QB Rankings and Playcallers with Jourdan Rodrigue

there isn't that much news. We've got Jordan Rodrieg who's coming in from the Athletic very shortly, who's going to talk about her great series, Play Callers, great podcast series. But she's got to stick around for our QB ranking. So this is a big show. Like the two QB index writers of the last two years, we've come together and we've combined and made a QB rankings, and then Jordan will just like tell us.

on all your podcasts distributors. The play callers welcome Jordan.

the perfect time to go quiet. We've been around mark, but the Jets get an important piece of business done before training came.

any offseason. And so players talked about last training camp like Quinn Williams just looks different, he feels different, and you could feel something in the works and that's exactly what happened. And you know it was mid season when Baldy, our guy Baldi basically said, this is the most terror reaking player in the league right now. And Jordan, you know, when you have a dominant defensive tackle, it can change everything.

this actually happen. But with Robert Sala, especially the way that he uses Quinn Williams and the impact that he has as an interior defender, especially within that scheme where you have to be able to do multiple things. You have to be able to play more than just single gap assignments, especially for what they're now doing with the coverages behind this front, in that front seven. It's just a no brainer to me, and it's always been a no brainer. And like I harken back to how endearing

quinnin Williams kind of seems too. I mean, he's terrifying, but he seems a little you know that remember the sneeze and the bless you, thank you, you know that was such a wonderful moment, and where I think he just like locked into the hearts and minds of many, even outside of the fan base. And it's just to me,

it's just it's just a rock star move. And having an interior defender like that, especially, you know, with what makes quarterbacks the most uncomfortable these days, I think it's absolutely crucial.

Quentinn Williams is even better player. It's basically the exact same contract that Jeffrey Simmons got. We haven't seen all the details, but it looks almost identical in terms of the guarantees, the money. It's great. I love that, Jordan. This is one of the biggest weeks of your career. I'm not overstating that, right. I mean, you drop this

major thing. You've gotta be frazzled. You've done a lot of media stuff and then we're just throwing you into and we're like, no, we're not going to talk about your show and just have a quick segment on that and have you on for that. We're gonna drop you into like seventy five minutes of deep defensive tackle with the Jets.

not just disguised cover three, but like actual quarters. Then he has played or deployed for his entire coaching career, and when you do that, the responsibilities of the defensive lineman, particularly some of those interior guys, changes the onus shifts on them to be able to do more things and disrupt in more types of ways. And again that's why I think this is part of why this is so crucial. It's a home run signing to me, and I think he's just a special, special player.

we feel about him. But it is also an isolated instance of the team openly not wanting to do it and and they do have you know, full editing control over it. And I just wonder what that means for the project itself, because like, do you do hard boil Aaron Rodgers into some of those Assisians because you've got this great chemistry going with a guy who can be a little bit difficult. Does he want stuff going out there on HBO that he's not approving of?

why that would feel intrusive. But at the same time, like I did think about when I saw this, you know, the Jets organization, their their media team and like their sort of PR media hybrid team, their their content team.

They have like a full on studio there, and so I think there are gonna be a lot of people that take a little bit of that pressure off of the players, or it would I would assume so because of the way that they run that operation and the experience they have creating that type of content, just more so on a team level versus a national level. So I feel I feel like there's ways to help, you know, almost like protect from their being distractions or that feeling of intrusiveness.

just let it fly. And some others you can tell are pretty tightly controlled. And we can say the Jets didn't want it. I mean, the Jets are Woody Johnson, their owner, and I believe he wanted it, and so that's the Jets. I don't this the whole thing of like the the NFL films is making them do it. No, the Jets. At some level the Jets had to agree to do it, and that's ownership. And I buy that that Robert Salad doesn't want to do it, and the coach.

Some of the players, I'm sure have mixed feelings or whatever. It's a lot of extra attention, But I.

Knocks podcast. Do we know that yet? I guess it should?

court in a civil case. The NFL can now move forward with ever any punishment they want. Seems like this was the best possible outcome for Kamara. And then I'm also going to throw out there that Saquon Barkley is coming close to this franchise tag deadline to sign long term contract, and ESPN's Diana Rassini mentioned week one could be in jeopardy. Why why don't you pick one of those two, Jordan and tell me what you think.

teams will defend you. But this is kind of part of it, right, I mean, I I think we're just going to keep Some of these tensions will spill out a little bit, or I don't even want to call it tensions, because this is just a part of the negotiation process. You'll hear little drips and drabs start to leak out from from really well established and trustworthy you know, national reporters, and you know I don't. For me, I'm not obviously on the ground reporting on this sitchuation, but

I think it is a complicated conversation. You think about where running back contracts are right now, where the quote unquote life span of a career of a running back

is right now. But you also think, hey, if you think your team might be better than you maybe than they were, or you think your team might be ready to try to really make something happen here or start to put something together, and Brian Dable really coach that group up last year, and if you think there's a chance you could keep that momentum rolling, Oftentimes organizations will

maybe forsake some of that market logic. We saw the Rams do it like over and over and over again in their quest to win a Super Bowl, and sometimes the market logic gets a little bit forsaken if it means, you know, you think you can keep that forward progress rolling and really build a team that can at least contend in the postseason.

I mean, there's only two running backs right now making over fourteen million a year, and one of them is Christian McCaffrey, who is an absolute difference maker when he's available, and the other is Alvin Kamara, who probably will not be available for a big chunk of this to start the season because what happened with him is on video, and I do wonder I'm eyeing to see how long with the end of how they handle that, how long a suspension might be. I mean, this is someone they

knocked a group. He and his he and his cadre knocked a man unconscious and broke his like orbital bone, and it's on video, so I don't know. I mean, we've had we've had a string of suspensions where in the past couple years where you just don't know what the NFL is gonna do. I would I would guess it would be something like six weeks. Greg, I don't know what you'd think, but it just seems like when there's a video attached, it grows in severity. It's hard

to shake those images. And I don't know it's big for the Saints. They're lucky that he's not the only running back that could start.

Not a huge surprise, but there was something like there were hundreds of thousands of people waiting to buy those tickets and it's sold out in an instant. I am really excited for those Germany games. This here. Don't know if there's a chance we would be going. I hope we could go to either London or Germany. We'd be happy to do either. It would be great. Germany is

my dad's homeland. But we'll see. And then finally, Mark, you wanted this story, and I love it when you dive deep into the news, the important stuff and want something mentioned. So I will let you take the floor on the huge news that Sam Darnald was living in

George Kittle's poolhouse. I believe for a short time when he when he joined the team and started OTAs and I believe he was on pardon my take, and talked about that there was some supernatural energies he was he was picking up in that poolhouse.

the eerie sense of like an apparition. And I don't know, like I've always viewed Sam Darnald as a perfectly nice personality, but a rather milk toast persona. This is a new fold to his experiences in life, and like, you know, they tried to press them to make it a little more wacky than it was. But my whole thing is like, where is George Kittle on this? Like you've got a pool house that apparently has a ghost in it. I just like to dig in more on the whole situation.

the team. Here's the ghost in my pool house.

of us, like our bodies completely froze. We couldn't move for like minutes, and then finally like wet snapped out of it and everyone ran out of there, and we couldn't talk about it for like the next day or two. So something when I read this thing from Sam Darnald's, like, I have one experience in my life where I was like I can't explain what happened. It was like frozen panic and it wasn't like just me, It was like three or four of us were left totally inoperable for like the next hour or so.

a limited series podcast. It's fantastic. It's about the Shanahan coaching tree and their influence on the NFL. But before we talk about it for a few minutes, let's listen to a little clip here from Kyle himself.

to be a receiver. I remember when I transferred to Texas and we had finals during our bull practices. Were all supposed to miss the practice because we had a final, and I was the only one who was redshirting because I transferred there. I've been waiting for this scrimmage and I had a final on that day and I just showed up to the scrimmage and everyone was trying to

make me leave, saying I'll fail the class. And I had to argue with everyone there, like, I know I'll fail the class, and that's a decision I'm making right now. I'm not missing this practice. And even though I had like I had a c in there, all it turned into en f because I would not miss the practice. And it wasn't that I was trying to show the coaches how committed I was. It was just how one track my mind was.

did you pick these four? Why are these because they were all together in Houston, some of them in Atlanta and then also in Washington, and they really the way that they worked with each other and also fought with each other under Kyle, who was all of their boss at one point, which shapes the dynamic. Henceforth, then it formed these evolutions and these ripple effects that sort of moving and shaping the league and changing faster and faster

and faster. And that was really one of my main takeaways is after you know, I left the interview, I was like, Okay, I get it in terms of why they're all of the dynamics were what they were, and how they debated with each other and how they argued, but in a way that created ideas, and that functional competition that sometimes could veer toward the dysfunctional, that really helped bring forth these ideas because everyone was competing to get call on his call sheet, whether it was you know,

Matt Lafleur, Mike mc Mike, me Daniel or Sean McVay. The entire goal was to get calls on his call sheet, which when you start the foundation of your friendship or your you know, colleague relationship or you know that that way, that automatically sets quite a tone for whatever happens to you as a group moving forward.

a play from scratch. You had a great example that if like someone went to Kyle Shanahan with an idea, it was like he would mercilessly take you through the task of trying to undo that play concept like this is why it won't work. You tell me why it will work. And it's just like he seems like I thought your obsession with this project helped explain their obsession. Like there was just this drum beat throughout it, and

I do becous it was just like you. I mean, I could tell that you enjoyed talking to them and in reverse too. There's not a lot of football projects out there that really remind me of this. I mean, I think it's the perfect blend of like I could tell you, you know, you put you of a lot of what it must I would wonder. I want to know how you wrote sort of the script around the interviews

because so much work went into that. I binged it today and like all these different voices who had shared experiences found a way to tell new stories every time, and like, I will just give one little thing that I could not that I found gripping because we all remember RG three's rookie year and you went through with Kyle and others like the and Mike McDaniel's obviously just incredible. You find out that he's not just good at the mic, like there's just this nature tone where like they all

these cons confidence about what they do. But with RG three that they sat him down before his rookie year, and Greg, you'll remember this that like we went into week one having no idea what that offense is going to look.

cap you know, get defenses bewildered from the start. It's like we're just going to implement the pistol, which now it's like all these teams started to do that after, but it's like they completely showed up as a terrorizing mystery from week one and it was like that's the beauty of Kyle Shanahan and his staff, and they were so competitive about it.

they said. But the reporting process, I mean, it's it's a year of like deep dive reporting and research, and it's not just talking to the voices that you hear, which you know are of course these four, but also Robert Salah, Brandon Staley, people, personnel, people, across the league, Rgi Thie, Andrew Whitworth, you know, coaches and analysts, and Steve Weish is great in it also, And you know

it's not it wasn't just that. It's also talking to people around these people and talking to people on background, and hours and hours and hours of study because I had this theory and this hypothesis that because I'd seen Uh being a beat writer, I think afforded me this gift of looking at this story in a specific way and I being on the ground watching all of these things the Rams have done for the last you know,

five six seven years. There were certain moments in their timeline where there were inflection points and very clear pivots. It was like the head coach was showing his work, not just of what he was trying to do and how he was trying to evolve his own system forward. But I'm not talking about like the moves even. I'm talking about schematically out there on the field watching at practice, and you could see those inflection points and they were they were. It was also as his identity as a

coach was forming. And the series goes into that with all of these guys. Because I went into this with this theory that I approached them all with, over many, many many requests to actually, hey, can we sit down and talk. You know, I approach them with this theory like I think that you are like living your football life, and you are living your football for a lot in real time. And I think what is different about this generation of coaches specifically, is they are showing their work.

They are showing the why of what they're doing, because it is so twisted up with who they are as people, for better and for worse, that they can't help but resemble their offenses and vice versa. You see it in every single one of these coaches, and that's something that I think makes them really unique. And it also it exposes them in a way where and I don't say that in a negative way. I mean like it just they're right, They're right there out in front of you.

And I think that was part of the reason why they were so comfortable talking about some of these things that you won't hear them normally talk about, or any coach normally talk about, because they understand that this is this is what the bargain that they have made in order to constantly be on the front of those innovation loops that they try to create and then outrun their own creations.

obsessiveness differed from each and everyone. Like after I got done talking to Kyle Shanahan, I first of all thought maybe, like I might be murdered, like midted, but like I get like the answer, he's really really intense, but it but that's but it's but then you think, like you know, sometimes you'd sit with Mike week Daniel and you'd be just like blown away by why is this guy being so candid, Like why is he so comfortable talking about

where he gets ideas? He I've never heard a coach that early in his career, first second year third year, fifth year head coaches are so like careful with how they talk about football to not give anything away because they always they feel like they're on the back foot because they have to catch up to everybody else. And Mike instead was like, let me tell you the time I dreamed up a left handed fake boot for Tua, like and it went eighty yards for a touchdown, like sick man, cool, I'll take it.

feel where it's like, you know he is. There's a darkness to what coaches do, especially coaches who are at the forefront of new ideas and trying to be the ones who are competing to not just win games, but to have a legacy that says they helped shape the game, which is where I think, even maybe more so than wins and losses. What a lot of these coaches want is to have been known in their careers as somebody

who impacted the sports timeline. And there's a darkness to that because, like I said, you're creating these loops of innovation, and the second you created one answer to one problem, it will never work the same again. You are hunted

by everyone else. You're constantly sprinting trying to outrun the thing that you created, and if it catches you, you might lose years, like we saw with Sean McVay and the Patriots, and like you might and Mike McDaniel says it it took years off his life, like you know, like it's there's a darkness to it. But then you have these certain people. You have people who are grappling with it, which Sean McVay very much did through twenty twenty two, grappling with what that means and what a

life of that will mean. You have people who are very comfortable living there. And I know everyone makes the joke about Kyle Shanahan's like dark quotes about we don't know if anyone's going to be alive, you know, from what was it a couple of years ago, but there was this sense.

the one. And that's why I started joking He's the long haul trucker, because it felt like he was the one who was so comfortable existing in that space where you're constantly at conflict with yourself and you're constantly being strained like a rubber band. You want to test it and see how far you can stretch it before it snaps, even though you know it will hurt like hell if

it snaps. And I think that that's something that was super interesting and a theory I had had because you know, it just seemed like that was how it would be. And then going and doing like sort of an archaeological dig and trying to figure all of this out, like I said, through a year of reporting it just was. It ended up being an incredibly fascinating experience.

the NFL. And I actually think Kyle and this whole generation almost should be taken into consideration with Mike because if you're around for the Mike Shannan days, even in the J. Cutler era, even in the post l Way era, like he was the one that was ahead of the rest of the league in terms of the schemes, and except there his his guys weren't having that success, but everyone knew he was the guy, and there there was a darkness to him in a serious way, and I

think it, I think it messed up his career. There's a great book called A Few Seconds of Panic, which is weirdly one of the best football books I've ever read by this this guy who like sat in as a kicker in the Broncos training camp. But I recommend people read it, and it gave a great behind the scenes of like how tortured sort of Shanahan was. And and I just think Kyle like learned everything from his

father like that and then continued it. And it's just like a dynasty in terms of how they've changed the NFL. But Kyle, I think something he did better was treat the people underneath him better and gave them agency. And you see that, and you see that in the confidence of McDaniel, who's who's earlier in his career and maybe not doesn't have the bruises that that Kyle has. And

it's awesome. Everyone should check it out. I sometimes think, like I loved those old books by Paul Zimmerman, The Thinking Guide Man to Football, and those are all a lot of that is about scheme, and it's about the evolution of scheme, and it has coaches speaking very openly about scheme and players and you really learn a lot. And that was the type of stuff I really loved. I know Chris Westling, our great friend, really loved those

books because it's how we learned about football. And sometimes you think, man, I wish those types of books were being written now, and and your project kind of get me thinking like this is the new version of that, Like maybe those books aren't exactly being written now. I hope I hope they will be. You'd read a great one, Jordan, But like this podcast series is a version of that, of sort of moving the medium forward.

out there like this. And so it's also the perfect time of year as we're getting back if you're a fan, that's you know, coming off your vacations, like you're getting back into this, Like it's not a refresher, it's just like a super deep I've into an unexpected lake of knowledge, and like it's the right time to do that.

as they're fascinating stories. But I also put them in there because it illustrates what happens when you have access from a young age in your coaching career for a variety of reasons, or what can happen when you are Kyle Shanahan and you are sitting in you know, Tampa Bay and you're lurking in defensive meetings some of the

greatest defensive coaches that have ever walked among us. And then also you're logging plays, you know, on one of those giant old square computers, right, and you're logging plays out of the NFL's largest playbook at that time that nobody has access to because the Internet isn't the internet we know today, and you know, PDFs don't exist of this thing, and you know, people aren't going out and

clinicing it and things like that. And so you see these examples, and then he's training other coaches, training you know, Sean McVay, he's training Matt lafleur, he's training Mike McDaniel in what those ideas are and what that knowledge is.

And so one of the things that I really wanted to do was show that while also reminding people that you know, not everybody has access to those ideas, and you know, this is this is a project where I wanted people to feel like they were being let in, that they could see and hear and feel what people in these positions are talking about as football changes, as football evolves, as ideas happen, because when more people have access to those ideas, they turn those into opportunities, they

turn those into change. And I think that that is something that I really wanted people to feel, was like, you aren't on the outside looking in with this project. You are You're sitting in the chair with me. You are right there with me listening to some truly unhinged rants at times, but also some really really smart, really interesting,

really really cool football stuff. How it happens, how it's made, how it works, why it works, and how it shapes people, and also how it shapes the identity of the sport that we love.

years as well. And I thought, you know, before we get training camps started, we're a little less than two weeks away some of those Hall of Fame teams I think show up next week. Let's get these QB rankings down from the guys who know me and you. We're the experts. So we we put our rankings together, Jordan, and we combined them. But it turns out we didn't really need to because Mark and I were more similar on these rankings and we didn't know what each other picked.

We're seeing this after the fact. We combined our rankings to make a one around the NFL official quarterback ranking entering the twenty three season, and it was shocking how few players we disagreed on, like twenty five plus of them twenty eight of them almost were within one or two spots. It is very strange there's only a couple we disagreed, but that's fine. That means that we were

in agreement on where everything's standing. I'm going to go back to front and I'm going to do it in tiers, so we don't, you know, have a two and a half hour show. So let's start from thirty two to twenty eight, I believe. And we did include rookies in our rankings. None of the rookies are right here, so these are kind of the guys who have been in the league. But we're not really feeling coming into the year. We had a tie in last with Colt McCoy in

Desmond Ridder. We had Sam Howell at thirtieth, we had Baker Mayfield at twenty ninth, and we had Jordan Love at twenty eighth. So those five teams, you're going into the season. I mean, Cardinals fans don't need to be told this, but the other ones might be a little disappointed that they're going into the season with about as low expectations at quarterback at a time when I feel like there's higher expectations in a deeper group of quarterbacks, Mark than ever who stuck out to you the most

out of that group. I mean, I think for me, it's just sort of a lot of incomplete, like we just don't know what Desmond Ridder is beyond a very small sample size.

So I'm kind of happy to see how close we were, but you know, got like last year justin fields, when Imember doing this in September, hovered at like thirty through thirty two for a big chunk of time and then completely grew into something else. And so I think these are just guys where it's like we've got some rookies coming up next, we just don't know, we don't know,

and like that. But there's no evidence that it's like, wait a minute, Desmond Ridders blowing my mind from what I saw either, So you're down at the near bottom of the list.

was like he didn't make many bad decisions. That's pretty good. I mean, that's something, But he also didn't show you anything else that felt plus that like there was no other trait certainly wasn't his playmaking or his running his creativity that was that was almost a little disappointing. It's not his arm, it's not his accuracy. So I just look at the NFL now, it's like, not making a mistake isn't enough to be your greatest asset, And maybe he'll be there mentally where he can get It just

feels like the floor is low. So I had him, did I have him dead last going into the year, because I think I mean, I had Colt McCoy last, but I had Ridder next, because at least with Howell and Baker, I guess who I had thirtieth. You had him twenty eighth. You had him a little higher than me. Like, I just feel like there's a little more of a ceiling there where Ridder's hoping I feel like to be early career Alex Smith.

He's got his own fingerprints on it in terms of various other people that he's worked on, of the system, and and a lot of what sometimes you see and Kyle Shanahan does this a little bit too, But sometimes you see this gravitation of offensive coaches who try to make their run game their quarterback quote unquote, or make the run game the thing that is most going to threaten or make the run games the thing that has the most multiplicity in it, and have somebody who can, you know, again,

not set them back, not make mistakes. And you find sometimes in the earliest iterations of what this is, you find sometimes that that can raise the floor of the entire team. So when you know Obviously I didn't participate in this exercise, but I almost wonder how much like Fit and Roll plays into this because normally we think about quarterbacks, we think, no, they have to be judged in a vacuum, because they are the guy, so they

should be judge in a vacuum. And I think in most cases that is true, but in some cases, with some offenses, in some systems, I almost wonder if part to whole is a little bit more of a rational way to judge. And then I also agree a lot of incompletes. Right. I wish it was like we love lists, right,

because we're the NFL is an ordered sport. We like numbers and you know, wins and losses and you know, and we also like listing things, especially this time you're but I think, like I wish it was like sixteen and then a big pool, you know, yeah, and this listen.

he makes crazy decisions too. So I am interested, Jordan, Like you know, with Lafloor, it's a great It's a big moment for Lafloor because it's a totally different quarterback. It's a totally different test, and it's a test of Lafloor, like what he's really got Can he really coach like a a a fourth year player and love but who as actually older than almost everyone he's throwing to.

a new era because you could really feel it. I can't really describe what it felt like, but everyone was searching, seeking, So you know, Matt Lafleur is really open in one of the episodes about what teams he's watching, like he flat out talks about it and where he's getting ideas from and who he's like wanting to potentially steal plays from, like they all, you know, everyone in the league does,

but specifically how he's thinking about that. And I think there's there's a lot that has been said and discussed about the compromise that went into running an offense with you know, Aaron Rodgers Hall of Fame quarterback and what that meant, and especially someone who was very particular about the things that he wanted to do versus what the system asked for and how to change those types of things.

And but I think even with a quarterback with way less experience and you know is who is so much less of a known talent, it's Jordan love Is, there's still compromise that comes into it. You're still trying to help your quarterback feel successful in the system that you are running and in the plays that he is calling.

And so that's just going to look different. But it's not like compromise goes away, because I think that's something that Matt Lafleur really learned, not just with Aaron Rodgers, but he talks about it with Matt Ryan too, of how you learn how to work with what feels right and feels comfortable for the guy that you have throwing the ball and calling you know, the play to the

other ten people in the huddle. Where player in specifically and what Matt Laflora does, player often wins over scheme, whereas in a lot of other iterations of this offense, scheme always just dominates player or had in the past. And so I think that's what I'm most interested in, and I think it's like it's going to be an

evolving thing. I don't know if we could say what the offense would look like right now, because you know, mattla Fleur got to La with Sean McVay, and they thought they were going to come out and run all twelve personnel in twenty seventeen, and then they got through half of OTA's and decided they didn't like that plan, and then they scrapped it and then changed the entire plan around to as that hugely high deployment of eleven

personnel that we see today. So I think he can pull from his experiences and his quote unquote is roots in that regard, because this is going to be something that does change as the season goes, and even as training camp goes, they're probably going to just try stuff at the time.

ranked him twenty seventh. I had him twenty second. I at least saw like I could see Russell Wilson. And it's not just because Sean Payton's air, but I can see Russell Wilson being closer to league average this year. And so this is where we just stuck the rookies because we kind of didn't know where to put him. We had him in order Bryce Young we had twenty fourth overall, Wilson is twenty fifth, Anthony Richardson is twenty sixth,

and Stroud is twenty seventh. We pretty much had the same order in terms of rookies, Young, Richardson, Stroud in terms of this year. And that's what we're judging on, by the way, is this year. We're not talking about five years, I'm not talking about three years. We're just like, who would you want this year? And Russell Wilson stuck with a bunch of rookies. It's a pretty big change.

We'll make it a mini group. We'll go Derek Carr at nineteen. We got Jimmy G at twenty Mac Jones, who I think Mark, maybe my enthusiasm for has rubbed off on you or vice versa. I don't know. I think collectively we probably have him higher in this exercise than most would. Kenny Pickett's at twenty two, and then Brock Purdy is at twenty three. Let's start with Purdy because that actually was a player. I believe we disagreed on the most. You had him nineteenth, so you had

a much closer Adulton line. I had him twenty seventh. I tried to take him out of that system, and I just tried to think of these other guys, Mac Jones for instance, Derek Carr for instance, some of these guys Jimmy G. Which maybe is an awkward comparison because you could say pretty outplayed Jimmy G last year, and think like if I put him in San Francisco's system, Like who do I want more and Purty maybe I'm just a hater lost out on that exercise for me to most of these guys. So I had a much

lower you had him nineteenth. I'm fine with him landing where he did, which was twenty third, but he's at the bottom of this tier. That's with car Jimmy g Mac Pickett and Purty.

like Natalie Portman into a functional signal caller. So it's like, I really, I really like think that we need to see more from Brock Purty, and we need to see more from defenses that have learned a lot about him over the course of an offseason. But show me the game where he didn't thrive. I mean, if that's who he is, it's like I kind of don't really care because I don't have any evidence that he is a

much lesser quarterback. I mean, he's not going to destroy you with his athleticism, but talk about the great decision making. I mean I hear I listen to how his own teammates talk about him, and that kind of sold me too, because it's like this, some of these guys, they come

out of nowhere. That's just the way it is, and like it can be system, but they also you know, he came out of the books like as one of the smartest college quarterbacks of his class, and it showed in the fire in the for a team that like could have fallen off a cliff, we didn't know what would happen, and he completely shown that.

Josh McDaniels, and people give him credit. I don't. I always thought he was slightly awkward fit for Kyle Shanahan, Like looking at those two and what you know, Jordan, Jimmy G, Purty in the rest of this group, but especially you know, coming off with what you just learned in San Francisco, Like, how do you think they look at those two guys? How do you think they look at Purty? Like would they think we have them way too low? Well?

We're going to kind of see like if they can differentiate themselves and how they can and what specifically that collaboration will will look like with their coordinators and with you know, the people that are they're designing these systems with. Because you know, I think people knock the quote unquote the system quarterback, and I don't think that's always fair because I always feel like you should be designing an offense that supports your quarterback and makes them feel comfortable

and free. Maybe you don't want to get carried away with like telling him exactly where to throw it, which totally blows up in your face when defenses rotate after the snap, but like, what you probably want to do is make sure that quarterback can play fast and free and understands what he's seeing and can feel that flow and get into that rhythm. And so you know, I just think like, it's okay if you're a system quarterback.

seasons where he was not top twenty ish. I don't totally trust him, and that's why he's there. Let's have a mini tier which is right below the Dalton line, which would be Tannehill goff In, Daniel Jones. They are sixteen seventeen in eighteen, we are the last men standing on Tannehill island mark to have him that high. I think I heard Mina Kimes' podcast on QBS and they I mean, I can't even remember. I don't even know if they got to Tannehill like he was buried, like

he was buried there. But we I still like to think of him, and I think he's a system quarterback. If you put him on a lot of teams, I think he would upgrade a lot of situations. And so for this year and this year only, I still think he has something left in him, and I gave him just an edge over goff In Daniel Jones.

And like, do I trust Jared Goff based on the career wide sample size, but like players develop and grow, and like he he he was really just pretty immaculate for quarters at a time, And I think that was one where it's like I had to separate what I think of him from what is actually happening on tape right here. So I think it's from where he sits. There could be some Lions fans to say, you guys are ignoring too much about his most recent body of work.

And you know, nineteen twenty were regression years again for

a lot of different reasons. And then you know, having consistency, stability, getting confidence, developing, growing, becoming an older adult, like all of those things took place and are taking place in Detroit and also working with somebody who you know, one thing I don't think we talk enough about is the rotating, constant rotating of offensive coordinators that Jared had in LA because that's really the person you're working with the most, and that's changing all the time, and so are the

expectations of the head coach as you get closer and closer to contention. And it's not a knock on anybody, it's just the paces didn't match at a certain point. That's okay, right, that's all right. But in Detroit, his pace of how he's developing is also matching the growth of the team and the further in contention of the team and the threat that the team presents against the

rest of the league. It's they're growing at the same time, and it's there's a continuity there that I think is really really important and really valuable with Ben Johnson, you know, I hear great things about Ben Johnson, obviously, and I do think that this year, this coming year will tell us what we do need to know about Jared Goff, probably more so than any other year previously or any other assumption we have made or have not made about Jared Goff previously.

so that always colors it for me. We saw like we saw him at his very best. That was when he was absolutely peaking, and his his best is like really good and really really like talented in terms of his arm, and he reminds me of Cousin's in that way. Cousins like is as streaky a quarterback as there's been in the QB Index over the last decade, where he'll play top five for about six straight weeks and then he'll stink for about six straight weeks and you don't

know what you have. And Goff seasons have been a little bit like that. But I think he'll end up higher. Okay, now let's go ahead.

is his ceiling? Can he ever rereach his ceiling? And I don't think there's enough conversation, whether it was internally or externally, about how can we raise his floor instead of what can we rereach or rEFInd or rediscover what a ceiling could be. Raising the floor actually became so

much more important in his overall development and trajectory. And I think that's what Detroit did in terms of reframing that entire conversation is Hey, let's stop worrying so much about the ceiling right now, because we're not a team that needs to worry about the ceiling right now, which again it's a fair worry in other buildings that were

built contenders. But Detroit sits there and says, let's think about how we can actually raise the floor of what he's capable of doing, and the ceiling takes care of itself at that point.

just how the NFL is gone. Like there used to be twelve Jared goffs Now he might be the thirty second most athletics starting quarterback. Just you know something to consider that that does hurt your ceiling. So the next group has some incredible athletes.

last decade. He actually is, weirdly one of the most consistent quarterbacks, like that he had his twenty twenty one. He's had other pop up seasons, but for the most part, that's like where he sets in. So even though he's hurt or he was hurt, I just like was like, I'm not comfortable putting him any higher than that. But it seems weird because if he's healthy, I would expect him to be in that area.

I'm sure you know you see some of this too, But it's like the Stafford era is in a strange point right now because the team has these stars and then this got probably the most amount of young players league wide, and it's like, where is Stafford in this? And I've always just wondered, like, if the trade deadline comes up and someone desperately needed a quarterback, do the Rams move on from him?

I think it was very apt the terminology used to describe kind of like what the rams are doing on defense for the sake of keeping an offense that can maybe shoot a bunch of three point shots and then just you know, kind of shield their eyes if something, you know, things go poorly on defense, you just want

to try to outscore. There are going to be some bumps along the way, obviously with that group, but in practice, you have to install concepts and you're trying to build confidence and develop a very young group, and so you're encouraging defensive players to make plays and a lot of times it's happening against you know, you're especially encouraging the younger guys on the second and third teams to try to really make plays. And yeah, it's spring workouts, so

you don't really know anything. But there are times when there will be a sequence of plays that the DBS have made against like the second team or the third team, and Matthew Stafford will just sort of very calmly walk on the field, no expression on his face and just deal three four touchdowns in a row and red zone

drills and then just walk off the field. And like that was what we saw a lot of in twenty twenty one, that sort of like cool, casual like murder vibes that like we didn't we saw that, and then you started seeing that over and over and over again as the Rams went on the run that they did and to me, so to me, I'm like, okay, it's

I don't know specifically what will happen. You have to be concerned obviously at his age, with his history about injuries, with any quarterback, especially the one with ones with his injury history as he's had, and like he's an incomplete grade from last season as well. But at the same time, like it's he's more Staffordy right now than I felt he's been for quite some time. And it's palpable on the field.

I would say talent player who came back in last year was truly terrible, didn't get better, didn't look like a fit in that offense, and then measure that with like, okay, the time off who knows, so he we're just putting him somewhere in between fields is kind of like Jalen Hurts, I think going into last year, where like the running floor is just so high. He hasn't shown as much as Hurts though going into year three as a passer, So we'll see. We don't have him too high the

next tier. Let's just put Gino into a in a tier. What a world that Gino and Tua That Gino is tenth on this list and I didn't even have to like cheat to get him higher. We're entering a season where Gino is looked at as the tenth best quarterback in the league. I had too higher.

have a lot of doubts into him. My only doubt is like, okay, where can he keep growing? And can Gino keep growing too, because look, he hasn't played a lot of football, but man, he throws a pretty ball. Let's go to the next group. We're getting juicy here. Let's go to the back half of the top ten. It's Lamar at six, it's Aaron Rodgers at seven. We were in perfect agreement. We each had him at seven.

It's Trevor Lawrence at eight. It's maybe a slightly lower on our list, I would guess that than some others. And then we have Dak Prescott at nine. Jordan again, let's let's say it again, Lamar six, Rogers seven, Lawrence eight, Prescott nine. Like, which which one of those is most surprising? Or would you have the most problem with They want you to get me.

And I think for me, it's like, that's one of the things I'm most curious about overall in the subject of quarterbacks is how can you take that next step. You know, locally and in terms of the team, they all know what or they believe they know what he is capable of. But how do you then take that into Okay, every single year, there's not even a question. You're not even debating. This guy is star is transcending and rising into that league wide face that you kind

of really want your franchise quarterback to be. And certainly somebody who's perennial in the top ten, if not the top six, you really want somebody to consistently put that body of work. And it's hard to judge him because

you know, the last year happened. You know, I don't know what the hell you're going to do with that situation with Meyer if you're any any player a little on the quarterback, But I would like to see who he can become, what he can become, because you know, I've not been around a lot of prospects who's the expectation was quite as high as it was around him when he was when he was playing college football.

I have no problem thinking that by the end of the season he could be locked in as a top five type quarterback because I mean, it's you're talking about a different type of player, because what do you do with Lamar Jackson and Aaron Rodgers is arguably you know, if you look at last year alone and what we've seen most recently, it wasn't as bad as some people thought.

just carried the team on his back. And he's six ft six, he's like the perfect size, like he's got there's no weakness to his game and it was essentially his rookie season. So I just I mean, this is the guy along with Fields, and it's like I don't know where we're going to be at the end of the season. It could be a lot higher than people would think.

I don't expect Aaron Rodgers to be an MVP again, but I really didn't think his play fell off that much. He needs protection, certainly, but I think that's true of you know, just about any quarterback. And I just didn't think his play fell off that much. And we've seen their highs, and you could say that about Jalen Hurts too, But Jalen Hurts, we've seen the progression year two to year three. He has at one extra year than Lawrence, and his highs were frankly just way higher than Lawrence's

and longer and more sustained. So I didn't think it was unfair. I think a lot of places actually would have Lawrence top five already. We do not have him there. We do have justin Herbert in the top five. I had him And this was probably our biggest disagreement in the top of the list. Where did I think I had him three? I had him over Burrow? You had him lower, And so it ended up averaging out that

Herbert ended up fifth overall. Burrow our Hurts is fourth, Burrow third, Josh Allen number two, and then we each had Patrick Mahomes number one. I'm looking for Herbert. You had him fifth, I had him third. You also had Josh Allen fourth. I had him second. So I don't know mark like out of those two, I'm a little surprised you had you had Josh Allen as low as fourth.

of his best games. It wasn't one of Trevor Lawrence's best games either for a while, but it was not one of Justin Herbert's best games. But I'm not worried about that at all. He's shown up in big spots, and so I feel like if I was just drafting a team, I would take Herbert even over Burrow slightly, even though Burrow like comes up with the answers. He's gonna be the guy that maybe is ranked slightly too low because he just figures things out throughout his career.

But physically I want Alan and Herbert ahead of him two three, and then I had Hurts five because those guys have just done it a little higher and more consistently.

you on Twitter for the next three days. And it's just like I just turned off Twitter for like nineteen straight months doing this exercise.

you can do design your plan. And so obviously we're either deciding we're going to grade quarterbacks in a vacuum where we're deciding we're gonna rank quarterbacks as as a part to the whole. Either way, if you're looking at at that from that lens, for me, it's like I see Jalen Hurts and I think to myself, like, there

is nothing. There is nothing that you There's no idea that you can't bring to the table in that building because of what he can do and how he presents as a threat in so many different ways, and the multiplicity that he presents not just as a running quarterback

but as a throwing quarterback. Like I'm saying specifically, within each category, there's multiplicity and how he can run the football and how he can execute the run game, and there's also multiplicity and how he can throw the football, and conceptually how diverse those types of things can get because of his abilities as a passer as well, and you get the sense from him that, like he does

believe anything is possible for him. So I think when you're like thinking about ideas and game planning things like that, you know, I don't I honestly, frank, you don't know where I would put him. He would certainly be top five for me, But I'm not doing the rankings you guys are. But I just think, like that's something that I always think about when I think about quarterbacks and

and how how you build things around them. Is like you have a blank canvas and every single marker on the planet in every que that has ever existed with a player like Jalen Hurts, and you can create things that people can't stop because they probably have not seen them before, or their throwbacks from an ancient era, or they're pulling from you know, because you just because you can, and why not If you can, you should, right.

you know, set up those stores. I guess that's why I would put Hurts below those guys though, because and it maybe as my old bias, because I think he's one of the greatest running quarterbacks of all time already, like he was, He's not gonna be able to run that much, but he's such a great runner and you can build a run game around him. He didn't show as consistency his ability to get through all of his reads, anticipation, touch, sort of timing on the mid level throws as consistently

as Burrow or Herbert or Alan. Yet he was getting there, and he did it in the Super Bowl, which is the biggest spot ever. But he didn't do it the two rounds before, and so those things are so consistent week to week that I guess I'm a little biased and still think like if he shows me that this year, then then he's even another life.

about a week to week. We're like, you know, and we don't even talk about Mahomes that much, but it's like Mahomes sometimes you just want to be like Patrick Mahomes of course number one, but there is a lot of nuance to his game. Last year, we're like, on an injured lower body. What he did with his feet I thought was the biggest growth, one of the biggest areas that he grew because he was just an absolute

damage machine on the Guslay the Super Bowl. Absolutely, And I mean but that's like it was like, He's hard to find an area like where did what's different about Patrick Mahomes this year and the year before. It's like that was one specific area, but Hurts his growth was in every single aspect of his game.