3 wild 2024 NFL takes we only half-believe
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Hi, I'm Nate Tice. I'm joined by Charles McDonald and Matt Harmon. We're Football 301. We have a new pod. First episode coming out July 23rd. We're going to be coming out every Tuesday and Thursday as soon as training camp starts throughout the entire NFL season. But to start us off, we all have a take at

Yeah, this is definitely something I only half believe, maybe 25% believe. And I do 100% think Charles might throw me off the pot as soon as I say it. I think Chris Olave is going to compete to lead the NFL in receiving yards this year.

year. I'm aware that Derek Carr is still the quarterback. Charles is already disgusted. I'm aware that Derek Carr is still the quarterback, but when I'm trying to think about a receiver that can really take that major leap from a very good player to a potentially special player, maybe even a fringe tier one, top of tier two type of receiver, he's one of my favorite candidates. And I'm just excited that New Orleans is going to have new ideas on the offensive side of the football for pretty much the first time in 20 years, which is wild to say. Oh,

I don't think they've had any ideas, new ideas in New Orleans. It's just been the same stuff. Just keep paying it forward. Same old ideas. Not worried about the offense line. Oh, like I said, 25 to 50% believe so, but, but I very, very much, very much believe in, in the player and potentially some of the utilization changes that are coming there.

Oh, yeah. Olave is a sick player. And all the underlying stats point to a boom season and him maybe in his Falcons counterpart with Drake London. But going to the Falcons fan, Charles McDonald, what's your half-baked, quarter-baked, tenth-baked take that you have at this point in time as we're ending training camp? I think tenth-baked is probably appropriate for me. And I know over the offseason, we have talked a lot about the Cowboys.

and just where they are right now. And this is more, maybe looking beyond the 2024 season, but I've been playing a lot of NCAA 25 or college football 25. And every time you load up the game, the first, you know, the big player that's in the middle of the screen as they start walking out is Shador Sanders. So...

I started thinking about Jerry and maybe this is probably just half-baked 3 a.m. I've been gaming for 15 hours thoughts, but Jerry has positioned himself in a world where Dak Prescott may not be his quarterback next year.

This also very much coincides with the Colorado football program going to the Big 12, where they will not be playing ranked teams every week. And most weeks in the Big 12, they will have the two best players in the field with Travis Hunter and Shador Sanders.

This is putting Shador in a space where he can actually have a year and ball out and potentially be a first round pick. Right. As the Cowboys have a quarterback situation where they're not going to have a starter next year. And you know what? You know who Jerry Jones loves? D.

Deion Sanders. You know who Deion Sanders loves? Jerry Jones. And Shador Sanders. It's lining up perfectly for this at least to be an option when we get to January for the Cowboys, Shador, and Deion Sanders. Easier schedule for the Buffaloes. Cowboys have bungled this Dak thing to a crazy degree. And Mike McCarthy, he's on the hot seat every week.

It could happen. It could happen. Well, one, I did a little Shadur experience in scouting and everything. I don't see him as a first-rounder yet. Neither do I. I didn't think it would be a good idea. I know. It's a path. There's a path there. Maybe this leads to Mike McDaniel and the Dak Prescott pairing in Miami, and then the football gods might be really happy, and then maybe it actually does all work out. But also the other thing,

Jerry loves his Texas folk. He loves his people that went to high school in Texas. He loves people that grew up there. That's another thing. All these types of things. I know that there's a non-zero chance. So I think, what did you have, a 10th? At most, 10th bait take. Yeah, at most, but it's a non-zero. It's a non-zero. Yeah, that's what's so crazy about it. Matt, what do you think about it?

with the Cowboys right now. As soon as he said the name Shadurah Sanders, I knew exactly where he was going. Way, way better than my take. Honestly, with where Dallas is in their team building process and all these contracts and everything, you know, and no one being there long term at this point, everybody's kind of there on a one year deal, essentially. So I'm

I feel like if you're not ready and willing to believe anything about what happens next with Dallas, I feel like your head is kind of in the sand at this point. Yeah, every result is possible, which is fun, but also frightening. If you're a Cowboys fan, probably very, very frustrating and frightening. Yeah, but here's the thing about being a Cowboys fan. Ain't nobody asked you to do that. You could do anything else with your time. Right.

Right. You grew up in, you know, New Jersey. Yeah. What's going on here? Down the street in Norfolk, Virginia. You got plenty of options, baby. And when the season's over, you can just watch the Yankees and the Lakers anyways. You got your teams already. And Duke basketball comes around as well. So, you know, you got it all covered. Yeah. Oh, man.

This pod just tanked right off the bat. No, no, it's great. This is perfect. I've already kind of shared this kind of half-baked take, and it's not even like a half-baked take. It's more like a dark horse prediction one, and that's my ante to Richardson to win MVP this season. And that is he's 33-1 or 30-1 betting-wise right now. This is some of my belief in his growth this year. Some of this is narrative.

Voters like a new shiny quarterback, especially in their second year where they got a little name recognition. They love saying a guy came out of nowhere, even though the ones paying attention have noticed things. So that's the thing when you're picking awards. You got to think in the mind of the voters and just the narrative swell. Second year guy. Offense could be dynamite this year, especially with a great offensive coordinator or offensive play car in Shane Steichen.

Division could be fun. There's gonna be a lot of eyeballs on it. Defense would be okay. But I just think that offense could be very good because the play caller, he can get the stats. He's going to get, you know, some of the fantasy behind him too, where people point the numbers because he'd have some rushing stuff. So there's just, there's a little bit of the swell I get. And maybe my, I wouldn't say half-baked. I would maybe go four-tenths baked, two-fifths baked kind of take there. But my other one, this is more of a football general because I can't just have one.

This is just a football in general take. Interceptions aren't as bad as people make them out to be. That's my other, that's why I can't really prove it. I'm going to do a study one day once I get some numbers, some data behind this. But interceptions, I think we still have that old stigma about them. They're not all built the same.

not all interceptions are the same because quarterbacks are trying different stuff and situations are different. So not all interceptions are bad or as bad as we make them out to be. They're not all just like, wow, that's the worst play ever. Some of them are less damaging than you would think than more damaging than

And here's how you know people are disingenuous about the interception thing. Everyone agrees Josh Allen's at worst a top three quarterback, and he throws a million interceptions. So you know that there's some nuance in there. If you're a fan and you are still upset about interception totals, just look at Josh Allen. You know he's great, and you know that there's some nuance in there that you can find about interception totals. If Josh Allen throws a pick on third and 17, 50 yards down the field, I'm not tripping about that. It's fine.

Or if you're going to be blind and say, well, Dak Prescott has a turnover issue now because he, you know, balls got tipped or he's trying a seam ball 20 yards down the down the field, trying to pierce it through between two defenders. Like, yeah, they're trying stuff. They're going to get punished every once in a while. If you're swinging for a home run, you're going to strike out every once in a while. Not to completely screw my own take from the top there. But the big reason Derek Carr only threw eight picks last year because consistently checking down. So that's how you do. That's how you podcast. Maybe you talk out of both sides of your mouth.

It's the best. It's the best. Yeah, you just say everything. You just cover all the bases. That's what we're doing here. But the last one is on the flip side is Jalen Hurts. It was his MVP year. That was the argument against Mahomes was he doesn't turn the ball over. And also in that argument went way away last year when everyone was just like, oh, I don't know. He's still good though. But like that's why you don't use that argument because this thing can go up and down, up and down based on what the quarterbacks are trying in the situation. Yeah.

But yeah, this is our nice little breaking the bottle on the ship. That is football 301. That was Matt Harmon, Charles McDonald. This is football 301. You can find us wherever you find your podcasts or also on YouTube at Yahoo Sports. We will see you guys next time.