How much better are these NFC teams really?

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We chatted about the AFC spenders, me and Derek Klassen, and how much better those teams actually were after throwing around some money in free agency than they were at the beginning of the offseason. Today, we're going to hit the NFC. We talked about, I think, 12 teams today in the NFC and where their outlook has changed since free agency got going.

How much better are they really in the short term, in the long term after handing out some of these contracts? Same as with the AFC. If we do not talk about your team today, it's because we talked about them on the should you be freaking out? portion of the conversations last week because they haven't spent much money. But we hit a majority of the NFC today and also touched on some of the news. T. Higgins and Jamar Chase both signed extensions.

late last night into Monday. So we talked about that and also the new big money contract for Derek Stingley. So let's get to those conversations with Derek Klassen right now. Joining me this morning, it's my co-host here, Derek Classic. Derek, how you doing, man? I'm alright. It's a little early. It's early for you. I appreciate you rolling out of bed for me this morning. A little early on my side of the country, so if it takes me...

To get through a couple of the news items and then one or two teams to really feel like I'm warmed up, then bear with me. I want to apologize for our listening audience about how haphazard the scheduling has been over the last couple weeks. We've just tried to figure out the right way to do this and the right clip at which to do it based on when the news was rolling in. So in theory, typically just to give you. guys a little bit of a peek behind the curtain with the process in the offseason.

We've been doing the mailbags and recording them on Friday and just releasing them on Monday because we work 22 Sundays a year and we're trying to have families that don't hate us. Okay. So last week, it really didn't make sense to record something on Friday to have it be released Monday in the middle. of free agency. And so we wanted to wait until this morning to just maybe scoop up all the news that happened this weekend while hitting the NFC teams we didn't hit a week ago.

I'd like to say I feel like that process was completely justified based on how the last 12 hours went. The T. Higgins and Jamar Chase stuff comes overnight. We'll talk about that in a second. And then the Derek Stingley extension comes this morning. So if we were going to record this.

any time I think this was the right time to do it so I feel very justified in my planning here yeah I think having recorded on Friday and then push it out now and people listening to a podcast where there's nothing about Hundreds of millions of dollars being spent on some of the best young players in the league would have been probably a bad decision.

So let's start talking about that right here. Let's talk about the Bengals receiver contracts handed out. It always seemed like we were moving to this conclusion based on how the offseason was going and just based on the...

I'll say the tenor around the discussions with T. Higgins. You know, as soon as Joe Burrow became very emphatic about wanting him back in press conferences near the end of the year, it really did seem like we were probably trending in this direction. And then he's tagged. But it was always under the guise of, hey, we think we're going to get something long term.

done here they do with t higgins and they also do with jamar chase about a week after miles garrett became the highest paid non-quarterback in the nfl combined in terms of apy these deals will cost about 68 $8.5 million per season for the Cincinnati Bengals. There are a lot of layers to get to here, but when you saw that news come down, when you saw the initial numbers associated with those deals, what was your first reaction either last night or this morning?

I just I'm not going to be one of the people that gives them any credit for getting this done. This all should have been done earlier. These are like this was the foundation of your team. Jamar Chase, you could have paid him last year. And then he went out and went. and won the triple crown the price is going up when a guy does something like that like it just so to me it's none of this really made sense in terms of the timing i do think in terms of like

a team building idea. It made sense to keep these guys. It's just, again, I would have done this a year later. I will maybe start to shift and give them a little bit of credit. If they can find a way to keep Trey Hendrickson, which it seemed like there was some reporting this morning that they are trying to make that happen. It's just to me, until I see that actually come together, I'm just like, I don't know, man.

There are a couple different ways to look at this. If you know you're going to keep a player, just pay him. Pay him whatever you can. It's Jamar Chase. If you know you're going to keep him. And Jamar Chase is that undeniably. Them not getting the Jamar Chase deal done.

last year when they could have had him for potentially $35.1 million instead of $40 million. That's a mistake on their part. That deal is coming with $112 million in guarantees. We'll see what the structure looks like, but I think they've obviously stepped outside of their preferred structure and handing out the chase. deal they would have to in order to give him this amount of money if you knew you were ultimately going to do this doing it a year ago would have been

It's the right thing to do. Same thing with the Cowboys and their unwillingness to sign all these guys that they know they're going to keep, right? If you know that Mike Parsons is going to be on the team, sign him after year three and just let's keep rolling here. The T Higgins part is a little bit different because I don't think.

They were dead set on keeping T Higgins over the last couple of years. I think in their minds, there was a chance he was going to get too expensive with all the other guys they were having to pay for them to keep him in a vacuum.

That should not be the case. You should be able to keep all these guys. We've seen teams that are able to keep all these guys. The Eagles are a perfect example. The Eagles have a top-of-market quarterback contract that's structured very differently than this, which we can talk about if you want to. Two guys that are the top of the market receiver-wise.

Devontae Smith, when he signed his deal in, I think it was April 2024, it was $25 million a year. That was a reset of the number two wide receiver contract market. Then Jalen Waddell topped it. But they also have A.J. Brown at the top of the wide receiver market. And they paid a lot of other guys. across that roster. They can do it because of the way that they move money around. The question for the Bengals is going to become

how much of this is a signal that they're willing to step outside of themselves in terms of process. It was openly reported at the end of this deal, I think on purpose, that T. Higgins has guarantees into the second year of his contract, which is not normal for the Bengals. So if they're willing to pull some levers, they typically aren't. For example, let's say going into 2026, they look at Joe Burrow's $25 million base salary and say, hey, we convert that.

It's another $20 million in cap space this year if we want to work with it. So if we have Trey and T and Jamar and Joe on the same team, we could still sign a starter or two with that money. That's what a lot of other teams, the Bills.

The Chiefs, every once in a while, will do this with Mahomes, kind of off again, on again, depending on the year. That's what they will do in order to build around some of these big contracts. Whether the Bengals will do that ultimately becomes the biggest question, and that remains to be seen.

That's why I don't want to give them a whole lot of credit yet. Like, I do think it's, you got to take a step in the right direction, right? And then using the guarantees this way is a step in the right direction. But until... Next offseason, they really leverage it. And the one after that, they start to leverage it. Then I will maybe start to buy in that this is a different organization than it has been for.

basically my entire lifetime then i can start to get uh bought in a little bit with the t higgins thing i don't necessarily disagree

that he wasn't the caliber of player like Jamar Chase, where it's like, oh my God, you pay him automatically and don't think about it. I do think it was on the table. Okay, maybe they could have explored trading him and all this stuff. But I think with how good... burrow has been how good chase has been and how much burrow obviously liked having t higgins over there and i know some of the injury stuff complicates this

They should have just been okay being like, we will be the mid-2000s Colts, and we will just try to live this way and not really mess with them. It's a very, very good comparison. Who are your Cato Junes that you want to walk through the door at a discount here? or maybe like a Misfit Toys type player where you can afford them and you try to piece it together and get hot at the right time.

And inadvertently, they are having to do that now. That is going to be the route that they're going to have to take because they've spent very little money on the defense when we thought that they would spend a ton of money on the defense this offseason. That has not happened.

No, it's all tied up in these guys now. And again, this is fine. You're going to have years, yes, where you do have the 26th best defense and none of the little bets that you're making work out. Maybe you had a rough dry spell with the drafting, which they have recently.

But if you can keep the offense what it is and consistently be a top seven, eight unit with all these guys, you strike fire at the right time. And then the defense kind of has a Lou Anarumo 2021 year where you actually do, you know.

You get to the middle of the pack and that's enough to lift your elite offense. I think that's like. Sure, everyone wants the most well-rounded team, but I think there's something to be said about just leaning into how insane your strengths are. And I think the Bengals.

Took them a little bit longer than I think we would have liked, but I guess they finally arrived here. And it'll be the question of, are those strengths going to be as strong as you need them to be? Is this going to be a top three-ish offense whenever these guys are healthy and there's still things to do along the offensive line? And then the other remaining question for me is...

What are you going to be able to do to build around these contracts? Are you – because even doing this is them stepping outside of themselves. And I think that we've seen outward – I mean public –

comments from the quarterback and from people in the organization, Duke Tobin coming out and saying Jamar Chase would be the highest paid non-quarterback in the league. That's bad negotiating. Like if you're setting yourself up to cost yourself $5 million and doing that. But again, I don't think he really.

cared about that. I think they're trying to maybe push the people that can control the money to do things they wouldn't normally be willing to do. And so how far does that go in the next few years? That becomes the biggest question to me. Here, you're going to be handing out...

I don't know, just an astronomical amount of cash this year with all these extensions, especially if you pay Trey. You're not going to do that again next year. So are you willing to restructure Burroughs' contract? Are you willing to do X, Y, and Z that you haven't been able to in the past in order to build around some of this stuff in ways that... other teams can that you previously haven't been able to. That to me is going to become the biggest question with this. The last thing about T is...

That contract, it's an upgrade on the Waddle contract if you just look at the AAV of it. But because it came a year later and the cap has gone up, it's actually not that bad of a deal. for the type of player that T Higgins is. If you're just paying him at the top of the wide receiver to market, it's actually a lower percentage of the captain Waddles deal. And also if he really wanted to take this to the end, he could have gotten paid a lot more. If he ended up hitting free agency.

Think about what the free agent pool of receivers has looked like and think about how many cap dollars are out there. What would have happened with T. Higgins is exactly what would have happened with Milton Williams, where there would have been some team that just said.

Who cares? If our previous number was 24, but we need to go to 27 to get him, I think that would have happened with T where some team would have said, ideally, we'll pay him $28 million a year. But if we've got to go to 31 because we have no other options.

Let's do that. So if he wanted to play it all the way to the end, play on another tag, which would have given him 47 guaranteed over two years, which is a lot of money. He could have made a ton of money at the end of this process. But I think that there were some concessions that were being. made here on both sides, because I'm sure Joe said to him where I wouldn't be surprised if Joe said to him, listen.

I'm going out on a limb for you here. We cannot take this the farthest they can go. Like, are you willing to take X? And I think that's ultimately what happened. He could have gotten more on the open market if he would have been willing to kind of call their bluff through the end of 2025.

There, absolutely. He could have gotten more money. I mean, obviously it would have been next year. But again, the free agency receiver market the past few years has not had players quite like T. Higgins on the market. The other thing, too, is like. I understand all of these young guys want their money and that should ultimately be what is most at stake for these guys. But I can also see in T Higgins is mine being like,

I'm playing with the top five quarterback, man. I know what it can look like if I play with somebody else. I don't want to do that quite yet at this stage in my career. So I'll keep winning. I'll stick with the other number one receiver who's taking a little bit of attention away from me. All that jazz. Two big looming questions here.

Where's the offensive line help come from on the interior? Your cap numbers for T and Jamar will go down as a result of this, most likely. They were set to count 47 million against the cap combined. I assume it'll be half that maybe on year one of these new extensions.

have a little bit more money to play with. The problem is the pool of available interior offensive linemen has really shriveled up. Are you going to go with some stopgap options that use some of this cap space, but don't put yourself in a bad spot in 2026? That wouldn't surprise me. And then like you mentioned, the other. looming domino here is what happens with Trey Hendrickson. I understand looking at Trey and saying, listen, if we can get, and apparently by all accounts.

their asking price for him was pretty big. They wanted a huge haul draft-wise in return. My assumption is something around a first-round pick. So a first-round pick and the $35-ish million you'd have to pay Trey Hendrickson.

That is a decent amount of resources to divvy up here. But at the same time, if you lose Trey Hendrickson, what is that defense? You have so far to go on that side of the ball if he walks out the door, even if you get a haul for him. I assume now there may be a little bit of urgency. to get this done because they think, hey,

If our offense is top five and we can get a good enough defense because we have an elite edge rusher and we'll figure the rest out, that's our best path over the next couple years. I think that's reasonable. It just depends on how much they're willing to move the money around.

I think it probably like if they don't keep Trey Hendrickson at this stage, like they're going to have the worst defense in the league. They have no other obviously good players left on the defense, like even with some of the stuff that they've tried to do in free agency. So I don't know. I would.

If I were them, obviously you try to keep Trey Hendrickson. I've said it before, and I know they need reinforcements on defense. I would still spend the first round pick on offense. Like it's a really good offensive line class.

I would go move one of those tackles to guard. I would go take Tyler Booker, whoever you think it is, and then spend all of your day two picks and whatever money you have left over on the defense and try to get your Kato Junes or whoever it is that you think can fix this defense just a little bit.

I also think in talking to Paul Daner at the Combine, one of the organizational mindsets here is we have drafted so many of these guys on defense over the last couple of seasons. Can we get more out of a couple of them, right? Can we get more out of McKinley Jackson and Chris Jenkins and Miles Murphy? and some of the young drafted DBs than we have over the last couple of years.

That's a dangerous way to think. Like, ah, those guys will just get better. We don't have to be aggressive in adding talent. But I do think they might believe that a little bit more than the outside perception does based on what Paul was saying in Indy. The other bit of contract news this morning. Speaking of guys. getting done early in the benefits of it. $30 million a year for Derek Stingley. It's a...

The guarantee is maybe a little bit funky because he has two years left on his deal. So it's been reported as $89 million guaranteed. But looking at some of the contract guys and their responses, whether it's Jason Fitzgerald, some other people, it looks like it's $66-ish million in new guarantees. still $30 million a year based on where the cornerback market was. That's a $5 million.

markup on the JC Horn deal. I still think by the end of it, Sertan might have the strongest guarantee structure of all of these guys when the dust settles. But either way, this is a very strong signal that this is what the Texans think of Derek Stingley. This is what...

The rest of this is what JC Horn did to the cornerback market. And this is what just the overall cornerback market movement has looked like over the last year, a market that for the most part has been stagnant for a very, very long time to the point that.

Dominique Foxworth and I did an entire podcast about it in the winter, and we'll talk about some of those factors here. But when you saw the Stingley deal based on what the quarterback market movement had looked like recently, what was your thought?

In terms of player quality to dollar amount, there's nothing to say here. He's the second best cornerback in the league. He was incredible last year. He's like he's an unbelievable mover. He's incredibly smart. He's a way better tackler than I think he was even earlier in his career. And his ball skills are.

I know when he was coming out of college, people were like, oh, the short arms, all this stuff. But like he makes so much use of the tools that he has that none of that matters. I think the other thing to me is that this is like an underrated feel good story in the sense of.

When Stingley was coming out of college, it was obvious that he could be this level of talent. But the first couple years of his career in the NFL, some of the injuries kind of got in the way of what he could really be. And it was like, is he just going to be one of those players who... Almost like Jadavian Clowney, where it's like he's obviously an incredible talent, but injuries kind of hinder him.

and leave him like a tier or two below what he could have been. I think what we saw from Stingley last year, he looked fully healthy. He looked like the best version of what he could be. And for us to get that is just, we deserve it. Because like you said, the cornerback market had kind of... There just weren't that many young superstar corners in the league over the last handful of years. For him to fully emerge as that guy, it's awesome.

Yeah, I agree with you because there were flashes over the first couple of years, but it really took until the third year for him to put it all together to be this guy consistently. And he was healthy all season, which I think is a huge question. That was one of the biggest things coming out of LSU. We knew what he was capable of. You watch that freshman.

year tape and it was undeniable, but he was banged up a lot in college. And so what would he potentially be if it all came together? And I think this season we got the answer to that and he got rewarded as a result. It's funny to watch the movement in the market because I compare this to some. the tackle market, where the movement over the last year has been incremental. So you had Trent Williams at his number, Penny Stool gets a slight markup on that, and then...

Tristan Wurfs gets a slight markup on that. We were wondering if there was going to be a big jump somewhere along the way. And then at corner, it was interesting talking to people in the league about why that stagnation of the corner market had happened. I think there are certain environmental factors when it comes to positional value in that corner is a much more volatile position as part of a weak link.

system than something like receiver or even tackle is not a volatile position. It's a weak link system, but there's more consistency year to year at offensive tackle. And then obviously with defensive tackle. pass rusher. Those are not weak link spots and there is a lot of consistency from year to year. So I think just in terms of how we understand the position and how much value you're getting out of the position over a multi-year span, that was part of it.

But the number one thing that was said to me by the GMs I reached out to about this was, there haven't been guys worth paying. That's why the market hasn't changed that much. And so for Patrick Sertan to push it forward a little bit, and then this is going to sound cruel, but I'm going to make the comparison anyway. The JC Horn deal here feels a little bit like the Christian Kirk contract. Not that JC Horn is...

I think JC Horn is a better corner than Christian Kirk is a receiver. But I would almost guarantee you – and I think they have the same agent, which makes this sort of interesting. But if I'm Derek Stingley – And I see JC Horn get $25 million a year. My response is I'm worth $30 million a year. And that's kind of what happened with the Kirk deal is that he got 18 and Tyreek Hill was just like, excuse me. if he's worth 18 what am I worth and I think that's a fair stance here from Stingley

It kind of hypocritical in that Stingley has also been banged up in the same way that Horn has, but even at their best, I think that Stingley has been a considerably better player. So I think that also went a long way in accelerating this is that JC Horn up. Getting an upgrade on Patrick Sertan's deal probably affects the dynamics here as Stingley is walking into these negotiations.

It definitely does. Like even for both of them being injured a little bit, J.C. Horn's peak has been like pro bowler. Like you're very happy with what he could be. Stingley at his best is as good as Patrick Sertan. And that is you pay that whatever amount of money. And you make a good point to like until this. class of guys with Sertan and I think 2021, there was like a three, four issue stretch where there were some good cornerbacks. Like you had AJ Terrell was in there.

Byron Murphy ended up being in there. Jair Alexander, Denzel Ward. Those are like Pro Bowl level corners. There was not for a while a guy like Stingley or Sertan where it was like, oh my God, this guy can completely erase somebody. That's who you pay at the very, very top of the market.

And it's a great thing to point out. I mean, even guys like Trevon Diggs getting that deal in 2023 near the top of the market, just a different tier of player than the guys that we're talking about here. So for Stingley to do it after Sertandit, I think makes sense. And now all eyes will be on what happened.

with Sauce Gardner. And the funny thing is, yeah, I'll say this. The funny thing is in having those conversations with people about the cornerback market, part of the response was, Sertan is worth resetting it for. There were questions about whether Sauce was. So the thought of even if this is just kind of how markets move in the NFL, where when you're the next guy up, you just get a little bit of an increase. Is Sauce worth it in the way that Stingley was?

I think that is potentially a question that personnel people around the league would ask. I'm not passing any judgment on that right now, but I think there is sort of a lingering thought about whether those guys are on the same tier. Assuming the cap number will end up looking the same, like the cap percentage number, it'll probably be fine. But I do personally think Sertan is like a half tier better. But I think he's just like one of the most special players in the league.

He was the defensive player of the year this year. He's incredible, man. It was justifiable giving him that. If you guys are watching this on YouTube, we're going to keep on rolling. If you're listening to the audio version, we are going to take a quick break.

So let's get into the actual exercise that we wanted to do today. We did this for the AFC last week. So if you missed that, I encourage you to go check it out. We're going to talk about the teams in the NFC that have spent in free agency and try to gauge. How much healthier is this roster? How much better off is this team after giving out all of these deals? This isn't just a 2025 consideration because...

Obviously, if you spend a lot of money, your roster will probably be incrementally better in 2025. This is an overall roster health and projection question. Are you better off than you were? We are going to hit, I believe, like 11 teams here in the NFC. If we don't talk about your team.

It's because we talked about them last week when discussing the teams that haven't spent and whether their fan bases should be freaking out. The only team that will appear on both of those lists because they have to, based on how their offseason has gone, is the Seattle Seahawks.

who have spent the fifth most money, but their fan base also might be freaking out. So we are going to hit the Seahawks again on this show. But other than that, the teams that have been a little bit more hesitant in the market, we hit them last week. Again, encourage you guys to go check that out. if you have not taken a look at it. Let's start with the team Sam Darnold left. The Minnesota Vikings have handed out $142 million.

in guarantees. I actually think that's low. It might be actually be more than that, but it is the most in the NFL. Even when you look at like what the Patriots have done, the Vikings have been very aggressive in the market. Are the Minnesota Vikings better off now than they were at the start of this offseason? So this is all complicated by the quarterback thing, right? Like we're just not going to know until we know what JJ McCarthy looks like. But if we are.

Trying to gauge what a roster looks like outside of a quarterback. I do think the Vikings are much healthier. And for me, do you disagree? I don't think that's the question, though. Because it's not... Would they be better with Sam Darnold? It's are they better with J.J. McCarthy and the $30 million a year they would have had to pay Sam Darnold that has now gone to Will Fries, Ryan Kelly, and Jonathan Allen.

That was always the question. The ecosystem outside of the quarterback is better, and I don't even think it's just better for this year. I think it's better for... McCarthy's rookie window. Like, they paid Will Fries for five years, Ryan Kelly for only two, but like... I think just getting a very smart, good center in the building for a young quarterback is always really good and can accelerate some stuff. So I think that makes a ton of sense.

Alignment of timeline on moves like that with interior offensive linemen for young quarterbacks, the Bears are doing the same thing. I don't mind if maybe you're a couple years away, but you're spending on a one or two year stopgap at those positions because of how important they are for the quarterback development specifically.

you're trying to microwave their development a little bit there in terms of how they can manage the pocket, how much help they're getting with like setting protections and all that stuff. And so I think that that's like the perfect way to go about it. And then the defense, I think them keeping Byron Murphy, especially with letting... can't bind him out of the building and then harrison smith you know uh being considerably older like

They kind of need to keep some sort of guy around who is going to be like a pillar for them. So I think keeping Byron Murphy actually made a lot of sense. And then to me, upgrading the defensive interior, they did making these. Short moves like getting Jonathan Allen in there, getting Javon Hargrave in there, fixing an interior that I thought, even though production-wise looked fine, was a pretty bad unit.

I think a lot of the moves they made made sense here. So obviously a lot of this is contingent on how good J.J. McCarthy is going to be. But the overall health of the roster outside of the quarterback position, I do think is better. Yeah, I 100% agree. And we've talked about this a decent amount, just the mindset of if you move on from Sam Darnold, why would you do that? What does it allow you to do? This is what it allows you to do.

is spend around the quarterback and fill multiple different holes. And why this is so important, them having the money to do this, they have no draft picks this year. They have a first-round pick and then nothing else. spots second third round maybe you take a flyer on an interior offensive lineman or a flyer on a corner they don't have the picks to do that so they needed to wield this money that was always

how the puzzle pieces of the plan were going to have to fit together after they traded all those picks and after they move on from Kirk. We were going to come into this offseason with some financial flexibility, so let's use that to fill some of these holes, and then we still have a first-round pick to potentially... chase a difference maker. You look at it, the biggest signal this sends me is we want the run game on offense to be better.

We need the run game on offense to be better. You go out and get significantly bigger on the interior with Ryan Kelly compared to Garrett Bradbury. Fries is a physical player. And then you spend it running back in two different spots. I mean, them trading for Jordan Mason to me is one of those. We're not doing this again moves. Yes, we're just we're not we're not doing this again. Like we're going to have options here and think about how much more of a physical runner Jordan.

Mason is than a guy like Ty Chandler, who's a little bit more explosive, a little bit more up and down. So the fact that they went this direction is just not at all surprising to me. And I do think that they're better off how they piece together the secondary going cheap. a couple of these spots right they bring back theo jackson on an extension now he'll probably be in the mixing up

Cam Bynum role. They bring in Isaiah Rogers. We'll see how it shakes out between him and like Makai Blackman, who's coming back from injury at that other outside corner spot. So there are some questions with whether the... back end is going to be as good as it was last year. But when you offset that with how much better they are in the interior, Dallas Turner coming into year two, what that front could look like combined with what we've discussed.

Brian Flores being pretty good at making these guys look like the best versions of themselves, I absolutely think you could make a strong argument that overall the roster is in a better place than it was. And if they spend that first round pick in the secondary, then you can probably start to sell yourself that. OK, maybe they've got enough talent there and it's going to look a little bit better there. To me, it's it's the stuff we've talked about this before. It's not just that they spent.

on the offensive line it's the types of guys like getting kelly and fries who are accustomed to moving people off of a spot and then like you said getting jordan mason where Their other running backs the past couple of years have been like they did a year of Alexander Madison and then last year with Ty Chandler. And he's great as like a third down pass catching back. But he's, like you said, just not a physical presence. What I really wanted to see from this Vikings team was.

we're going to be a little bit different in the run game and have a different attitude. And for them to very obviously be committing to that, again, I still want to see it in practice because it's a huge departure for what we've seen from Kevin O'Connell to this point.

But everything he's done has turned to gold, so I assume he's going to be able to figure out the run game in a way that's going to look pretty good. The last one I want to hit here, because we have not talked about this really, is the Aaron Rodgers murmurs. And how real this is and which side this is coming from. Diana has consistently reported that they are having conversations about Rogers in the building. And I find this really interesting. Like this discussion that's probably happening.

How serious it is or how far down the road it is, we can go back and forth on. But this idea of, is it worth it to chase a guy like Rodgers based on the strength of the rest of the roster right now, is an interesting discussion in theory to me. Where do you sit on the Rodgers consideration and how that fits into the broader Vikings plan here? So, God, it's...

In terms of personality, I don't want him in the building with a young quarterback. Sorry, that's just not happening. However, it's a fair thing to say and a fair thing to start with. Yeah, like I just I'm not doing that with him. It already seemed like he was not very happy with the Jordan Love stuff. And so I guess this would be slightly different because he's walking into a scenario where they already drafted the guy. But still, I don't want any of that in terms of like.

inserting him into this offense like Yeah, they would probably win like 12 games with him because like I know a lot of what he looked like last year was not great, but one, he looked a little bit better down the stretch. And also this team is just significantly better. The offensive line is much better than it was in New York instead of only having one guy to throw.

He has the best receiver in the league, and Jordan Addison. He had Devontae and Garrett Wilson down the stretch. Just throwing it out there. Okay, that's a good point. That's a good point. I still think that this unit is better than those two. I think that's fair. And I think that just the infrastructure and the coaching and just how it's set up is significantly better too. The Kevin O'Connell part of this is very much a selling point along with the receiving talent.

So the question to me is not necessarily how good the Vikings would be. It's like, if this is a serious consideration for them, what does this tell you about JJ McCarthy? Does it tell you anything about JJ McCarthy? My thing here is that even if Rodgers was better down the stretch last year, he was still a below average quarterback according to any single metric that you'll look at. And this is a big bet on your infrastructure if you bring him in and think that he'll be better.

And that's not even considering the personality stuff. My thought here is just like – I was thinking about this the other day. And this is going to be very forced, but I'm going to do it anyway. I just wouldn't invite a vampire into my house. Like, I just wouldn't do it. Like he was if he was standing at the doorframe, I would not be like, yeah, come on in. And I kind of think I don't know if Rogers is a regular vampire, but if you I don't know if people watched.

what we do in the shadows, but Colin Robinson, the energy vampire, there's a chance that Rogers is just an energy vampire. Like when he's sitting there and going through all the crazy things that he seems to believe.

All he's doing is just sucking out the energy from everyone around him. Like when he's going on and on about chemtrails, he's just wanting you to slowly become more and more tired and frustrating. Like there's a chance that that explains a lot of what has gone on with him over the last. couple of years, but it's neither here nor there. From a football perspective, this is a move you make if you think, okay, with Rodgers, we can win the Super Bowl, right? That's why you do this.

I think any time a team lands in that place, especially with a guy who's 41, wasn't that good last year, that's a dangerous place to land. Because let's say you fall short, and the percentages... Every single bit of math and rationality would lead you to believe you would fall short. It's really hard to win the Super Bowl. Then you go into 2026 having never seen J.J. McCarthy play football.

And I think that there's real danger in that. Even if you're not sure if he's going to be the guy this year, I don't think that's the mindset that you should take. I think the mindset you should take is he's going to need to be the guy eventually. Let's start getting some information on.

And let's start understanding where he needs to go and how far he needs to go for us to get over the hump. Based on the money that you have spent here, at some point, you will need J.J. McCarthy to be the key that unlocks all of this for you.

start figuring that out sooner rather than later and that's where the jj mccarthy thing gets a little bit complicated to me and i know that i've like lobbied again for them to to have kept sam darnold if they could have but like this is different than the jordan love thing because the

The Packers already had Aaron Rodgers and then drafted Jordan Love as an obvious we are going to sit you for a while candidate. With J.J. McCarthy, it seems like it was supposed to be maybe for a year and then we'll try to move into a different world. If they immediately like double back on that and go.

I don't know, man. The roster is good enough that we don't want to throw effectively a rookie quarterback in there. We think we can win it all. Like that just seems, it just seems a little bit short-sighted maybe.

I think short side is a good way to put it. And I understand landing here. If they ultimately do, I just wouldn't do it. This is not the route that I would take. I would stay the course. I would see what I have in the young quarterback. I would live through whatever growing pains might exist in 2025 because those growing pains are.

going to exist with rogers anyway and there's nothing good waiting for you on the other side if you go through this with rogers there's potentially something worthwhile on the other side if you go through this with jj and that is what i would stick to if i were the viking

I just find it to be a really – it's a fascinating conversation to me. So that's why I think it's worth having even if I don't support the Rodgers side of this when it all comes down to it. Let's talk about the team that Sam Darnold went to.

And that is the Seattle Seahawks. 104 million in guarantees from Seattle. That's the fifth most. That's before the Cooper Cup move. So they're going to move up even more on that list. Obviously a little bit skewed because they paid a quarterback and no one else really did in this market.

This is going to be a fraught question, but I'm going to ask it anyway, and it's one we've danced around a lot over the last week. Do you think the Seattle Seahawks are better off right now than they were at the start of free agency? No, absolutely not. Listen, I know that this is supposed to be for the next three years. And I understand that they can actually get out of the Sam Darnold contract after year one. So, like, in theory, they're...

flexibility over the next three years is actually kind of good. And then obviously opening up the DK thing kind of allows them to not have as much money tied into one player who was probably too much money for that kind of player, in my opinion. However, I still think that like...

Gino over the next three years would have been more valuable than like all of the other stuff that they've put together here. And I know that obviously them in the building, they disagreed with that. So they wanted to pivot off of that. But it's very hard for me to move. Off of that point. It's totally fair. And I, I think I kind of landed in a similar place, but I have said this over a lot over the last week and I still believe it.

I can see what they're trying to do, and I do think that there is a chance it ultimately works out. The quarterback part of this is not as important to me, but I think looking at it on paper and saying we can pay $10 million a year less for Sam Darnold, who's seven years younger. plus a third round pick, is a better multi-year plan than Geno. Even if I don't agree with it, I think it's an okay, reasonable place to land. The DK thing...

This is exactly what I had envisioned for the most part when I was talking about them trading DK Metcalf. This is somewhat contingent on what happens with a guy like Tevin Jenkins, who is literally in their building today. taking a physical and talking to them about a contract. Let's say, hypothetically, they do sign Tevin Jenkins. What will have happened if he signs something like the Mekhi-Becton contract or a slight uptick on the Mekhi-Becton contract, which is $10 million a year?

What you have effectively done there is you will have traded DK Metcalf and his $30 million salary for a second round pick. And you will have used that $30 million to sign Tevin Jenkins, Cooper Cup. And Marquez Valdez scaling plus a second round pick.

When I was envisioning them trading DK Metcalf, this is exactly what I had in mind. It was using all of that stuff to get three players and a pick and not DK Metcalf. So that part of it, I fully support because it's kind of what I wanted them to do. from the beginning, I kind of imagined Gino would be the quarterback on the other end of this. And I felt a little bit better about him tying all that together.

I still think that the gap between Geno and Darnold when you consider the age is maybe not quite as big as some of us are making it out to be, though. I think we're viewing Sam a little bit through like rose-colored glasses because of how good the story was. That's a little bit like, and again, I think the system is going to be nice for him, but he was like 19. Are we doing, and I don't even know if I believe this, but I'm going to ask you anyway.

Are we doing the same thing with Gino? I don't think so. That situation was bad. It was one of the worst put together offensive. Whereas with Sam Darnold, think about all of the things that we say about how good it is to play in Minnesota.

He was 19th in QBR. He was like two spots ahead of Geno, who was like playing with one of the worst offensive lines in the league. Like it just... But the offensive line by the end in Minnesota was bad too. It was bad, but like even during the... earlier portions of the season I just don't think that he was like moving the needle like I just I do think everything they did with the DK stuff like in terms of the math working out for them that was an

unequivocal win because again I would not have paid him that amount of money or at least I wouldn't have wanted to I just cannot get over the Geno Smith Sam Darnold thing and I will say I feel slightly better about it knowing that they can get out of the Darnold thing in a year Because when they traded Geno, my thinking was, okay, if you're going to go away from Geno Smith and not think that the next three years is your window, fine. I don't agree with that, but whatever.

But then to me, it's like, OK, well, then move off completely and go get a rookie. And like, I understand this class is not great, but like that would have been my thinking. Now that I know that they can get out of the Darnold deal in a year. Maybe that actually is what they're trying to do. And so you can sell me on the vision a little bit more. There's just still something about going from Geno Smith to Sam Darnold that is like impossible for my head to wrap around.

I think it's kind of having your cake and eating it, too. You get younger at quarterbacks, so in theory, you have a longer runway if you want it. But at the same time, because of the way the contract is structured and because of the guarantees, you also have an off-ramp if you want to take it, plus a third-round pick at the end of the day.

So I think that's the justification for it if you're trying to create the justification for it. Again, I want to be very clear about this. I'm not sure I believe any of this. I'm just trying to put myself in John Schneider's shoes as he's having this discussion with the people in the building.

So now that I think about it more, I do think in terms of them setting up their off-ramps, they have done it pretty well and gotten a lot back for these players like DK Metcalf and for Geno Smith getting a third, getting a second, all that stuff.

opening themselves up to the potential that Sam Darnold is something, even if I don't believe that. I guess a lot of this just comes down to like my fundamental disagreement with how close the roster was to actually competing versus whatever they think. And again, that's...

I don't know. I thought they were close enough to win like 11, 12 games sooner than later, but maybe they just didn't agree with that. And if that's not where they thought they were, then maybe these off ramps do make sense for as messy as next year might be.

I don't disagree with that. I just think there was a line in the sand kind of thing with what they were willing to pay Gino. And when you add the draft pick as part of that calculation, that's how you arrive where they have. Two things I want to hit here before we move on from Seattle. One, what do we think about the Cooper Cup fit?

with already having jsn so like how do those players fit together does jsn play on the outside a little bit more cup can be a blocker for you so because that changed the math a little bit his skill set is different than jsn's even if ideally they would both spend a lot of time in the slot. It's just hard for me to imagine it when I'm thinking about the offense. Maybe that's a lack of imagination on my part. So I think Jason can play a little bit more outside, but also...

Nobody really plays outside in a lot of these offenses. Like, they're so condensed a lot of the time that, like... whoever your quote outside guy is still inside the numbers and like closer to the hashes than anything. So in a lot of ways, you're still getting slot ish alignment. So it is kind of 12 personnel too. I would assume this version of the offense. Exactly. And so. It looks a little weird on paper, but I honestly think it's going to be not that big of a deal. Because to me...

I don't know. The Rams got away with this with not really having guys who were true outside receivers. Neither Pukinokua or Cooper Cup, to me, are outside receivers. I think it'll probably be okay, even if it looks weird, to have two guys who are... in theory, slot primary players. I think that's right. The Rams model and what they've done with those kind of guys I think is a good thing to point out. Looking at formational width just from last season.

The Saints weren't quite as condensed as a lot of the other teams in this sort of offense. But they had Olave, who can't do any of that stuff. So I think that might have just been like, it's just what they had to do. Yeah, I think that's fair. The last thing here. The interior offensive lineman part of this, I do think using some of this excess money that you saved in the DK thing, you saved with Darnold and trying to pay one guy was worthwhile. And then other than that.

Just rolling with Olu and Christian Haynes and the guy who you drafted in the sixth round whose name I can never remember, and then maybe adding another rookie to the mix with the extra second or third round pick that you have and just saying, we're going to bet on the system here. to find one of these guys somewhere along the way along with spending on one additional piece i think that is a that's an okay

path forward here. This is a team that I think a lot of people looked at and said they need three new offensive linemen. I think betting on this sort of offense, getting more out of that group and not going as hard and replacing three individual pieces. I'm okay with that.

You have to sell yourself a little bit on the impact of what this type of offense is going to have. But with all the play action, with how you can hide some of these guys, one Tevin Jenkins, one draft pick, and the young guys we already had in the building.

being what they're going to roll with up front, I'm okay with that. I can at least see the vision. I'm still, I think, a little bit... more skeptical about it coming together but yeah if they do Jenkins and then one of their first at least one of their first three picks is on the interior okay like you can you you could try to tell me the story and I won't necessarily shut it down

I skipped the Giants. So let's go back to the Giants. $123 million in guarantees for the New York Giants, which is the third most in the NFL. How much better or are the Giants better off now than they were at the start of free agency? I mean, not really, man. Like, I think Paulson Adebo is a good signing and certainly fixes an issue for them. I think Javon Holland replacing kind of what they had. Are we sure that he fixes an issue for them?

Like the idea that Paulson Adibo is just like, I don't think Paulson Adibo showed really nice flashes, but the idea that Paulson Adibo is just like, Oh, we're going to pay 18 million to Paulson Adibo. That's solved. That to me feels like, I don't know how I feel about that conclusion.

It doesn't solve everything necessarily, but what we said before is going from objectively terrible to something that is competent can be really, really valuable. That's fair. On a system like offensive line or the secondary. So I do think he at least gets them there. And then Holland is like a dynamic playmaker, kind of the way that they had in McKinney. So that could give them something. Maybe the front takes a step next year. But I.

I just don't really think that this roster is that much better. Maybe after the draft you could convince me, but I don't think what they've done in free agency really makes me feel like they are... I don't think they've bought any wins this offseason is the way that I would frame it. I do think the floor and the secondary is considerably higher than it was.

by going out and getting Holland and even a guy like Adebo. The only reason I'm asking this question about Adebo, he got the Carlton Davis contract. And I get that with him being he's three years younger. And so I get the justification for it. But in terms of quality of player.

when they're on the field, that Carlton Davis is a better corner than Paulson Debo has been. So this idea of we're hoping to buy his prime, there are very few second contract defenders available in free agency. We've talked about this. I get how it lands at that price, but in terms of on-field impact and what Paulson Adebo has been over a multi-year period, again, the flashes have been nice, but I'm not sure this is a, we're getting really, really good cornerback play for that $18 million.

I think that you're going to have to thread a little bit of a needle to get there. The Holland thing, even if he's been a little bit banged up last year, I think that is justifiable in what he was paid. The fact that Paulson Debo got $3 million a year more than Javon Holland in free agency.

is not necessarily something I expected coming into this market. No, that is representative of the positions they play, I think, where people are a little bit less willing to pay safeties like that. But again, this is not like... the Patriots getting Stephon Gilmore or anything. I don't want to frame it as that. But them going from Cordell Flott having to play 60% of the snaps, Adoree Jackson playing 40% of the snaps, like...

I do think that this is a pretty nice change for them. My question is, on the other side, Deontay Banks has been a problem. Like, are we assuming that he's no longer a problem? So that's, it's stuff like that. When I'm looking at this roster being like, yeah, I guess if you looked at the depth chart, you could say we have a solution here and he may get better. He's still a young player, but I think that's a big question.

I think even after going out and getting a Chauncey Golsan, the pass rush with Thibodeau being your number three, whatever the sack totals looked like two years ago, I still have real questions about him. I have questions about the depth. In their front seven, especially on the interior, even moving forward. And then looking at the offensive line, it's like, okay. So now you have Andrew Thomas comes back.

You re-sign Greg Van Roten. You have Jermaine Illuminor playing right tackle. This group is fine if healthy, but fine is the ceiling for this. So this idea, and I think people have tried to sell this over the last week, and I'm just not buying it. of, oh, man, if they get the right quarterback, this team can be really competitive right now. They're a quarterback away from being competitive. And I promise you that's what Joe Shane is trying to tell John Mara.

I'm not even close to that. We often misjudge this and we misappropriate this idea of being a quarterback away. I don't think it would be more misapplied. recently than it would be to these New York Giants than any of the times we've said it over the last like five years. Yeah, if they could acquire Josh Allen, sure. Is he available, you think? I'm thinking not. And so like, sure, man, if they thought they could get a Josh Allen, theoretically, any team is a quarterback away.

But they're not a quarterback away with any of the guys left on the market. Like Aaron Rodgers doesn't get them there. The veteran quarterback market is bleak. Yeah. These guys that you're cycling between. So if you're a Rodgers team, you're a Rodgers team. That's your number one option at this point. But other than that, your options, and this is the same conversation the Browns were having last week, are Russell Wilson and Joe Flacco.

That's what we're doing here right now. And then Jameis, who was visiting the Giants. And the reason that Jameis isn't a Browns quarterback option is because they've played the Jameis game and I don't think they want to play it again.

That's a game that I think most people realize they don't want to play for very long, even if it's fun for a little bit. So yeah, and none of the quarterbacks they're going to draft, like they're not going to get Cam Ward. And even for as much as I like Cam Ward, he is probably not like...

immediate quarterback away type of player and then I don't think Shader Sanders is like they are one the idea that they're a quarterback away is absurd but also too they're none of the options left could even bridge that gap for them or even get close probably Yeah, I think this is a scenario where even if you get Rodgers, you're topping out at like nine, ten wins, even if it works out well for you. And I have doubts about how well it would work out.

How can you sell yourself that what the Giants are now is better than what the Jets were a year ago in terms of roster construction? Better offensive infrastructure is the argument that you could make. And I think that's not necessarily a guarantee. But Aaron Rodgers is the offense. Yes. So you're running the Aaron Rodgers offense anyway, no matter how this goes. It's a hard sell.

It's a hard sell. And the offensive line, to me, feels like it's assembled in sort of a similar way. There are veteran stopgap pieces with the Jets where it left tackle, where for the Giants, it's in a bunch of these other spots. But in the ceiling on defense... is significantly lower for the Giants than it was for any of those Jets teams who had just been the best defense in the league over the last couple years.

Listen, it's very possible that the 20-25 Jets or Giants defense is better than the 20-24 Jets defense that fell off a cliff, but I still don't necessarily think it's going to be an elite unit even after some of the moves that they have made. Yeah, they're still a little flimsy.

Let's get to the Carolina Panthers. Handed out 119 million in guarantees. That is the fourth most of any team in the league. Trevon Merrig, three years, 51 million. Treshawn Wharton, three years, 45 million with 30 guaranteed. rotational contracts for Patrick Jones, formerly of the Vikings and edge rusher, 10 million guaranteed Bobby Brown from the Rams, $9 million guaranteed. A couple other depth moves. Austin Corbett came back in a one year, $3 million deal. The center market to me.

We don't have to go down this road very far, but it's been really interesting over the last week or so. Dahlman got paid, but other than that, Corbett, Bozeman, and then Josh Myers taking a backup deal. With the Jets, essentially, there was just not a lot of appetite for paying centers that were fringe-type starters over the last week or so. To see Corbett come back on what is a backup contract that's pretty similar to the Bozeman one, this is a little bit surprising.

surprising I guess just there aren't that many teams that felt like they had a big hole there that they were willing to spend on well and it's interesting too when you compare it to the tackle market like is Is Josh Myers at his position really a worse player than Dan Moore at his? I don't really think so. But it's just like you pay a little bit more for the security at left tackle. A little bit.

Maybe think that they can just hide them with the guards of the system or the quarterback taking over stuff mentally, whatever it is, that they just don't feel as interested in paying whatever these like mid-tier center type guys are. Rico Dowdle, also one year, $6 million, which got all my Jonathan Brooks fantasy football investments last year. His health and how awful his last year has had to be is the worst, but just not the way that I thought the...

Panther's backfield pecking order would be heading into 2025, with it essentially being Chuba Hubbard on a huge extension at one, Rico Dowdle at two, and then Jonathan Brooks being most likely a non-factor. at the end of all of this as we talk about these players these contracts what the panthers have done how much better off are the panthers than they were at the start of last week i think

They are significantly better on defense and not to the point that they're going to be good necessarily. But last year, I've harped on the Bengals run defense all season and stuff for a while. The Bengals. Had a 55.1 success rate on run defense last year. That was 31st in the league. 32nd in the league was the Carolina Panthers at 51.9%.

It wasn't close how much worse they were than everybody. And some of that is Derek Brown not being in the lineup and he will come back and that's going to help them. But them going out and getting guys like Tashaun Wharton and Bobby Brown, who are significantly better than the players that they had.

last year at those spots and specifically Bobby Brown coming in as a little bit of a reinforcement um for kind of Derek Brown if he needs to come off the field a little bit like I just think even though none of these I think are going to move them into the tier where it's like, oh, the Panthers are going to be a sneaky top 10 defense. None of that. It's just them going from obviously the worst run defense into the league to them potentially being average next year.

That, I think, does do a pretty good amount for them these next couple of years. Bobby Brown is a player I liked, and I think that you're, again, paying for hopefully his best football because he is so young. The Treshawn Wharton thing.

I feel like that was always going to be a contract where you're probably paying more than he's worth because, again, he's a second contract player. He had some good production last year. You're no longer playing next to Chris Jones, and so I wonder how that's going to go. But the decision that the Panthers...

made, and we can do some of the math on this very quickly, rather than signing Milton Williams to a $26 million a year deal, they signed Treshawn Wharton to a $15 million a year deal, and that allows you to go out and get a combination of Bobby Brown and Patrick Jones, essentially. So you're getting two and a half players for the price of one is ultimately the place where they landed.

They're worse players. The quality of them overall is worse, but that's kind of when you move the money around what their free agency period has looked like after missing out on Milton Williams. Yeah, and they're worse players, but this team also badly needed... edge help and so it kind of makes sense for them to be able to to want to um okay dip a little bit lower for Tashaun Wharton but then have the money to go get Patrick Jones where like they're edge rushers after Jadavian Clowney it's

bad man it's like dj wonham dj johnson amari barno who is still on the roster like it is not a lot of useful players so for them to at least spend money on a guy like patrick jones who's probably never more than a decent three That's still a hell of a lot better than what they had beforehand. Looking at the Panthers draft picks and seeing that they're still giving.

Their second round pick to the Bears just makes me happy every single time I look at it. But the other thing that is worth remembering here, they have an extra two in the Braden Fisk trade up from last year. So they do have a second round pick and then they have an extra four.

because of the jonathan mingo trade oh my god yeah so i completely blocked that out of my memory actually because they traded jonathan mingo to the cowboys honestly that's a great haul for what along the way here For what Mingo had given them, getting a fourth back is... I can't believe that.

I think this is just a spot where I still want to see them add more to the defensive line, and I still think they probably need a receiver somewhere along the way. They've got young guys you can feel decent about. We'll see what happens with it. rookies that played okay last year, your Jalen Cokers, et cetera, et cetera. But them trying to find one more pass catching option plus a defensive lineman in those first few rounds, I think that's probably the right route.

to keep taking the offensive lines in really good shape. You've done enough to fill some of the holes in the secondary. So trying to swing at some of these high value positions early in this draft, they still need talent at those spots. But I do think that they're in much better shape because they just have capable players. There's so many more spots on defense. Let's keep rolling here. The Los Angeles Rams.

$100 million in guarantees handed out by the Rams. Most of that to Devontae Adams, $26 million guaranteed, and Alair Jackson, $35 on that deal. Tutu Atwell comes back, and then Puna Ford, three years, $27 with $15 guaranteed. What do we think about the Los Angeles Rams? How much better off are they now than they were at the start of last week? I think they're definitely better off. The big one is obviously the receiver thing is Devontae Adams in Cooper Cup out.

One, I think Adams is just a better player. than Cooper Cup. But I also do like how much this opens them up schematically to do some of the stuff that they were doing in 2021, which I think is really important for the team that I think they want to be where they can marry some of the under center like duo stuff that they've been doing.

but really unlock more of the drop back game again and not feel like they have to be tied to the under center play action stuff. They didn't make that many other moves. Like they brought some guys back, like Alaric Jackson back, Tutu Atwell. But I also do think...

For as good as Bobby Brown is a nice bet for the Panthers, I think for where the Rams are at, it made sense for them to let Brown walk and go get a... better more stable veteran in a guy like puna ford bring him in who i think is an upgrade so they didn't do a whole lot in terms of like the volume of players but i do think the quality of players and where they chose to upgrade i think they're a better team

Yeah, and I understand them landing where they did with Jackson because after bringing Stafford back, it's like, well, let's just roll with this thing. So when you bring Stafford back... signing 32-year-old Devontae Adams and bringing back your left tackle because it's like, we're just going to roll with this. We're just going to see what we can get out of this at the end of the day. That makes total sense to me. I think the offense is well-positioned.

Tyler Higby comes back healthy all year now. You still have Colby Parkinson. There are some options here if Stafford stays healthy and the offensive line stays relatively healthy for this to be a really dynamic group. Upfront on defense, we know what they are. The Puna Ford thing, I think, totally tracks in terms of what sort of skill set they needed. I'm still just a little bit worried about the ceiling of the secondary and talking to Jordan multiple times over the last few weeks. They just...

I don't think they're going to spend on another outside corner. So the idea that they weren't a team that was going to be in the mix for the Carlton Davises and the DJ Reeds of the world isn't necessarily surprising. I'd still like to see them. get a little bit better there, whether that's through the draft, adding some sort of competition with cheaper veterans later into the summer. That's the one spot on the roster. I still have my concerns about is what they're going to do.

with those cornerback spots, especially that second outside corner spot that Akella Weatherspoon held down for them last year, can they get a slight upgrade on who that player is by the start of next season, whether that's in the draft or through late veteran free agency?

Yeah, that's the last puzzle piece for them. But again, maybe if they just swing there in the draft, it'll work out. But even though that position is going to come in the sixth round, unfortunately, so none of us are going to be happy. Their day three drafting is pretty good. So maybe it works out.

Sticking in the NFC West, the Arizona Cardinals, $92 million in guarantees. That is the 10th most of any team. Josh Sweat taking up a good chunk of that. Four years, 76 with 41 guaranteed. Dalvin Tomlinson, two years, 29 with 16 guaranteed. Dalvin Tomlinson keeps getting paid. Dalvin Tomlinson's like 33 years old at this point. This is easily his third contract, maybe his fourth. He's only 31, actually, which is a little bit surprising.

considering how many times he's gotten paid. So they pay Dalvin Tomlinson to upgrade the interior of their defensive line, along with Josh Sweat. And then also gave out a two-year $15 million deal to Baron Browning. No details on the guarantees there yet. And then Jacoby Brissett, two years, 12 and a half with eight guaranteed. Evan Brown, two years, 11 with $6 million guaranteed. The Jacoby percent thing is the least surprising thing of all time considering.

their history with him in that offensive meeting room. How much better are the Arizona Cardinals than they were at the start of last week? I love the Josh Sweat signing in terms of Gannon getting his guys on defense, setting the culture, all that stuff. Tomlinson is certainly an upgrade on the interior. They had a lot of guys who were very good backup players, but all of them were starting last year. And so Dalvin Tomlinson is at least an upgrade from that.

I just don't know to what end this actually makes them better. Sort of like with the Giants, like, I just don't know if they actually bought that many wins this offseason. And maybe you can sell yourself if the offense just plays more consistently next year.

And the defense is like three spots better than it was last year. Maybe that's enough for them to start contending, at least for a division title. Fine. But I just, again, I don't really know if they bought themselves that many wins this offseason. What would you have done differently? with the money that they had in terms of position. We don't have to get specific players, but they had a lot of money to wield. Would you have used it differently than the Cardinals did?

I mean, if they could have maybe fixed the receiver room, and again, I know there weren't that many options there, but if they could have gotten a guy who would have given them a little bit more flexibility with what they want to do with Marvin Harrison Jr.

and Michael Wilson be able to move them around a little bit. Honestly, I think Cooper Cup would have been sick for them. I don't know if that was ever really in play on Cooper Cup's side. I don't know. Maybe he just wanted to go back to Washington.

the state to be clear. So I don't know, but like that probably would have been it for me. And then the offensive line, I, I would have wanted to have done a little bit more, especially with how important the run game was for them. I thought they were going to be a little bit more aggressive there.

Maybe that's where they spend their first round pick. And I'll be eating crow on that a little bit later in the offseason. But I don't think the offensive line was that good. They just got away with very good scheme against particular types of teams. I think that's right.

And so them rolling with the same group they had last year and bringing Evan Brown back and him being presumably the starter or presumably the favorite to start at left guard and then rolling with maybe Isaiah Adams who they drafted in the third round last year at right guard. I can't imagine they're done there.

I guess that's what I would say. I can't imagine they're done there. Whether it's some sort of veteran competition a little bit deeper into the offseason or spending a decent amount of draft capital on that spot, I'd be surprised if they rolled in with this group as their... seven-ish pieces, rotational pieces along the offensive line. On defense...

Man, Dalvin Tomlinson, the fact that we're like three contracts into Dalvin Tomlinson at 31 is just so funny. But I think that him, he's definitely on the decline compared to what he was a couple years ago. I think that's worth pointing out. Sweat is obviously better than anything they had.

the Darius Robinson part of this becomes really important. I think them drafting him in the first round last year, he was hurt for a huge majority of last season. What can you get out of him? Does it all come together a little bit more if he ends up hitting? And then I do think that them seeking out. an upgrade of that other outside corner spot over a Sean Murphy bunting who they paid.

marginal starter money. Like you could easily try to draft a guy high there and just say, you guys will compete and we'll see who wins that job. And Sean Murphy Bunting becomes depth. I do think there's a version of the secondary that looks pretty good, but the question is going to be.

what do they get out of a highly drafted piece in Robinson to make the front seven come together? Because I think they need that for it to make sense. And BJ Ojolari is also going to be coming back. He missed all of last season. You could sell me because they're two young, highly drafted players. And Ojolari had some flashes in 2023 as a rookie. You could sell me that the front will look...

Not like great, but significantly better than it was last year with some of the upgrades and potentially the young players coming back and being something. Chicago Bears. 91 million in guarantees in Chicago. That is the 11th most of any team. That does not take into account the Jonah Jackson or Joe Tooney trades. So if you want to throw those $33 million in salary on there, the Bears...

show up near the top of these lists. So obviously the trader for those two guys, Dio Dangbo, three years, $48 million, $32 guaranteed. Grady Jarrett, three years, $42 million, $28.5 guaranteed. Drew Dahlman, three years, $42 million, $28 million guaranteed. How much better off are the Chicago Bears now than they were 10 days ago? I guess it would be two weeks ago for the Bears. Right. They got started a little early.

In terms of the three-year outlook, I honestly have no idea. We don't know what Jackson's going to be. Tooney might be closer to retirement by then. Grady Jarrett will certainly be closer to retirement by then. All of that, whatever. In terms of getting better...

tomorrow and really putting caleb williams on the fast track to be a better player and also just getting some of the right players for dennis allen's defense like a dio uh orinbo all of this makes sense to me and so even if a lot of it is

You're really leveraging yourself to make sure next year goes right and you can set the right floor for the Ben Johnson tenure. And that might get them in trouble three years from now. I think all of that is fine. I think when you have a quarterback of Caleb Williams' talent.

these are the types of moves that you have to make. Even if I don't love some of the spending, mostly on defense, I ultimately think that their approach is generally in the right direction. I think that's probably where I land. What I've said about this the whole time, and obviously I've had a lot of conversations about this with people in my life. They're like, oh, what do you think about what the Bears did? And I think my consistent answer has been they're better off. They paid to do it.

They paid a premium to do it. The idea that you're going to pay, and we'll see if they touch those contracts, but you're going to pay Tooney and Jonah Jackson $33 million combined against the cap this year, along with Dolman. There aren't a lot of discounts to be had on any of those contracts.

You're paying to get an upgrade in performance there, but you're hopefully going to get it. The interior of the offensive line looks and feels significantly different than it did a year ago. You just had to pay a premium to get there. The moves along the defensive line, I think again... There's just a thinner – you're threading a needle for those to all make sense. The Dio contract –

That's a projection. You're trying to pay for future performance, not past performance for somebody that is younger when there weren't a lot of younger pieces available in free agency. And with Grady Jarrett, you're really having to hope. that you're further removed from that ACL. You're going to get...

a year or two more productive play from Grady Jarrett. I think there's a lot of risk potentially involved with that. But if the goal here is to make sure that you're setting your young quarterback up for success and you just had to pay a little bit of a markup to make that happen, I still...

think that that approach was probably worth it i i think it will be worth it and again maybe two three years from now we look at their cap sheet and they're in a little a little bit of trouble because of some of this stuff but again i think ultimately It will be worth it if it puts Caleb Williams on the right track. I'm looking at that Grady Jarrett contract right now. Those are not the types of deals that typically work out well for you.

That's just what I'll say. Even if Grady Jarrett was a great player, has been a great player for a long time, those are typically not the type of deals that work out well for you. Yeah. Next one here, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. 89 million in guarantees, the 12th most of any team. Chris Godwin eating up a good chunk of that. Three years, 66, 44 guaranteed. Could have gotten a lot more elsewhere, which I think is a...

Just a reminder that the Bucs are often good at this. Hassan Redick, one-year, $14 million, $12 guaranteed. They brought back Levante David on a one-year deal. Ben Bredesen comes back on a starting caliber contract, about $7-ish million a year to be their left guard. And then a couple other depth pieces.

How much better off are the Bucs now than they were a week ago? And I think this is a complicated question. How much better are they after retaining their players than they would have been if they didn't retain their players? Well, much better, but that's the thing. The question to me with any offseason is how much better are you compared to what the roster looked like last year? And for the Bucs, it's the same roster except they're...

made the bet to be the Hassan Redick team. And so I think it's funny, though, like, I don't necessarily think that's that bad of a thing for them. They have a really good offensive line. Obviously, with their receiving core now, especially if Jalen McMillan takes a step, they have a lot there. Baker Mayfield has at least established himself to be a pretty competent starter for them.

Obviously, they're changing the offense and maybe stuff changes, but their offense, I think, can be pretty high powered. If they get any movement from some of the young players on defense and maybe add, you know, two or three of their draft early draft picks on that side.

Maybe Hasan Reddick gives you something like, you could at least sell me that the team will be in an okay spot. I'm fine with them going into this season being like, okay, we stole the division last year. Let's just kind of keep things rolling the best that we can. Try to ride this out and get... get on to next year so i don't think they're better but i think it's fine that they're just not worse i think corner is still a question for them right if you look at

that roster and what they've gotten on Jamel Dean over the last couple years, that's a spot where I wonder if there's something potentially coming a little bit later. I kind of wonder if the cornerback room can be a little bit better if they are not... hung out to dry with a pass rush that has to send five and six all the time and still doesn't get home like that was the problem is like they were sending all these bodies and still weren't even that effective so if they could

either be more effective with their blitzes with with better pass rush or just not have to do it quite as often and be a little bit more creative maybe that could you know they're not going to be an insane secondary but i think you could sell you could sell me on them being at least like a half tier better than they were last year. I think that's totally fair. And again, the Godwin thing, it's like he was on the team last year, but...

And presumably, if he had gotten paid what he would have been on the market by a team like the Patriots, he'd be gone. So retaining him and Bredesen, it's just like there's a version of this team that doesn't have either of those two guys. This current version is much better than that one. So I think that's worth at least conceding.

Edge or defensive line help still to me would be a priority, right? And so even with Redick, I threw out when we were previewing for agency, do you call about like a Jalen Phillips if you're the Bucs? Even if you don't do that, spending a first-round pick on an edge rusher.

is still to me in the cards for them. You have one year of Hassan Redick deep into his career. So a little bit more juice along the defensive front, I still think is something they could probably use. We'll see if they do pick that up somewhere along the way.

If you're watching on YouTube, we're going to keep on rolling. If you're listening to the podcast version of this, we're going to take one more quick break before we hit our last four teams. Really three and a half because the Eagles haven't done anything. Next one here, the Green Bay Packers. 50-ish million in guarantees. That's 20th in the NFL.

Aaron Banks, Aaron Banks, four years, 77, $27 million guaranteed, only the signing bonus, but it's a big signing bonus. Nate Hobbs, four years, 48 million, 16 guaranteed. Brandon McManus is back, and then Isaiah McDuffie on a two-year. $8 million deal for just depth at linebackers, kind of how I would describe that. Are the Green Bay Packers, how much better off are the Green Bay Packers than they were a week ago?

i don't know like this is the team that i think i struggle with the most in terms of like what i think these moves actually did for them because at least with aaron banks they paid a ungodly amount of money for like what I thought Aaron Banks was going to get, but... Practically, it's like two years, $35 million, if you look at it, which is...

That's still a lot of money. That's $17.5 million a year for two years of Aaron Banks. Again, a player from an offensive line that was not very good. And I'm not saying he was the worst player on that offensive line or anything, but that's still... always a little bit of a concern for me. I will say if you can sell me on...

Banks being at least as good as what Jenkins had been last year. And Jenkins has been up and down compared to what he was a couple of years ago. And then maybe sell me on Jenkins being better than Myers was last year at center. Maybe Jordan Morgan steps in at right guard and everything's better. You could... I can see the world where the interior is much better. I still have no idea what I think of the Nate Hobbs signing. Because he's...

He's theoretically a nickel and probably will play nickel for them. But to me, like, what does that do with Javon Bullard or Evan Williams or whoever? Like, it doesn't make the outside cornerback spot. And that's where I thought they needed to spend. So I just there's a. Chance that the offensive line is better. I have no idea what to think of the secondary, so I'm leaning towards they're not better, actually.

This also weighs, is Jair Alexander on the team next year? And if Jair Alexander isn't on the team, and then now Nate Hobbs is thrust doing an outside corner role. This team, more than any other, is kind of willing to embrace, eh. We'll add the bodies and then we'll figure it out later. Along the offensive line, that's been their MO for however long. It's like, we're just going to get guys we think are good and have some positional versatility.

And then we just say, okay, who's going to be our best five by the end of this? I think that's probably what's going to happen along the offensive line. Again, Jordan Morgan probably ends up at right guard, but I think they're probably open to other avenues. Same with Hobbs. It does seem like he's going to play on the outside. Based on where they want to use Bullard. But Hobbs hasn't played on the outside. In like a couple years. So there's a little bit of projection there.

They're probably better off because I think that the secondary and the offensive line have gotten better with these moves. I think you could talk yourself into Jenkins being better at center than Myers was. Banks being... if not better than...

Yeah, I think that group overall being as good or better than it was last year, and the same with the secondary with Hobbs, I don't know how much better, and I still look at this team and just think, where is the pass rush help coming from, and what are they going to do along the defensive line? Like, where is that ace potentially coming from? And there's a chance that they just think we've spent too much.

at that group to continue to throw resources in it. We need to bet on the development of some of these guys. We need to bet on a bounce back year from Rashawn Gary and you two of the system. And we need to just bet on further development from the receivers rather than doing something splashy and bring some.

in to potentially change the course of that development for some of these guys. I think that's a little bit dangerous because I feel like they need a little bit of a shot in the arm to get over the top, but it seems like that as of right now is the direction that they're heading with a lot of this stuff. I would have wanted a shot in the arm on the front, personally. But again, if they think Rashawn Gary is just going to play better next year, which...

I think him specifically, that's not that crazy. Like if they're betting on this from the other guys like Devonta Wyatt and Lucas Van Ness, I think maybe that ship has sailed a little bit. Well, Wyatt's been okay when he's been healthy. And I think that's the biggest thing with Wyatt. When he's been on the field, he's been okay. Van Ness, it's a different conversation. Wyatt's tricky because he cannot defend the run. And I think...

And the longer he's been there, that's been a little bit more of a concern and a problem for them. But he is purely as a pass rusher, a weapon. But with Gary, it's like we've seen him play at pretty close to an all pro level before. And you could convince me that you're two in the system. he could get back to that level again.

That's unnecessary. Again, they need some development from some of these guys in-house. Receiver is a little bit different because receiver, they haven't spent at that spot, whether it's a combination of draft capital and cap dollars. They have not done that. They've been really, really patient. and not aggressive at receiver on the defensive front. It's the opposite.

I mean, they've spent how many first round picks and they gave Gary a top of the market extension. They're paying Kenny Clark a lot of money. So that's a spot where you just kind of think, even if we need help, we've put so many resources into it. Receiver is a different conversation. That's why I think it's a little bit more justifiable to have been aggressive and taken a swing there. The problem is where is that swing going to come from?

There are very few swings at receiver this offseason outside of a guy like DK Metcalf. And I'm totally fine landing in a spot where you say, I want the $30 million in the second round pick, not DK Metcalf. I'm also fine with that. I know we like you. we kind of sold ourselves on the idea. Like if they did it, you could sell yourself why it would work, but it's a lot of money and capital for a player of that quality.

A couple more to run through here. The New Orleans Saints, $48 million in guarantees, 21st in the NFL. Brought back Chase Young, three years, 51 with 33 guaranteed. Justin Reed, three years, $31, $22 million guaranteed. Justin Reed essentially got the same deal from the Saints that he got from the Chiefs like three years ago, which I find very funny. Jawan Johnson, three years, $31 million guaranteed.

Three years 31 with $21 million guaranteed. Also brought back Isaac Yadam on what is essentially a depth deal at cornerback. How much better off are the Saints than they were a week ago? I don't know, man. I don't think. So they didn't really lose that much. That makes me concerned about where their roster is going. And like, I think they brought back the right players with Juwan Johnson.

And Chase Young, I think Justin Reed is a nice add in the secondary. I just, again, I don't know if this does anything for them. I just none of this moves. I don't understand what they are. Yeah, like that. I still we came into last offseason thinking I don't understand what the Saints are. And we got to this offseason. And again, I understand that they probably didn't have that much flexibility to move around and do stuff.

But I still don't know what the Saints are supposed to be next year either. And now you've lost your offensive coordinator. So you're moving into a new like just there's moving into Kellen Moore for Derek Carr, which like doesn't feel.

like a perfect marriage to me. Just a lot of weird moving pieces here. At least they have more picks this year than they typically do. And so that you could talk yourself into that. They've got an extra three and an extra four from Marshawn Latimer trade. They've got all of their picks. in the first four rounds, which feels like a miracle. It's not normally what happens when you pull up a list of the Saints draft picks.

Even the Rams, though, traded away their second round pick to Carolina. The Rams can only have all their picks for one year. It can only be one year where the universe would just start to get off kilter. When the Saints decided to restructure Derek Carr's contract.

And then now you're pushing some of that money into 2026. There's a chance they could do it again in 2026, but then you're borrowing from 2027. Now I think Carr is a $59 million dead cap hit next year. I still think I would have tried to talk to some of these quarterback needy.

teams about a Derek Carr trade and potentially try to sell Derek Carr on a trade to a team that might be a little bit closer realistically. But the Saints just don't... think about themselves that way and based on everything that they've done it seems like they still want to be decently competitive this year I mean really the only stripped down move they made was trading Marshawn Lattimore which based on how hurt he had been and what they

got for him and how much money they saved I don't even think that's a concession that we're further away than we think I think you almost just have to make that move in real time if you're the Saints but other than that there really isn't any sort of indication on

which direction we want to go here and what sort of team we want to be. They're mostly staying in the course and then they sign Justin Reed. That's what happened. I think their direction is we are terrified of anything worse than seven wins. But... Making moves that could potentially get us to 10 or 11 wins down the line, they have completely foregone any of that. Where they seek out a quarterback future is going to be really interesting to me.

Are they like a quiet Shadur Sanders team in a way that we're not really thinking about? Does it happen next year? I just don't. And this is probably my lack of understanding about.

how the saints operate and what they're trying to do. I don't have a good answer for what the saints vision is over the next couple of seasons. I'm sure other people that cover that team do. And it's probably worth having a conversation with one of them this off season. We no longer have a saints beat writer, but they're just a.

team that has consistently flummoxed me and this offseason again I'm not passing judgment whether it's been good or bad I just don't really understand how it's all supposed to come together and that might say more about me than it does about the Saints

Last one here for teams that actually spent, we don't have to do the Eagles. The Eagles brought back Zach Bond and extension. They've done nothing else. They traded away CJ Gardner Johnson. Like this is a slight reset time for the Eagles. So I'm not going to spend five minutes talking about their off season. Like you. You can't be freaking out and you can't care if you're better if you're the Eagles. They just won the Super Bowl. It doesn't get better. It'll be fine.

Washington, $45 million in guarantees handed out in free agency. Obviously, that number is a little bit misleading because they traded for Debo and traded for Laramie Tunsil. So that's $17 million against the cap. For Debo this year, and for Tunsil, I assume it's also a big number. And they also signed Javon Kinlaw, three years, 45, with $30 million guaranteed. Brought back Bobby Wagner, Marcus Mariota, Zach Ertz, John Bates, and then signed Jonathan Jones and Will Harris.

to smaller sort of depth contracts in the secondary. How much better off is the 21-ish million against the cap for Tunsil? That's $38 million guaranteed, or $38 million against the cap for those two guys. How much better off is the Washington football team now than they were at the start of this offseason? So I think the offense obviously tons a little.

even for a down weird year last year is an upgrade over coleman especially if coleman can go play the right side and potentially be an upgrade there that's all good and well i'm like kind of fine with the debo trade actually like there's a chance that he's just so banged up that he's never going to be the player they want but

I think them adding a clear yak piece when you already have like an actual wide receiver in Terry McLaurin, I think a lot of that does make sense for the way that the offense is structured. The problem to me is I just don't know how much this makes them like functionally better as an overall team. And what I mean by that is.

They were already fifth last year in points per game. And so some of this stuff might make the offense feel a little bit better and more consistent and give them more flexibility. There really is only so much more that they could go until they become like... the 2022 Niners, like if they can get into that tier, but that's a really hard tier to crack as an offense. And then on defense, I think they're just worse.

And this was already a bad defense that was kind of inhibitive to their ability to win playoff games and stuff. So I like what they've done on offense. But I think overall, I'm not that convinced that the team is really better. why would they be worse on defense? Who do they lose that you're concerned about? Like Dante Fowler? Well, okay. So they lost Fowler. They lose Jeremy Chin. I don't think that's right. Chin. I don't.

I don't think they're any better at corner. I think Jevon Kinlaw is worse than Jonathan Allen. Jonathan Allen was hurt from most of the season last year, though. Yeah, but them getting him back would have made me feel better about what they're going to be this year. That's fair.

And then, like, we're doing Bobby Wagner and Zach Ertz again. Like, it just feels like the wall has to come at some point with some of those older. And I know Ertz is on offense, but like, it just feels like they did not add any. better players than they lost on defense.

I can get behind that. I think with Ertz and Wagner, that is a, we really like what we build here culturally. We want to maintain it. And so I think I can get behind that. I do think that they probably want to do a little bit more at corner and just didn't want to pay the premium on some of those. older guys, like them paying Jonathan Jones $5 million a year as the guys like Trevarius Ward and Carlton Davis get 20.

Like I get that as a team building choice. You're not getting the same caliber of player, but there's a lot of risk involved in those third contracts for aging corners that are sometimes banged up. You're not. putting yourself in the same amount of risk here. The only thing I, my concern here with Washington, they don't have that many picks, right? So they traded away picks in the Lattimore trade. They traded away picks in the Tunsil trade. So right now they're sitting with.

And that wasn't like that high of a capital. And if you look at it there, it's all a show game with these, like the Debo pick was like something they had gotten in another tree that they had made. And there's a lot of stuff with like.

the Jahan Dotson trade and some of those picks and how they've moved around. But at the end of the day here, they're sitting with their first round pick, their second round pick, Houston's fourth round pick. They have two picks in the top 100 and only three in the top 200. So this is this team. and what they've done, these are the moves that they have made. So the swings they took were Lattimore, Tunsell, and Debo. Tunsell I'm doing 100 times out of 100 because...

There just aren't left tackles like that available, even if you're going to have to pay him a lot. He's only 31. He's coming off of a down year for him, but he's still a very good player. With Debo and Lattimore. There's a lot of risk in both of those if those are going to be your two big swings. Lattimore counts $18 million against the cap this year. He's consistently hurt, and he wasn't good for them when he played last year. And I worry...

It's not a one-for-one comparison because I think there are a lot of considerations with the Keenan Allen thing that are different than the Debo thing. From a role perspective, Debo makes much more sense with what Washington already has on offense.

You only have two big-time receiving options. You have your Noah Browns of the world filling in the gaps to be your role player and your dirty work guy. So the construction of Washington's receiving court, I think, makes more sense than the construction of the Bears receiving court last year with Adunze. But I just worry, oh, we think that –

We can get over the top if we make this move and you trade away a mid-round pick for an aging receiver that you're paying $18 million against the cap and it doesn't move the needle for you. And you traded multiple picks for Marshawn Lattimore as he's getting a little bit older. He's making $18 million.

against the cap, and it doesn't move the needle for you. I just worry that the swings they took ultimately aren't going to be enough to take them over the edge in the short term, and there really is no long term based on the swings that they took. That's the thing is like they're betting that this year is going to work out for them, which we just saw from Houston that that can be a little bit scary. I will say with the Devo thing, I don't even disagree with that, that like.

this is probably not going to move the needle for them as much as they maybe thought. But I do think for the immediate, like, this year, he is at least as good of a player as De'Ami Brown was. Like, he's better than De'Ami Brown was, especially. Absolutely. And they're going to use him in similar ways. Exactly. They're going to use him in ways that Debo should be used. I just worry about the impact. Are you going to be getting...

even if it's a fifth round pick, are you going to be getting a pick and $18 million worth of impact from Debo Samuel at this point in his career? I have concerns about that in the right circumstances. If he's Debo from a couple of years ago, or even like 80% of Debo from a couple of years ago. That guy in this offense with Terry McCorin, it totally tracks to me. It makes perfect sense in what they were after. I just wonder how much is that realistically on the table? Yeah, I...

It's probably not. It's a lot of money for a player of him at this stage. But again, if last year to me, Terry McLaurin was really the only serious receiving threat on this team, if Debo can at least be better than the other guys, that is... Again, probably not moving the needle enough for 18 million, but it's at least something. Again, and the offense will probably be like top eight again, regardless. It's just that if they're paying all of this stuff.

They expect to go from like the fifth best offense to the second or third. It's hard to do, man. It's really, really hard to be one of those top elite offenses. I think what we've also learned is when we look at these teams who make the playoffs before we expected them to, and they're on the rookie quarterback timeline, they have a lot of money to spend.

it's harder than we make it out to be to microwave the rest of your roster because there just aren't that many guys worth acquiring. And I think what they did with Tunsil is a creative use of some of that cap space, right? Like that's a creative way to try to make yourself better. That's not just...

through free agency. But even with veteran trades, there just aren't that many guys you're going to be willing to acquire to eat up that cap space, where at the end of the process, you think, man, we're so much better off than we were at the start. I think this is very similar to the conversation we had about.

Houston last year, and I actually think the moves Houston made last year because of what the free agent pool looked like were more exciting to me. The Diggs trade and the Debo trade, I feel like, are sort of analogous. Texans gave up much more for digs, but he had been playing better than Debo had been over the last couple of years. And then the move that they made that there's no, there's no Daniel Hunter in this equation for.

for Washington in a way that there could have been. The only guys who could have done that for you were like, potentially Josh Sweat and Khalil Mack. And so when you miss out on those sorts of guys, there isn't a deep enough pool of free agents for me to arrive at the end of this process and think, oh man, they're so much better off than they were. And maybe that's okay.

Maybe they're like the trajectory that they're on. They're still going to be a good team. It doesn't all have to happen this year, but. I just maybe think I expected a little bit more when I looked at the final product of this after they'd wielded some of those resources. And when I was thinking about what this team could be in 2025. Yeah. And I think the last thing I'll say too, is just, I.

I understand that because Jaden Daniels was so good that you want to go add your big-time moves around him. And Tunsil specifically, I think you do that, again, most times than not. But them doing the Devo thing, like... I would have rather just had that money on the defense, man. The defense...

I feel like we forget how bad the defense was. They were very not good for a majority of the season. It's just that when the offense was scoring 40 points at certain times, it just didn't matter. But I don't know. It just feels like if the offense... doesn't take the step they want it to. Like if they just hover around again, you know, fourth to seventh, which again is really good, but don't take the step to being the first or second best offense. And then the defense maybe gets worse.

And you get a little bit less luck with some of the end of game stuff that they had last year. Like this is potentially not a playoff team. And I know that sounds crazy with how exciting they were last year, but it's, it's, it's, it's the margins in the NFL, man. That's the stuff can happen.

I think we should think about the picks, though. With the 29th pick, do they go get an edge rusher? Do they get somebody who can give them a little bit more juice? There's a chance they spend some of those draft picks on defense, and the defense feels a little bit different by week eight.

than it does on march 17th and so i'm also willing to concede that but for the most part the swings that they were going to take and be able to take they've already taken them and so this is what uh that roster is going to look like after some of those more aggressive moves All right.

That is our little audit of where the NFC teams are after the first big wave of free agency. And honestly, after most of free agency, there's still some moves left to happen, but most of the dominoes that are going to fall have already fallen here in the first seven days of the market.

at being open. We're going to get back onto a more regular schedule here over the next couple weeks. We're going to be having two more shows coming to your guys' way this week. We're going to be talking to Dane tomorrow. That's going to be up on... up overnight into Wednesday on how free agency has shaped the draft. You know, now that we have.

Tons more answers on where teams thought their needs were, how they filled those needs. How has that shifted some of the guys Dane is mocking to certain teams, how teams might be thinking. We'll do that for Wednesday. And then Wednesday into Thursday. Me and you are going to circle back and talk about the biggest remaining needs that these teams have now that the dust has settled. It kind of feels like...

the right counterpoint to this conversation, to the one that we had about the AFC. So we're going to go through teams and just talk about what is left to be done now that we've seen the first wave of free agency and how teams have spent their money there. That's what we got for this week. And then we'll be kicking off again, the mailbag starting next Monday as we get into a more regular off season schedule. Now the free agency has died down the athletic football show at gmail.com.

excuse me, athleticfootballshow at gmail.com. Send along your questions, whether it's about free agency, whether it's about the first... kind of wave of draft storylines, where your team is after all of these moves or whatever is on your mind, please send it along and we will try to answer it for next Monday's show. For now, that's all we got. Sincerely appreciate you guys listening. We'll talk to you soon. you