2024's NFL teams that make us want to cry, Justin Herbert in a boot, Tristan Wirfs gets the bag
49:15 Share

On today's episode of Football 301, Charles McDonald joins me to go over Justin Herbert, who's already in a boot. Typical Chargers. It's August 1st. It seems it doesn't matter who the head coach is. That's the same old Chargers. Tristan Wirfs, though, something that makes us happy, got paid and we're looking back at the 2020 offensive tackle class. And we talk about a bunch of teams, players and NFL things that make us want to cry in the 2024 season.

Okay, it's time to commit.

2024 is the year for prioritizing yourself. Begin your new smile journey with Bite, and you could start seeing results in just two to three weeks. Just order your at-home impression kit today for only $14.95 at Bite.com. Bite clear aligners are doctor-directed and delivered to your door. Treatment costs thousands less than braces. Plus, they offer financing options, accept eligible insurance, and you can pay with your HSA FSA.

Get 80% off your impression kit when you use code WONDERY at Byte.com. That's B-Y-T-E dot com. Start your confidence journey today with Byte. ♪

Well, welcome, Football 301. I am Nate Tice. Great show. Always a great show here on Football 301. Charles McDonald is joining me, Mr. Forverts himself. We are going to go over some league news at first, and then we're going to go over some teams, some players, just some general football things that make us want to cry. It was a little harsher than that at first, but right now it just makes us want to cry. It gives us the sad face, the tragedy face, as opposed to the comedy face that football should be.

But as I said before, to help me do that, Mr. Forverts, Charles McDonald. How you doing, Charles? I'm doing good. I'm currently in Chicago for NMEJ, the National Association of Black Journalists Convention.

Been a quiet week around here. Yeah. There hasn't been any, you know, if you've read the news, you can see it's been a really quiet week around NDBJ. There's been no, you know, political unrest, no crazy things happening, just a really quiet week. But actually, I did go. I was telling you guys before we got on here, I just ate a sandwich from Mr. Beef, the...

sandwich restaurant that the show The Bear is based off of and it was absolutely delicious so yeah I stayed away from some of the nonsense but I did have a fantastic sandwich today which is really what Chicago's all about what's your Sammy order I'm actually curious um I got the I got a steak sandwich which was literally just like a stat like a slab of steak on a sandwich and

- Quarter house. - And yeah, it was a pretty thick kind of soup. I was pretty full. I wanted to take a nap before we started recording this, but a housekeeper was in my room. - And a housekeeper was in there. That was the worst. - Yeah, I was like, oh my God, I was like, I'm gonna lay down for 15 minutes, but I couldn't do it. Yeah, but I did lettuce, tomato,

mayo steak and there's something else on there that was really good but it was just cooked to perfection yeah that's great I'm a

I'm a Reuben guy. I like the pastrami, the corned beef. I like those mixtures. Yeah, that's kind of what I go to. I really like Thousand Island or Russian dressing, whatever you want to call it. But special sauce. I didn't know it was called Russian dressing until this moment. I think it's like a variety of it. Yeah, like I'm going to get, yeah, someone will correct me on it. But when I was in Pittsburgh, that's what they call it, Russian dressing. And I was like, okay, sure. Yeah.

All right. I'll go with that. It's Thousand Island. Too touchy here or something? Sandwich podcast. Yeah. Sandwich podcast. Football 301 pounds. That's what this is after we eat all these sandwiches. But like I said before, some league news. Well, first kind of, again, kind of makes us want to cry. Like good way to kind of actually start this show. Justin Herbert.

quarterback for the la chargers diagnosed with plantar fasciitis in his right foot two weeks in a walking boot can't yeah not really uh how you want to start the horrible regime and start off the season especially this offense that's going to be a lot of justin herbert uh have you ever gotten like a plantar fasciitis injury or any foot injuries like that no

It's not fun. Not really. Not fun. My sister had a lot of foot issues. You know, she was a track and soccer player and stuff. And just football players have been around. There's some Vikings guys that missed a lot of the season with playing our fashion guys. Their offense alignment. It stinks. Feels like your arch of your foot is going to rip off.

So this is not a fun injury. These linger. And it just happened like five minutes before we were about to start this. So I haven't really given a lot of thought, but that's a real injury. Two weeks in the walking boot. And I think it's just going to hinder him the rest of the season. He's not a guy that is going to scramble a ton, but he's athletic and he uses it. So this is kind of a, this is a rough injury. And one that's going to be, I think, sneaky, a bigger factor than I think there's just a little two weeks in the boot. So not a lot of fun, not a fun way for the LHR to start off August. Yeah.

I mean, it's just, as soon as I saw it, I was just like, classic.

Just classic Chargers, man. There really wasn't much of a thought process after I saw this behind me. Man, that team is cursed. They're always going through something like this. And like you said, this is not really how you want to get the Harbaugh thing started off because one of the reasons that this job was more attractive than, say, the University of Michigan was because you have the...

franchise quarterback that's supposed to make your transition a whole lot easier than, you know, some of these other teams that are starting from the ground up. But man, if he's going to be hobbled for, I mean, he's going to be in the booth for two weeks. Like you're coming up against the start of the regular season, like when you're starting to get into shape and starting to get moving again in the way that you want to. So this is,

Probably going to be something that lingers for just a little bit, maybe through the early portion of the seasons. But man, I feel for Chargers fans. You got so much good energy moving in the right direction. And then all of a sudden it pops up. Hey, yesterday, the one guy that's making all this go. Yeah, he hurt his foot and he's going to be out for at least two minutes. It's a real one.

It's not just like an ankle sprain or ankle roll either. Yeah, I know. I'm a bummer. I just wanted to see what this offense looked like, too, with a healthy one with Harbaugh and everything. So, yeah, just a total bummer. Kind of happier news, I would say, is Tristan Wirth's contract. I'll throw this one in there. So this isn't going to make us cry. This is happy. Tristan Wirth's got a big deal.

From the Bucs, deservedly flipped over to the left side from right tackle. He started his career as a right tackle for the Bucs from Iowa. Made Charles and I look very smart in the draft process because he started his career just phenomenal. Phenomenal, phenomenal player. Big contract for worse. He's now the highest paid offensive lineman in the NFL. So we have the highest paid quarterback, highest paid offensive lineman. This is how it works.

cap goes up stock goes up everything goes up to the moon five years 140.63 million 88 million guaranteed which is the more important number

Yeah, there was one, two, three, five, six offensive linemen drafted in the first round that year. Offensive tackles, I should say, they moved around and all that, including before Tristan Wirfs, Andrew Thomas, who was number four to the Giants, who's turned into a very, very good player, battling probably with Wirfs as now one of the best young left tackles in the game. Number 10, Jedrick Wills to Cleveland. Number 11, Mekhi Becton to the Jets. Then Wirfs, 13 to Bucks. 18 to Miami was Austin Jackson. 29 to Tennessee was Isaiah Wilson.

Oh, boy. Isaiah Wilson. We're going to spend a minute on that. Isaiah Wilson might be one of the biggest draft busts of all time. So, yeah, that was an interesting class. And I know you liked Wirfs. You liked Wirfs his whole career. So I'm sure this is kind of like, yeah, he deserves this money. Absolutely.

Yeah, it's pretty cool. And I remember when people were saying like, he should be a guard coming out of Iowa. I was like, bro, come on. Like I would put him a left tackle before, before we would try this guard thing out. Cause he's, he's insane. It's like the, the athleticism at that size, the power strain. I mean, he's just, he's just a really good football player. And, you know, even as he moved on to where he's going to be a full-time left tackle, most likely for the rest of his career, uh,

That's not really something you should be afraid about because he's been so good on the right side. To me, it's kind of like when Panay Stool was moving from left to right tackle from Oregon to Detroit and

I remember I was talking with Michael O'Junior about it, and we were like, yeah, there might be some growing pains there, but he's still Pene Sewell. He's going to figure it out. He's going to be all right. And that's how you should kind of look at this Tristan Werf thing. So I'm happy for him. I think that this is really cool. It's always cool when you do draft stuff to be like, hey, I got one right, and that guy has a second contract now, and we're moving forward.

Dude, the Isaiah Wilson thing. You could have told me... I was honestly stunned to see his name here because...

I totally forgot about it. If you asked me what year he got drafted, I don't know that I could accurately tell you because you could tell me it was 2016. You could tell me it was 2022. Anything between that, I would probably believe you. And I say this as a Georgia fan. Wow. I mean, just a guy who never lived up to potential. Oh, man. Because he was built in the lab. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He was...

Oh, shoot. The guy that had this year, Mims, before Mims. He was a freak. So, yeah, Wilson was one of the Titans, kind of the Vrabel Robinson regime. They want a little bit of a heat check for all the character and injured guys. They're like, hey, this is our money ball. Just get the guys that are really hurt or have really bad character grades and let's take them. We got value there. Plus EV. Suck it.

Yeah, how'd that work out? But Isaiah Wilson, I know, that was just a great name. Great trip through memory lane. Jackson's turned into kind of a guard slash tackle, Dolphins. Actually, I had a nice season last season. Becton's a guard now for the Eagles. He's a member of, you know, a student of Jeff Stoutland University. See if he can get anything. But if you told... Becton was always a project

But like his traits were even better than worse. His rookie year was crazy. I still remember Lindsay Jones, who's with the ringer now. We were working at the athletic and she was doing like a best 25 under 25 kind of thing. And she asked me, she goes, is it fair to put Becton with worse? I go, oh, yeah, absolutely. I didn't even hesitate because I was like, he could touch the same ceiling that that guy has. But.

Life happens. The Jets happen. And yeah, and all those types of things. So yeah, follow class. Will's turned into a solid starter. He's okay. But yeah, kind of a fun class. It's always fun when you've got a loaded at one position. And Werfs and Thomas ended up being the true, true stars of that class, which was pretty fun to see both of them develop. Now, we've got the Hall of Fame game tonight.

which does make me a little happy. It makes me a little sad summer's ending, truly. Usually my birthday signifies summer's ending for me because that usually means training camp, but Hall of Fame game tonight. But we have a lot of things that makes us want to cry, really. There's things that makes us happy, but there's things that make us want to cry. Worse is happy, but Charles, what is something right now in the NFL that makes you want to cry? Well, I came from the standpoint of basically like

When you get to week six or seven, right, where the teams have kind of given you their identity of what they're going to be for the year. There's always some team where you're looking at the schedule for the next week. Oh my God, I do not want to watch X play X.

against X because that's going to be just a terrible game. Like for me last year, and really I would say the past two years, Kenny Picker Steelers, anytime I saw them on the schedule on primetime, it's like automatic. Oh my God. I just watched Cardinals defense versus Steelers offense on film this week. Yeah.

So I got to watch some Kenny Pickett. What is this? It's not football. It's not quite football, but it's not not football. Because when I covered the Jets, one of the most boring teams I've ever watched was the 2019 Jets where they had the worst offense in the league and a top eight-ish defense. So they were just crazy.

Just clobbering heads, dude, on defense. And then couldn't move the ball on offense. So every game was like 10-7, 13-7, 13-10. It's like, oh my God. I remember the Dolphins, they came to New York and they scored 21 points on field goals. And Jason Sanders, he had a chance to make his eighth field goal of the game to give him 24 points.

and he missed and after the game he was like yo that loss is on me I was like no it's not it's not on you because you scored three touchdowns three touchdowns worth of vehicles that game is not on you don't say that to yourself but my first pick for this for

Fun trip down memory lane. That was great. Adam Gase's eyes went through my head as you were talking there. They went through my notes every day. You see him trying to just get some answers about what is happening here, Adam. What is happening here? Because I know football. What I'm seeing does not quite resemble football. And I feel like that team this year, one of those teams might be the Steelers if they start Russell Wilson.

For 17 games. Because I don't really understand. If you put these pieces and this offensive coordinator around Russell Wilson where he is right now, I don't really see how that's an exciting or even really a good offense that feels cohesive. Because...

You have so much potential on the offensive line to be good sooner rather than later, depending on how quickly some of those young guys develop. His wide receiver situation is looking a little bit iffy. To me, I would be looking at this like, I need a quarterback that can actually be dynamic and make things happen with his legs. Not sure if Russell Wilson is that guy anymore. And I think if he starts 17 games...

It could be a real, real drag. But Justin Fields. This is the caveat to all this. Yes. Yes. If he can start and you can tap into like, we have 600 or 600. We have six, three, 220 pound Michael Vick under center with Arthur Smith.

That could be something. Like, I'm still not out on Justin Fields being a quality starter or even, like, a good starter at some point based on, like, the whole package. But I really think it'll be a mistake for the Steelers to try and, like, patch this together with Russell Wilson. Look at what you have. You need someone that can go.

And obviously Russell's not bad at this point. They always the adage, you know, the classic coach thing, you know, football philosophy, defense, a run game and a game managing quarterback. I think now it's,

We've kind of gone past that. I don't want to use the game manager title, but gotten past that. We're on an offense or a team like this where the Steelers, who we both afterwards said to each other, I kind of regret not having the Steelers in my top 10. After we did that show, we kind of both said that to each other. Like, hey, this defense is interesting. Like the defense is. And then we liked Arthur Smith and we liked what the run game could be. I actually passed. I don't want a game manager back there. I don't want what they tried to do with Trubisky last year or Mason Rudolph. I want one.

volatile, high variance, crazy legs back there at quarterback. And that's right now. It's crazy. Yeah, it was Russ is past life, but

Justin Fields and Russell have they play a lot alike. They have similar qualities and they have similar negatives. And it always it's been one of my kind of things I'm a threat I've been pulling on is how is this going to work with those two that don't throw over the middle of that offense that thrives on throwing over the middle off a play action. But the thing is, Fields is bigger, is faster, is younger.

than Russ is right now, a little more aggressive than Russ is now. Russ checks the ball down more than anybody. If you watch the Broncos last year, there's so many times he's running around on third and extra long and throwing beneath the sticks. He's they have that stack called Alex, which is like air yards less. They try to make it named after Alex Smith. Yeah, yeah.

air yards less than expected sticks or something like that. But he was just always low in that after being so high in those numbers in Seattle, because that's how you kind of get away with taking all those sacks as you create explosives. That's the counterbalance to it. Now, when you're a check down Charlie and you're taking sacks, that doesn't add up and you're not going to bring anything to the run game. So fields, this has been, this is something I'm excited to see. The possibility is Arthur Smith, who does cool quarterback run stuff. He did like, especially in the red zone. Yeah. With a guy that's,

incredible as a runner actually incredible as a runner and an incredible athlete yeah that that has me excited but like you said if russ is back there a lot less excited i would say i'm totally sad i'm a little sad i'm just like one little tear coming down if that were to happen so field seems i was getting a lot of run uh they're kind of russ was working through an injury it seemed like and then now he kind of came back so something to keep an eye on but yeah if it's fields happy russ

moderate face that's why i'll just right straight face yeah that's what i'll go with because if if russ is a quarterback i just wonder like where are the explosives coming from that's it on this it's just because and that's it like and how good is george pickens he's a go ball specialist yeah look i i think he's funny he is funny he's also matt harman and i talked about a little bit he's a kind of

Quite overrated as a blocker. Watch him at the point. He's not a good blocker. He reminds me, God, who is the guy who used to play for the Nets? Not Kenny R. Martin. Oh, Kenny R. Martin. Yeah. Yeah. The old dunker played at Cincinnati. Yeah.

Yeah, that that's George Pickens as a football player, as a basketball player, just finishing alley-oops. That that's what he does. Sorry, Martin. I know you had a great career and you're definitely more than that, but that's how I picture him anyways. Yeah. All right. Moving on to another team. This one's in your favorite team's division.

That is the New Orleans Saints. And this is the first one that makes me sad is I just keep looking at the Saints. I get a little bit excited. You know, I really like a love. I think he's a star. Oh, she, she, oh, she eats good. He's might have a little breakout year this year. Okay. So I got Camara. Okay. I go through there. The world's most interesting tight end room. Then I look at the offensive line and I get sad and I get, I get happy. Yeah.

Really? You get happy. Yeah, I get sad. Oh, it's just because I knew this is the Trevor Penning experiment is going to dictate a lot in the season. A guy that they drafted left tackle that was toolsy supposed to be this, you know, freaky guy does not play anywhere close to his testing or strength. I was

I was very low on him in the draft process and kind of another one. Yeah, let's go over our good draft takes on the show. But with Penning, they've tried. They've tried to develop him. They put him as a six offensive lineman. That's like a good way to kind of get a young guy reps, especially a guy from an FCS school like he was.

never good. Like it was never like good reps. It was always just like, yeah, he's there. He didn't look like a guy that was drafted in the first round and high in the first round. So that, and they're trying to met right tackle now. So we'll see Eric McCoy is very good, very good player. Caesar Reese has some moments, but you know, these guys get hurt all the time. Patrick Lucas, if you're, if you're starting a guy from Chicago,

Come on, man. We've seen that offensive line. That's been true for a while, man. I know. And then we got Talis Fuego, who was their first-round pick, and a guy that I still had a kind of late first grade on him, still thought he was justifiably a first, should have been a first-round pick. I was a little lower on him than others. I thought he was a run-first blocker. Did not see, I thought of him as a guard or a right tackle only. Kind of like, this may be, and this is kind of speaking to you, like a better version of Caleb McGarry.

That's kind of why I pictured him as like kind of like his path and a little more, a little more technically sound, but they're bumping them to left side, which I never pictured for him on the left side because he he's best in a play action offense run first offense. We're still running everything, but yeah, that, that it just with and how Derek Carr plays, he's not the best with kind of a shaky pocket.

Yeah, an offense that could be exciting, could have some real moments. It also could go south quickly if they have one injury or any of these young guys don't play. Either of these young guys, I should say, play to the level that they should. So, yeah, why does this make you smile, Falcons fan? Well, my team isn't good enough to take advantage of this. Movable force. Movable force versus stoppable objects. It's just...

The one thing that I keep coming back to the more I think about the Saints, and I guess as you start piecing together what this offensive model looks like, because Ramchick getting hurt, I mean, his career's probably over at this point. Yeah, sadly, I know. Sadly, I...

They don't really seem to be equipped for this moment that they knew was coming. Because it's not like this has been a secret that Ramshack can end up here or that you can end up in a space where you wouldn't have access to his talents. So for you to say, oh, we'll probably need a starting left tackle and to zero in on Fuaga being your guy for that, I don't quite understand. Because you knew you needed the left tackle,

But I don't understand how you get to Fuwaga being your plan at 14. I mean, I would have rather drafted like Fatali from Washington and thrown him out there and given him a chance to do something. Yeah.

Because he always showed he played left tackle in the same conference. So how weird. How's that? I know. And I know if the negative with him was more injury stuff and everything. And maybe they're like, hey, we don't want another injured guy in our roster. But I don't know. I thought he was loads better. And this is the thing I came back to is like, you can't predict who gets hurt. Get the guy that can potentially play all five spots.

That way you just get, it's all about getting your best five out there. And yeah, yeah. That, that one never ended up making sense to me. And that's why it continues to make me sad. It's just because it could, it could just be so much better. And I even liked the office coordinator a little bit better just because it's not car

Carmichael, you know, even though I do also go to your- To Carmichael, dude. What a finesse Hall of Famer. That guy sat there for 20 years and everyone was like, what do you do? Then when he finally gets a chance, he's called in plays. I was like, okay, let me see why you never called plays. That was it. Or why nobody ever hired you to be the head coach. He was Drew Brees' quarterback coach for like 15 years. It's like, what do you even coach Drew Brees on? Yeah.

I was around a coach. I was around a coach in Atlanta and

He was complaining about like, you know, the guys that he had justifiably actually at his position. I will, I will, I will give him that. But then I remember one of the pro scouts going like, Hey dude, you were coaching Tony Gonzalez for the last like four years. Your life was easy. You should just cause you have to work again. I kind of always stuck with me. It was like some of these coaches get so spoiled and they're like, Oh shoot. I have rookies.

I have like, you know, oh man. Yeah. I have to actually do my title now. Yeah. So sometimes you get those nice vets. It's great. Joshua Daniels. What? Where's the rest of these guys? Where's Tom?

I can't do this. Don't make it all stories, but that was the, I said the bill, Bill O'Brien's downsize. He thinks everyone's Tom Brady. There you go. So he coaches them like that. Like, why don't you understand this third down concept and how to like read do, do, do, do. And everyone's just like, what? Yeah. Cause I'm not Tom Brady. Yeah. All right. Well, those are the first ones that made us sad. We're going to take a quick minute to take a break and then we're going to talk about some more.

that make us maybe even sadder, or maybe just some rants that we want to go on. Forget one-size-fits-all diets. With Noom, you get a personalized weight loss plan that's tailored to your lifestyle. Have cravings? Food FOMO? Noom can help you lose weight while still enjoying your favorite foods. Noom's users love the flexible approach, blending psychology and biology to help you lose weight in a way that's sustainable for you. Plus, you can rest assured Noom's approach is grounded in science.

They've published more than 30 peer-reviewed scientific articles describing their methods and effectiveness. Stay focused on what's important to you with Noom's psychology and biology-based approach. Sign up for your trial today at Noom.com. We are back with teams, things, football-related items that make us sad. Charles, what's your second one that makes you quite sad? I actually thought you were going to bat lead off with this one, so I'm kind of excited to dive into it.

The Broncos. Just period. Just the Broncos period. But I will say the thing that really has made me sad over what's called the past six to eight days is seeing people try to sell themselves on this. Stop.

Okay, just stop. It's not good enough this year. It's not going to be good enough. And honestly, if this comes back to bite me in the ass and they are good enough, I won't feel bad about not saying it's not good enough right now because look at the process that got you to this point. Like you didn't do anything in free agency because we just talked about Russell Wilson before the break, right?

That contract was the largest dead cap hit in NFL history. You have to deal with that for two off seasons. So, I mean, mathematically wise, there wasn't much you could add to your room. So I was thinking, okay, we all know you guys are in on Bo Nix. Why don't you trade down from 12, pick up some picks so you can just backfill the roster with some talent now that you have this massive dead cap hit. But no, they decided to take him at 12 and

I feel like they're trying so hard to convince us that this Bo Nix thing is real that I can't bring myself to believe this. I think this is comfortably the worst team in the AFC West. The only way really that, to me, the only way that they can kind of overachieve this year is if the defense kind of carries them. PS2 goes absolutely insane again. Maybe you get some pass rush from guys who weren't expecting it, but offensively, I just can't believe that

son payton like this is his all-in move we're going with bo nicks and corlin sutton just a little strange to me yeah yeah the bo nicks selection felt like they're really trying to convince themselves that he's the guy it felt like just like hey if we put you know first round in front of his name it makes him better right like that it seemed like a couple teams did that actually uh in this draft uh you know we'll just keep making that quarterback contract argument doesn't matter if the player is a negative player huh as long as he's cheap but uh

But with Knicks, yeah, I just I actually had a I kind of had like a take on this. I kind of blew up my face where I was like, hey, I don't see him fit in Sean Payton's offense at all. So I don't see where these rumors are coming from. Turn out the rumors were coming from Sean Payton himself that he liked Bo Nix. And so it's just because I always picture Sean Payton in.

The ideal offenses is pushing the ball. That's why I actually originally liked Russell and that offense, but that was old version of Russell. It turned out, but not kind of nickel and diming, but it feels like Sean Payton would kind of like talked themselves into the late saints, which had drew breeze being an absolute machine. Like,

statistically eye test any way you want to look at it just some of the best seasons if it wasn't Mahomes that year because it was Mahomes first year starting 2018 like Breeze's season was up there as far as like historically it was just one of the most brutally efficient seasons possible and for some reason I feel like

Peyton's latched onto that. Like, I feel like he's like, that's the offense I want, which to me was kind of weird. It was different than when I picture a champagne office, which is more vertical. So you need a machine operator to operate that offense. And I know Nick's is older, like, which is, should be a negative and that the, how you talk yourselves into it is going, well, he's going to be able to hit the pros quickly. Like he's going to grasp the game really quickly. Um,

I don't know. That, that does a weird equation to like mad up. Like all this is, all this sounds like in theory, like they wrote it on paper and they're like, yeah, age, that means good and experienced, like high accuracy. That means we can run quick. It like, they like said it without actually watching how Nick's plays and actually what they idealistically do. So.

It's just it never made sense to me. We'll see how it goes. Sean Payton still can dial up some ball boys, but I don't know, man. I know they returned for offensive lineman outside the center and I like I like Cushenberry a lot, but it was like McQuitchie sucked. It's like he was just because they return him. We know what he is. He's been paid. This is the second team and then the rest, you know, are fine. I've been powers, whatever Bowles is kind of getting up there and he kind of like, you know, it's kind of tapering off of some stuff. He's fine.

But receiver-wise, Sutton, I don't know. I thought he was a better fit with Russ because Russ was something I'm going to have to try, really jump balls and stuff, which are actually a lot of fun. We'll see how Marvin Mims is a deep guy. Josh Rounds is starting. None of it just overwhelms me. So I think Matt put them as the 30-second offense when we did that kind of little thing for social media. And me and you were both kind of like, oh, that's actually a pretty good one there. I don't hate that take. I really don't either. I don't either.

because i don't where's the juice coming from like jaleel mclaughlin who's like who's like a choice route runner like audrey guesame is interesting but it's like all right i know you know um the tight ends don't even like i mean they're trying to get greg dulcich back but they've adam trotman starting right now it's just you know josh rounds is starting he's fine but again these are the names a little jordan humphrey's making an appearance i know he was there last year but

Just kind of doesn't add up to me to a like, yeah, like this is a cool plan. And I know they had to reset a lot because of the Russell thing, Russell Wilson contract thing. But yeah, just a, just a weird team right now. See how the defense does. I wish your tan's awesome. So moving on in the AFC West, I got my thing. That's going to make me sad. And that really is just one position on the Raiders. And that's the Raiders quarterback situation because they're like,

Kind of sort of there with a good offense, potentially even offensive lines. And the pass catchers are really cool. Devante Adams, Jacoby Myers, two tight ends are, I think, are be sick. Michael Mayer and Brock Bowers. Like, that's really fun. Like that, even with offensive lines, kind of, you know, some holes, but actually some decent guys.

Yeah, the pass catchers make it exciting. We'll see how the run game is. They were a little better last year when White came in there after, you know, kind of Josh Jacobs had a weird year and the run game was just kind of, eh. So Zemir White kind of like got in there and did some nice things, but he's not overwhelming. Like he's a fine starter, I think. But at quarterback, Gardner Minshew and Aiden O'Connell kind of know what Gardner is. High-end backup, get you through some games. We saw what he did with the Colts last year. Did a fine job for his role. He has a limited ceiling, but he does a fine job in that kind of spot starter role.

Okay. That's who you signed as your guy. And then in O'Connell,

He does some nice things. He's limited as well, but he's okay at operating the offense. And I was like, that's your plan. That's what you're going with. Maybe they're trying to move up. Maybe they're trying to do a lot of things, but I just keep coming back to it because I want to get excited about this team. The defense could be cool. You brought them up in their top 10. They have some cool, there's some cool things, but they're just not complete at all. And yeah, so they kind of make me sad right now that this was their quarterback plan for 2023 or 2024, I should say, rather than going after like Jacoby Brissett, who

who would be, I think, a much higher quality starter for them. And the thing with the Raiders quarterback situation is, I know I've talked with our friend Derek Klassen, I know FC Mina tweeted about this, where you start watching some of their games and say, hey, this Aiden O'Connell thing, not as bad as I thought it would be.

Not bad. But this is our plan for year two? That's it. I know. That's where I'm at. If you had to try to bring in someone else besides Minshew, I think that having O'Connell on the roster is fine. But having both of them, I've had people ask me if I think O'Connell's better than Minshew. And it's like, yeah, but who cares, kind of.

Yeah, 34 over 35 or whatever. Yeah. Yeah, it's not moving the needle either way. And to me, it's just got to be frustrating. I would have to imagine it's got to be frustrating to be a player. You know, we already know Devante Adams has been frustrated no matter how often he says he's fine. You know, that's not true. We have Christian Wilkins and Max Crosby. Like, man, these guys are good enough to be like some of the best players on like Super Bowl winning teams. And here you are.

Just piddling around with Aiden O'Connell. It's so weird. It's got to be frustrating. It's got to be frustrating. They have three guys that can be all pros, which is like...

And they could win five games. Devontae Adams is still sick. That's the thing. That's what's frustrating. And this is my argument about positional value, if you ever want to get into that, is receivers can't do much. The quarterback and the offensive line can't do much. You can't get to the ball. It's just how it goes in the process. And so I think the Raiders are a perfect example of that. It's just that you can have some cool, shiny weapons that are truly awesome, truly, truly special talents.

The rest has to be good to just get them to be productive, to make them matter, to keep them not frustrated and everything. So, yeah, I know. I want to like this team so much because it's just I feel like I want to talk about the Raiders. They're right there. It's like one starter on offense, but it just happens to be the most important starter. Like one more starter on defense. Like, I know. They're just so, so close. So, the Raiders. I'm...

Let's say if I'm the Raiders man, I am hawking this Dak Prescott situation. Hey, what you guys got going over there? What you guys got going over there? You going to let him hit free agency or can I give you three first round picks and make that happen? No state income tax. No state income tax, Dak. It's pretty sweet in Nevada. That makes me smile. My state income taxes, but we'll be back. But we'll be back. I'm in New York City. Oh yeah, you have city, right? Yeah. You have city, state. Yeah.

Greatest city in the world. Hey, at least you have trash cans. Yeah. Now we have trash cans and they were treated like it's a revolutionary type of deal. The only place where you can get your trash can and see this is actually where the New York city, baby greatest city in the world. Green can green lady. It's great. Uh, but we'll be back in a minute to wrap up some more painful NFL stuff, NFL teams. And I'm going to drop my first get off my Astro turf take of the season. It's better.

After investing billions to light up our network, T-Mobile is America's largest 5G network. Plus, right now, you can switch, keep your phone, and we'll pay it off up to $800. See how you can save on every plan versus Verizon and AT&T at T-Mobile.com slash keep and switch. Up to four lines via virtual prepaid card. A left 15 days. Qualifying unlocked device, credit, service, ported 90 plus days with device and eligible carrier and timely redemption required. Card has no cash access and expires in six months. ♪

All right, we are back. Tail stretch, tail stretch, home stretch of this episode of Football 301. Charles, what is your last thing in the NFL, in this current NFL landscape that makes you sad? It's going to be quarterback discourse. And I would specifically say, well, not this part, but the part that grinds my gears the most is

like the collective amnesia we have about some of the things that we're watching. And I really do think that Dak Prescott is kind of like the shining example of all of this over the past few years where, you know, especially where you have a year where he had all those interceptions that were just bad luck, right? Where balls are bouncing off guys' hands. And, you know, as the season is happening and we're in the middle of it, people say, man,

It's a lot of bad luck for Dak Prescott. But the second the season ends, like the second it's over, how could Dak Prescott throw so many intercepts last year? Whoa, we were just in agreement that he was having bad luck. Like two weeks before. Right. Like two weeks ago, we were all saying, hey, this is just bad luck. The game's a game. Sometimes it's not going to slide your way. And again, like we do this year again where –

Dak has a season where basically up until the final two weeks, he could have been the MVP of the league. He was playing that well last year. And then they have the game against Green Bay, and it's like, oh, he's a bum. I was like, okay, there's got to be some sort of, you know, just nuance in here somewhere we can have reasonable discussions and just, quite frankly, remember what happened last year. So...

I know that's asking just a tall task for people, even though we've seen it with Lamar, too. Even last year with Mahomes, people were saying, is there someone better than Mahomes?

I just want people to be able to remember what happened last week and the week before that, and it will work and we'll stack it to a year. And next thing you know, you'll have five years of like NFL takes stored into your brain. You can remember why X number, you know, was produced in some sort of manner because there's 22 people in the field. A lot's moving around.

and you don't have to have everything come back to the quarterback. I just want people to remember that when we start talking about these guys. It's here. I feel like I have nothing to add. That was perfect. It was nice to sink. That was good. No, Dak is the shining example. I've been in many battles. I'm retired, but it's the second team all pro last year, and he won a playoff game on the road the year before. What are we doing here? That's all I got. It's funny, but also just...

As I scour Twitter trying to find any semblance of football and I try, you know, I look up, you know, any rookie. I look at all the rookie quarterbacks to watch any clip that they can post. All right. I'll just go. All right. What about this guy? How do you look? Chill, everybody. We haven't even gotten to a preseason game and we do not need takes about throwing into a net, especially with rookie quarterbacks. All the drills that we are over extrapolating from.

It's those, everybody does those drills. I did those drills in high school. I did those drills in college. I did those drills as a coach. Like those are not new. They're not specifically work. They are where everybody's working on footwork. Everybody's working on accuracy, but it's a warmup. You're not going to go like, you don't go to batting practice and go, man,

Dude looked good, but you went 0 for 7. Doesn't matter. Batting practice was pretty sweet. See him hit it over the wall there? Yeah, same thing with this. We'll see it in a live situation. Team situations are, of course, the most important. Team situations and pads are the most important. Guess which clips do we see the least on Twitter? Those, because teams are going to let you film them. So I just want to say, and also just reports would be reporters. I'm not saying like,

Everybody's right. Everybody's wrong. But just, you know, it's hard to really come away with opinions until you watch film. And I'm just saying that knowing it from experience, I could watch a practice. I think some guys had an awesome day and he reviewed on film. They're like, Oh, he had one good play, but the other 10 weren't that good. You know, it's like, there's a lot of that. And that's why we review film. So, um,

Just saying, take it all with like, maybe just like a grain of salt, like, like a kilogram of salt. Like with every take, every video, just always just remember, just remember they're working. It's practice. It's training. Just, we'll just chill till we get the preseason games into week, the regular season games before we throw out a lot of takes. I don't know. It is fun though. It is fun. Sometimes you get a little wild. I remember point flags. It is from the play flags. I did. I remember when,

2019 Jets training camp or 2020 maybe where Chris Herndon was still on the Jets and bro he was tearing them up in practice like

God mode. He looked like Tony Gonzalez. And then the season comes and he did nothing. And I think they traded him pretty shortly afterwards. So that's just a, yeah, pump your brakes sometimes with some things you hear from training camp. But because even when it looks good, you still actually got to play the real game. So that's going to decipher everything. Oh, and honestly, too, if you have like a really good unit on one side and a bad unit on the other side, some of those practices are brutal. I mean, shoot, the rumors that we heard from like Jets practices last year.

where I was like man their line can't block anybody it was like yeah because their lines one of the worst and the Jets defense aligns one of the best yeah I mean growing up my dad's Vikings teams the offenses were top five every year with Moss and they didn't have anybody like I mean every game was 34 31 you know nobody could cover so practices were a firework show it

It was like, it was just touchdown, touchdown, bomb, long run, touchdown, pancake. And that's what, you know, every year you're like, our offense could be sick. And I was like, well, yeah, it was sick every year. But then the defense were up and down. You can never tell from practice. You just knew Kevin Williams was pretty damn good. Yeah. So that, that, yeah, just take it all with a grain of salt. Even if I want to get excited about it, we're getting, we're getting games, the Hall of Fame game tonight. We'll get us going. But all right. My last take. Yeah. I mentioned copy right now. There's, there's, I see. Oh yeah. They're bare stuff.

That's right. You know Caleb Williams about playing. Yeah. I know. Yeah. I know. I wrote about it a little bit today. It's coming out, but I did things I'm kind of excited about on our keep, which is this is sad. And now that one's excited to keep and things to keep tabs on. And I open it up with just like Hall of Fame game. Just watch the kickoff rule. That's all I want to watch. That's honestly what I'm here for. I'm watching the whole game because I just want to. That's what I want to watch. I know it's sicko stuff, but it's going to be very important this year. And I'm excited to see you.

you know, when stuff starts hitting the fan, like what really happens? Cause these guys are flying blind. These guys meaning special teams coaches. So, all right. My last thing that makes me sad, even though there's a Thursday night game tonight, but remembering that there are Wednesday games this season and really just games on every day of the week. I like my schedule.

And usually it's end of the season. Okay. There's going to be a Saturday game. That's fine. Saturday game. So it gets college is done and you know, we're in bowl season, all that stuff. Good old blackout rules from the seventies. Gotta love them, but you know, okay, that's fine. But then now we got a game on Friday opening week in Brazil, which will be fun. Don't get me wrong. Shout out to the Brazilian fans, but it, but it's Friday for us. And then we got Saturday college football. I'm not saying I'm mad about this. I'm just kind of making me sad that it's like,

It's going to be a lot, especially the late season. We're going to have Christmas games, which will be great on the day, but it's like, how do us and the media cover them? So I just had a little bit of a little whine here. Well, first class, first world problems here. That's like, it's almost too much football throughout the week that I'm already exhausted about it. Thinking about it. No, it is too much football sometimes. Cause I remember experiencing that during the COVID season where the Ravens and Steelers play like on a Tuesday or on a Tuesday and Wednesday. I'm like, dude, this is,

This is not what this is supposed to be. And honestly, I think the breaks in the middle of the week, they give you time to marinate on stuff. Yes. Gives you time to think and breathe and...

Also, explore other parts of your brain that need to get exercise during football season. You're saying video games. You just want to play video games. Maybe video games. Maybe it's just going outside and getting some sun or reading a book. Not thinking about football. Yeah. Just not thinking about football for 30 minutes. It gets harder when we scrunch these games together. So, yeah, I'm going to run for president on the Protection of High School Sports Act. And we're going to...

block off Thursday and Friday for high school football so that my fellow media members can take a nap during the week when they're tired. I'm Nate Tice and I support this message. Yeah, but that... The protection of high school sports tax. Just get me back on my schedule, man. I actually don't. I've always wanted to talk to more baseball people because it's like, how do you guys do it? 162 games, man. They put spring training and winter meetings and that

And there's a, there's a great meme the other day where someone was just saying like, Oh, my, my football team just lost one of their 17 games. And the guy's like, turns off TV and he's just like, you know, get them next week. And it was like,

my baseball team just blew a lead and lost one of their 162 games guys like ah loses his mind it's just it's like yeah i don't know if i could handle that at least i get a week so take a deep breath between games uh all right i got one the last thing and this isn't making me sad this is kind of making me i i've kind of been marinating on this for a little bit and maybe it's because i was writing about it i was starting to go on this a little bit mini rant and then i was like yeah i'll just save it for the pod just take two minutes here this is gonna be

Hopefully a segment we drop in here every once in a while, one of us does. It's not get off my lawn. It's get off my AstroTurf. And that is just maybe an old man's take, a boomer take. It's whatever we got here. But I have a rant, and this is for such a small subset. This is such a small sliver of the football world, but I have to go on a rant real quick. Be wary of using box count stats.

Be wary of it. Use it with so much salt. These why I'm going to go on this rant is I see these getting dropped all the time. And again, it's a small subset of people. But you see it on Twitter and we see the kind of people run with this. Maybe it's because I watch a lot of Falcons last year and everyone's talking about how much they ran into loaded boxes and stuff. It's box count stats and box counts are so important.

The variables, the box count final number, there's so many variables that lead to that. They're based on situation, based on offensive personnel and formation. And so what I'm saying with the box count stats is how many defenders are in the box. And I'll see people say they run this much against a seven plus, you know, seven plus man box, six plus man box. That all matters based on formation, situation, personnel, and

And they're worthless without any of that context. So, and anyways, coverage shell, if you say, this is why I got to this point, single high, two high, that's going to tell you what the box count is, like for actual purposes of how the kind of football operation works. But just had to go with that. Anytime you use those, anytime you see them, just, you know, just understand a lot of variables in here. How was that? Was that a nice enough boomer, like niche?

hipster take for you you could up the anger for next time okay um you don't need i'm not like that i know that's as angry as i can get

I will add on to this. I feel like if you've played these video games recently, then you should have, like the Madden in college football, you should have a little bit of an idea on the box count stuff because... It helps? I think one thing that's interesting on the games, I'm a team that likes to run the ball between tackles, but I mostly do it from gun. One thing that I've really loved...

One run play that I've really loved in this new college football game is like one of the Baylor sets where they're wide, like super spread out all over the field. So basically when you're using the camera, like the stock camera in the game, you can't even see like the wide receivers and DBs because they're so off the field. I love running the HB base play, like the power play where you get a puller. You get a puller into like a four-man box and

But they're in a four-man box because I've called the set where they can't put anybody in the box or else we're scoring touchdowns. And that's literally how their actual offense works. You just explained that entire Art Riles, what they call veer and shoot, veer and shoot offense right there.

Great job, Charles. That gets all box. Spread them all out. And then we're going to run right up the middle. And if they want to stop, they won't throw it over there. They won't throw it. It's really that it's that easy. So if you ever hear us complaining about these offenses, that's why when you hear the jokes like, oh, this isn't a real football. It's because that's what it is. I know it's basically option football, but still, I know I I'm with you. The knowing box count numbers will help your RPO game and college football 25. It's all I do. Oh,

Oh, I'm pistol gun every snap, and I'm RPOing almost every snap, which is kind of opposite of how I am in real football. Same. Yeah. Running the ball is always going to be my thing. But yeah, I'm a little more nickel and dimey than I would be in real life. But it works. It works for me. Yeah. Yeah, that was good. That was good. Knocked the dust off with some hard takes. But yeah. Yeah, closing it out today, we'll be back on Tuesday with another episode with Matt Harmon. We're going to do prove it seasons. Yeah.

And then next Thursday, Charles, you're coming back and we're going to do frisky teams, correct? Some friskiness. Yeah, that one. I'm pretty pumped for that one. Not I'm pumped for Tuesday, but I'm pumped for the frisky teams one as well. That was going to be a good one. Sorry, Matt, but I am. But I'm Nate Tice. You can find me at Nate underscore Tice. That's Charles McDonald. You can find you where, Charles? You can find me at four words. I will be tweeting clips of everything you miss from the Trump speech at NMUJ. Yeah.

And that's all you need from us for Football 301 this week. That's it, right? Politics 401. Yeah. 101. We're 101 right now. All 01. Yeah. We are not keeping it 1600 over here. No, but thank you, Charles. So you're in Chicago right now. I'm in Minneapolis. We both represent the Central Time Zone right now. I'm on a training camp visit. I'm going to go to Vikings practice the next couple of days. Pretty fired up for it. Good to see my boy, St. Darnold.

I'm about to go to a bar and watch the Hall of Fame game with some of my friends later. Very nice. Yeah. I'm doing it with my high school buddy, Tommy. Shout out, Tommy. Pretty fired up. Nice. All right. But also, subscribe to us.

Follow us. Rate us. Watch us on YouTube. YouTube.com slash Yahoo Sports. You can see our great hotel backgrounds right now. We'll be back in our offices next week. We'll be a lot more cleaner there, but already got those mailbag emails rolling in. So keep those coming. Please send those questions. We'll have a mailbag episode to come in a few weeks. Football301mailbag at YahooSports.com is the email. Football301mailbag at YahooSports.com email.

Emails are great. Videos, voice notes are even better. Thanks to Brett, Adi, and Joe behind the scenes. Of course, thank you to Charles. We'll be back on Tuesday. You guys have a great weekend. See you then.