Shanahan did in Atlanta, where you get there. It's year one. You're a middle of the pack sort of team. You're figuring out what you want to be. It's an uneven experience. And then in year two, this thing takes off like a rocket ship because you know exactly what you need to be with that current personnel. And I just think that he's a really special coach. And I think the core of players they have unlocks everything he wants to be and how they want to play. You talk about that Texan's front more specifically just being faster than you. The sea ox front is just tougher than you. Yes. They are meaner. They are just tougher than you like we talk about glass eaters that that could be a misused phrase with some guys in the NFL. That combination of dudes they have, including the edge players. It is unlike anything in the league. And that is where it starts. The talent and the depth that they have up front and their ability to cycle through these waves of players. And even the idea of losing boy and my fan and going out and getting down to fall because you know you need a fourth one like they are so cognizant of what how that depth is important how they have to wield it. And what that allows them to do is just different than any other defense in the league. I said this on the defensive draft show pernexion 34 and a half percent rushing success rate out of two high structures last year. It's the best in the league. And they saw the second most of them. They play with the lightest boxes and football them in it Philly and they have the best room defense in the league. Those two things should not be compatible. And because of who they have up front it is. And then you have a coach who is the best situational play collar on that side of the ball in the league. So if you ever in third and eights and there is a slight death star like vulnerability to your past protection, he is going to find it every single time they have said the sad a bunch over the course of this off season. The three best blitzing teams of the next gen era in EPA per play are the 2023 Browns, the 2023 Ravens and the 2025 Seahawks. He has two of them and the other one had miles of Garrett, which like Jim source is a really good play collar, but like that helps a lot. It's funny. You brought up Star Wars because I was thinking about the fact that they, they call this defense the dark side. Yeah. There it is. Yeah. Well, is Mike McDonald the Sith like showing up to balance out the force from all these like Jedi's doing. Yes. Yes. Yes. Sean McVeyer, Kyle Shanahan or Liam Cone. Yes, he is. Yes, he is. I mean, speaking of Liam Cone, one of the best games they had in terms of like picking on what an offense was doing in past protection. And I'm in a video about it during the year. You can go find it on our YouTube channel. What they did to the Jags past protection plan, disgusting. I mean, Trevor Lawrence did not have a shot that entire game. I know I said it a lot during the season last year, but yeah, it just, it felt like they were playing with 16 guys like all the time and we'll get to it. It feels a little thinner to me right now, but we haven't played a game yet. Like that could change in our area. Let's do the positive version of that first because I think when you look at a defense that now is starting Tio Cotta from day one and has but I think the way that you can spin this in a positive way and optimistically is we have a defense and a system and a coach that has made a prayer player like Drake Thomas, who would be in back half of the roster guy, I think in a lot of situations, and more than viable piece to this thing because he knows exactly how to use him, right? Like the ways that they asked Drake Thomas to play, making me positive for this defense and not a liability. And so even if you can look at the depth chart and say, they're a little weaker here and maybe they're a little bit thinner here, this is the situation where it just matters to me a little bit less because of how good they've been at hiding those vulnerabilities because of how they specifically asked those guys to play within the system. And not only that to bring it back to Mike McDonald, just his ability as a play collar and his ability to see things ahead of time and be in the right call and forecast what the offense is going to do. I just my own tendency is to lean on personnel more so than coaching, but I'm absolutely trusting Mike McDonald in this situation where he even if he, even if he does wind up having lesser personnel this year, he'll make it work the same way we sit here and talk all the time about how Kyle Shanahan can have a top 10 offense with whatever you throw them together with him. I'm starting to feel that way about Mike McDonald. When we do that, we're doing movie references, Jeff Bridges from Iron Man, it's like he built that thing in a cave like with scraps, like that's where we're at with Mike McDonald right now. And I choose to believe it, even if the personnel was maybe a slight take down from where it was last year. But by the way, 85% of the personnel is still really real. Yeah. I mean to give the impression that we talk about like they might take a step back. It's just that like they might not be a historic defense. And that's okay. Okay. But I knew we were going to talk extensively about the defense, but. I do think it's worth having a conversation about the offense because with all the oxygen that McDonald and the defense take up to me, at least it feels easy to just sort of put the offense on the back burner as like, oh, they were good enough to do this. I think I'm excited about the fact that I think the Seattle offense can be a lot better than that. Like they can be a lot better than they're good enough to not get in the way. And I feel like that is the reputation that they have after the back half of last year in the playoffs. I don't think that's fair. And I think it stems from changing the play collar. Obviously Clint Kubiak goes to Las Vegas, but I love that Mike McDonald seemed to handle this problem in the most pragmatic way possible where he was basically like, what can I do that's going to keep me from having to think overly much about this. And that's go get a guy that's versed in the same offense from the same tree and even the same team that Clint Kubiak used to work for. Brian Flurry, short of somebody who's done this extensively already is probably the closest you can get to just keeping that train running and I admire the search for continuity. Let's talk about that because that's what I'm watching over the first month of the season is what Brian Flurry's version of this offense looks like. I think there's a lot in what you just said. I think some of the schematic, the schematic area over is part of it. I also think the other part of it is that in Brian Flur, I think Mike McDonald has found someone who thinks about things in the way that he does and I think it's, it's more than just schematic continuity. I think he's also somebody they tab is the right person for the job based on how his mind works and how he wants to approach things. And we talked the other day about Mike McDonald's being thorough and, and inventive in the way that he hires people. So I can't say I'm surprised to hear that. We talked about this on the new PlayColor show Brian Flurry's background is fascinating. He was the run game coordinator and tight end coach in San Francisco. He had been on that offensive staff for a couple of different years and a couple of roles. Before he was in San Francisco, he was the head of football research for the dolphins for several years. And so he just spent all of his time figuring out esoteric situational football considerations as like somebody that worked in an analytics department. And then before that, he was a position coach on defense. I can't remember anybody who has had a background like this before. And so I think that just the way his brain works and how he looks at offensive football is just different based on what his experience is. Then really anybody I've seen come in to be an offensive PlayColor in the league, as long as I've been doing this also in addition to the defensive background and the analyst background with Miami. My ears at this point just perk up when I hear tight ends coach. It's a very good path to being a good offensive coordinator. If you need a refresher on what that means, this is an unscientific list of important offensive minds that spent significant time as a tight ends coach. Sean McVeigh, Ben Johnson, Kevin Stefansky, Dan Campbell, Drew Petsing, Nick Kayleigh, West Phillips doesn't call plays, but he was a tight ends coach for a long time. He's a OC in Minnesota and Declan Doyle was a tight ends coach before Ben Johnson brought him over. It's not guarantee that you're going to be good at this. But the mesh of understanding blocking concepts and understanding how the offensive line works combined with the need to understand route concepts and how everything ties together, it's just a job that lends itself to really understanding how all this shit works. To holistic view of the offense. It is a holistic approach and you have to think about it in that way. The stuff with Flurry, I'm of two minds about it because overall I agree with you in the sense that I do think there's a level to this offense that they could reach they did not reach last year. A lot of that's based in continuity. The offensive line coming back and it's entirety the quality of the offensive line from last year. Grey's able going into year two. The way that the tackle is played feel very good about all of that. Offensive wide coach comes back, which that doesn't always happen. John Benton is still there. He was retained as the Raider's higher to different offensive line coach, I think Rick Denison is there. So you have that sort of continuity. The year two pass catchers and I'm including Rashid Shahid in that in a way, he's only there for half the season. They paid him $17 million a year for 15 catches over the second half of the year. Like, and I know he had huge special teams value, but you don't pay him that contract without the anticipation that his role goes on. Yeah. So she eat Elijah Royo in year two, Tori Horton in year two. It's just a deeper collection of pass catchers than they had for most of last year. They're bringing everything back with the exception of the play collar and just the running and Kenneth Walker. But like, if you're plugging a hole on your offense and ironically, I didn't really want them to draft a running back in the first round, but now that they did it, that's the whole that I would most like to fill with a rookie, you know, like just plugging a first round talent, like Jadarian price in there. I'm not overly worried about the drop off, especially knowing that Charbonneil will be back at some point during the year. I'm excited about the personal. I'm excited about the play collar and just I'm curious about him. The one thing that holds me back has nothing to do with Brian Flurry or the quality of the C.O.X. offense. It's just really tapping back into the idea that clink who back was awesome last year. Like that, it's not to take away from this group. It's to really give a lot of respect to the job that he did. So we talked about this in real time. I knew that the C.O.X. offensive floor would get raised structurally. If you're going to be in a place where the run and pass game is tied together, you're going to be a play action heavy personnel team. You're going to dictate the way the games are played. You're going to look significantly better than you did the year before where your offensive approach with the exact opposite of that. That's structure. Play calling is different. He did both of them at such an incredibly high level. The ways that he weaponized JS and that NFC championship game, all the ways he used him over the course of the season, some of the stuff that they did out of empty, just the buttons he was pressing in the right moment so often over the course of the year. That's hard. Not that many guys get to that level. Not that many guys to me had as as demonstrative and obvious an impact on the quality of their offense as an offensive play collar last year as cloncubiac did. And I don't think it's disrespectful to wonder if Brian Flurry is going to be able to do that, even if I'm bullish on what he could potentially do in this role. That's fair. And we've been frustrated so much by play callers, not harnessing talented units in Philadelphia. It's not a guarantee that just because you have continuity that it's always going to be as good from year to year. But I don't think it's going to be that sort of vacillation, but even if it's a step back, sure, slight step back. What does that mean? But with the amount of continuity that they have in personnel and some of this is just a deep seated trust in Mike McDonald and the fact that I don't think this is a scheme overhaul. I just, I'm optimistic that this can be better than it's getting credit for at the moment. I agree with that level. I definitely agree with that. I think they can be a top 10 offense. I think they absolutely can be. Yeah, I'm probably a little bit less optimistic on there, but like it's on the table. And I was like, I just think that this is a case two where I don't know how much Mike McDonald is involved in the offense, but with as much as he is involved in everything and just how smart he is, I imagine he has a little bit of tinkering of like, we want to keep some things this way. If we can, hey, this is what worked for this guy. This is what worked for that guy. And so I think that'll work. And also too, I know the Ryan Grubb hiring his first year was obviously a disaster. I think sometimes like the first hire on a guy's first staff is just not going to be good. And I think that he's learned so many lessons from that obviously going to Kubiak, which is much more NFL. And then what you say where he's, it's very clearly saying within like a very NFL offense with Brian Flurry, then going also for a guy who has such a unique background that it's like, I think he's clearly learned something about how he wants this thing to go and be put together. I am fully on board and believe in the choice. Yeah. It's mostly just about respecting how good the Kubiak was last year, talking about what it'll look like just very quickly. A couple of things that I wonder what the blend is. I do think they'll carry over a huge portion of what they did a year ago. For obvious reasons, it worked quarterback is comfortable with it. And he's familiar with it. The play collar is there are certain things. I wonder if we see a little bit more that feel different. First one is just the way they use the fullback. Right. Uts is hurt. He's out. And so you're going to Brady Russell, who they kept on the 53. Those guys are like 35 pounds difference between them. And it was a lot of lead zone. A lot of lead zone. And they were doing that in the preseason, where it was Brady Russell is in the eye and they're running just lead plays with him. I assume as we get deeper into the season, we see more fullback usage that is akin to what the way the nine issues that are fullback put some type stuff. He's lined up as an H back. If you look at the usage overall, Uts was used almost exclusively in the backfield last year. Use check is it's almost exactly a split between backfield slot and in line. I think we'll see a little bit more of that. And I think that's to me leads into how the run game might feel a little bit different. The saddle last year was 29th in the NFL in motion at the snap rate on their runs per next year. The Niners are sixth. Just think about all of those like slam plays where you're changing the formation strength right away. That to me is one an expression of how the Niners run game was built with the run game coordinator that's now here. And to think about if you were an outside linebacker's position coach in the NFL, how tuned in are you to how difficult that type of run game is for that position specifically? So that's the type of thing I think we see may be a little bit more of with this version of the offense. And then the last thing is and you were going to talk about this too. The Niners were a team that got five out in the route more than any team in the NFL on a rate basis. Some of that is McCaffrey, but it's also you realize and the benefits of playing that way. And what it does to space as you attack defenses Seattle is not that sort of team last year. Heavy personnel play action, chuck it down the field with price. Do we see them get five out and use the back as a receiver in ways that aren't just screens where he's just part of a we're getting four out. This is how the concept works because the Niners did a lot more of that than Seattle that last year. And I think just like looking at their roster, unless she just takes like a massive step for them and they really figure out his role that probably is their like most obvious path to some sort of change. And to me, it's I don't even really necessarily worry about can the offensive line handle that or shjarian price going to be that level pass catcher, even though he really didn't do it in college. To me, I wonder like how much is Sam Darnell going to be comfortable with that because last year, if I was reading true media correctly, 46.1% of his passes were from the gun. Only Matthew Stafford was lower than that. And when he was in the gun, he was 20th out of 26 of qualifying quarterbacks in shotgun EPA per dropback. And that falls a little bit to 22nd if you take out the empty stuff, which I do think like empty versus gun is a little bit different. It's like what you're asking the quarterback to do is totally, totally. And to be fair, Darnell's success rate out of the gun was pretty high. It was top 10. But that's because again, he's I think if you're going to be in the gun, he's a little bit more comfortable. Quick game is okay. Maybe I can chuck a go ball. But when it's a little bit more five out in the route, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. That's just not ever what he's been super comfortable with the Niners quarterbacks, it's what the Niners quarterbacks are excellent at. And so I wonder how much and I don't expect him to be like party or anything. I don't expect it to be that, but if that can be 5% more of the offense and it works for you. That's kind of what I'm interested in. That's that's my assumption. I don't think it's going to be a situation where it's a huge percentage of what they do for two reasons. I think one of the reasons that the Niners went so far away from the play action world compared to what the Seahawks do now, like if you look at the Niners play action rates over the last five years, they are not a play action team anymore. No, no, they're another center team, but they're not a play action team as much anymore because honestly, pretty couldn't do what Donald does in the play action. That doesn't have the arm for it. Pretty is so good at cycling through that stuff quickly that it's your plan to the quarterback strengths and you have the best pass catcher back in the lead. So you remove both of those things, you shouldn't do it to the same level that the Niners are doing it, but I think incorporating it as a part of the offense in order to keep diversifying because Sam was there in 23 when they started incorporating all this stuff. It's not foreign to him. I think it's just a matter of how much you lean into it based on the pieces that you have, including the quarterback. Dave, what are you watching the first month of the season? We covered, I mean, Jesus, I think we covered everything you could possibly have to say about the Seahawks offense right there, but Jadarian price and what he looks like. And Emmanuel Wilson is here. I guess that's worth mentioning George Halani too, but I hope if you drafted him 30 second overall that Jadarian price is going to do the lion's share of this quickly. And what does he look like? It's a great point on Derek's part. They've said up at Seahawks camp that like he can do receiver stuff and be it have a larger role doing that. It's not what he did in college, like something like 15 career catches is just not what Notre Dame did. So how quickly he adapts to that how quickly he adapts to all of the intricacies of playing running back in the NFL past protection. Like if he's going to be out there most of the time, or do you have to take him off the field and obvious passing situations, hopefully not, but I think that's going to be a situation where Halani does play in those situations. And this is something the fantasy community is done a really good job of hammering home all summer, most running back receptions happen on early downs. You're not throwing the ball to the back on third down on purpose. So what you're asking the back to do on third down is to protect if you want to unleash Jadarian prices or pass catcher early downs is when you're going to do most of that. And so the idea of Halani playing on third down doesn't take away from a lot of the best pass catching opportunities you'd be giving to Jadarian price. No, I don't worry about the past catching opportunities. I just I hate having a running back where if I know I need to throw, he probably needs to come off the field because it just makes me predictable. Like if you've got to bring George Halani in because you don't trust Jadarian price to like get across and bring and pick up the blitzer. That's I think most stuff is on isn't to find passing situations though where you're going to be using him. It's second along it's third down like that's my assumption. Yeah, Dave, what is keeping you up at night about the 2026 Seattle Seahawks. I think Derrick and I are in lockstep on this and have been but. And it's it's nitpicking, but that's what we're doing when you're talking about the reigning Super Bowl champs, but the depth chart on defense, particularly in the secondary looks a little bit thin. And if you don't believe me, just let the Seahawks show you with their actions. They went after Terry and Arnold who's in the middle of a B&E kidnapping fiasco looking for help. He got put on the commissioners exempt list so he can't help you. They bring in Trayvon digs who's been banged up and hasn't been the same player the last few years. Cut him then John Schneider says they're interested in bringing him back to the practice squad and then they do a trade for every Smith who's an impressive undrafted corner down for the chargers. They are screaming at us that they don't love their corner backed up chart and I understand why losing reek will and is a big deal. He loved the job that Josh Job did last year and he deserves the contract that they gave him in free agency, but and you know who it reminds me of Riley Moss who we talk so much about who was he's targeted like 120 times last year because you have you're going to get target a lot and you're going to get beat a lot. And like the mark of a good CV to CB three is can you live with that and are you getting as good as you get just job was excellent last year as the guy who was like well we don't want to go spoon and we might not want to try reek like where we going with this and he was up to that challenge particularly I thought he was so excellent in the post season. Oh my god yeah, but now if he moves up a run because reeks not here and like especially when spoon moves inside which I assume he's still going to do plenty of who's that other guy and teams are going to circle him in bright red ink and say every Smith is an undrafted rookie and they're playing him because Julian Neil didn't have a training camp we're going at that guy and even Mike McDonald might not be able to deal with with the problems that come with that. Yeah, and I think part of their excitement about being able to play they want to play is like okay if spoon can play on the outside and joke can play on the other side we want Nick him and worry to be our starting nickel he's like if he to play we want he's hurt. Yeah, he has a play it all started. He had an ankle surgery in July and like didn't get cleared until earlier in August and then he really again Brady Henderson of ESPN was like he might not play week one which is why there been so scrambling trying to get guys into the building and so you just look at like their safety depth chart they don't really have a ton of guys. The corners right now on the outside outside of Devon with the spoon are near my prejudice who's played like 200 is snaps the last two years for this team and then Julian Neil who's a third round pick. I have some amount of faith obviously that like McDonald can get something out of them and it won't sink but again the difference between. It won't sink and we can get by and we have to reek woolen as the corner three is it's it's a huge huge difference. You know what I think about a lot when I'm prepping for stuff like this and thinking about the sea hawks. They were banged up when they played Tampa last year got smoke and even the mighty sea hawks looked like that when they were down a few guys and that's going to happen anyway over the course of a 17 game season but it's especially problematic when you're already kind of scrambling before you even started playing. You look at it right now I mean it I think you I want to say that even when I was back on the practice field like last week he passed a physical in mid August but he has not been practicing for most of the offices and so even if he's. Theoretically healthy early in the season we have a second year player who did not practice the entire off season so that's worth mentioning Julian Hill Julie Neil like you said Dave is banged up for most training camp bug Clark is already on IR. And so the guys that you drafted theoretically be some of these depth pieces that could bolster you in these areas you are not going to be able to rely on and the corner back to become even becomes even more worrisome in a world where you don't have even worry and you feel compelled to play whether spoon inside until he gets back. And so it just so much thinner than it was last year you could live with Tio Cotta for stretches and all this other stuff because those guys were the depth pieces now they're starting from day one. What does that look like for an extended period of time so that's I'm in the exact same boat like that we're already digging into this defensive back depth before the season has even started and that's what would be keeping me up at night. Another thing I think is worth noting is just the average age of the D line room is 29 and that's including everybody like Riley Mills is a young player Mike Morris is a young player if you just go by the seven or eight dudes that we expect to do the heavy lifting the average jumps up to 30. Byron Murphy and Derek Hall are really the only young guys among the real contributors. Tank Lawrence is 34. Jaren Reed is 33 Leonard Williams and Dante Fowler 32. Jenner was who turns 30 during the season. It's always a consideration and that you mentioned this to Marcos Lawrence has been banged up he's often his fair share of injury problems and this the superpower of this team is those waves and waves and guys and you can blink and look up in week seven and it doesn't look quite as good because two of those guys are out. Let's talk about what success looks like for the 2026 Seahawks Derek. What do you got? I mean, I think it's make it back to the NFC championship and I know that there's a lot of change here and we just talked about how the defense is but to me the NFC is like it's the Rams in the Seahawks and then it's a handful of teams we think might be good, but these are really the only two are like I'm positive that they should be pretty good. Which is bad informs my answer get back to the Rams playoff game. However, that may get whatever the individual sure that counts. No, that's a really good way to get back to the Rams playoff game because it could happen in the divisional round if you're a wildcard team. One of these teams is going to be a wildcard team. Yeah, so get back to that game against the Rams. Don't lose to like the Cowboys of the Lions in the wildcard round. Make sure that the Rams have to beat you to get to the Super Bowl. Yes, improve it. That's good. Since 2006 defending champions have gotten back to the Super Bowl. Five of those teams were built around a Mount Rushmore quarterback. My homes are Brady. The one team that wasn't was a Seahawks. There's some fun juju for you. They should have won it again. Yeah, one play away. Wow. It's doable. I don't think it's fair to expect the Seahawks to get back to the Super Bowl. I said I like your answer, but I said make a good faith effort at repeating. Don't go out. Don't go out sad in the wildcard round. At least get to the divisional round of the playoffs and of the 26 defending champions since 2000. I think six have lost in the divisional round. One more is lost in the conference championship and then the six that got to the Super Bowl. So about half are good enough to to at least win a playoff game. I think this roster is good enough to at least when you play off game. I think anything short of a division around would feel kind of disappointing. - We deserve another three rounds of Ramsey Hawks. - Oh my God. - We deserve it. - The this version of that is really great. - And I want it. - That sounds so fun. - I wish they were starting this season against each other. - All right. - You don't want to waste those ratings on week one. It's okay. - All right, before we get to the Niners, let's take our second quick break. (upbeat music) Let's get to the San Francisco 49ers. Our preview for the 2026 Niners. Brought in Raheem Morris is the defensive coordinator. Signed Mike Evans, Christian Kirk, Trey Diffrosi, Diggy Zua, Drey Greenlaw, Debo Samuel, and just Trey Difford Jaret Patterson. Lost Kendrick Bourne, Jordan Elliott, and Johan Jennings, and free agency in the draft. John Stribbling in the second round, Romello Height, Kalen Black, and Carver Willis. What are you most excited about, Dave, with the 2026 San Francisco 49ers? Kyle Shanahan, drawn up, ball plays for a healthy Brock Purdy, and I hope a healthier skill group. And I say Brock Purdy first, because I think it's easy to forget after a nine-month off season that he missed half of the year. - This year. - The guy who's been a top five to 10 EPA per play, quarterback missed half the season. And on top of that, the 49ers were leaning on Kendrick Bourne, DeMarcus Robinson, and Jake Conjes, to play like meaningful roles in their offense. And top 10 offense. - Hey, if Purdy's out there, I feel good about it. To your point, you know where they ranked the one year in the last five that they haven't been top 10 in EPA? - 2024. - Well, it was 11. - It was 11. - 2024, when they were also beat to shit, they finished 11th. - They finished second in offensive duty away last year. - They're gonna be good. - That's a sea second. - Barring another complete health collapse, which unfortunately you can't rule out. - No, you can't. - If we can just get moderately decent health. I mean, George Kiddles already on the 53, that's incredibly encouraging. Christian McCaffrey, I haven't heard anything overly alarming in the last 10 days. - Little looser. - He's a little better than he was in the first of August. - Yes, and Mike Evans, I don't know if that, I don't know if that existential dread is ever gonna go away, just given his age and his own injury history. - We'll talk about it. - But this could be a really, really fun offense because it always is. And I'm just banking on them having better luck than they have the last two years. - I mean, mine is just an extension of this. For one, Kyle Shanahan, especially I think over the last three or four years, the offense has always looked different. There's been something that they've been able to iterate. I'm just excited for Kyle Shanahan to go all the way back to step one where he has like a real extra seam right now. When is the last time he had one? It might be Julio Jones? - No, I think it was a real extra seaver. - I think in this is different. - The IUC phase feels like it never happened at this point. - But it didn't happen. - IUC was like an extra seaver who can slash over the middle and do some of that. This is more the Andre Johnson, Josh Gordon, Julio Jones, like real deal extra seaver in my mind. - I think I'm just picky about what extra seaver is. - So I think that's fair. I think the distinction that's important with that is IUC was incredibly good on vertical routes and stuff, but it was deep outbreakers, deep inbreakers, comebacks. You could leave him isolated outside the numbers. He was not a, I'm running by you down the sideline as a vertical player in the way that Mike Evans still is. Mike Evans can still take a gobble or I can walk it off somebody's head. - Can we tell you where that IUC was? - These notes are later on in my notebook, but maybe it's just been so long since Kyle Shanahan had this guy. What do you think it's going to look like? Like do you like, is Mike Evans over the last four years has run nine routes, go balls on 23% of his routes going back to like 2022. It's top 20 among all qualified receivers. The Niners, I mean, obviously everybody throws go balls, but that's not what they've done. - But that's recent years. - That's why he's there. Because if you look at the way the teams are starting to play against them, especially in the back half of the season, they could not threaten teams outside the numbers down the field. The Seahawks knew that, and it completely defanged them offensively. Having somebody that is a viable threat in that area of the field where you have to account for them on corking some of those to that guy is the way for this offense to be fully unlocked again. That's why he's here. - They had to become a condensed like two by two shotgun offense. Like that's what it all became. And it was like, we're going to get everybody out. We're going to condense the thing, then we're going to spread it out. Perdi's going to go one, two, three, four, five. He's going to hit somebody. I do think, and I don't have the numbers on it, but I would wager they had some of the fewest routes from a receiver where he aligned on the outside. Like they just did not do that a whole lot. Because the shenanigans always played a little bit tighter, but like, especially because they don't have a guy, they just didn't do it. And then the other thing that I would add, according to F-T-N, you're the 49ers receivers last year who had at least a 45% contested catch rate. Rikipir Saul is not going to play. Kendrick Bourne is on a different team in the division now. Joann Jennings also on a different team. He's with the Minnesota Vikings. The last time Mike Evans qualified for the South, which was in 2024, who's at 54.5%. Like they just haven't had a ball winner, really. I mean, they don't on the roster now if Mike Evans isn't going to be that, even if they did have some guys like that last year. Even with your point about IU, it just feels like it's been forever since I've seen a receiver like this play in Kyle Shanahan's offense. So last year, the Niners were in condensed formations on 64.6% of their plays. No other team in the league was above 54.2%. That would be the Seattle Seahawks. So it was a 10 percentage point difference. There was a bigger gap between them and Seattle at number two than there was between Seattle and the Jaguars who were three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine in 10th. And there's another stuff I want to look up now 'cause you've sent me down a rabbit hole. But I think that's enough to get your point across. And that's one of those things that like, you love that Kyle Shanahan is so good at this that they can have a top five offense doing that. I don't think he or they want to live that way. I think that was a like we figured something out in the moment and we're gonna get by with what we can. But like I think if he wants to, he wants to have more pitches in his bag. You think Kyle Shanahan's tired of having to scramble all this together? Probably. Well, just think about playing Seattle. Just think about playing Seattle on the way that Seattle wants to play. If you're a team that can only throw the ball in the short and intermediate area of the field over the middle of the field against a Seattle defense that turns that area into a snake pit, it's gonna be a bad time for you. It felt and you couldn't run the ball either. Yes, that here, that's the problem though, which we can talk about if you want to. That's not keeping me up at night. There's bigger picture things that are keeping me up at night. That is the one caveat to this idea of man this offense can just get back rolling again. Mike Evans doesn't help in the run game. The run game was very average last year. You have a running back that had a lot of touches. You have an offensive line that is solid, but it's gonna be starting a rookie at left guard and they did not assert themselves on the ground last season in the way that they had previously. And if you look at some of McCaffrey's underlying numbers from last year, there's some wear and tear on that, buddy. I just try not to think about it, but that if that's, if we're both, if we're talking about like, I know, I know. All right, well, if the team is gonna play against you and they're gonna be in all these umbrella coverages and they're gonna be in all these light boxes, the ability to tack outside, vertically outside the numbers is one way that you can feel different than last year. But if you can't run the ball in those situations, then that still could be a fatal flaw that we see carry over from last year to this year. Maybe, maybe the ability to push the ball down the field, loosen some of that stuff up a little bit. But against Seattle, does it really? They're playing that way in your way. Against the best teams, it probably is not gonna help you a whole lot. The other thing worth mentioning, I love that the year they went and got Mike Evans, they also drafted the 6 2 2 15 receiver that runs a 4 3 6. That's the other part of it too is that he has way more outside giddy up than it that Johan Jennings did. And so now do you have two guys? It's a theoretically could give you that that you didn't have last year. I'm banking all of this on preseason hype, but the way that they were targeting him and what he did in the preseason, he looked good. Yes. Stribbling is ready to go quickly than the Niners have so much more juice than I've associated them with them over the last like two or three years. And post pier saw. Like the idea of pier saw with Evans, then it was a situation where all right, you can bring stripping along slowly, he could be a role player. Now he's going to need to be more than that. But the encouraging part of the summer is it seems like he might be ready to be more than that. I don't want to overreact to camp hype in a couple of preseason games, but this would be a situation where maybe it's worth doing that. 18 preseason targets and doing shit with those targets feels meaningful, especially given what the depth chart looks like. Like if exactly if there's always healthy and he was doing that, I'm like, okay, well, that's fun to remember for November, but I think it accelerates it a little bit with the injury. I mean, we know what debo is at this point. Yeah, it's certainly is the second most important receiver on the team right now. And we're a Mike Evans hammy away from him being the most important receiver on the team, which is a different conversation. Let's talk about what we're watching the first month of the season with the Niners. Derek, what do you got for me? Yeah, I mean, this maybe borders on keeping me up at night, but like, can this team generate pressure or not? And I think that we will find out pretty soon. Obviously last year they are not playing with Nick Bosa for a lot of the season, not playing with Fred Warner, which I think like weirdly is going to hurt some of your pressures if quarterbacks just think that they can get the ball out over the middle of the field a little bit easier and in coverage. But last year when they were rushing for this team was 30th in pressure rate and 31st in sac rate. They were a little bit better by EPA per dropback because I've said a handful of times before the secondary is not bad. Yeah, it's good. It's just that the front was not helping them in any way. sort of meaningful way. And so I think you're bringing a guy like Oso Digi-Zooa who has a lot of pop to him. Nick Bozo, you hope comes comes back in. I think asking for Pro Bowl stuff from him right away is probably a lot, but if he can just be better than all the guys they had last year, and I think he will be, I think that goes a long way. Maybe Romello height can give you a little bit something like there's reason to believe this past rush can get off the ground. I'm just excited to see if that means like, are they going back to average or is this back to a unit that like you are a little bit scared about when you get into third dance. I know this is a small sample size because Bozo got hurt in like week three. But I'm comfortable leaning on it because Nick Bozo has been incredible for most of his career. Their pressure rate was 10 points higher when he was on the field last year than when he was off. It was, they were up near 40%. They were in the top half of the league in pressure rate in the early season before he got hurt and they fell all the way down to 31st. I don't know if it's going to be that good over a 17 game sample size, but adding OSA certainly doesn't hurt. And so I just, if he's there and you add OSA to it, I just, I think this will be functional, which it was not functional last year. It was like the whole problem with their defense because to your point, there were so many fun things that happened with the back seven last year, just because they didn't have a choice. But the inability of the front to do anything made it look way worse than it would have otherwise. And obviously Fred Warner as well. I just think if they look like who they are or who we know them to be, I just think it completely changes the calculus for this defense. Not to say it'll be top five in the league, but it'll be a functional solid NFL defense. And it was not that last year. No matter how much I enjoyed watching the young guys try. It was not. It was bad. It was actively bad for almost the entire season, especially after losing both of those guys. I'll take mine as like a slight pivot off of that. What do we get from this defense? And I asked that on a couple of different fronts. We haven't really talked about the fact that he morris is a defensive coordinator for this team now. Mm hmm. We just, that hasn't really come up. It's kind of like they, the old joke was when Nick Sabin coached Alabama, like Nick Sabin's coach resuscitation program. Yeah. That's what the DC job in San Francisco has pretty much become. And even including Brandon Staley was there for a year before he got the job in New Orleans. So I, I wonder what it looks like. Like, Raheem Morris schematically comes from a very different place than Robert Salad does. Mm hmm. And so do we see more five men fronts? Do we see a different coverage menu? Like what does their Raheem Morris version of this defense look like? In the preseason, it mostly looks like a lot of four down nickel stuff. But I've heard that they've been experimenting just based on stories people have written from training camp with more five down stuff, walking the line back or down. So how much front diversity do we see and just how different is the defense and how different does it feel compared to what we saw solid do and what they've done for the most part over the last several years? That's question one. The other question is how good is it? Because even if the past rush is better. And I don't want to start talking about the injury stuff yet because we're saving what's keeping us up at night. Both hasn't played. He hasn't practiced. He said he said yesterday he thinks he'll be able to play week one. But he's had 10 to night is in that knee the entire summer. And we're as a guy that has had trouble staying healthy. So the idea that he could be a slightly diminished version of himself did you do a great a kel Williams starting the year on the populist. Yeah. That's a week five. So now we're already chipping away the defensive line dev. And even if the past rush is getting it better, this team finished dead last and run defense success rate last year. Yeah. Fred Warner helps that obviously. But the interior of the defensive line to me as a past as a run defense unit is still incredibly concerning. Yeah. When we went back and we watched the defense from last year, I think there was some optimism about what my kel Williams could be with a little bit more development. That development is already stunted coming into year two. But then the other defense of front guys on that team that rookies last year. It was it good. No. And so that front a dickie zoo was 280. Yeah. He's not he's a penetrator. Yeah. He's good at that. He's good at that. But this is the worst run defense in the league last year by success rate per next gen. How much better does that get can can Fred Warner save you there? Is that enough? Maybe. But I am worried about some of the other elements of the defense. And by the way, talk about the secondary or not a green also missing the first game. Yeah. After hurting his hamstring in the playoffs. Not great. What's your level of belief that being back in San Francisco, standing next to Fred Warner will make drag green law a more viable player. I think even he's probably going to be fine. I don't think he'll be worse than like de winters. Yes. I mean, that's all it needs to be. It's more about the front. The front is where I'm where my concern was. I think if three other spots on the defense are better, you feel totally fine about drag green law just slotting in for whatever de winters gave you last year. You're still going to be able to move also dig a zoo around. And I do think that Alfred Collins needs to take a step as what they hope to be more of their like space eating sort of guy. I think the hope is that you are incrementally better as a success rate run defense. But that a guy like also dig a zoo and being able to send drag green law a little bit. That just gets you into the backfield a couple of times. Yeah. If we can get more second in 12s, we can start the snowball effect there. And I think that that's a lot of it. What it comes down to to me because they just weren't able to do a whole lot of that last year either. I'm looking at it right now. It's because I'm curious plays hit behind the line of scrimmage. They were like a bottom 12 unit, 36.6% of snaps, which doesn't sound crazy, but think about how they play. They have to be better. It has to be better with what you are trying to accomplish. I mean, let's, for example, let's talk about other teams that play this sort of system. Okay. The Niners last year were at 36.6%. The Browns were at 47.6%. That led the league, right? But that's the type of the difference. Talking about Houston, kind of right in the middle at 41%. So these teams that play those attacking fronts in order for that to work for you, you have to be making negative place. And they just weren't making a ton of them. They had a 15.8% stuff rate last year, which is also a below average rate. And so those numbers can't be below average if you're also going to be small. Yeah. Let's talk about what is keeping us up at night with these San Francisco 49ers. I'll start. This thing feels rickety is hell. Mm hmm. You know, it feels like I'm reading. I'm writing. What is it? What's the, what's the one at six flags? American Eagle. So I'm writing the American Eagle with six flags. Six flags. Great America. In Dallas, it's the Texas giant. I still fun. That Bush Gardens in Florida was quasi until they replaced it. Now it's iron guassey because they just made it. That's right. Because you should replace it when it starts feeling rickety. Wooden roller coasters are so much more fun. I do enjoy, I do enjoy the feel of a wind roller coaster. The Viper over there at six flags is wonderful. But this thing feels pretty rickety. We've touched on a lot of them. But just reading through all of the considerations here, Bosa's still not practicing 10 and I just in the same knee worry towards ACL last year. Christian McCaffrey missing a huge chunk of training camp coming off a 400 touch season. There have been 15 seasons where a running back has touched the ball at least 375 times since 2010. About half of those seasons involved dramatic fall offs in production for those players the next year. Derek Henry in 2021, Christian McCaffrey himself in 2020, DeMarco Murray in 2015, Josh Jacobs in 2023, sake one last year, still ran for a thousand yards. You think sake one looked right last year? Oh no, it was not the same. So we have a 30 year old back that touched the ball 400 times last year that already has been banged up for stretches of his career. And I think that's the other thing. I think in some cases, you could maybe get me there on a guy who had this amount of volume still being okay. Christian McCaffrey has done exactly this already where he's had this sort of workload. He's always been a pretty high school guy. And he was six years younger. Yes. We've seen this story before. Yeah. Mike Evans missed nine games last year, three of the year before that. Some different part of his body is wrapped after every single practice. We've had an ankle. We've had a quad. Like it's all over the place. Michael Williams is on the pop list. Ronaldo Green was hurt in the final preseason game. I'm worried about this. Did we mention Drag Green law? No, missing most of the last season. That happens with Drag Green law. I am concerned. I'm as somebody who has the Niners in the wins pool and the offense is draft, I am officially concerned. When it's bad in San Francisco, it's really bad. Like we've never seen an eight and nine Kyle Shanahan 49ers team. It's either the six or 13. Are they in the division or round of the playoffs? No in between. To be fair, the injury situation was terrible last year. And they were in the division around the playoffs if you're trying to be generous. And that might happen again. But what's keeping me up at night is that the best version of this team is potentially scary. They're a team that could potentially make some noise. I just don't know how realistic it is for us to realize the best version of this team. And that's the thing. Even if you you can say, Oh, well, they did it last year. They can do it again. Maybe. And they won what 12 games last year, 13 maybe 12. Did anyone really think that they were going to get through like the sea hawks and grass like that? They got blown away by the sea hawks and it was fine to do growth. Yes, exactly. All right. The regular season finale was not getting blown away. The offense was wiped off the field. Yeah, but the defense held their own. But the offense looked like they couldn't play the fluke. The fluke fumble in the red zone changed the entire complexion of that. The final score is whatever. I'm talking about the offensive performance of what you felt from the offense by the end of that game. Compare a much more healthy unit than the defense. Compare week 18 or whatever it was the divisional round playoff game. It's unbelievable. Anyway, we're arguing over some. This is not yeah, this is not about the final score. This is about how the offense felt. We had like a BB gun against the tank situation in both of those games for the Niners offense. That is what it felt like. Yeah, fair. I do everything you just said is right. Particularly for me, I worry about Mike Evans. Because Because the rest of these guys are, like, died in the wool 49ers, even McCaffrey's been there long enough now that he feels like a liner. I would hate it so much. And I'm obviously really excited about what this could look like for Mike Evans, like working with Kyle Shanahan, playing with Brock Purti, can be their downfield stretcher. But also it's just so easy to daydream about him running like 20 yard digs and just getting these huge chunk gains that gonna suck. If Mike Evans, the greatest Buccaneer of all time, probably, oh, yeah. Yeah. Oh, whoa. Hold on. Yeah, offensively. Hold on. Yeah. They're Brooks was pretty good. Yeah. Okay. Good. Ronin. The greatest offensive Buccaneer of all time. I don't even think that's a problem. Let's just leave it at the greatest offensive. Yeah. Who else would it even be? Like work, work my ball start. Yeah. That's what we're talking about. He is a, he was a lifelong buck. Real image of him in that uniform, doing cool shit for the Buccaneers. And if in five years, they're using a photo of Neiner Mike Evans, the way that we do with like Celtic's shack. Yeah. Oh man. That's disgusting. I don't want to be like, oh man, remember when we were dumb enough to be excited about Neiner Mike Evans. You agree? I'm with you. So like, if this goes bad, I'm just gonna spend the whole time thinking like we could just, you could just stay in Tampa and we would have this pristine image of Mike Evans. And so I just, I need him specifically to stay healthy because I'm, I'm, I'm at peace with all these other guys being banged up because that's what happens to the Neiner. I am not sure. Well, you have something invested in this. I've got nothing invested in them really. I don't think so. I'm good. What's keeping you up in the same thing? I mean, it's, I think this one is one of the easier ones that we've done for any of the 32 teams. It really is just entry. I obviously trust the, the coaching, especially on offensive side of the ball, like they have enough star players that if they can stay 70% as healthy as you want all these guys to, they are going to be an 11 win team. It's just a matter of like that feels really that just does not feel like the most likely outcome I would say. That's going to be fine. What does success look like day for the 2026 San Francisco 49ers? I really hate the position that this team puts you in because we just outlined all the reasons why we shouldn't have high expectations for this team or the ways that it could go sideways. And also they got a, they got a lot of young players. And I think it's worth noting that, you know, we have this concrete image of the 2022 through 2023 for Niners, these teams that were in Super Bowls and it's CMC and George Kittle and Trent Williams and Nick Bosa and Dibo Samuel. They are cycling the roster over like young talent is coming into this team, whether it's the rookies that played defense last year or you're excited about struggling. Michael Williams will be back at some point. For any other team, you could come up with a way that this season is successful. If those guys just develop and you, you surpass some expectations, but for where this franchise has been and where the core of players has been, is anything short of a championship going to make anybody feel better? I love that you're doing this because I had such a hard time answering the question for this exact reason. What are you supposed to tell Trent Williams, Christian McAfry, Nick Bosa, Fred Warner and Mike Evans, if this thing, you're like, Hey, our rookies got our rookies had a good season and we went nine and eight and next year is going to be great. You think any of them want to hear that? They're 100% right and that's why I didn't know the answer because it for most teams with their preseason expectations, you're like, Oh, you know, you get to the divisional round. Great. You know, it gets the vision around. You feel like you're going to get blown out by the Seahawks. But even if that happens, let's just say this team gets the divisional round. They go punch for punch, haymaker for haymaker with the Seahawks or the Rams and they lose. Is that success? No, we're going to be having the one is Kyle Shanahan going to do it, conversations. And think about all the guys who might not be on the team next year. The stuff that makes this team good at its best, other than, and I'm into mentioned too, like, Purdy's young and he's under contract and that's exciting. But again, the core that made these teams so special, they're, they're aging out. They're closer to the end of their careers than the beginning by a long shot. I mean, part of me is still amazed that Trent Williams is still playing NFL football with all of it. Should be. And I think even if they're good, we've already seen the best football from Mike Evans, Trent Williams, George Kittle, Christian McCaffrey. We've probably nick boasted to it. We've already seen their best football and they can still be really good. But the best is gone. Their victims are their own success like because of how close they've been without a trophy to show for it. That's all I can think about is like what are you and what are you supposed to tell fans that have been within a completion to brand and I you can over time of the Super Bowl away from winning a championship that like going 10 and seven and having some dudes for next year. Like is that supposed to make you feel better? It wouldn't make me feel better. It was the hardest team to come up with the right answer for for everything that you're saying. What did you say? I mean, I wouldn't have. I think it is like this is weirdly a roster where the expectations are like you should. Again, I think I'm not going to put winning the Super Bowl on most. I think if you get there, there's, we at least think about this team a little bit differently. But like, even though this is not typically a roster, I would describe that too. Like you should, you should probably try to get there. I fully do not expect them to get everything. I know. And so every, we've done 30 other teams at this point with every other team that we've talked about, the way that we frame success feels achievable in a very real way. Like it's within their grasp to get there with this team theoretically, it's true. But what you just outlined as success feels as far off for this team as anything that we have said about anybody else. And I disagree with nothing that you said. Yeah. It's the tough spot to be and it sucks to be that close that many times. I don't know what else to say. Great. Let's get to the Arizona Cardinals are preview for the 2026 Arizona Cardinals. They're off season in 60 seconds. Higher Michael Flores. Their head coach, Kepp Nick Rawls is the defensive coordinator. Inside Isaac Salamolo, Kendrick Boran, Elijah Wilkinson, Tyler L. Gere, Andrew Wingard, Roy Lopez, Andrew Billings and Jack Gibbons in free agency lost Alvin Tomlinson, Kalea Campbell, Jalen Thompson and Evan Brown in the draft. Jeremiah Love in the first round, Chase Pesotis in the second round. I already on IR sadly and Carson Beck in the third round. Derek, what are you most excited about as it relates to the Arizona Cardinals? I know this was kind of true last year and they still weren't a very good team. Like the offense is really talented. Like they have a lot of dudes like you draft Jeremiah Love third overall and we'll see what you know when he looks fully healthy this year, but I like he's an exceptional bag, especially as a home run hitter, which I think if there was any issue with this team like finding just a can we give this guy the ball and he will make it an explosive play. The fact that they now have that I think in Jeremiah Love is exciting. Tremac Bride, probably the best tie to end in football, at least for now until Colson Love them takes that. Take the crown. Add a boy and then Michael Wilson, who they just extended, who is a really good wide receiver. And then listen, I know Marvin Harrison Jr. is not what we wanted from the fourth overall pick. He's like a solid NFL starting wide receiver and still one that I do think that there's a chance that he can get a little bit better, even if the ceiling's not ever as high as we wanted it to be. Do the old drafting and flip Michael Wilson and Marvin Harrison. Yeah, right. You got one for overall. You got the other one later. That brings me to mind. I am very excited about the skill position talent. I am even more excited about the skill position talent filtered to the ideas of this offense. Yeah. Because if we're going to figure out what that next gear potentially looks like from Marvin Harrison, this offense to me is a way to potentially realize some of that stuff. We've said it a lot over the course of the summer. If you think about the way the Rams play and the way that then Cardinals play, you could not find two offenses that are more different in the ways that they approach them of this stuff. The Cardinals were in spread formations on 28% of their snaps last year per next year. That was the third highest rate in the league. They were condensed 30 and a half percent of the time. The Rams were in spread looks on 7.3% of their snaps last year. That was the second lowest rate in the league. Cardinals were using motion at the snap on 20.6% of their snaps last season. That was the lowest rate in the NFL. The Rams were at 54.7%, which was the third highest rate in the league, more than double, two and a half times. The Rams threw 133 passes last year to a receiver who was in motion at the snap. No other team in the league had more than 95. The Cardinals did it 18 times. That's crazy. And like there's not, I don't even, it's not even a value thing. No, it's even a good bad. It is a, it is a stylistic difference. It seems kind of bad considering how good offenses that more often look most of the time. And for them, I think it's the combination of stylistic difference and also like when you're behind 14 points in every game, doing all the like motion stuff and like trying to play that way, I think it's just going to be a little bit harder. You might be a little bit more spread out and we just got to chuck it. And we'll talk about the defense later, but I think even just having the starting point being that the offense wants to feel that way, this is just going to look and feel so much different than it did last year. And I think for Marvin Harrison Jr. specifically, this is a change that could unlock a different version of him. Marvin Harrison Jr. stuck outside the numbers as a static X receiver and you asking, he's a good route runner. He's not a contested catch player. That is not where he, that's not where you see the benefits, having him in some more condensed formations, running more digs in breakers, just quick hitting stuff over the middle of the field. I think he can be good at that. I think that's what he should do. And I think this offense is going to ask him to do more of that than the previous offense did. And so I'm with you on a baseline level. I think there's a decent amount of offensive talent here. I think that combined with the fact that we're going to see them use differently is a worthwhile reason to get excited about this team. Harrison has been very complimentary of Michael floor and the new coaching staff in general. So it seems like he's excited about the change. What are you most excited about with the 2026 Cardinals? It's going to sound kind of passive aggressive because I'm paraphrasing Vincent Vega from the classic pulp fiction, but I got to see what a number three overall running back looks like. If that's what we're going to do, then I want to see Jeremiah love look really good. Because and I understand Monty Austin for its logic, we talked about it and maybe not overthinking it when you're in that slot. But there are things that they could have done to set a foundation for themselves beyond try to drop a running back into this situation. And they didn't do it. And I'll give them the credit of saying, because I know like this, this offensive line is an exciting, but where did they spend their money this year? Isaac Sumalo is at left guard now $30 million contract. Paris Johnson, Isaac Sumalo and Yalte Froholt, you can have some fun running to the left. Maybe just go left. Don't worry about the right side of the office. They really like Isaiah Adams. So Chase Pazontis is out for the year now anyway. But even before that happened, I talked to people in Phoenix who were like, yeah, Isaiah Adams might hold him off anyway. That was the plan. Yeah. The plan was for Isaiah. They're really excited about Isaiah Adams. The Pazontis thing was going to be Adams and Pazontis starting maybe next year as a guard duo of the future where they drafted Pazontis not thinking he's going to start right away. They drafted him being like, that's the best player. Like that is the best player available. Sumalo is already on the roster. We can't pass up on this guy. We think he's a first rounder. He was close. I'm choosing to believe this can be fun because they used a number three overall pick on a running back. And I hate to bring it up because it's a bummer. But the last running back to get drafted that highly was Saquon. And we know how that went. And he was transcendent at times in New York. But did that wind up feeling like the best way to use a top three pick? Not really. And I want better than that for Jeremiah love. I'm choosing to believe this can be fun. But I want it to be fun. I want to be excited about this. And it needs to be to justify a decision like that. And I think I feel that way about the whole office and the whole school position group. Like I want this to be fun. Michael Wilson making $25 million a year. I think is a very not surprising at all, by the way, because when I was looking at that situation before that contract got signed today. And if I'm Michael Wilson, and they're offering me something like that, you could have played out the string. Why can't you be Alec Pearson next year? Why can't I be 30? But 25 is still a decent chunk of change. And so I think he's that sort of player where he would have been the prize if he had taken this all the way to free agency. So I that combined with Harrison, Tramack bride. Well, you're talking about it running back. I think that there is a lot to like about this group. And this is a small one. But or these are two small ones while we're here. Kendrick Warren, I do feel better about than any White receiver three that they had last year. Like Dorshan. Yeah, but not really small. So I do at least feel a little bit better about that. And then I really wanted Tyler. I was here to be a starting running back somewhere. But the fact that that is your other guy who is going to get touches for Jeremiah Love. Like I do think that the floor of the run game is significantly higher. Because I think, you know, there were some structural issues with with the offense last year in terms of the run game. And like the offensive line wasn't as good or healthy as it was last year, but also like a million running backs for them were hurt. Like they didn't have any other players. And so not the fact that it's Jeremiah Love and Tyler. I was years who I'm pretty confident it's a very good running back. Okay, man. Like the the floor for this thing is way higher. And then if love is healthy, fully healthy by October. And he can really give you some of those home runs. I can see the vision. Kendrick Warren was undrafted in 2017 and is going on year 10. He got a great career. He got a great 10 million dollars to go add to the receiver room in Arizona. Like my favorite type of football. Well, part of the part of that is Michael Florida loves Kendrick and Kendrick Warren loves him. He has said it when they signed him. The floor was on that staff in San Francisco when Kendrick Warren was got there. And so he would Michael Florida loves Kendrick Warren. Two wrinkles that I want to just mention before we kind of close the book on the offense for right now. I think Wilson is a really good fit within this game because of what he's wants to do as a blocker. Like him being in that Puka ask Z-roll where you're asking him to do a lot of the dirty work. He's willing to do that. That is not a square peg in a round hole. That's going to be a pretty seamless fit. There's a reason I have Michael Wilson on every fantasy team I've drafted over the last month. The other part, how much 13 do we see? And the trade for 100 long. They just traded for 100 long. Okay. And I think that is a we need a third tight end. Because I think that is actually similar to the conversation we're having about the Rams where if you're in 12th and it's Trey McBride and Elijah Higgins and they're playing nickel. Where's your advantage? If you're in 13, I think Elijah Higgins actually becomes a really interesting player. He used to be a wide receiver because he is, I think, a potent past catching option within the right offense. And the Cardinals have used a ton of 13 personnel over the last couple of years. But I think for this position, this group specifically, that is where I think you feel the impact on Elijah Higgins could make a little bit more than you would as that past catching option in 12 personnel. And then when Ryman gets back, the group changes. Yeah. Obviously because Ryman becomes he is really good. He's just not healthy. Yeah. He just hasn't even you miss most last season. Unfortunately, let's talk about what we're watching the first month of the season with the Arizona Cardinals. Dave, what do you got for me? How feisty is a healthy Cardinals defense? And really, how feisty are the Cardinals if they're healthy at all? I'm stealing this shamelessly from the FTN Almanac. Thank you to those guys who do such a great job. The 2025 Cardinals lost the second highest number of adjusted games due to injury in the 25-year history of them charting that statistic. That's how banged up they were last year. Froho was the only member of their offensive line that started all 17 games. Five different DBS went to injured reserve for a significant amount of time. Mack Wilson missed half the season. Walter Nolan tore his meniscus in December after looking really promising in the second half of the year. Will Johnson missed a month or more of the season the second round cornerback? Who else am I missing there? I mean, their running back room was completely decimated over the course of the year. James Conner and Trey Benson both were out. If you pull up the chart of like in, you know, injured out for the week on IR period, like it's it's just a wall of red. When I look at the Cardinals, that doesn't even include the fact that the week one starting quarter back missed half the year. And we know by now that that wasn't really injury related, but you sit Kyler Murray down in November, just a brutal year in terms of production loss, particularly on the defensive side of the ball. And there are guys here that are worth being excited about. Josh Sweat quietly was worth the contract that they gave him even though you wouldn't know it. Walter Nolan for that brief flash. I mean, Robert, you drafted him second overall. And I'm going to talk about it in about two seconds in the breakout player draft. Maybe we'll finally see a healthy, productive, Darious Robinson, Garrett Williams back healthy. I mean, there's there's all kinds of intriguing pieces here if they can stay on the field long enough to show it. The fact that Garrett Williams is back and it sounds like he's going to play early in the season coming off that Achilles. That's pretty remarkable. He's been practicing for a couple weeks now. And so he's trending to being a killer made out of silly putty. Now it's, it's amazing because that was one of the things I was most worried about is those end of season injuries being like, how long are those going to linger into the year? No one had most of an off season. He came back really quickly. And then the fact that Garrett Williams is already back, that makes me feel much better. So I'm with you. I think a healthy version of this defense looks dramatically better. The defense before it got banged up last year was fine. Yeah, it was. They were like a little of the pack unit. And then you just started dropping, dropping guys like like the other big picture thing I wanted to mention about the defense that I think is interesting is just the dynamics going on between the defensive coordinator and the head coach. They kept Nick Wallace, which I'm always interested in. That is right. Always an eyebrow raising move when the incoming coach keeps a guy. And you know what else? There's another layer to that. He played against him twice a year. And so the fact that he had to face this defense twice a year and was willing to keep the defense of coordinator. I think says a lot about what they feel about the quality of the defensive coordinator. There's a chance that they looked elsewhere and they didn't a better option might not have been there. But the fact that they're willing to do this, I think, does say something. Do you remember two years ago when Brock Birdy lost to the Vikings and after the game, they the mics picked him up saying like, this is an insane defense. Like one time. Yes. I mean, that's what Michael Laflore said. I think that's right. I feel like they because I mean, it is one of the weird defenses in the NFL. Like them and the Vikings are probably one and two. And so them keeping him, I think, is interesting. And for a defensive, this can happen where you're a defensive coordinator. Nigra also only 33. He's been a defensive coordinator for the only three years. He's been in Arizona. He's still a very young coach. When you're a defensive coordinator for a defensive minded head coach, it's different than being a defensive coordinator for an offensive minded head coach, because you are not getting the perspective of what it is like for the offense to go against you. And so I think the feedback that Nick Rawls has gotten from Michael Laflore starting early in the off season, then all the way through the off season is different than he ever would have gotten when he was working under Jonathan Ganon. And that's no, not fault, not Jonathan Ganon's fault. It's just the dynamics at play. And what I think is really interesting is that there were Ram's mindset all the time, offensively, is how do we keep this thing as streamlined as we possibly can? Like, no superfluous bullshit. What do we need? And how can we dress that up 25 different ways? The Cardinals' defense, the volume and breadth of it, was extensive. And I think having an offensive coach who thinks that way of, I'm eliminating everything I don't need. And extending that thought process in mindset to the defense is interesting. And I will be very curious about what sort of impact that potentially has on what this version of the weird, astenic relus approach actually looks like. Yeah, and like, they're just one of those defenses, too, where like, they played more three-safety than just about anybody. And the three-safety stuff to me often feels like the six-offensive line thing where it's like, did you really want to play that way? Did you just kind of arrive at a spot where this happened to be the best way to get guys on the field? I think they really want to play that way. Really? Yeah. That feels fake to me. That's what makes it so fun. It is like a cool, unique oddity. To me, that feels like one of those things that is like not a lasting way to live in the NFL. I think it's two things. I think it allows you to disguise in a way that really know other defense in the NFL can because you're not wanting to lean into it that way. And I think it is an expression of one specific player in his skill set. Buddha is a pretty special player. Yes. Like the fact that he can kind of just, I feel like teams have dabbled before with like, well, we'll have to just have this roving safety and he'll figure it out. And it's like, Buddha Baker is about the only guy that has like really successfully done that at a high level. Obviously Kyle Hamilton and like Derwin James could, but Buddha Baker is a pretty special player. Well, I think it's about one disguise and about being able to get beats on couperges before the snap happens. But it's also, I was talking to him or which coach I was talking to this about over the course of the summer. But we were talking about two high structures and what they do to run fits. And so having three safeties and not knowing where Buddha is going to end up on anything to play can **** with your run stuff. And so I think they, I think they believe their benefits to it in ways that other teams cannot enjoy because of how they're structured and what the ways they're willing to play. And maybe this is a me problem, but like I did study their defense a little bit, this offseason because I was watching Cody Simon, actually, who we can talk about in a little bit. I think that's one of those things that like, the offense doesn't know how it's going to fit. And I think sometimes the guys that defend know exactly how it's going to fit. And I'm like, if you've got the dudes for it, it works. But I think whether or not Arizona actually does in the back end outside of Buddha Baker, I think I'm a little bit less certain, really quickly on Buddha Baker, by the way. Do you realize he's made eight probals? Like he, he's like a hall of fame career. Maybe that's that I don't know if you realize that. I didn't until I pulled it up. I was like, that's, that's a lot. I know we say this and he's probably got room for a couple more. We say this about a lot of guys, but like criminally just under, undernoticed because of the fact that Arizona just hasn't had a whole lot to get excited about for the vast majority of his career. He got there not long after the 2015 team. After they were insane. Yeah, he got there not long after that. And then they built their way up. But even like 2021 was as good as it got. And that was a wildcard team. Sucks, but yeah, I, you're, you're not wrong. He's been outstanding for forever. What I'm watching the first month, the season is also defense related. What do we get from the 2025 rookies? That it's simple to me because I do think you have 2026, 20, 20 or like the year two guys. So they only got one guy this year who was in the segment. He probably's not gonna play. So I, because I do think Garrett Williams, bootabaker, Josh Sweat, Mac Wilson, even safe combination is even Collins. Denzel Burke and Max Melton in that second outside corner spot. I think there are a lot of capable defensive players on this team. Who are the difference makers? Who are the needle movers? The guys who I think have the best opportunity to be that are Walter Noen and Wil Johnson. Absolutely. Do they become those players? That's what I'm watching. Like, where, because even if you feel if the defense is healthier, you can reach a certain baseline of quality based on the guys that are there. The thing that's going to allow you to punch through that is having guys that actually change things for you on that side of the ball. And those are the two guys you're going to be able to do it. This has been a theme during all of these previews. I'm always very quick to say, let's give these guys a lot of leeway. If they're coming back from injury, you're not just going to hop in there and make a difference. Do you remember Walter Noen debuted against Dallas like midway through last season? Incredible. Right off the bat as a rookie was just like, holy shit. All right, I guess he doesn't need a ramp up period. And I've been chasing that high ever since. And that's the high I want to chase in the first month of the season. And there are, those are the two premier rookies from that class. But they still have a bunch of like, maybe Simon will start it line back. Again, this offseason, he, there were some up and down moments with him. But I think athletically you use at least I saw it. Like I do think that he looks like a guy who has not that he's ever going to be a star. But it can be a totally solid will line back or for you. Jordan Birch, they drafted in the third round last year. Had a couple of moments last season. Then so Burke was like, shockingly, okay, when he had to play for them. They really like their cornerback on the outside. The fact that they feel like they with Melton and Birk, they have two realistic options. That's a luxury. And Birk is, Dave, you would, you would especially know this. There's just this thing that happens sometimes with draft prospects. Denzel Burke early in his college career. People were like, that's going to be a first pick. Like he, he's going to be a guy. He's the next one up at Ohio State, whatever it was going to be. Just never really panned out that way. Haven't done all the time. You get to the NFL and it's like, oh, never mind. He does have, you know, maybe not first round talent. But it's like he, that is an NFL starting caliber player. Especially at programs like Ohio State where the next first round pick is. You're just going to get benched. He's coming behind you immediately. Yeah, yeah. And I think the Derrick Robinson is also named to mention. Yeah, his career has been weird up to this point. But still a young player like there are some guys that you could reasonably expect as young pieces to take a step. And it's really Derrick Robinson's second NFL season at this point. I mean, you think about the games that he's missed. Talk about what's keeping us up at night about the Arizona Cardinals. Derrick, what do you got for me? It's the flip side of a lot of the things that we just said. Like I'm, I'm just worried that we are going to get through another season with this team. Where all of the defensive talent still feels like kind of abstract and theoretical. And it's just bits, it's just these flashes. It's these moments of like, you know, he was good at this and then he missed a bunch of time. Or this part of his game never really came together. And if it all comes together, if all seven dominoes fall, this can be like a top 14-ish style of defense. They can be totally solid. It's just a lot of guys with injury history. It's a lot of young and projecty players who you're not sure if they're going to take that next step. And I think we're baking that in because it's a little bit of, you know, same defensive coordinator, guys who have shown flashes. But I'm just worried that they've spent so many resources here to get this thing off the ground. And it's just another year of like, ah, you know, maybe. I'm the same way, but on the other side, specifically. Well, specifically weird spot for it to me. It's marve for me. I mean, he was so hyped coming out of college. Like he didn't have a draft process. That's how highly regarded he was and how confident we were in his ability. Amazing college player. And it definitely hasn't been bad. If you go look at the stats, like it's not this catastrophe that I think people make it out to be. But he was a top five pick. And if Michael Flurr, who bare minimum, like he's he's coming from from that world. He's coached with Shanahan. He's coached with McVeigh. He's Matt LaFlaur's brother. If a well respected offensive coach like this can't unlock the higher level. And for all the reasons you just mentioned about how they might make it easier on him and get him moving around a little bit more often. If it doesn't look the way it's supposed to this year, then I just I worry that it's over. And that sucks because he was such a highly anticipated prospect. And we'll see like Malik neighbors has his own concerns. But that's mainly injury related. Yeah, there's no concerns about what Malik neighbors. When he's when he's healthy Malik neighbors looks like how we thought he might do. And so not getting that after three years with Marvin Harrison would be a tough pill to swallow. I think I'm just in a place where is it theoretical in the coaching staff too? Like that way you just said about Michael Flurr, like what if he isn't a difference maker? Sure. What if like this is the swing you took in the next stage of your franchise and you're not getting the returns you thought you were going to get by dipping into this system and plucking off of that tree. So everything else it's kind of like there's no like specific thing about the team because who cares? Like if this team wins three games this year, we'll talk about success. There's nothing specific that's keeping me up. It's more about what if this wasn't the right pivot? What if this isn't the right group? If that's the case and now you're just drawn dead again, that would be the thing that would be keeping me up at night. Yeah, even though I do have faith in it. I have something on a faith and again, because it is a really talented offense. Like I just, it keeping you up at night a little bit too. If I had a second one, it would be like, you're not certain that this offense is a quarterback away. That would be kind of tricky. Yeah, that would be freaky. So that's super success. Yeah. What is success for the 2026 Arizona Cardinals? You do feel like you are a quarterback away. Yes. That's a good way to put it. I said, I just, all the young guys we just mentioned, I want love Nolan and Marv to look awesome. And I want to be talking about Michael Flurr for reasons that have nothing to do with him. Being Matt LaFlaur's brother. Or playing Jeremiah Love too much in the process or playing Jeremiah Love too much in the police season. If you come out of this feeling excited about at least a few of the young big time draft picks and you're like, yeah, Michael Flurr is a guy. That's, that's enough for me. Proof of concepts on offense. The force and you have on that side of the ball is truly formidable. Looks to skate. it has since you drafted Marvin Harrison Jr. Your young picks on defense, a couple of them turn into needle moving players. And we cannot wait to see who plays quarterback for this team next year. That's a lot, but it's going to be a lot when you don't have a clear like wins goal. You know what, I mean, like it's got to be like a little bit. It's only three of those need to happen. And that's the best case scenario. Those are what your shoes are. Cardinals isn't going to look like another way to say the same thing. Let's spend the spring being excited. About which quarterback goes there. Yes. Instead of the litany of think pieces about whether we should abolish the draft, rather than subject to quarterback to Arizona. Cause that'll happen if this looks like shit. They're scheduled to brutal, right? Like they could win very few games and still have a successful season. The wins and losses are immaterial to me. If all of those things happen, they can win three games. I wouldn't give a shit because that's possible. There is a chance that they are just like the 18th best offense, the 20th best defense. And they win four games because they're scheduled to brutal. I mean, I know it didn't. I know how it wound up aging, obviously. But Jonathan Ganon's first season was exactly that. Yeah. They went four and 13. And it was like, I don't care if you're if you're paying attention. This isn't bad. And so it's definitely doable. All right. That is all we've got 32 team previews in the books. NFC West is all done. Sincerely appreciate all of you for tuning in and being a part of this. It is a it's a fun two weeks. I really enjoy doing this. It's one of my favorite things that we do on the show. So thank you to everyone for tuning in and sticking around with us. That is all we've got. We will be back on Monday with the wins pool draft that we recorded at the live show this week dropping in your audio feeds. I cannot wait to be embarrassed and terrified the entire season. That's all we got 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.