Ranking the Top 10 NFL Offenses for the 2026 Season!
91m 49s
In this episode of the Ringer NFL show, Sheil Kapadia and Deontay Lee rank the top 10 NFL offenses for the 2026 season, a task they find challenging due to a deep pool of 17-18 viable teams. They start with differing picks: Deontay selects Jacksonville at #10, praising Liam Cohen’s scheme and Trevor Lawrence’s late-season improvement, but Sheil leaves them out, citing a lack of trust in sustained performance. Sheil counters with Kansas City at #10, noting Patrick Mahomes’ high floor despite a weak supporting cast, while Deontay places them outside the top 10. They continue with Denver (Deontay’s #9) and Green Bay (Sheil’s #9), each highlighting quarterback and line questions. They finally agree on Detroit, with Deontay at #8 and Sheil at #4, both optimistic about Drew Petzing and the talent. Chicago is Sheil’s #8, but Deontay excludes them due to regression risks, while Baltimore is Deontay’s #7, with Sheil leaving them out. New England is Sheil’s #7 and Deontay’s #4, both viewing Drake Maye as a star. They align on the Chargers at #6, citing Justin Herbert’s health and improved weapons. Dallas is Deontay’s #5 and Sheil’s #3, with confidence in Dak Prescott, and Cincinnati is Sheil’s #5 and Deontay’s #3, with both bullish on Joe Burrow. The episode highlights their differing trust levels in quarterbacks and offensive infrastructure, ending with a shared belief in several high-ceiling offenses.
Welcome to the Ringer NFL show. I'm your host, Shiel Kapadia. Today, we are going on the record
and identifying what we believe to be the top 10 offenses in the NFL going into the 2026 season.
Fun exercise. I like to do it every summer to really go on the record with takes. All right,
how good do I think each of these units is actually going to be? My guest today
is the Ringer's Deontay Lee. We'll count them down. We'll start with 10. We'll see where we
agree. We'll see where we disagree. I think there are going to be some disagreements
in this one, and we'll talk it all out. All right, let's take a break. We come back with Deontay Lee.
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All right, we are back here on the Ringer NFL show with my friend Deontay Lee. We've done this
before, Deontay. I don't know how many years we've done it or whatever, but we have ranked the top 10
offenses going into the season. I like to do 1-32 offense, 1-32 defense just every summer,
basically, to kind of get it in my head. I like to do 1-32 offense, 1-32 defense just every summer,
how do I feel about these teams? Because I noticed that I had like 10 teams written down
initially that I was like, oh, they're in the 15 to 20 range. And it's like, Sheil,
they can't, 10 teams can't be in the 15 to 20 range. I thought this was actually
quite a challenging exercise to narrow it down to 10. I thought that there were maybe 17, 18
teams that you could really make a case for here. Like, I don't know what you guys might have been
arguing about at your lunch tables back in your middle and high school. But I remember when we
was like the top five or top 10 rappers of all time, you just start throwing names out. And then
eventually you're like, we're talking about 18 people for a 10 person list. Like we have to trim
some of this. I think that I struggled with that. I also found myself just being more bullish, I
think, on more offenses across the league than I thought I would have been going into this exercise.
I think we'll try to do defenses next week. And I feel like it's the opposite offense. I felt like
I could easily gotten to 15, 18 where I'm like, they have a chance to be in the top 10. And you
look at the defense, it's like, oh, I'm going to be in the top 10. And then you look at the defense
is around the NFL. And there's like five, you're like, I feel really good about them. And then
you're just like, man, I have no idea. All these other deep. So it is different offenses and
defenses. Okay. We're going to do top 10s. We're going to start with 10. I think here's how we do
it, Deontay. We'll start with you. You give me your number 10. You make the case. If I have that
team elsewhere on my list, I'll tell you where I have them. And we just spend time talking about
that team. And then I'll give you my 10. And then we'll kind of work our way up.
To the top five, the top three, and eventually who we have as the best offense. So get us started
number 10 on Deontay's list of projected best offenses in the NFL in 2026. Who do you got?
I've got Jacksonville at 10 here. And like, this was, this was a cluster for me between like 10
and 14, where this really is like a, how do I feel getting out of bed in the morning, making this
pick? I think that for Jacksonville, for me with Jacksonville, and I think specifically with Liam
one of the things just throughout this exercise, I kept coming back to is what did I see on film
last year that felt the most stable. And we talked a lot about Jacksonville. I think this off season
and ways in which that they may regress, they might not have, I don't think anybody should
expect them to be as hot to start this upcoming season as they were down the stretch of the last
six to eight weeks last year. But one of the things that we saw them kind of building on a
week by week basis was an ability to find explosive runs and ability to find early
down success in the run game. And then I think after they traded for Jacoby Myers,
and you started to see more of a breakout from Parker Washington, you started to see the ball
get out of Trevor Lawrence's hands quickly underneath, allowing guys to go create after
the catch. And then on third downs, having these dependable guys that can help you move the chains.
I think I just come back on the whole, just feeling like this is an offense that isn't
necessarily complete yet, right? Like I still think we need to see Brian Thomas Jr.
step into the role that I think Jacksonville ultimately wants for him being that unguardable
extra receiver option, but they've got a solid enough offense.
You've got a great play designer in Liam Cohen. You have a quarterback that has all the physical
tools. And as we saw in the second half of last season, when he's not turning the ball over or
taking unnecessary sacks, he can keep an all, he can keep a good offensive float. He can't,
it's not just average. He can genuinely be the driving force in the passing game for an offense
that is above average, that is in that top eight, top 10 area across the league. And I think I have
a lot of trust in that as well as the explosive play potential with some of their best players.
Like I would not be surprised at all. If we're going to have a good offensive play potential,
we're sitting here at the beginning of October and Jacksonville has the highest explosive play
rate in the league because they do have so many guys with game breaking speed. And you've got a
great offensive play caller to design plays for those players. I love the word you use trust there
because that's really what I think the Jaguars ranking comes down to. I don't have them on my
list. I had them on my list. You know, I have five or six just missed. They were just missed for me.
I want to see it again from Trevor Lawrence and Liam Cohen, because I think they really, you're
right. I mean, I was thinking back to the playoffs. Like if you were predicting that
the Jaguars could make the Superbowl, you weren't crazy. Like they were playing really well towards
the end of the season. They're going into the post season. It felt like you said they found
something after that Jacoby Myers trade was sort of, it feels weird to say it's not, you know,
like Puka, Puka, or JSN, but it's like, he really did kind of help them as a complimentary piece
with the other players that they have. And they only had him for what half a season and now they
do like that. I do believe
in Liam Cohen. I think he's a
fun character because he seems willing to
antagonize other teams,
other coaches, mix it up, which,
listen, I grew up in a time where
there were a lot of characters in the NFL.
He and Robert Saller are in the same division now,
so we might get some fireworks.
I love it.
I'm probably a little bit slower
to embrace the
Trevor Lawrence has found it now. He has
all the physical tools. He's putting it all together.
I have no questions about it.
Then maybe some others. I see the
upside. He absolutely played
better last year. It was nice to see
him in kind of an offensive infrastructure like
that. I just kind of need to see it
again from both these guys
because Cohen's personality is a little volatile.
I'm like, huh, if
this doesn't go well,
what's that building going to be like?
I don't necessarily love the moves their front
office has made, but I don't think you're,
like I said, they just
missed on mine, and that was just
because I didn't have that full trust,
that what we saw in the second half of last
year is going to carry over, because if you look at the whole
season, they were 14th in EPA per drive,
14th in DVOA. If you
take the bigger sample, it wasn't quite as good
as my head remembered,
but again, it got better as the season
went on last year.
Your point about Trevor Lawrence is well made,
and I think that for me,
the question that is just going to hover
outside of Travis Hunter and what
his usage is going to be and Brian Thomas Jr.
and whether or not he can take a step
forward again, the way that he looked as a rookie,
if he can kind of recapture some of that,
the real question to me is just like, what do you
actually believe about this offense? Do you
believe that Trevor Lawrence
just got hot for a little bit,
or do you believe that the last
half of that season, and really how
they played in the playoff game against Buffalo as well,
because I thought that he played pretty well
prior to that game-ending interception too,
it's whether or not you believe that Liam Cohen
provides him with a high enough floor
that Trevor Lawrence just has not had
in his career, where the structure is
not going to bottom out around him,
and force him to be a quarterback, that we just
haven't really seen in the league, right? I think that what we've
seen, whether it's been under Urban Meyer,
the last two seasons with Doug Peterson,
is that when the structure of the offense
falters, we just have not
seen often enough Trevor Lawrence
be able to go into, you know, that
Patrick Mahomes, I can bail you out of any
situation, that Josh Allen, you know,
that elite tier of quarterbacks where it almost
doesn't matter what the play call is, they can make anything
look good, because they can extend plays,
because they can push the ball downfield,
because they are a threat as a scrambler, he
obviously has pieces of each of those
tools that I have named, we just haven't seen
it consistently enough to make us believe that
hey, if it's the second half and this team is trailing 14 points
and Liam Cohen doesn't have his fastball,
that Trevor Lawrence is the guy that's going to drag you out of it.
I think that maybe I'm just leaning more on the side of
Cohen has bought enough goodwill with me to make me believe
that what we saw in the ground game, what we saw in the play action,
the screen game, some of those quick passes,
is something that you can replicate from last year to this year.
And that might be enough to kind of buttress some of the other volatility
that might make me feel a little bit more uncertain
about where this offense is right now.
Yeah, I mean, Cohen's done it back-to-back seasons,
different quarterbacks, different personnel, different teams.
So, you know, I don't think anyone's wrong to be bullish on him.
I personally just want to see another year there.
All right, so Deontay's got the Jaguars.
Number 10, I don't have them in my top 10.
This one we might be spending an hour on.
I'm not sure, Deontay.
Because I don't know if you're going to tell me I'm crazy
because they're too low, or I don't know if you're going to tell me
you don't have them in your top 10.
I've got the Kansas City Chiefs.
This is who I was hoping we were talking.
At number 10.
Okay, so the case for the Chiefs is pretty obvious.
You just say there are maybe two quarterbacks in the NFL,
maybe more than that if you want to add a couple.
But Mahomes and Josh Allen, we can say if they're healthy
and on the field, the floor is going to only be so low for that offense.
We've seen it with a big sample.
We've seen it with different personnel around them.
And I was even looking at the numbers last year,
but before Mahomes got injured,
if you just look at how the offense was playing,
it was actually fourth in EPA per play.
This is only statistically.
I know our eye test didn't match it.
I understand.
We watched the games.
But just statistically, the performance of that offense
with Mahomes last year was on the same level as a team like the Cowboys.
It was better than what we saw from the Bears and the 49ers.
So I looked at that and I go, all right, I know he's coming off the injury.
Maybe I should have him even higher than this.
But then I just looked at the pieces around him.
They didn't fix the pieces around him.
The pieces.
The pieces that made us so frustrated, not only last year, the year before.
I remember us doing that pod after the Super Bowl against the Eagles,
being like, they need to make a splash to add some firepower to this offense.
And here we are a couple seasons later, and they still haven't done that.
And now I'm like, well, he's 31.
He's coming off an injury.
The O-line could be good, but I'm not sure they're going to be good.
I don't think Kenneth Walker could add more explosive runs.
He will add more explosive runs.
But, you know, is that going?
Is that going to make a huge impact?
And then I was thinking about Andy Reid and conversations we've had about,
does he still have his fastball?
And I'm not sure that he does.
So I kind of chickened out.
You know, I could have gone, they're not in my top 10.
Chiefs aren't a top 10 offense.
Let's put that on.
That's our Instagram post for this week.
And I wasn't willing to go that far.
And I also wasn't willing to be the guy that go, don't sleep on the Chiefs.
You're all counting them out.
Oh, you love the Chargers and the Broncos, but the Chiefs don't.
I didn't do that either.
I'm just kind of like,
I think they're going to be,
above average, top 10,
but we're still going to be frustrated with them.
Deontay, where do you come down on the Kansas City Chiefs?
This is so funny.
I think that we have two different versions of cop-out answers, right?
You putting them at 10 is a very safe thing to do, right?
Because if they're there, you can say,
hey, I didn't bail on my homes coming off of one bad year.
You know, and if they aren't, it's like,
hey man, they're on the fringes for me anyway.
So I thought they could have gone either way.
I had another cop-out here.
I just kind of put them in that 15, 16 range where like,
that is my genuine.
I don't know what to do with you.
I've got them outside of the top 10.
And I don't know that I think that there'll be a bad offense,
given my assumption that Patrick Mahomes will be healthy, right?
I think that as long as he's available,
what he does for this offense,
even if he's not scrambling as often because he's,
you know, maybe nervous about the knee,
or maybe just by coaching,
they're trying to get the ball out of his hands,
whether it's by run game or quick passes.
So that way he doesn't have to extend as much.
He still just does so much to lift the floor for this offense
that I can see a world.
In which he is leading a top 10 offense.
I think for me, it just comes back to supporting cast.
Same thing you were saying, right?
Like I don't have any reason to trust for she rice right now.
Right.
And some of that is on field.
A lot of it is off field.
Right.
And you know, I just need to see it from a guy like him first.
I think we also need to see that Kenneth Walker can genuinely be that bell cow.
That three down, you can lean on me for 300 touches in a season and I'll be just fine.
I'll be just as good by week 18 as I was in week eight.
I think that we need to see that because we have seen him.
Be dinged up and nicked up prior to last season.
Right.
Last season was a lot of kind of perfect case scenario.
And he was still sharing that workload with Zach Charbonnet.
Right.
So I'm very curious to see what it looks like with him being a true featured.
You've got to lead this part of our offense type of running back.
And outside of rice, you're talking about Travis Kelsey, who, even if he's at his
absolute freshest at this age, you still have to be wary of age cliff production
drop off, right.
And what he's going to look like for another 17.
games plus a playoff run, if he is healthy enough to be able to push this team into the
postseason.
So, yeah, I don't think that this is going to be like the 22nd best offense or anything.
It's just like, as you start pulling the threads around Patrick Mahomes and looking at some
of these component parts, um, in a vacuum and then in comparison to some of the other
teams that we will consider being these, you know, top 10, top eight offenses with the
bullet, it's really hard to line this up in a way that doesn't just ask you to put all
the weight of this offense back on number 15 shoulders and just fresh off of ACL.
Like, I just don't know if I'm comfortable doing that.
At least not at the start of this year.
Yeah.
I like the scrambling point you made because some of the statistics from last year are
just a result of like, he was making plates with his legs when stuff broke down.
I mean, it felt like he was running more than he ever had in his career.
And so now if you're 31 coming off an ACL, I don't think that's the way you would really
want to play early in the season.
You know, once you get to crunch time, December playoffs, sure.
But I don't think that's going to be something you want to lean on to carry the offense early
on.
So there's, there's definitely some variance there, like you said.
There's not huge variance.
You know, I think if they're like lower than 20, I think that would, and Mahomes is actually
playing.
I think that would stun pretty much everyone.
If they're top five, I think that would surprise most people.
Maybe, you know, maybe you just have blind faith in Mahomes, but you know, they haven't
been a great offense for three straight years.
They finished between nine and 13.
So they've been right in the range we're talking about.
This isn't the early years Mahomes where it's just like, put them down for top five every
year.
You can rely on it.
And I don't think that has been Mahomes.
I think.
A lot of it has been the way they've built this team and a lot of mistakes that they've
made.
And again, like I said, maybe Andy Reid not being able to come up with answers.
Maybe he's got something cooking this year and that'll be the story of the season, but
I don't think either of us are there right now.
All right.
Number nine, Deontay.
So, so far we differed on our picks.
What do you got?
Who's number nine?
Number nine.
We're going to go to Denver.
I've got the Broncos at night for me.
Oh, okay.
And I think you could make the case that they could be higher just given how a
little bit more efficient this offense has been over the last two seasons.
I still, I'm always going to be wary of Bo Nix as a quarterback.
But again, like this comes back to looking at the component parts.
It's actually really interesting talking about Denver off the heels of talking about Kansas
City because you can't imagine two offenses set up differently in terms of supports for
their quarterbacks right now than you would see between the Broncos and Chiefs.
But they've had an offensive line that stayed unusually healthy for the last two years.
You very rarely get your five starters throughout.
But through a season in back-to-back years, the way that Denver has been, they really
have not had to suffer much attrition from a health perspective up front, which has helped
them stay stable in terms of a run game in spite of the fact that they don't have dynamic
playmakers in the backfield playing beside Bo Nix.
They've always been able to kind of dial up these screens, these quick passes, these bootlegs.
They just get the ball out of Nix's hands quickly and allow people to go try to create
some yards underneath.
And they did the perfect thing for that style of offense this offseason by adding a player
like Jalen.
Jalen Waddell, right?
Like, this is a receiver that can turn a hitch, you know, that should be a six-yard gain into
a 46-yard gain, right?
If not a touchdown outright.
If you can add that type of dynamic ability, and if you believe that that alleviates some
pressure on a guy like Corton Sutton, who's probably best as like a 1A, 1B, or maybe number
two option, sharing the field with another guy that kind of fits that role, that might
open up enough of the offense where, again, it might not be pretty every week because
even with maybe Davis Webb calling it, which I am curious to see how that turns out, they
always kind of have these weeks where they sputter, or they're just kind of sitting on
the ball on first and second downs, and just barely getting it across the chains on the
thirds.
But I think that in those high leverage moments, having someone like Waddell with the institutional
buildup that they already have in terms of supports around Bo Nix, I would not be shocked
at all if this is a top 10 offense.
It probably wouldn't be all that surprised if it's a top five offense.
I was so tempted, Deontay.
They're not on my list.
They were my just missed.
I was really tempted.
You made the reasonable case.
And they really are.
They do stick out a little bit in terms of which offenses could really make a nice leap
this season because of that addition, because Bo Nix is in his third year.
They were probably somewhere between 11th and 15th, depending on whatever metric you want
to look at from last year.
You mentioned the O-line continuity.
Unless I'm mistaken, unless I got this stat wrong here, it looked to me like they had 15
players last year on offense who played at least 300 snaps and all 15 are back on the
team this year.
And you added Jalen Waddell.
Like there's literally no other team in the NFL you can actually say that about.
And you mentioned it.
The case for the Broncos being a Super Bowl team is just like they're built really, they're
loaded with talent.
I mean, you look at them, their depth chart compared to some of these other teams in the
AFC or in the NFL, and like they have an edge against most of these teams.
So the only.
The only thing that as I was deciding,
all right, do I want to put him up there or not?
I thought, all right, Nix is coming off
these multiple ankle procedures in the off season.
I like his athleticism.
His mobility is a big deal.
The way he really avoids sacks
and doesn't set them back on almost any possession.
He's one of the best in the NFL at that.
And then I'm in the Davis web.
Things just weird.
How am I supposed to analyze that, Deontay?
How am I supposed to analyze
one of the best play callers and offensive coaches
in the last 25 years with the biggest ego in the NFL
being like, I'm giving up play calling duties
to this guy who's never really done it before.
I don't know how to analyze that.
I mean, and I can't tell you
that it's not going to be a disaster, right?
But then Payne will just grab that play sheet if it is.
So maybe it's not that big of a deal.
I don't know.
I was joking with our colleagues,
Austin Gale and Steven Ruiz a couple of weeks ago
that if I were Davis web,
I wouldn't want to be calling offense at practice
from the press.
If I could just to put as much distance as possible
between me and Sean Payton.
And I think I saw a report this over this weekend
that he's going to be right there on the sideline
calling the offense.
And I just cannot imagine
when we get to that Sunday night football game
or that Monday night football game
and you get a disaster third down
and you get that three-way arguing match
between Davis web, Bo Nix and Sean Payton, right?
And then you're going to hear those reports
about how Sean Payton is mulling
whether or not he needs to take back play calling, right?
So I think that's going to be a big deal.
I think that's going to be a big deal.
I think that there is, you know,
maybe a powder keg element happening in Denver
because they are, you know,
trying to hand over play calling duties
to an unproven commodity in Davis web.
Again, though, like it just comes back to infrastructure.
I think that the only thing I'm really concerned about
with this team is health.
And it is entirely possible
that they are totally undercut by health
because there is a way to read what you gave me
in terms of the data of all the returning starters
and returning production they're bringing back.
And sometimes that can be a harbinger
of something going wrong, right?
It's very rare that all of your top producers come back
that have been there year over year
that play a high level of snaps
that are never hurt,
being able to get through another season
with that type of good fortune.
And for as strong a supporting cast as this team has,
they don't really have a lot of explosive potential,
which is why they went out
and got Jalen Waddell in the first place.
And if they miss him for any time,
if they miss someone like Cortland Sutton,
if the interior of this offensive line
suffers from any attrition,
we saw this in Philadelphia last year
where guys who have,
who have hundreds of snaps of,
you know,
banging each other in a run game all of a sudden
just can't get the same amount of movement.
We can see some ugly warts in this offense
really show a little bit more.
So I'm just fascinated to see how that plays out.
But on the assumption
that what we've seen over the last two seasons,
that we'll get some kind of facsimile of that in 2026,
leads me to believe pretty strongly
that Denver will be one of the better offenses in the NFL.
I like it.
Peyton, Nix, Waddell, Sutton,
and maybe the best offensive line
in the NFL.
I mean, we could throw out all other analysis
and be like, yeah, that sounds, you know,
that sounds to me like it should be an offense
that ranks in the top 10.
I had them again just outside the top 10,
but I'm glad that Deontay,
I like this.
We don't have a single common one.
Nothing in alignment yet, yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Let's see if that changes or not.
But I think that just speaks to kind of
how challenging an exercise this is
and how many teams you could really make the case for
to be in the top 10.
We'll come back.
We'll get to my ninth ranked team.
We'll Deontay.
We'll have them in his list.
Or are we just going to keep disagreeing
maybe until we get to the top five
or the top three.
We'll talk about it all when we come back.
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All right, we are back here on The Ringer.
NFL show, Deontay.
Oh, you know what?
I should have got my cheesehead prop over there,
but I'm not going to interrupt the pod
and go walk over and get it.
I've got the Green Bay Packers at number nine.
And this was really,
a lot of the analytical part of my brain was like,
you got to have them in there.
You know, like just look at,
I mean, LeFleur's history here,
it's kind of wild.
If you look at it,
seven seasons in Green Bay,
his offenses have been in the top 10,
six of those times,
and never lower than 12th.
Like LeFleur,
I don't think he's perfect.
I think there's game management stuff.
I think there's stuff with hiring a staff
that I'm like,
oh, I wish he would do that different.
But just in terms of getting an offense
to play at a certain level,
he really deserves to be mentioned
with almost any play caller in the entire NFL.
So I saw that,
I know Jordan Love has become a polarizing guy.
It feels like, you know,
there's always like one quarterback every summer.
I don't know if it's him or not.
It might be one of the guys we talk about later.
I feel like he and Justin Herbert are like,
it's an NFC, AFC version,
like corollaries of each other.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You know, I think the thing with Jordan Love,
and I think the reason why he has skeptics
is because his bad play,
I used to think about this early in Josh Allen's career.
His bad plays are really bad.
Where if you're not like,
watching him every week,
or you don't care about the analytics,
you're just like,
I'm sitting down on a Sunday watching Jordan Love,
and he might make a play and you're like,
what a boneheaded play.
This is the guy every podcaster is telling me
is one of the better quarterbacks in the NFL.
The thing is,
he doesn't make a lot of bad plays.
Like if you just look at the frequency
with which he makes negative plays,
he's almost,
he's like one of the best quarterbacks
in the entire NFL at avoiding negative plays.
But when he does have the head scratcher,
you're just like throwing your remote at the TV.
So that's my theory on Jordan Love.
But I mean, if you just look at it last three years,
he ranked second in the NFL in EPA per pass play.
He hunts explosives.
So it might not look great down to down,
but he's going to hit on those explosive plays.
And I think LaFleur deserves credit for that as well.
I'm not totally sure about the O-line here this year.
They did lose some,
you know, a good amount of players from last year,
but they kinda, that's happened before.
And they have guys step up.
Matthew Golden, I think is one of the,
really one of the key players, maybe in the NFC.
If he can be a really good wide receiver,
the guy they thought they were drafting,
then I think Green Bay ceiling's a little higher.
So I don't have them top five,
but I do think they're gonna be a top 10 offense this season.
Where are you on the Green Bay Packers?
- I had them 11 and it all comes back to
just some of the questions that I have
that you were kind of laying out here.
And this is not just specific to their offense.
I think across this roster,
we've seen a lot of their depth just be slowly stripped away.
Over the last two to three off seasons.
And now when you go and look at their depth chart,
it's like, man,
this used to be a team where I felt like
it didn't even matter who their number ones
and number twos were on either side of the ball,
because they just had so much to backfill around them
to be able to kind of aggregate that level of production
across their roster.
I think this team right now
is much more positioned to need Jordan Love
to perform like a first team all pro MVP caliber quarterback
to really need Tucker Kraft,
who I think was just activated off of Pup over this weekend,
to be there and available and looking the way that he did
to start off the 2025 season.
And on top of that, guys like Jaden Reed,
guys like Christian Watson,
it's really not even a matter of what you can produce.
'Cause I think that we've seen them year over year
be strong production guys when they're available,
they just have to be available, right?
Like the conditions that have derailed the Packers seasons
over the last couple of years,
whether it's been an inopportune injury
with this offensive line,
Christian Watson having to miss a month,
Jaden Reed being kind of 80 or 75% of himself
over five to six weeks
'cause he's nursing some nagging injury.
Those are the reasons why I have them out of the top 10.
And I think that that's also the reason
why there's so much pressure on this team to deliver
on all of the young promise that they have.
They don't really have any other pathway
to be a contender that I think they can be.
They 100% need this offensive line to be above its level.
They definitely need Jaden Reed and Christian Watson
to be number one, number two receiver types.
And I think the Jordan Love is gonna have to be
a star for them to be that in the event
that they're able to check off two out of those three boxes,
this could end up being the number one seed in the NFC.
Like I think that they have that kind of ceiling
with their offense, right?
At least they will be in that conversation,
I think, with Seattle and Los Angeles.
Short of that though, we could certainly see another season
where Matt LaFleur is feeling his seat getting warm
or having more conversations about,
hey, is there going to be some mutual parting of ways?
Is it ever going to happen for Green Bay?
in the Jordan Love era.
I think that all of these things are on the table
It is a high-stress environment for Green Bay,
and I wouldn't be surprised if they were great again.
I just think I need to see health
and then consistency on a week-by-week basis
by the players out around Jordan Love more than anything.
Yeah, LaFleur is kind of, how I described Love earlier,
it's kind of similar where if you just look
at the pro football reference page,
it's kind of unassailable that he's one
of the better coaches in the NFL.
If you just watched him coach playoff games
over the last few years, you'd be like,
you would think that he needed to be fired two years ago.
Yeah, you would think he needs to be fired, right.
So they're kind of aligned there.
I love the point you made about the O-line.
I think that might be the biggest one.
Love splits last year, very different.
Clean versus pressured.
He was first in EPA for pass play when kept clean,
13th when pressured, where I know me personally,
I hadn't always thought about him as that kind of guy,
and those stats can be noisy year to year.
It doesn't mean it's going to be like that again this year,
but if you feel like their O-line
might take a step back this year,
which I think,
would be a reasonable case to be made,
then that could really impact Jordan Love
in a way that maybe it's more so
than other quarterbacks there.
And then there's just always the like,
they run the ball so much on early downs
where you're like, I like Jordan Love.
The stats like Jordan Love,
but does Matt LaFleur like Jordan Love?
Because they run the ball at the third highest rate
in the NFL.
I think it was Richard Sherman on a broadcast last year
was like, he doesn't like trust.
It might not have been him,
but for some reason he's the one in my head
is like, does he trust his quarterback?
And I'm like,
I mean, that kind of is true statistically.
It's fair to ask that question
when you look at the way they play.
So yeah, I think there are questions about him.
I leaned on the history here.
It is funny to kind of talk about
just like where his stock is
because I think if we woke up tomorrow
and we found out that Cincinnati and Green Bay
had traded their head coaches straight up,
I would look at Cincinnati and be like,
there's no reason why this team can't be
in the AFC championship game
with Matt LaFleur calling their offense.
If I woke up tomorrow and found out that
Andy Reid and Matt LaFleur traded places
and you're telling me that
Matt LaFleur gets to work with
Patrick Mahomes,
and how he kind of uses his spread,
the spread iteration of the
Shanahan-McVay system,
I would have no reason not to have
Kansas City as a potential top 10 offense.
Even with all of the holes
that we were talking about them having earlier.
That said,
I still 100% recognize
all the disappointments that we've seen
in the playoffs.
We've seen his offense be out-physicaled
by Chicago last year,
and that was not the most physical defense
in the NFL.
We have seen them bump into San Francisco
and other teams that have just really been able
to control the line of scrimmage
and really been able to
take away some of the things
they want to do most
in terms of pushing the ball downfield
off the play-action game.
I need to see this team have an answer.
A legitimate, dependable answer
in those scenarios.
And this comes back to just the stress
that there is on this team
to deliver on being
not really a top 10 offense,
but really a top 5 offense.
Because that's what it's going to take
to beat the top teams in the NFC.
So that is a team I'm going to have my eye on.
I would not be surprised again
if they're right there.
But for me, until I see
Watson, Reid,
Matthew, Golden
performing like they can be Pro Bowl players
over the stretch of a full 17-game season,
I am going to withhold optimism.
All right.
Number 8, Deontay.
Who do you got?
Let's see if we can finally agree on a team.
Let's see.
We're staying in the NFC North here.
I'm going to go with the Detroit Lions.
Okay.
We both have the Detroit Lions
in our top 10.
I got them all the way up at number 4.
Oh, interesting.
You're really buying Drew Petzing then.
Well, you make your case
for why you have him at 8
and then let's see where you're at
and I can tell you where maybe I disagree
or I'm a little more bullish.
I mean, that's where it begins with me
is Drew Petzing
and I think trying to port over
some of the things that he did well in Arizona
to what's already available in Detroit, right?
Like I think that one of the positives,
one of the true positives of his time
with the Cardinals
was that he was,
I don't want to say inventive,
but I think he was willing to kind of
ride the tide, right, with his run game.
You have a mobile quarterback in Kyler Murray
who needs to be in the gun
and needs to be more spread out.
We saw them kind of embrace
multiple tight ends out of the gun
and you're running a bunch of gaps
to try to manufacture explosive plays
and off of that,
now you can use your quarterback
in the option game
to be able to take advantage of
over-aggressive defenses
who are really trying to crash down
to take away those openings between the tackles.
I think that in Detroit,
it's not going to be that way
because Jared Goff is obviously not as mobile
as a Kyler Murray is,
but you have an offensive line that can,
that they are trying to rebuild or retool
to be able to move people again on the interior.
And I think that's part of the reason
why it got higher,
is that they probably looked at
all the different ways in which Drew Petzing
was able to take a bad offensive line in Arizona,
a very specific style of play with Kyler Murray
and still be able to generate
some interesting run games.
And I think that Dan Campbell ultimately views
the best version of Detroit
as one that can do that,
that can pound teams in between the tackles.
And I think that Petzing can be that.
Ultimately, whether or not this is a,
eight to 10 offense
or a three to five offense
really comes back to Jared Goff, right?
And I think that that is one thing
that I don't have a good answer for
because we just never saw Arizona string together
prolific passing attacks
on a week to week basics often enough.
Under Petzing for me to feel like
this really can be upper crust NFL offensively.
But I do think that the run game will be strong enough.
They'll be explosive again.
You have Jameer Gibbs.
You should have a healthy Sam Laporta.
I think that between the tackles,
it can still be one of the five best teams in the league.
And then the ceiling ultimately is going to be determined
on whether or not Jared Goff can fight away
an incoming age cliff eventually
and still be able to push the ball downfield
in the play action passing game.
Yeah, I just, I'm not like Drew Petzing's going to be
Bill Walsh and take him to another level.
I just feel like it will be a little more settled this year.
You know, last year was like coming off of Ben Johnson
and Campbell hires a guy
and then takes away play calling duties for like,
it's going to be one person
sort of voice and structure
and foundation here in Drew Petzing.
And I just feel like last year
was not as bad as maybe our minds remember.
You know, I think they got a little unlucky.
I'm not saying it was perfect.
There were some ups and downs for sure.
When you look at it,
their offense was sixth in EPA per drive
and seventh in DVOA last year.
And they finished between three and eight
for four straight seasons.
So I just looked at it like
there's kind of a small window here
where it might not matter
who the offensive coordinator,
is because they are loaded with talent
with maybe the best version of Jamison Williams.
We've seen I'm on Ross St. Brown,
LaPorta, Jameer Gibbs.
Like when you have all those guys
and you're just a defensive coordinator
getting ready to face the Lions,
it's hard because you need to have answers
for how you're going to cover all those guys,
how you're going to account for all those guys.
I thought the run game, you know,
it was kind of hit or miss last year.
Like there were times early
in the first half of last season
where I'm like Jameer Gibbs
looks like the best player in football.
Like he's just,
he's taking over games.
And then you look at some of the numbers
and it wasn't, you know,
down to down the consistency of their run game
really wasn't there.
So the O-line,
this is kind of a running theme.
They did make some changes there.
They're kind of relying on some young players up front,
but I think the O-line
is still going to be above average.
I think the supporting cast is terrific.
And we know who Jared Goff is
at this point in his career.
If kind of the infrastructure's there,
if the conditions are favorable,
he can dice you up
and you can make it.
You can be like,
how could anyone say
this guy is not a phenomenal quarterback?
And if some of those things start to falter
and he faces some pressure,
then all of a sudden,
it's kind of like what I mentioned
with Jordan Love,
probably to a much greater extent
where he's really going to crumble
under that pressure.
So I just felt good about it.
I felt really good about them
being in like the top eight.
And then I was like,
well, why can't they be
a little bit better than they were
last year with some more stability
with the play caller?
So yeah, I have the Lions at four.
Deontay has them at eight.
But we finally, Deontay,
agree on one team in the top 10.
There you go.
Took long enough.
I'm curious.
I know we're going to have a lot
in the top five
that are probably aligned,
but I am interested
about six and seven as well.
All right.
Well, let me get you
my eighth, number eight team
here, Deontay.
And am I a sucker
for a coach who mentions regression
in a press conference?
Possibly.
Maybe I had him at 12 or 13,
but I'm like, all right.
Ben Johnson's just going to pander
to the nerds like me
that I'm going to go ahead
and have the Bears in my top 10.
So I got Chicago here
at number eight, Deontay.
Are the Bears in Deontay Lee's top 10
or did they just miss?
They just missed.
They're in that 10 to 14 range again
with the cluster of teams
that could be in there,
but I'm just not really ready
to totally jump in with them.
But make your case.
What are you looking at with Chicago
that makes you believe
they'll be a top 10 offense this year?
Well, they're,
they really is.
I mean, the nerd part of my brain
is like there really is a strong case
for them to not be in the top 10
because they were ninth last year.
And if you look at it,
they were second in turnover EPA.
So that just means that,
you know, how,
how much was each team hurt
by turnovers last year?
Only one offense was hurt
less than the Bears
by turnovers last year.
And that's not something
you can really count on year to year.
They stayed relatively healthy.
They were eighth in FTN's
adjusted games loss metric,
which means they had
the eighth healthiest offense
in the NFL.
So I factored those things in
and then I'm just like,
I trust Ben Johnson
to figure this thing out
the way he just figured out
that run game last year
and how good that run game was
in his first season
where maybe he didn't even have
all the guys he wanted.
I'm like, all right,
that's something you can lean on
the run game.
I like that Caleb Williams
is going to avoid sacks
at one of the,
you know, one of the best rates
in the NFL that, all right,
the offensive line isn't perfect.
There's going to be some pressure,
but you know what?
So he's going to be able to escape some of
those with his legs. I know he can create those high degree of difficulty plays. And so I'm not
like all in where I'm like, oh, Caleb Williams is going to win MVP and be a top five quarterback
this year. I do think that's in play with his upside. I don't think you're crazy if you want
to make that prediction. I do want to see that consistency from him. I have some questions about
the O-line, but this came down to talented quarterback, coach I really trust, what I saw
last year that they're going to avoid taking a major step back. So that's my case. I don't hate
it. I think that for me, my hangup is that this run game was really reliant on Joe Tooney, who's
entering his mid thirties, Jonah Jackson, who just could not get healthy in Los Angeles. And then
kind of finds himself in Chicago and all of a sudden he's good to go. I don't know if I'm as
comfortable with really relying on those guys. That said, I mean- Left tackle's a question.
Yeah. The O-line is a question. There's no doubt about it.
You know, so there is a lot to be uncomfortable with up front. I think that there's a fair
counter argument that all those questions existed last year and they had absolutely no problem
just dominating teams between the tackles, especially in the second half of the season.
And then you look at their skill position group and in spite of not having anybody who really
screams out all pro in 2026 outside of maybe Colston Loveland and whatever you believe of
Caleb Williams and his ceiling to be in his third season. I think that's a question that's going to
come up. And I think that's going to come up a lot. I think that's going to come up a lot. I think
the receiving core is pretty well built, right? Like I think you can make a case that they have
all the skill sets they need and maybe just not enough of the name recognition outside of their
young star quarterback, right? I wouldn't be surprised at all if Colston Loveland leads all
tight ends in passing touch and receiving touch. He could be an all pro. Yeah, he easily could be
an all pro with tight ends. You know, based on what we saw over the last five, six weeks of the
year. I mean, there was times where I'm like, this might be the most unguardable tight end
short of Trey McBride in the league, right? Like teams just couldn't do anything with them in the
red zone. They couldn't do anything with them once they were in plus territory because he is
so consistent at being able to get open. And Ben Johnson has done such a great job of mixing up
where he's aligned and really kind of growing out his route tree. I think that the two players that
would need to show up to make this happen outside of some of the guys we talked about would be
Luther Burton and Roma Dunze. I think that last year, going into last year, I was really excited
for what Roma Dunze could have been for a Ben Johnson offense. We just didn't really see it
I think that now there's no DJ Moore. So now there's more necessity. So maybe you're going
to see more targets just by just being forced to them because there aren't many other places for
the ball to go. And then Luther Burton, I think needs to be maybe not exactly a Jalen Waddle for
this offense, but some kind of, some kind of version of that, right? Like you think about
guys like Ladd McConkie, you know, I mentioned Jalen Waddle, these guys who can take these
underneath passes. And even if you're not breaking them out for touchdowns, you can go turn what
should be just a six yard game.
To keep you on schedule into a chunk game, right? That changes the shape of a drive, right? I think
that Burton kind of sells that, sold that. That was part of the reason why he was drafted, you know,
in the top 100 coming into the league. I think that clearly, if you listen to Ben Johnson's
comments at training camp and throughout the mini camp time of the year, he clearly believes that
that's on the table for Luther Burton. There seems to be a lot of expectations that he's going to
step in and be either the Yamanra St. Brown of this offense or something more close to kind of what I
was talking about in terms of those like ultimate yak threats. And if those two things happen, this
could 100% be a top 10 offense, even if the offensive line and run game takes a step back.
But again, there's just a lot hanging up in the air in terms of what we can expect from last year
carrying over to this year. And the thing that really holds me up is that their first and second
down rushing success rate was third in the league last year. The two teams that are behind, the Rams
and Bills. Two teams that have proven already over a two, three year sample size that they can just
match teams no matter what. And I think that's a really good thing. I think that's a really good thing.
What you're doing to them defensively, we have not yet seen that from the Bears up front. I think
that Ben Johnson is capable of that as a play caller. They just have not necessarily purchased
enough goodwill with me just yet for me to think that that's exactly what's going to happen this
year. It's funny, Deontay, your view of the Bears is like my view of the Jaguars. I mean,
it's really very similar. And those two teams were kind of mirrored last year. They got hot
around the same time. Absolutely. The metrics kind of line up, you know, between the two teams. So
yeah, I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think
that there is a case to make that if you're bullish on one, you should be bullish on the
other. But I think that just speaks to, again, just feel. Or you have to pick one. How about
that? Right, exactly. You can't be bullish on both. Exactly. So, you know, and I think that
out of those two teams, both could be top 10 and both could 100% be 17th, 18th because their run
game takes a step back and maybe the turnover margin regresses to something that makes them,
you know, look a little worse, even if they are a more complete team ultimately in 2026. Yeah,
a bright offensive play caller who should be around for a while. But you know what? We've
said that about other guys before and it hasn't always worked out. Two of the most talented
quarterback prospects we've seen in the last decade when you're just like, you know, is there
anything that they can't do from a physical perspective? I would put both those guys in
that category. And now we see, you know, does it get to another level with one of these pairings,
both of these pairings, neither of these pairings this year. By the way, if you don't know what I
do need to remind myself, not everyone's in our little NFL bubble. Ben Johnson was asked something
about, you know, how do you deal with the Bears being hyped coming off a strong season? And he
was like, well, we're the number one regression candidate. So I don't, you know, it's just last
year you said something about EPA per pass play this year regression. It's very easy to, you know,
just get me put in the palm of your hands, just like, all right, she was going to say nice things
about us. And Ben Johnson's doing a couple of those things. All right. So, you know,
Deontay's got them out of just outside the top 10. I've got them at number eight. All right. We move
to number seven Deontay. So, so far the only team we both have in the top 10 is the Detroit Lions. I
have a feeling we're going to get on the same page a little bit more, maybe right about now. Who do
you have? Who's number seven? So I think that very similar to how you refuse to be on the wrong side
of a Patrick Mahomes season where like, Hey, I'm just going to be safe and not put myself in a
clipped up by their social team for not believing in them. I'm the same way with Baltimore and at
seven, I've got the Ravens. Right. Okay. I think, um, for me, the, the thing that, the thing that
I'm banking on ultimately is that Derrick Henry is ageless and that Lamar Jackson can be an elite
quarterback in any system. Right. I think that we've seen evidence of the two already. Right. Um,
Lamar's, you know, transitioning to the Todd Munkin offense was seamless. Right. And he played
like an MVP, uh, with Todd Munkin, you know, when he was, you know, he was, you know, he was
healthy in last year prior to the hamstring injury, even though he wasn't playing his best
ball, you know, and some of the, we were seeing some interceptions for the most part, his dropbacks,
you know, on a play to play basis, we're still looking relatively strong in the first, uh, first
month or so of the season outside of that chiefs game. I think that I believe, well, what I really
believe is that Declan Doyle, if he was able to bring over the Ben Johnson offense in terms of
under center run game to set up easy play action passes, which means now Lamar Jackson does not have to risk
his legs as often on early downs that we can get to something a little more akin to what we've seen
in Buffalo, right. With Josh Allen, where he doesn't have to do a ton of heavy lifting on
first and second down, which does free him up in the red zone in these third and obvious passing
situations to just be the ultimate eraser of any issues that that offense has with the bills.
I think that ultimately that's what Declan Doyle is probably going to seek out to try to build
around Lamar Jackson. And if they're young receivers or unproven receivers,
there are a lot of questions about that receiving core coming into this season.
If one of those young guys can break out or if Zay Flowers can be a week to week threat the way that
we've seen in fits and starts throughout his career, then I think it's probably a little
more comfortable for me making them a top 10 team right now. This is a lot of wish casting and me
saying MVP level quarterback, offensive player of the year level running back. I'm just going to bank
on those two hall of fame talents being able to figure it out in any offensive ecosystem. And I
think that Declan Doyle can give me some version of what we saw in Chicago last year with with Lamar
Jackson in this. Oh, there's for sure a high ceiling there. Just, I mean, it took bad, a very
basic level. Well, you said there, when you have a quarterback who's won MVP twice and you feel like
you're putting him in a scheme that's going to work, it could be fireworks where we're saying,
man, why didn't they, you know, they should have done this four years ago or something like that.
So I think that's in play. I have them just missing the cut Deontay. And it's
probably not that surprised because you were laying out some of the question marks. Here are the two big
questions I have about the Ravens. And I want your take. The first question is, is this supporting cast
good enough? I mean, I look at this and you mentioned you're like Zay Flowers and who else is
then what? Yeah, it is catching. I mean, if he's out for a month, who are you throwing the football
to in this offense? You know, like you said, there always could be an unexpected player who rises up
and you're like, okay, they did. But that's
not a sure thing when you compare him to a team like the Lions we just discussed or some of these
other teams. It's like, no, I know they lose one guy. You have all those guys. Defensive
coordinators are sweating. Derrick Henry, Lamar Jackson, Zay Flowers, like is, you know, I'm not
saying that's easy to defend, but just in terms of the passing game, I don't think they have the
type of options that I would like a team to have if Lamar Jackson, my quarterback, that's one.
And then the old, are we sure the old line's going to be good this year?
I think that's a big conversation piece. I don't know if I'm bullish.
I think I'm willing to believe that they can be league average.
And I think that what Jackson and Henry can do,
even with a league average offensive line,
is enough to get them over the hump and to be in the top 10 offense.
And I think, honestly, prior to them signing Ethan Poshuk,
and this is me assuming that he's going to be healthy and available
and at his best self.
Obviously, I know he got cleared right before he signed with Baltimore,
and it seemed like there were some positive signs for his health
for the 2026 season.
And maybe I'm just willing to suspend enough disbelief to believe in that.
Prior to, when it was just Danny Pinter and, you know,
a rookie in Vega Ioane and John Simpson at this age with a tread on his tires.
Like, we are kind of, I'm pretty tense about what this might look like.
So, yeah, at their absolute best,
I still think this is probably maybe only the 12th to 14th best offensive line.
And I think the median outcome probably is something closer to 18th,
19th in the league.
And then you're just asking your quarterback to lift that level.
We've seen him do that.
We've seen Derek.
We've seen Henry do that.
But a lot of that, I think, is going to be reliant upon
Zay Flowers being the best version of himself.
Honestly, Rashad Bateman, I don't know if,
I don't know where you're at with Bateman.
I haven't totally bailed on the ability.
I think that the expectation that he was going to fold into a number one receiver role
clearly has passed him by.
And I think that maybe a Jacoby Lane has to be one of those
third down, DeAndre Hopkins-esque, you can just throw the ball up
and he's going to go catch everything, which was on tape coming out of USC.
But that is a big ask for a rookie receiver, right?
Who didn't have a complete route tree coming into the league anyhow.
There's a lot up in the air with them.
Maybe more than any team that I've talked about being in the top 10 so far.
But ultimately, I think, again, I'm just going to bank on their superstar talent
at quarterback and running back being enough to figure this out.
Okay, so here's my other question.
So one was about the supporting cast.
And we'll do this a little deep dive on the Ravens here.
But I think they are a very interesting team going into this season.
Is Lamar. Is Lamar Jackson entering a different phase of his career?
Or was he just playing through injuries last season?
Now, we know Lamar Jackson can operate from the pocket.
He might look like a different version who is also an awesome quarterback.
I'm not saying decline.
But there are some numbers, as I was doing my deep dives for this, DeAndre.
Last year, he was sacked on 11% of his dropbacks.
Only Geno Smith was sacked at a higher rate.
I said, that's a bad quarterback indicator.
Typically, he's having a sack rate that high.
Right.
And then, you know, you have the stat pressure to sack rate,
which just looks at how many times were you pressured,
how many of those pressures turned into sacks.
He was 32nd in that category.
All of his rushing numbers were career-worst numbers last year.
Now, this could be as simple as Lamar Jackson was playing injured last year.
It's no sign of he's entering a different phase of his career.
But also, when quarterbacks are really, you know,
great at using that escapability and athleticism early in their career,
it doesn't last forever.
You know, we have this conversation with quarterbacks all the time.
How long can that aspect last?
So, he's just such an interesting player to me this year.
Because, again, it could be he's not running a lot.
Maybe he's not taking more sacks.
But that's because the scheme's really working for him.
And he's just carving people up.
I mean, we can go to his pro football reference page
and look at some of the passing numbers over the years.
Maybe it's that kind of year that's coming for Lamar Jackson.
But that just. My radar's up a little bit on that.
Whether we're going to see kind of a different version of him here going forward
or whether that was just kind of a one-year play.
I think that's fair.
I think that my thing would be is a pocket. Is a more pocket-centric version of Lamar Jackson in 2026 and beyond.
Something closer to what Dak Prescott has been at his. You know, when he's been healthy and available.
And I do think that that's on the table, right?
Prescott didn't come into the league with the strongest arm ever, right?
He was a guy who was a little bit more mobile than a pocket passer
who just really kind of built up. His game, you know, within structure enough
to be able to play at a pro bowl, a consistent pro bowl,
sometimes all pro level, you know, from the pocket when he's available.
And we've seen when Dak gets hurt, you know,
because he has suffered quite a few lower body injuries.
All of a sudden, those sack rates do go up.
The interception, you know, the turnover where he plays do go up
because he can't escape.
He can't extend as often.
And I think maybe that is something that's on the table for Lamar Jackson.
And that does change the context in which we talk about him, right?
Because so much of what makes him unique is the fact that,
at any point in time, what would have been a sack
or what would have been a QB hit on a check down
is now an 18-yard scramble for a first down, right?
Like, that is something that you do have to fear.
And maybe this does mean that he has to phase into
a different version of himself going forward.
But I think what we saw in 2024,
and definitely what we saw in 2023 was,
when he's dialed in in the pocket and in rhythm,
this guy can dice defenses up
without ever having to step outside the tackle box.
I'm willing to bank on the fact that,
this was more of an injury-related thing,
and that when he's back to 100%,
even if the rushing numbers, the scramble numbers,
can tend to trend downward, continue to trend downward,
that we can still see something stable,
even if it's not at peak MVP level.
I think we can still get a 30-33 passing touchdown season,
and he can keep those interceptions and sacks low enough
to justify him not being a scrambler as often.
All right, there you go.
There is a case for it.
There's some variance, I think,
with that offense.
I think the Ravens are a very interesting team.
All right, number seven for me, Deontay.
I've got the New England Patriots as my number seven offense.
They're on your list.
How high do you have the Patriots?
I actually have them fourth.
So I'm pretty bullish on this team.
Okay, so you're pretty bullish on the Patriots.
I felt good about having them in my top 10.
You just look at how they performed last year,
and then you just look at the big upgrade they made
at wide receiver with A.J. Brown,
and Romeo Dobbs,
and you feel like, hey,
that could easily make them an even better offense this season.
So I think the case for them is pretty straightforward.
They're really good last year.
They made it to the Super Bowl.
They upgraded wide receiver.
Why wouldn't they be better?
Okay, so let me give you the reason why I have them at seven,
maybe rather than four.
And I was a little bit like, all right,
I do think there are some potentially some issues here.
One of them is I still don't know that the offense,
offensive line is going to be great here.
I know I sound like a broken record with some of these offenses.
Now, they did address it.
They addressed it in the draft.
They're hoping to get healthy play out of Elijah Vera Tucker.
But there are some unknowns there up front.
And if you look at it, the pressure to sack rate,
I mentioned with Lamar Jackson, I didn't realize this last year.
I don't think at any time.
Drake May, if you include the playoffs, Deontay,
35th out of 38 quarterbacks in pressure to sack rate.
His pressure to sack rate was the same as Cam,
Ward last year.
Now I know he faced a lot of quick pressures.
I know the offensive line wasn't good,
but a lot of those pressures ended up turning into sacks.
And so now if you're saying you're not sure about the offensive line,
and by the way, they got really good injury luck overall,
not in the playoffs with Drake may playing injured,
but in the regular season, they didn't,
their depth wasn't tested as much as other teams.
And now if you say, all right, well,
what if they get some injuries up front with a guy like Vera Tucker,
who has had trouble staying healthy.
Now I'm getting a little nervous.
About that.
And then I was just thinking overall what it takes to play 21 games in a
season,
especially when you're may and you were playing injured and you were
taking hits against really good.
I mean,
and carrying the entire office every single down.
Correct.
In the entire regular season.
So that made me,
you know,
year one,
he had what,
at least one concussion.
And I think we weren't sure about the other one.
And then last year,
he's got this injury that really makes him a shell of himself in the
post season.
Those things made me a little bit nervous about the Patriots and their
ability to just do what they did last year and do it better because they
have two,
two,
two better wide receivers.
I think that the Patriots learn the right lesson from that playoff run,
which is that yes,
we,
it is possible that we have a franchise changing game,
altering talent at quarterback that could end up being in the MVP race for
the next decade.
We also just watched,
watch him get absolutely battered by good defenses week over week.
And we just saw that slowly sap all the things that made him such a special
talent in the regular season.
And they went out and I think that they,
as aggressively as possible,
tried to address some of the things that were a problem for them,
you know,
down the stretch of the year.
So you go out,
you add an AJ Brown to go be your man beater.
That was what I think they were hoping that Stefan Diggs could have been for
them last year before he just kind of settled into being that kind of chain
moving zone beating type of,
underneath threat as a receiver,
you go get a Romeo Dobbs,
some who can now fill in for,
you know,
what Stefan Diggs left behind.
He can be that chain mover type.
He can be a contested catch guy.
He can go make catches in traffic and help them stay on schedule as a passing
game.
So you check those boxes off.
I still think it's fair to have some questions about their offensive line,
but given what they tried to do in one off season,
you go add Elijah Barrett Tucker,
who does have,
who has had health problems throughout his career,
but when he's available,
plays,
typically like a top 12 guard in the NFL,
right?
Especially in the run game,
which I think they're going to need to take some things off of Drake Mays
plate.
And then you go get Caleb Lomo,
I think ostensibly as an insurance plan against Morgan Moses getting hurt
against needing to move.
Will Campbell,
if he proves that he just can't handle,
you know,
the ask of being a left tackle on a week to week basis.
I think that they gave themselves just enough optionality up front to be
able to say,
Hey,
at least for a season,
we can say that we did what we could to try to,
to improve
the ecosystem around drake may and not ask him to have to be the most explosive the most accurate
you know the best scrambler you know the leader of our run game really you know in terms of being
able to keep us ahead of the chains i think that they did all that they can do and if their wide
receiver core is able to force more light boxes it's able to dissuade team from blitzing as often
and now you are able to lean more in the run game you are able to get the ball out of drake may's
hands and clean pockets more often that alone should do it in terms of keeping this team in
the top 10 they may regress in terms of you know the otherworldly production but i think they're
a more complete team now than they were at this time last year or yeah could be better equipped
to take on playoff teams yeah you know i agree with that just with the firepower they added all
right let's take one more break we come back we get to our top six right it's kind of like our
top five because we already both have our fourth one
there you you had the patriots fourth i had the lions fourth so we got five more slots to get
through we'll do that when somewhere out there is a chevy truck and the person who drives it well
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policy at carvana.com we return all right back on the ringer nfl show diante number six who do you
got i think my number six team is probably the last one on my list that doesn't have like
bona fide superstar talent across the board right i'm maybe one of two teams depending on how you
feel about buffalo who i know we'll get to eventually this is the los angeles chargers
like i'm i'm buying the good vibes man i'm buying the good vibes we both have them at six
diante we both have the chargers at six what could go wrong been to been to a couple of their
practices throughout this offseason saw him at minicamp saw him at training camp last week
um you know and just listening to some of the quotes that are leaving the building
you know you talk to people who are there on a day-to-day basis about how they are interpreting
the vibes coming out of the locker room coming out of the coach's office i think that there's a
and i think that that plus good health actually could be exactly what this team needs getting the
ball out of justin herbert's hands so he's not the most hit you know most knockdown quarterback
in the league the way that he was last season building an infrastructure for the run game
that isn't as predictable isn't as you know um dependent upon being able to just beat guys and
man blocking snap over snap the way that we saw with greg roman last year and then i think another
year of trey harris of adding guys like can you
lambert smith you know having a healthy lad mccunky adding charlie kohler to the tight end
room like you look now the depth that this team has in terms of his playmaking talent
is far and away better than what it was two years ago certainly last year and assuming health even
if guys do get banged up too i should say they have enough now i think to be able to carry this
offense through a 17 game schedule and not be asking justin herbert to hang in with broken
hands or busted ribs and all the other things we've seen this guy have to brave it through
on a week-to-week basis to be able to keep this offense afloat i think that there is legitimate
top 10 potential i would say that their ceiling is probably capped i would say around fifth or
six because i just struggle to see them having a true breakout passing game in terms of just
receiving talent that's able to carry them into that top three top four type of conversation
but i love what i think this team has done to kind of raise the floor around justin herbert and if
herbert's available on a week-to-week basis there's almost no way to me i could see this team being worse
than the same way i could see this team being worse than the same way i could see this team being
in the nfl now listen they've only had a top 10 offense once in six seasons with justin herbert
so for the herbert haters out there we're that's fair we're telling him he's not calling plays
anymore so you know i i would i would ask the the herbert haters to you know suspend you know
suspension of disbelief for a second listen they might say come on there's been a few ocs you know
they seem to be keep getting fired dionte every year or two no i know you would say i think it's
a good one if you would give up your office of coordinator for joe lombardi or greg moen
please message me on uh on twitter or blue sky i would love to hear this argument all right listen
just you know sometimes you have to know what's coming with a segment of the audience and you
have to address it um beforehand so i think you know you can that that is it's only happened once
again six seasons with justin herbert as the starter top 10 offense once we're both bullish
on them this year i mean you mentioned the ceilings capped we talked about the ceilings
about aj brown and jalen waddle i did get to the point where i'm like man a player like that would
have looked really good on this chargers team are we are we gonna say that was a missed opportunity
for the chargers i think potentially we are but to your point i'm just kind of putting the trust
in mike mcdaniel i'm putting the trust in justin herbert and his talent and his production and his
performance i'm looking at the tackles and saying they got to play more games than they played last
season and joe alt missed 11 games i'm looking at the pass catchers saying okay it's not like a top
five top 10 group but mcconkey quentin johnson gadston uh hampton in the run game like there's
enough talent there um for the chargers to make that leap and be number six now have we both had
chargers takes and herbert takes and whatever over the course of our careers that we would like
scrubbed from the internet of course i had him i think winning mbp in his second season it did not
necessarily go that way
and so who knows i understand there's always it feels like chargers hype in this summer and we'll
see when we get to our season predictions whether we really believe them uh in them as a super bowl
caliber team depending on what you think of the defense but um yeah i felt good about it i felt
good about them being in the top 10 and you know as i do it i come up the initial list and then i
start at one and then i get to two and i'm like all right am i sure i like one more than two yes
and then i get to two all right am i sure all right yeah and it's just like we're very
similar in this yeah and i got to the chargers and i'm like i think this is the right spot i have
them at six you have them at six like i said what could go wrong chargers fans sorry you probably
prefer that we just had them at 32 um honestly i think that this has been a little too much
optimism over the off season for chargers fans if you're a chargers fan knowing the
curse nature of this franchise you've got to be feeling like can people stop looking at us
deja vu i know it's every year uh for them all right so we both have the chargers at number six
number five dionte who do you have at number five on your list number five for me are the
dallas cowboys okay i've got the cowboys up at number three so we're in a similar range
um dallas cowboys you got them top five uh is the case just straightforward they were good last year
they're going to be good again this year or is there more to it it's really just as simple as
that like the things that made this offense as good as it was last season is still around i
trust brian schottenheimer as a play caller as a game manager i think that he was clearly able to
get more out of deck prescott last year than what we saw michael carthy get out of him what a
sentence by the way and i agree with you no seriously you would have told me two years ago
that we i would be you would have told me at the time of the press conference that's right you have
to change your opinions based on what you see and i think he's done a pretty good job i can't believe
it but it's true 100 i think that what we saw from george pickens if you would have told me
that george pickens fresh off of a trade and not being paid was going to be a good thing
to show up and be this unguardable ex-receiver for this team i wouldn't have believed that either
so much so that it kind of came at the expense of cd lambs production right in some points because
jack prescott has such a strong connection with um george pickens throughout the year but yeah
this is a team that just checks all the boxes you want supporting cast they've got two you know
bona fide number one type wide receivers jake ferguson has been a very dependable tight end
you have a running game that you're able to lean on you have a healthy giovante williams which
is his way because he was a very enjoyable watch once we got him healthy again in the nfl and i
hope that we're able to continue to see him affect games as a power runner between the tackles the
way that we did last year their offensive line is young you know it's reliable both good in the run
game and the pass game and they kept their staff together right like there really wasn't any brain
drain there's really nothing to point to that would tell you that you should be concerned that
this team is going to take some unforeseen step back from last year to this year if anything i
wouldn't be surprised at all if we're having a good time with them and i think that's what we're
having conversations about how they might be the number one or number two offense in the league
if guys are healthy and they're performing at peak capacity again this year yeah i was just
looking at history and i know dac prescott not everybody's a fan of dac prescott if you just
look at it historically when he is on the field for them the offense is good and that's been with
different supporting cast different offensive lines different play callers the last five times
dac prescott has played at least 12 games they've had a top eight offense like they've had a top
eight like that that's a pretty remarkable run of consistency that i think speaks to the
quarterback's play
um, for the Cowboys. Now, you know, the rest of the Cowboys, obviously they haven't had a
playoff success and that's a conversation for another day, but last year they were fourth in
EPA per drive to your point. They return their top five pass catchers from last year. They returned
seven of their top eight offensive linemen from last year. It's the same scheme. It's the same
OC. It's the same staff. It's just a very reliable offense. Now, could there be injuries or something
weird, fluky happening with turnover? Sure. That can happen with any offense we talk about today.
But when I just felt like, man, unless, unless something like that happens where you're, you're
just, you know, you're from hell with the injuries. I feel really good about this offense being really
good. Um, in the regular season, the Cowboys were almost up there with any team for me. So yeah,
I had them at number three. You had them at number five. We are on the same page there with the
Dallas Cowboys. All right. So I got to give you my number five team, which I think you might not
have.
Oh, I see. I got the Cincinnati Bengals at number five. Nope. They're number three for me.
Oh, three. What an upset. Deontay more bullish on the Bengals offense than me. That was off the
board for Vandal for that to be the case. I just feel like I've been the high man on the Bengals
on every podcast. I mean, if we want to talk about the whole 53, then we can have a different
conversation. But if you're just telling me about one side of the ball, then I'm right there with
you on this. All right. So we both,
like the Bengals. Um, my case here is it's very similar to what I just said about Dak when Joe
Burrow has been healthy and played the requisite amount of games. The offense is generally good.
They were, I think seventh, I want to say, uh, in 2024, uh, they were fifth in 2022. The health
concerns are real. The health concerns are real with a lot of these guys. It's hard. You get hit
and there's a lot, you know, it's a violent sport. And so I don't like to just predict
what quarterback's going to get injured. But when you look at Burrow,
and those wide receivers, it's just like, that's hard to defend every week for a lot of NFL defense.
Jamar Chase is very hard to account for. Um, T Higgins, very hard to account for their run game.
Actually, this surprised me, Deontay, because in my head, I didn't think the run game was very
good last year. Statistically, the run game was quite good. Sneakily efficient for the last two
seasons. They've, they've been able to get away with not really having difference and making
talent in the backfield. I think the chase round is probably better than he gets credit
for it. Right? Like I know the fantasy football guys will be quick to correct me on that and tell
me how dependable he is on a week to week basis because he does get light boxes. But I think that
they've built up the kind of run game infrastructure that they didn't have in 2022 and 2023 when teams
just started saying, Hey, we'll just play cover two and cover four. And we're just going to make
Joe Burrow sit in the pocket and just get beat up by our pass rush. They've built, I think something
that's a lot more dependable now than they used to have. It's really interesting because the early
days of Burrow and those wide receivers was so fun and they're bombing it downfield and it's
explosives. And then we know what happened. Teams changed how they wanted to play against them.
And now I like, I still feel like the way for them to get in the top five, they still need to find a
way to manufacture explosives. I mean, if you look at the numbers last year, the explosives are not
where you would want them to be for a team that has Joe Burrow, Jamar Chase, and T Higgins. And I
know we've discussed this before. It's like when a defense wants to force you into doing one thing,
you kind of can't just do that thing and be like, all right, they're taking away explosives. Like
you still need to find a way. And that's easier for me to say when I don't have to, you know,
figure out a way schematically, or I'm not the players playing, but I almost felt like looking
at it. There were times last year where it just felt a little too conservative, a little bit too
much of take what the defense gives you and check it down and get the ball out. So I think the way
for them to really make that leap into the top three or the top five is to combine the run game,
which is a little bit better. The O-line, which I think secretly is not that bad. I mean,
if you look at the numbers from last year, pressure rate, it was the lowest sack rate
of Joe Burrow's career. I think they're more towards the middle of the path than to. Their interior is a lot better than it gets credit for.
It's a lot better. Yeah. So Amarius Mims could, you know,
end up being a really good player for them at tackle. So there's just a lot I like here. And
again, it's really similar to the team we just talked about with the Cowboys where Joe Burrow,
the last, I forget, three, four years, he's been healthy. He's ranked top 10 in EPA for past play.
The supporting cast is very similar. Like the formula works, whether the ceiling is this high
or whether it's more seven, eight, nine, 10, we can talk about that. But yeah, I felt pretty good
about the Bengals and you felt even better about them.
100%. I think the one thing that the Cowboys were able to access that we just didn't see
enough from Cincinnati is they do have an ability to change gears, play heavier personnel,
and really be able to mash teams between the tackles and the run game. Whereas Cincinnati
has been a little bit more, give us light boxes. We can count. If we've got a numbers advantage here,
we're just going to take the four to five yards you're handing away. I would like to see Cincinnati
incorporate a little bit more of that. Part of the issue is that because they have built their
offense so hyper-specifically to be this 11 personnel, spread out, shotgun, let Joe Burrow
cook with his 35 to 40 dropbacks a game.
It does. It doesn't really lend itself to the current era of football, right? When we
start talking about some of the other offenses we expect to be in the top 10, we've kind
of hit on some of the same points. The ability to control games on the ground. A lot of that
comes from being able to get under center and have multiple tight end sets or be able
to add a fullback or a fullback-esque talent, you know, to be able to go add a gap in the
run game when you need it. You're talking about play action game, right? Can you draw
a defense forward to find easy passes in the intermediate area of the field? So that's a lot of things that we're going to talk about.
So that way a team like Seattle, right? A team like Philadelphia, ones who are really inviting
you to just play more spread out and say, hey, we're just going to sit on you in between the
hashes. We're not going to give you anything easy. You're going to have to go get your explosive plays
the hardest way possible on these 50-50 balls way deep downfield. And we've got all these different
coverages to make you have to pause before you let the ball go. I think the Cincinnati is very
similar to Kansas City. They're interesting teams to kind of look at the meta of the game, right? If
you're trying to find a lens of where has the game been at and where is it going? You used to really
be able to count, you know, kind of sight unseen a team like Cincinnati and say, this is probably
going to be the first or second best offense in the league because they just have superstar talent
all over the case. They're built very similarly to the old Colts in the Peyton Manning era in that
respect. Whereas now you look at teams like, you know, Los Angeles, you look at what a team like
Philadelphia is doing, kind of divesting from that model to say, hey, we want to be a little bit more
balanced across the board. You know, you look at the linebacker, you look at the linebacker, you look at the
Lions, you look at the Chargers. A lot of these teams are trying to balance out their attacks,
even if it comes at the expense of not having star talent. I'm fascinated to see, I think this year
will be kind of a nexus point for this team. Maybe kind of that fork in the road moment where they
have to decide whether or not it's really about leaning into the superstar talent or if it's going
to be more about, hey, we've got to diversify some of these things that we do offensively to get the
most out of every single play. I was thinking as I was looking at all these teams that we mentioned,
the Ravens changing the way they play, the Ravens changing the way they play, the Ravens changing the
way they're playing, and the Eagles changing the way they're playing and the way the Bills play now.
There is going to be a time in probably the next three to five years where we're just going, oh,
this team is going back to the spread and playing 11 personnel. And oh, this is, oh, this is, okay,
this is back now. It's no longer getting the tight ends and the fullbacks on there and getting
under center and using play action because you know what? The defense has went so far that way
with their nickels, making sure those nickels can fit the run. Well, those nickels now can't cover
spot receivers. It's just so funny. It's like every three to five years, it's going to be
different. So maybe the Bengals are like, you know what? We're ahead of the curve. We're not
changing. The defense will come back. Eventually the game will come back to us. Eventually. Listen,
Sean McVay hired Cliff Kingsbury this off season that caught my attention a little bit. Why is he
hiring Cliff Kingsbury? You know, they need a little trick up their sleeve in case what they
used last year doesn't work and they need to pivot again. I don't know. Maybe just a thought I had.
All right. So, um, we basically flipped the Bengals in the,
the Cowboys. We got them both as top five. I had Cowboys three Bengals five. You had
Bengals three Cowboys five. I imagine we're going to have the top same top two, but maybe you'll,
uh, I kind of think it has to be, it has, there's one team. I was, I really felt like you were going
to have on here that you don't, that I want to get to, uh, at the end, but yeah, number two,
Deontay, who do you got? Number two, I have, uh, the Buffalo bills. Okay. I got the bills one.
Okay. So there you go.
I think that we're going to end up having a similar conversation then about the Rams and
why I have the one and maybe what your holdup was with them being the number one offense in the
league. But for me with Buffalo, again, like I feel like for the last three teams, we're talking
about steady, stable. They've got a proven track record already. Their style of play. Isn't changing
the guy, the pure, the people at the helm of calling the offense and executing the offense
have not changed strong offensive lines. They can run the ball of control, the clock control game
situations when they need to. And they've got a lot of, uh, a lot of, uh, a lot of, uh, a lot of
things that we need to, and they've got a quarterback that can build them out of bad
situations. I mean, that just to a tee has been why Buffalo, even in those, those moments, right?
I feel like we were podcasting, um, together when they had that cold spell where they got beat up
really bad by the Texans. And I think that was kind of like the alarm bells going off moment,
but even like two to three weeks before that, you started seeing defenses picking up on some
of their tendencies in terms of what they liked in the passing game, in terms of what they like
to do at a certain personnel groupings in the run game. And ultimately they still turned out to be
a really excellent offense because they can just lean on their favorites because they have talent
all over this roster. And now if you add DJ more and you get a DJ more, who's motivated,
who is, I think in an understandable role where he doesn't necessarily have to be some hundred
150 targets guy he can be a manufactured explosives he can be a catch on the run in the
intermediate area type of receiver he can be a screen game guy right like you can just fold him
into all the same things you've been doing with your tight ends and with Khalil Shakir this entire
way and now you're just going to a bigger receiver who has a little bit more wiggle in the open field
and this offense can just I guess just add another dynamic piece to what it already does I don't know
that they needed to change anything I think they just needed a player like Moore to maybe be able
to unlock some things when defenses load up the box to take away the run game reliability
consistency it's just like I mean uh I'm with you DJ you know it's so funny like the ebbs and
flows of an NFL offseason because they make that DJ Moore trade and I'm sure that I said on this
podcast I wouldn't have made that trade giving up what they gave up and pay why are they paying him
what they're paying him but then you get to August and you look at the
depth of the game and you're like oh my god I'm going to be a catch on the run game I'm going to
be a catch on the run game I'm going to be a catch on the run game I'm going to be a catch on the
depth chart and now I like this group a lot more when DJ Moore kind of bumps everyone down like
I liked the other players the other players weren't good enough to just stand pat and not
do anything so now it's DJ Moore now it's Khalil Shakir now it's whoever's your wide receiver three
whether it's Josh Palmer or Keon Coleman he's both tight ends Dawson Knox and Dalton Kincaid
it's James Cook at running back it's a very good offensive line and it's like oh okay like I do
like this group and I would say if you had to pick one quarterback where you said oh I'm going to
it doesn't matter who the play caller is who the offensive line is who the wide receivers are
you're going to have a top five offense I think Josh Allen is that guy for me right now I mean
the numbers back it up the last six six years in a row they finished between first and fourth
in EPA per drive like that is a remarkable level of consistency I know all the stats are out there
that are like this is the best team to never even get to a super this is the best run by any team
to not even get to a super this is the best run by any team to not even get to a super
which if you're a bills fan you're like we're not hanging the banner for that we're not especially
that franchise that franchise has experienced the heartbreaks of all heartbreaks I know their history
it's like there it really is remarkable that they have not broken through but the offense has just
about been the most reliable unit in the NFL over the last five six seasons so I think they're going
to be right up there once again will they definitely be number one I don't know maybe not but I'm just
like if Josh Allen is going to be number one I don't know maybe not but I'm just like if Josh Allen
is healthy I don't care what who else gets injured or has a down year this isn't a Joe Brady thing to
me I mean Joe Brady right place right time as far as I'm concerned you know Ken Dorsey's looking at
it going hey someone compare the stats when I was calling the offense compared to when Joe Brady was
you know I don't think it's that hard to come up with a great offense when you have Josh Allen I
do like some of the stuff he's done you mentioned it earlier taking some stuff all off of his plate
not asking him to be Superman the entire game you know having a good time
run game all those things but yeah I had the bills one just because I felt like they were sort of I was
going to say recession proof which doesn't make any sense but I'm saying like it kind of does the
conditions don't really matter as long as the quarterback's healthy they're going to have a top
five offense so I've got bills one you have presumably the Los Angeles Rams number one what
why'd you give them the edge here over the bills and we're of course just picking knits with it with
this right here
yeah I think for me like I took this exercise all the way down to the end right this morning
before we hopped on the podcast and I just kept toggling between Buffalo being one Los Angeles
being two and then vice versa and eventually I just kind of got to a point where I'm like
this offense is awesome nitpicking is for losers at this level right like let me just like let
instead of trying to find all of the trap doors for this team let's just take what we've seen on
film and a lot of this really is based on the fact that Sean McVay and the Rams have built an offensive
structure that doesn't really ask Matthew Stafford to have to do what he did in 2021 for this to be
a top five offense in the NFL in truth I mean they very rarely need him to play at that level I would
say that last year the only times I really called for it were those three games against the Seahawks
and in the last two of them he played exactly like we saw 2021 Matthew Stafford played and I
think that that's a large reason why I ended up winning MVP is because those memories stuck out
that Thursday night game and then in the NFC championship even though that was after the voting
I think you just think about those moments right when it's called upon at most when he needed to
deliver you know in the biggest moments for the Rams he was able to do so and then you look at
just some of the more underlying metrics right like by name recognition maybe by volume and some
of the other things that we look at maybe by box score we don't always appreciate just how effective
the Rams are in the run game but you go and you look at success rate especially on early downs I
know some of this was before they even went to the 13 personnel thing where they're adding
all these big bodies on they're able to play win 11 personnel they can get two tight ends on the
field if they want to they can play more with more of their finesse 12 personnel looks if they
wanted to between you know your Terrence Ferguson and Colby Parkinson's who are you know Parkinson
is a pretty balanced tight end Ferguson is much more of a receiver than he is a blocker and still
just by formation by motion by Sean McVay's ideas and how to craft a run game they're able to find
six seven yards sometimes a pop in in a quarter or in a half right I've I trust so much in what
they have built in the run game in the play action game and who Matthew Stafford has been
in the twilight of his career what they're able to do in the red zone with Devontae Adams
being able to kind of feed touchdowns to him and I think that my assumption is
Pookin Nakua's suspension which I do expect him to get one eventually won't be so long I don't
think that a Larrick Jackson who might get suspended for you know his off the field
conduct I don't know if that's going to be extensive either and they're going to have
their guys right I'm assuming health and that they're going to have their guys available and
as long as those players are on the field it is hard for me to see Sean McVay not turning in
the number one offense in the NFL no worse than a top three offense in the league this year yeah
you mentioned the Seattle matchups and I would even throw in when they faced the Eagles the last
couple years they have the thing where because of Stafford's experience and talent and savvy and
know-how they're going to be able to do that they're going to be able to do that they're going to
be able to do that they're going to figure stuff out against the best defenses in the NFL which I
think that is you know I think that's a great case for them to be number one where it's just like
you're probably not going to shut them down for an entire game you might get the first quarter
you might get the first half you might get the first possession whatever but eventually
they're like that that combination is so special that they're going to figure it out and so they
were the best offense in the NFL uh last year they've done it against great defenses I mean
think about it the Seahawks like no one was able to do anything against the Seahawks except for the
Rams offense last year like they kind of put themselves on another level I mentioned earlier
I think the Broncos continuity I believe the Rams have 13 of 14 players who logged 400 snaps last
year on offense 13 of 14 are back so they've got that uh continuity going for them yeah my only
real question about the Rams was what it looks like if they lose uh you know Puka Nakua like a
it's all depth stuff or if they have injuries on the offensive line but it really is first world
problem type of things you know I'm tired of predicting that Matthew Stafford's age is going
to be uh an issue for them when the guy just won the MVP last year so yeah I think it's perfectly
reasonable to have the Rams as number one I have Bills one Rams two you have Rams one Bills two so
we agreed on seven teams Deontay Bills Rams Cowboys Lions Bengals Chargers Patriots I had the Bears
Chiefs you had the Ravens Broncos and Jaguars neither of us had the Niners that was the one
team I was surprised that I thought you were going to have in there that was the one that that's the
one that's the one that had me feeling like uh my am I a bozo like am I thinking too hard about
some of the issues or some of the hang-ups that I might have about George Kittle being hurt
and Mike Evans being a little advanced in age like like I'm sorry man it's it's too much for me and
it's just like Philadelphia because it's just because of the arguments that we're making about
teams like Denver teams like Dallas the ones that are really built upon offensive line being able to
win between the tackles quarterback who's not turning the ball over like is this a team that
could be maybe towards the bottom end but can make the top 10 because they're not going to be as
volatile as a Chicago as a Jacksonville maybe as Baltimore might be you know but for me I think
that that's one of those things where first year play caller big system over
hall loss of a very talented player you're going to have to show it to me first and I had them 15th
so it's not like I have them being some bottom half of the league offense yeah Niners you could
just make the case hey Shanahan and Purdy it works it has worked and they might not be top five but
they're going to be really good I just the injuries already I mean the summer they've had so far
we're like one week in I'm just like I have them a little I don't think they're going to be bad
but I had them outside the top 10 Eagles you mentioned I think there's a case for
them Seahawks I think there's a case for them if you feel good about the new OC coming in and then
not losing much the Vikings I thought about getting spicy and being like maybe I buy this
it's a good supporting cast that would have been an inspired pick I couldn't quite get there I was
like should I do Vikings over Chiefs for content nope I'm just going to go with what I actually
think here uh with the Chiefs so yeah I think those were some of the teams that just missed out
but that was a lot of fun top 10 offenses I think Deontay come back next week and do top 10 defenses
how does that
sound. Let's do defenses. Hey man, you're talking my language. I would love nothing more. We'll do
defense.
us next week. All right. Thanks to Deontay Lee from The Ringer. Thank you to Christopher Sutton
for producing. Stefano Sanchez on video and additional production supervision by Connor
Nevins and Arjuna Ramgopal. I'm Shil Kapati. We will talk to you next time on The Ringer NFL Show.
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Podcast Summary
Key Points:
The hosts rank the top 10 NFL offenses for the 2026 season, with disagreements on several teams.
Jacksonville is Deontay’s #10, but Sheil excludes them due to trust issues with Trevor Lawrence and Liam Cohen’s consistency.
Kansas City is Sheil’s #10, citing Patrick Mahomes’ floor, but Deontay places them outside the top 10 due to supporting cast concerns.
Denver is Deontay’s #9, praised for offensive line continuity and Jalen Waddell’s addition, though Sheil has them just missing the cut.
Green Bay is Sheil’s #9, relying on Matt LaFleur’s history and Jordan Love’s explosive plays, but Deontay has them at #11 due to injury and depth worries.
Detroit is #8 for Deontay and #4 for Sheil, with optimism about Drew Petzing’s run game and talent, but questions about Jared Goff’s ceiling.
Chicago is Sheil’s #8, banking on Ben Johnson and Caleb Williams, but Deontay leaves them out, citing offensive line and regression risks.
Baltimore is Deontay’s #7, trusting Lamar Jackson and Derrick Henry, while Sheil excludes them due to supporting cast and offensive line issues.
New England is Sheil’s #7, highlighting A.J. Brown and Romeo Doubs upgrades, but Deontay has them at #4, citing Drake Maye’s development.
1
Both agree on the Los Angeles Chargers at #6, praising Justin Herbert’s health and improved weapons.
1
Dallas is Deontay’s #5 and Sheil’s #3, with both confident in Dak Prescott and the returning core.
1
Cincinnati is Sheil’s #5 and Deontay’s #3, with both bullish on Joe Burrow and the receivers, though noting explosive play concerns.
Summary:
In this episode of the Ringer NFL show, Sheil Kapadia and Deontay Lee rank the top 10 NFL offenses for the 2026 season, a task they find challenging due to a deep pool of 17-18 viable teams. They start with differing picks: Deontay selects Jacksonville at #10, praising Liam Cohen’s scheme and Trevor Lawrence’s late-season improvement, but Sheil leaves them out, citing a lack of trust in sustained performance. Sheil counters with Kansas City at #10, noting Patrick Mahomes’ high floor despite a weak supporting cast, while Deontay places them outside the top 10.
They continue with Denver (Deontay’s #9) and Green Bay (Sheil’s #9), each highlighting quarterback and line questions. They finally agree on Detroit, with Deontay at #8 and Sheil at #4, both optimistic about Drew Petzing and the talent. Chicago is Sheil’s #8, but Deontay excludes them due to regression risks, while Baltimore is Deontay’s #7, with Sheil leaving them out.
New England is Sheil’s #7 and Deontay’s #4, both viewing Drake Maye as a star. They align on the Chargers at #6, citing Justin Herbert’s health and improved weapons. Dallas is Deontay’s #5 and Sheil’s #3, with confidence in Dak Prescott, and Cincinnati is Sheil’s #5 and Deontay’s #3, with both bullish on Joe Burrow.
The episode highlights their differing trust levels in quarterbacks and offensive infrastructure, ending with a shared belief in several high-ceiling offenses.
FAQs
The hosts, Sheil Kapadia and Deontay Lee, rank the projected top 10 NFL offenses for the 2026 season, discussing their picks and disagreements.
Deontay ranked the Jacksonville Jaguars at number 10, citing their explosive play potential and Liam Cohen's play design, though he noted uncertainty about Trevor Lawrence's consistency.
Sheil ranked the Chiefs at 10 due to Patrick Mahomes' high floor, despite concerns about the supporting cast, Mahomes' age and injury, and a lack of offensive firepower additions.
The main concern is the transition to Davis Webb as play caller, with Sean Payton's potential interference, though the team's strong offensive line and additions like Jalen Waddle could make them a top 10 offense.
Sheil ranked the Packers at 9 because of Matt LaFleur's consistent top-10 offenses and Jordan Love's ability to avoid negative plays, despite questions about the offensive line and Love's consistency.
Sheil ranked the Lions at number 4, while Deontay had them at 8; both agree they're top 10, but differ on the impact of new coordinator Drew Petzing and Jared Goff's ceiling.
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