Takes we need to get off our chest, Nate's 2025 preseason big board
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On this episode of Football 301, Charles McDonald joins me for some preseason stuff. Bo Nix is starting. Also some takes to get off our chests of varying levels, varying levels of spice with these takes, but also some big board thoughts for the 2025 NFL Draft. See you guys in a sec.

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Hello, welcome to Football 301. I am Nate Tice, and I'm in LA with Charles McDonald. I got Mr. Virts right next to me. We don't have any delay on our stream, on our Zoom stream, our streamable stream. I don't think I even used the right company yet. But here we are in person to do this episode of Football 301. Very, very special episode. I mean, we're getting some takes off our chest, and then we're going to give some other preseason takes.

look at my big board a little bit longer at the end of the pod. And again, to help me do that, sitting right next to me is Charles McDonald. How are you doing, Chuck? I'm doing great. I get to sit next to you and see you in person instead of virtually twice a week like we've been doing recently. So this is good. This is good. This is actually my first time ever in LA, my first time here at the Yahoo offices in LA. And it's beautiful. It's beautiful. I feel like every time I come out to the West Coast, I'm like,

Should I be living here? Should I be living here? Best coast. Best coast. Best sports times because there's no 8.30 kickoff Monday night football, which is when I was in the league, that was the worst. It's like you actually hated Monday night games when you're in the league because it's like you have to wait an extra day. You have to be in the hotel room all day and then it's just 8.30 kickoff. It was the worst. I didn't even have to play, but just even me as a

lowly coach. But like I said earlier, we're going to do some preseason stuff. I just have a couple takes I want to get off that I forgot on Tuesday's pod. Just a couple guys I want to talk about. We have some other takes we want to get off our chest.

varying degrees of these takes, you know, some maybe a little spicier than others, but things we just want to get out there before we start really ramping up. It's called football week zero. Like we're here week one, college football's next week. NFL is a week after that. Like we're here. And then, like I said, we're gonna do some further big board thoughts of the 2025 NFL draft.

We also have big news if you like money. I always give a segue. It's the last time. But Yahoo Sports. We still like money, though. Yeah, we still like money, though. We always like that. Yahoo Sports and NBC Sports are teaming up for $1 million sweepstakes. All you got to do is sign up for a Yahoo Fantasy League before week one. You get instant entry if you do that. Someone's got to win a million bucks. Someone's got to do it by week one. Details at yahoo.com slash fantasy million. All right.

We're going to start off with a couple of preseason items. A season one character of football 301 is Bo Nix. And he was just named starter for the Denver Broncos, which kind of felt inevitable. I mean, it felt like after the draft, they were kind of like saying, yeah, this guy's going to be our guy right away. So, but Bo Nix is the starting quarterback for the Denver Broncos. Where are you at with this Chuck? Well, I think when you said that,

The Broncos have been saying that he's going to be their guys really underselling it. Right. Because Sean Payton has been talking about this guy. Like he's just the greatest quarterback he's ever seen. It's going to be, you know, we're going to reignite the late Drew Brees era stuff that the saints were doing. So,

And let's be real. There was no competition here at all. It's Jared Stidham and Zach Wilson who they traded a late round pick for. Jared Stidham hasn't really done much of anything with the chances he's had in his career. So it was going to be the Bo Nix show all the way. And then you have a good enough preseason performance where no one was going to bat an eye if you just handed him the job. So look, we'll see what happens. But we've...

So we've been on the Bo Nix Island, I feel like, a little bit by saying, eh, we've seen this before. We'll see it again. This is not anything special. It's not the Bo Nix. Yeah, I know. It's not even like we're saying it's terrible or anything. It's just that, you know, we've seen the story. We've seen this. And like you said, we'll see how it all plays out. Sean Payton is a good coach. We kind of saw those first couple of series last preseason game where he's dialing up some really good stuff for Bo Nix in that offense. The run game will be good.

I don't know how the defense will be. They have some like the defense you keep coming back to. You're like, oh, Zach Allen. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Oh, yeah. But Pat Sertand. Yeah. Okay. But then we'll see more. We'll see how Browning is all these other players. But yeah, Bonix is a starter in Denver. Kind of felt expected and the Cosmic Ballet.

moves on. And I also want to just quick bullet point on a couple other preseason standouts because I didn't get to mention them the other day. I don't know why I didn't because this whole, that whole segment was to mention this one guy. I never even mentioned him. That's Carson Steele running back for the Kansas City Chiefs, rookie, undrafted free agent, wearing number 42. And I'm going to call a spade a spade. I think he got typecasted a little bit because his name is Carson Steele. He wears 42 and he's a white guy with long hair. Yeah.

So then the Chiefs roster, they put him at fullback. They're using him as a tailback now. Oh, yeah. As the number two tailback behind Isaiah Pacheco, who has been the beacon of health and has a hard-running style. So have you checked out Carson Steele, or is this just my one-man flag I'm waving? I've only seen some clips of him on Twitter running. He looks okay. He looks okay. It's shocking me, too. Right. It's shocking. But...

You know, it does kind of feel like this is the point that they've reached in the Patrick Mahomes experiment. What if we put, you know, a rock star back there, a running back? He's a pet crocodile, apparently. You got a pet crocodile? Is it Carson Steele? Yeah, he should start. Yes, I know. It was one of those where I was like, okay. And all it started for me was, I was...

Going through the time on Twitter, scrolling, scrolling. And all of a sudden I just see like rep counts for inside drill for the Chiefs. And I just kind of peeked my eyes, just like scrolling by. I'm like, oh, early practice. Okay. Looking. And now you see Pacheco four. And then I saw, and I was expecting it was going to be Pierce, who was their other running back. And I saw Steele like four.

I was like, huh? You mean they got four reps with the first team? So I look at the roster. I'm like, is that the fullback? So he's blocking for him. And they're like, no, he got handoffs. And so I watched the first preseason game. Dude was like mowing the entire Jags defense down. He took down like three guys on his first rep.

yeah. And so I get it. So they're giving more reps. So I had to give him a shout out because you know, it might be a deep dynasty stash if you're into that kind of thing. I'll be too. It would be a big, that'd be a big jump for him. I know, but they like him cause he does protection and everything. So yeah, Chip Kelly loved him at UCLA cause he was a trend. He was a one-year transfer there from Toledo or some, some small school. Uh,

Ball State? It doesn't matter to me. Now my OCD kicks in. Sorry, Carson. It doesn't matter. Ball State, the pride and joy of David Letterman. Yeah, but Carson Steele. The other one was Jordan Whittington from the Rams. The Rams seemed to always have some undrafted late round receivers. Some turned to Puka Nakua.

Some turn in, well, round two, Tutu Atwell. You know, some were kind of all over the place, but another one standing out, he kind of came to mind because I was watching Texas for my big board and then he had some nice plays. So I want to throw him out there. Any other guys come to mind after we did that? No, I did laugh just a bunch at the Carson Steele fullback stuff because there's not a single rep

that you can see on Twitter that's been posted where he's got his hand playing football or playing fullback. So, no, that's a real deal running back. Give him the respect he deserves because if things are lining up for him like how his team's, he's about to beat a former first-round pick in Clyde Edwards-Hilaire for that second RB role. Like you said, Pacheco hasn't been the beacon of health. Last year, the Chiefs running game was not actually all that efficient even though Pacheco ended up having a nice season from a volume perspective.

Who knows? Carson Steele, RB1. That's it. Are we here? And they're saying they trust him, and that was all I needed to hear. Matt Nagy, well, you know, Matt Nagy quotes, you know, take it with a grain of salt, but he did say he trusts him. That's why they want to give him more reps. It's a big offense. You got to mention the RB2. I'm talking about, like, I've seen so many discussions about the edge two for the Bears. It's like...

Okay. How about the running back two for the defending Super Bowl champs that have like one of the best offenses in the league? Like this is a discussion that actually matters for this stuff. So yeah, I want to give those kind of undrafted free agent guys a shout. Those are ones that came to mind. We had a quick little segment here and I'm using this as a segue. So I'm stealing this, but Tom Brady gave his top four QBs.

I want to just do a quick one-hitter. Agree or disagree with this? He went Pat Mahomes, Josh Allen, Lamar Jackson, Joe Burrow. I mean, the top three, I feel like... If those are not in your top three, Mahomes, who's in his own class, obviously. You have Josh and Lamar, to me, who are in the next tier. Four, Burrow. I don't know. That's the one where...

I feel like this is like we feel this way, but we're probably on an island as far as how we feel about Joe Burrow, because obviously he's a good quarterback. He's a quarterback that can go to a Super Bowl and almost win a Super Bowl.

But I just feel like in terms of what he can do on the field and maybe what he can't do on the field, he's just not quite in the class of Josh and Lamar. And we've seen, especially last year, we know that Burrow was hurt and dinged up last year. We saw last year.

There are some limitations to the way that he likes to run the offense. And when he eventually did go out for the rest of the season and they had the backup, who's Browning, Jake Browning, who was in the Husky. Great. They got to run like a real offense.

And it looked okay. And the thing is, Joe is capable of running that same offense. It's just more about maybe some of the buy-ins sometimes because that is...

a stark contrast of how he burst onto the scene as a quarterback at LSU and how that Heisman Trophy number one pick season all came together for him. But it's just hard for me to put him... I would still put Herbert over him, which I know is a scorching hot take for a lot of people. But it's not a spicy take. It's really not. When you get hurt, people, it goes by the wayside. Well, actually, no. Vero got hurt, too. That's the thing. Yeah. Well, I'm with you because I... Shoot, I'm even on record with this, but...

I have Herbert pretty high esteem and I would have him above Burrow and I have Burrow and Dak more closely related as far as in hierarchy tiers like maybe that next tier lower tier two higher tier three to me because of just some I get it he's a baller all that stuff like

He's got moxie and all those things. But where we're talking about actually grading these guys as like an evaluator, it's that his arm is average is accurate, but it's not very strong. Um, like you said, it's a specific type of offense. He likes, he doesn't do, he doesn't like being under center, which actually it was been pretty funny. Cause then Browning goes under center a bunch. I know this isn't the end all be all, but just talking about grading all these guys and limitations, um,

But with him, seeing Browning do it and the offense working, Browning finished with a higher QBR than Burrow last year. Not the same exact reps, but a decent amount of reps. Browning had 243 attempts and Burrow had 365 attempts. So, you know, decent amount.

And I think also he's like, oh, we can do that. Oh, okay. Like kind of the excuse got taken away. So I kind of want to see where it is. The next step. I also don't want to give away too many of my borough thoughts because he's going to be a minute. Even thinking about what he said, you know, a little earlier where you're talking about like burrowing Dak Prescott kind of be on the same page.

And I would agree with that. But I think for people outside of this sphere, that might seem very... This couch. Right, this couch. You get up off this couch, that might be a very inflammatory take. I know. It's not really, though. Because obviously, you can go to the heights...

of an nfl team like the heights and nfl has to offer with the super bowl championship with joe burrow as your quarterback because he got so close to winning one uh just a couple years ago but just in terms of like playmaking and what we can do on offense

I think it's fair to put a couple guys ahead of him. Yeah, I think it's very fair. I know. I want to get more Burrow into sex. I don't want to spit it. But I'm going to use this as a segue to get into our takes. We want to get off our chest because it actually leads nicely into both of our first ones. So there's going to be different ones. That was Tom Brady's list of top quarterbacks. Yeah. Okay.

What was your first, this actually leads us nicely. I don't want to spoil it, but what is your first take you want to get off your chest? It involves Tom Brady. Oh God. I just felt like the biggest hater here. It's great. And I, I, I, let me, let me, let me get this. Let me, let me frame this first. I'm not a pocket watcher. Okay. I'm not hating on anyone trying to get a check. All right. But at the same time, I've never quite understood why.

Why these companies will go out and pay some of these broadcasters what they paid them Tom Brady He's starting his his career his broadcast career this year and basically my point was not my point But what I said was why the hell would anyone want to pay Tom Brady all that money to come here? Because I know for me it could be two chimpanzees banging symbols out there in the Monday Night Football booth and I'm still watching right and

You could put my two dogs out there and they leave and just walk out the booth halfway through the first quarter and don't come back for the next three quarters like they're liable to do. And I'm still watching that game because it's football. The announcer is just white noise for me. It's wallpaper. Right, it's wallpaper. So I've always been confused that Tom Brady getting paid $30 million a year.

Really? He's adding that much value? What needle is that moving? Right, what needle is that moving? Because I've got a ton of broadcasters that I don't

particularly enjoy listening to, but that has never been a barrier between me turning on or turning off a football game. It just becomes something you talk about. I've sat through a lot of Jonathan Dillon Falcons games before, and I'll do it again this year. You want to know why? Because they don't actually matter. I was going to be nice and not name names. That's a good one, though, because I've seen...

He's not nailing a lot of the stuff outside linebacker play. Hey, hey. Good guy. You got to know the names of the players. I think that's a fair critique. I think that is a fair ask and takes out past 2009. But it's when I... That's how I've been with commentators, but I've always...

I understand my background kind of maybe jades me to how I view games. Like I always, most commentators for me are just like you said, white noise, like in good or bad. Like I'm just going to whatever he's wrong there. That's how I usually kind of think of them. It's fun when you do see a good, like,

Like, you know, early Tony Romo. I still enjoy Tony Romo, actually, more than most people. Me too. I think he's funny as hell. Greg Olson is doing good stuff. I get a little... The take I want to get off my chest, I guess, and I wasn't even planning on saying this, was I do think that everyone gets overblown when they hear something new, even though it's the same thing that someone else has maybe said before. And then all of a sudden they go, Greg Olson just pointing out stuff we've never, ever heard in a football game before. That would say one thing I get a little annoyed with, but...

I'm kind of with you, but again, I'm not the general consumer of the game. So I don't, it doesn't move the needle for me as much where I agree with you that maybe the paychecks don't match it as well. See, I love, I love Tony for just all, probably all the wrong reasons. Just entertainment. Right. He's just because he'll just get, uh,

Like, I don't know, Jim. That's it. He will take any moment that's just sitting there and just trample it. I think it's so funny. Can't help himself. Because it's so unpolished. Yes. And that makes it good. That's why I like it. That makes it good. I know, because you don't want to be cookie cutter with this. I know. I have a whole take on that with wrestling. You don't want it to be clean. You want some imperfections with it. On a Romo... Oh, man. My favorite Romo thing is... Sorry, I didn't mean to go on a Romo talk, but is when...

he's trying to do some of the quarterback, but he's trying to talk about, you know, Jim sets him up and goes like, Hey, what are you looking at here? He's like, Oh, you know, you gotta, you gotta look right there. And then the snap of the ball happens. You see the quarterback scrambling or something. He goes, Oh, can't do that. Whenever he says something like right away, that that's what kills me. He's got great comedic timing. Even if some of his maybe extended talks is a little ill-timed my, okay. So my segue for my take on the off my chest.

And it has to do with Joe Burrow. And I've seen some clips of preseason practices. I know you can't take away from everything for that. And just kind of piecing some things together. Joe Burrow kind of cooked this year and are the Bengals kind of in a weird spot until he cooked? Meaning is he really not fully healthy, which I don't think he is. I know nothing on the inside about this.

But shouldn't that make us worried about the Bengals offense? Even with Browning playing well last year, you pay Burrow to be Burrow and other pieces around that offense are kind of question marks or going to be question marks, receivers, the tackles, all this stuff.

Like, is it, where are you at with Burrow? Am I maybe just maybe doing the kind of alarm bells a little bit too loud right now? Maybe just off a couple of things I've seen piecing together, but it just seems kind of like they're not all the way there with him. Like he's not all the way a hundred percent. And maybe that's got me a little worried. Well, with the Bengals this year, I think you've seen over the past couple of years, especially on defense, maybe some of the pieces have

Chipped away, not been retained. And you're losing some of your margin for error. Because if you remember, you go back to the year that they made the Super Bowl against the Rams. The Bengals' offense was not actually all that good in the postseason. But they got just...

damn near heroic performance from the defense, especially when you go back to the game they had against... The Titans had nine sacks. Right, they had nine sacks against the Titans. They bottled up the Chiefs game. They played well against the Raiders, too. That half against the Chiefs was the worst Patrick Mullins has ever looked like. They always will have that. Right, but that's not what they're dealing with anymore. I mean, even just Jesse Bates has gone from some of those defenses. Yeah.

You have DJ Reader who's left. And now we were just talking last week about Graham Barton looking like a damn Avenger against the Bengals' defensive line. And I think that when you start piecing all of it together, it's like, man, you need Jero Burrow to be 100% healthy. Because if he's not,

then you've walked into this place or you found yourself in this place as a team and a franchise where your margins for error are razor thin, especially when you play Baltimore twice a year, when you're playing, still competing against Josh Allen, you're competing against Patrick homes, you're competing against, you know, who, who knows what the Browns can be within their own division this year. Uh, they, they, they kind of need Joe Burrow to be healthy. And if he's not, that's where you start feeling bad about, I think the whole team. Um,

because he really is that important of a figure for them. He's going to hold all of this together if they have real Super Bowl aspirations. That's why you get paid 50 mil. It's that 50 mil a year, I should say. That's...

So kind of tying together the original point maybe we had with the Burrow ranking and everything is that some of why I get a little concerned maybe long term even with him. I say like Burrow's going to retire in two months guys but just saying that is some of his athleticism some of his arm strength maybe because it's not exceptional. When you start with an average arm it naturally deteriorates. That's just how age works unless you're Tom Brady moving to Tampa Bay. And as your arm gets worse okay everything else has to be better because just how it works.

he's already so smart and so accurate that I'm like, how much more can he tap into that world? Like as a guy, like we've talked about the Drew Brees, Bo Nick stuff. That's the thing that I think the misconceptions with Drew Brees, Drew Brees has an exceptional arm was a good athlete. It's just that he grew into the nickel and dimers hyper-efficient because his arm went away after the surgery kind of wore him over the years. Peyton Manning fell off a cliff, all these guys, the arm and the athleticism falls, but,

injuries kind of speed that up. And so that's where I'm just saying is like, okay, is this going to be like happen quick where it's like, oh, wow, this is just the new burrow. And I don't want to like, maybe just looks just how he did in those couple of games when he came back before he got hurt again. But yeah, I just, it's more of a cause for alarm that I think maybe even I've kind of given it credit for because you brought up all the other stuff deteriorating around, maybe the defense dropping off and all that. So yeah, just want to curious about the Bengals. I still have him as a top 10 offense though, because I can't help myself.

Yeah, sorry Ravens fans. Last one before we go to a break. We're going to have Cowboys. This is us kind of, and now we saw a piece of news before we came. I'll talk about it in a sec. But Cowboys have an equal chance of going to the Super Bowl as they do of missing the playoffs. And I think that's, once kind of marinated on it, it sounds good. It sounds about right. Yeah. It sounds about right. Right. Because the thing with the Cowboys is the offseason has been incomplete, right?

Where they haven't signed Dak Prescott to a long-term deal. They haven't signed Cee-Lam to a long-term deal yet. They haven't signed Michael Parsons to a long-term deal yet. So you're kind of sitting there like, oh my God, what's next for this franchise? But you actually, if you can just focus on 2024 and the pieces that they have in place, this is not...

doom and gloom here. This is not even a bad roster. In fact, I'm still inclined to say it's a good roster, all things considered. And we talked about Tyler Guyton the other day who did get injured today in practice, and we'll see what ends up happening there. We talked about Cooper Beeb, who's in line to potentially start as center for them. If those guys work out, dude, this is still an offense with

Dak Prescott, CeeDee Lamb, you got Micah Parsons, Trayvon Diggs, Deron Bland on the other side of the field. If Mozzie Smith ends up being anything, that's another boost. Demarcus Lawrence is still here. Mike Zimmer is your defensive coordinator now. This is a good setup. Quite honestly, the more I think about it, I don't see why this team can't win the NFC East. But at the same time, if they end up going 9-8,

because maybe your depth is a little bit thinner than it was in the past, that wouldn't be all too surprising either. It's the cop-out team. It is the cop-out team. Them and the Jets. Because it's kind of been a... I think now my brain's gone like, oh, same old Cowboys. I keep doing this every year. Oh, they have these question marks, death, but they have the DAC and the defense and...

Well, same old Cowboys been a double digit win team by competing for the MC. You know, like it's not even if there's a minor drop off, like you said, it's the nine and eight thing, which yeah, it's somewhere that's where I'm at with them. Maybe is that like they're 10 and seven to me. That's still 10 and seven. And actually they have some really good players, including a quarterback. I think maybe the Guyton and BB thing has helped a lot. And we'll see how Guyton's injury is. That's been a thing for him in college. But then.

But then getting a center who I think can play right away and actually be okay with a quarterback that's already done all that because Dak's so mentally sharp. The center doesn't have to handle everything. That's going to be nice, I think, too, to help the transition. I've been thinking a lot about these Cowboys.

The running back situation is a little dicey. We'll see. I know they like Rico Dowell. Zeke's there. I love Zeke. Dude. Okay. This is the one. This is what I would come back to. I got to bring the negatives with it. This is a little bit of a tangent, but the other day...

for yagosports.com, we simmed a season of the new Madden game. Oh yeah, that's right. Yes. And Ezekiel Elliott, it was like burning to my brain. He rushed for 1500 yards, 15 touchdowns and averaged like five yards to carry. And I was like, dude, like what year is this? The similar year 2016? Yeah. I thought, I thought it took me back like in a time machine to 2016 when, when Zeke was actually capable of doing something like that. But yeah, there's a career. But if the Cowboys get that Zeke,

they're winning the super bowl baby yeah exactly no that zeke as a rookie got 1690 yards 1631 for 15 touchdowns 5.1 yards yeah that's the only time he averaged over five in his career so yeah that way madden what other things came up from the simulation uh the other thing i remember from the simulation was there were i i was so stunned i looked this up there were uh 23 1000 yard rushes

And the last time that that happened was 2006. And there hasn't even been over 20 since 2006. And most of the time it's like in between like eight and like 20. What do they know?

Don't know one thing they did know on the on the Madden sim was you guys would get kicked out of this the Falcons went 3 and 14 Kirk Cousins threw for 3100 yards 20 touchdowns 20 picks and Peter Robinson average like 3.5 years ago. I don't wish no Stock I was reading that my heart dropped like it was real life. Yeah, like you're like, oh, yeah You saw that timeline happen. Yeah the time I with a mustache possible

All right, we're going to take a quick break. We'll be right back with some more takes off our chest and then some big board stuff.

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We are back with Football 301 live from LA. I feel like I have to do that. Just dot, dot, dot, live from LA. Next up, going coast to coast here. Going with the Jets. I feel like I had to get a Jets take in here. And I actually do feel, because we were doing our top 10 offenses one, and this is kind of where I had them in my honorable mentions on my notes. And I kind of been in my head for a while. My take on it, I want to get off my chest, is the Jets offense has a real chance to be top five.

I know that's spicy. It's not spicy at all. People have said this, but it is at the same time. It's all predicated. And I feel like this is annoying and a cop out. We're talking about that. It's all predicated on health. It really is though. But when you look at an offense, Tyron Smith, when he played last year, he played most of the games was good. He was still Tyron Smith. He wasn't maybe the all world status, but he still was good. Still those second team uproar. Yes, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah. That's pretty good. That's a little name recognition.

That's most aligned. Yeah. That's most aligned. Yeah. Chris Lindstrom. Uh, the, but then also, you know, John Simpson is boom bust as a guard, but again, better than what they had. They put all the games. I keep almost forgetting this old for Sean. They drafted and looked at solid in the preseason. So they have depth there and high end depth with pedigree and like a real potential good player, even if they have to go to that depth.

We'll see with Elijah Vera Tucker again, a good player if healthy. But the running game should be good because they're going to commit to it. That's what they do. That's what this...

Rodgers offense. I'm not going to say hack an offense. They'll this they're going to run through a bunch of smokes to Garrett Wilson. This is what we know what this offense looks like. Like we joke about slant flat and all that with Mike McCarthy. That's Aaron Rodgers. Aaron Rodgers is slant flat and that's what they're going to do. But why I'm saying that is that that's going to help out the line. Rodgers knows how to operate it. They have enough weapons. If Mike Williams again is healthy, but at least they have Garrett Wilson and they at least have workable tight ends. Even if they're not stars, they're workable and

I think that's where I've come back to it is that it's not as stars and scrubby as maybe as I thought, and maybe they have more workable pieces with a defense that's going to like keep them in games as well. So song ranks still good.

Still out there. Every day, man. Still out there. What's a fine at? I don't know. 1.5? It's impossible to know at this point. We might not even have a number of Hassan Reddick's fines amounted up to. So, yeah, it hit a million dollars. What day was that? It hit a million dollars a while ago. That was August 12th. It hit a million dollars. This is August 21st, nine days later. So he's... Because every time he doesn't show up for even a preseason game, it's a bigger fine than not showing up to practice. Yeah.

It's on. Show up. Go to work. Just hang out. Just hang out in shorts. Just go to meetings. You don't even have to do anything. It's called a hold in. Just stop bleeding money. All the cool kids are doing it. Jets top five offense. Just let me get it out there. It just feels like

Like the Cowboys kind of, but even worse in terms of just a cop-out team. Because it's like a math equation. It's like if X, then Y. If Aaron Rodgers can stay healthy, if Tyrus Hicks can stay healthy. It's plus because it's just the medical health. If Mike Williams can stay healthy. Mike Williams said he feels fine the other day, so we'll see. If Olufoshani can stay healthy and also play well as a rookie. That's also another thing with him. It's fragile, but...

In the Madden world where I can turn injuries off and turn pre-existing injuries off, this is one of the more talented offenses in the league still, I think. You know, it just...

It's like building a house out of a deck of cards, right? You lose one little thing and the whole thing can come falling apart. It's real fragile. But I am excited for Garrett Wilson to have the opportunity to catch pass from Aaron Rodgers. Because I remember last year when Aaron tore his Achilles, he spoke to Garrett Wilson, told him sorry. And

understandable because what happened we know that Garrett is good enough to have you know one of these seasons where he's a fantasy darling and taking over the world but he hasn't had the quarterback play to do it and I

I think even a diminished Rodgers is still probably good enough for him to get that season that he's really looking for. I know just being realistic with it is a 40-year-old coming off an Achilles is not something you bet on. It's just that I still, like you said, even if for me it's like 70% of what I think of Rodgers. Like that last year with Rodgers where he didn't care. Right.

with Green Bay, that's kind of what I'm picturing his level at. So it's kind of like, okay, he's diminished, but he's actually trying. He beat 13, 14 rings. Yeah, but again, that's better than worst QB play in the league by far. Some of those games, oh man, I've watched some of them pretty recently. Not a lot of fun to watch back. All right, going on to another AFC team, an AFC playoff team last year, the Browns.

Jamis Winston. This is, I like this take, but yeah, Jamis Winston ends the year, meaning the regular season or playoffs. You know, Jamison Winston ends the year as the Browns starting quarterback. Well,

Well, it's not a hot take, I don't think. No, it's not. He's had better film than Deshaun Watson has. Well, Deshaun Watson's been hiding from us. He's only played, I remember I pointed this out to you a couple days ago. What was the number? I looked it up. He's played 12 games as the Browns quarterback. I looked it up. It was like $150,000 per snap. Yeah. He's played 12 games. So the history suggests that

He's not even going to play most of the games this season for the Browns. And, you know, that seems like a crazy thing to say right now. But it felt crazy to say last year if I told you that he would end up playing six games for them. And Joe Flacco outplay him. Six games. And then six games the year before because he had the suspension. What are we paying this money for? This is crazy. The Browns, it's funny because they have kind of positioned themselves to have a decent stable backup quarterbacks. Yeah.

You know, because if you're going to walk into a season with Deshaun Watson, who, again, has played 12 games for the Browns, 12 since the three first round picks, plus the fully guaranteed $255 million contract, 12 games, you've got James Winston and Tyler Huntley.

That sounds to me like you are prepared for something to not go right this season. Sometimes the teams are telling you what they think. Pro Bowl quarterback Tyler Huntley. That's right. Were you there for that? I was there. I actually asked him about that. I asked him. He's supposed to be great, right? He kind of like, yeah. It was great because I asked him. I was like, Tyler, were you prepared to...

to see this? He was like, no, actually. He was like, I was just hanging by the pool in off-season mode and then about to get ready for off-season mode and I get a call. I said, I'm going to the Pro Bowl. He said he did a backflip and started running around. I went to the Free Trip to Vegas the whole week. Backup quarterback. God, it's the best life. I'm telling you. No, that's a great point with the James, going after James thing. It seemed like last year they were trying to do, this is kind of one of the fake smart things here, was

backup quarterbacks are the money ball you draft them because then you get them cheaper you know that that's the thing you know i see adi not his head over there because the patriots try to do that for years you know jacoby brissett still in the league one of them

but I think this year they went, let's just get the sure thing that we know can play quarterback for us rather than try to DTR and see that dice roll and see what happens there and getting guys that can run the offense. Jameis is very smart. He's getting to play action offense. They're going to run a bunch of that. I don't know. I almost want to see him. I want to see what Deshaun Watson. Next one is, yeah, this was both of us, I think. We married it out. NFC North is really tough.

So take, we want to get off our chest. This is a co-op take. Vikings will make the playoffs. Yeah. I'm just going to leave it at that. It's just the will. The will part is just tough. Can. Can. Can, I'm with you. We're getting off our chest. Okay. Can, I'm with you all the way. We're compromising to can make the playoffs. Okay. Can. It's just, I know that if you were prognosticating and looking forward, yeah, you're probably going to have them fourth place in the NFC North.

But when you just start looking at where they are, it's a top-heavy roster.

but you're still looking at like Justin Jefferson, Jordan Madison, Aaron Jones, TJ Hawkinson, just as a skill group on offense, the offensive line solid, uh, Christian Darasol just got, uh, paid this off season. I know that he's got a lot of fans amongst people who like to watch offensive line play. And then you go to the other side on defense. I have no reason to really believe that the defense will get a

a whole lot worse. I know that losing to Neil Hunter is tough, but Dallas Turner so far looks like he's a great fit in Brian Floyd's defense.

It's been a bit of an interesting week for Brian Flores, but he should be looking forward to having at least a good team to kind of take it out on and coach this season. Yeah. Yeah. It was player stuff for him. If you want my take on that whole thing, it's just that I feel like some things stay private, and that's all I'll say about it. But yeah, I think when you look at the Vikings in general,

This team, it's hard to imagine to me, especially when you look at Kevin O'Connell, the coaching staff plus the top end talent they have.

scenario where they just totally bottom out and just suck that's hard for me to see even with You know lose JJ McCarthy and you're gonna go with Sam draw for 17 games roll Sammy That you can you can maybe hit enough high variance upswing. Maybe you could win 10 games I really don't think that's possible when you usually see a team bottom out it's a bad offensive line a really bad defense or bad quarterback or bad coaching and

I feel like Flores, at the very least, even if you're not a fan of it, is at the very least average as a play caller. I think he's good and he's also unique. That's always the thing, too. When you have a unique defense or offense, you kind of get a little booster, just a little bit more of an effect on the opposing team because you're hard to play against and prepare for. You mentioned that he lost to Neil Hunter yesterday.

they have some guys like Grenard like that kind of like makeshift it. They're also such a blitz happy team that they kind of like manufacture those sacks. So it's like one of those that if it were a four down only rushing team, I'd be like a little bit more concerned, but they're so funky that they kind of make up for it. If you're it's for the gamers here.

It's the min max defense. Yes, it is the min max defense. You either, you're dropping eight or you're sending six. There's not a whole lot of in between. It's fun. The stat, I've talked about this before, but there, uh, find this chart, but, uh,

I, you could look at just who brought four pass rushers only just only four. So not five, not three, yada, yada. And the Vikings were so low on it because they're bringing three or five or more blitzing or dropping everybody. So it's like, Oh yeah, everybody's kind of a funny spot. And then they're just like all the way off in their own little corner, but that's what their defense does. And it makes, it makes it hard. You brought up O'Connell. O'Connell is a great, I would say a good play caller above average at the very least. And they also have an offensive line that's workable. So that's why I just kind of keep coming back to it. Like,

This team was decent last year. And I know it's Sam Darnold. I know we're saying that he can be at least average. And by the way, you said the variance of it. They can get hot. And the NFC is wide open. And I even know they're a tough division. I think it's just, I don't know. I keep coming back to the Vikes. Keep coming back to a few of these teams. All right. Now we will be back in a minute with my 2025 preseason big board. A couple of few thoughts on that.

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Learn more at klaviyo.com slash BFCM. All right, we are back. We're going to gaze at some navel here. We're going to look at my big board.

It's coming out. By the time this is, I just sat here and marinated on that thought about it. Well, yeah, as we, as you guys should be listening to this, my big board should be up on Yahoo. So make sure to check that out. It'd be the, I mean, I did top 40, a couple honorable mentions after that. Some people do 30, some do 50. I did 40. Oh, that sounded nice.

Yeah, 2025 big board. A couple thoughts. I mentioned this a little bit the other day. We went over the top 10. It's a really good edge class. It's a good tackle class, a good corner class. That always gets the clicks. But it is a very, it's just a unique class because there's so much talent at edge and running back as well. But the quarterback and receiver positions are a little, I wouldn't say dire, but just you're picking at it. I'll say that my first quarterback is not ranked until 23rd.

and that is Riley Leonard from Duke transferred to Notre Dame I can't quit him go dogs Carson Beck Carson Beck Carson Beck so because this is how I copped out so Leonard's 23rd Beck is 24th okay they're right next to each other so yeah Beck is clean I really like him he just looks like a pro he's tall he's got

good size, better athlete than I thought he would be. And he's just, yeah, nice mechanics and everything. He's consistent. Um, just kind of want to see it just a little bit quicker, which comes with time. So I even said in my writeup, I go back ends up QB one. I wouldn't be shocked. Like it's just because of his profile and everything, but Leonard, uh, he's accurate. He can run. He's tough. He's going to be a better system, better offense this year. I,

I don't know, man. He's got some real traits and like he can throw guys open and like he can move and he's big. He's six, four, like two 20 or so. I think he's just going to really come on this year. Like just like as the year goes along and have a bigger spotlight on him. I'm not saying like, he's not even a first round grade for me. It's just that he's QB one by default. That's kind of how it goes. QB three was Shadur, Shadur Sanders, Colorado. I have a longer write up on him. Yeah. He's 31 overall, my big board.

Same thing. Don't see him as a first rounder yet. Got a good arm. Takes too many sacks. And I know a lot of people want to blame the offensive line. I think he works backwards in the pocket too much, which is a big no-no. He's an okay athlete. I wouldn't even say good. He's okay. But he does have a good arm. When he wants to spin it, he feels clean. He can throw some digs. He can throw some benders. It's just that...

Got to see it more. And you got to see more in the realms of the offense. So you're going to have some lint in your navel after Colorado fans get a hold of that one. It already happened. I already wrote them off. If you want deeper thoughts, check that out on Yahoo as well. I was at Connor Weigman from Texas A&M. He's fun. Yeah, he got hurt last year, right? Yeah, he only played like a game and a half, two and a half games. Miami game is kind of the one you have to watch.

He moves in the pocket well. He can really spin it. That's kind of just a heat check one. All these guys are heat check guys. I felt like I was going crazy after the season when I started seeing people like Connor Rogers and other people who do draft work in the offseason looking ahead, talking about Connor Wegman. I was like, did I miss something? Especially in A&M, too. I was in A&M, like an FCC school. I was in Georgia. I'm locked into this, bro. And I...

look back and like, okay, he got hurt. So I'm not going crazy. Oh, and you're, I'm extrapolating. I mean, a lot of these guys, it's, it's a weird class. Cause it's like game manager types, just like back a little bit. Leonard has some creativity to him. And I'm gonna shoot him in Shadurs kind of game manager type, but then you get all these other guys that are just total dart throws. Like Weidman had a hundred and his, he has 250 pass attempts in his career.

Like he's barely played and he's played nine games. Totally played four last year. I, but like when you see, he does the real things like, you know, hanging the pocket pocket movement, all that stuff. And man, it's, it's all about throwing their teammate open. And like, when you see that, it kind of like, Oh, okay. Cause it's a, you say you do it or you don't, if you don't do it, I'm not even gonna like spend any time on you. He can do it. The other one. And this is, this is kind of one of my little babies of this draft so far might be way too early on this Byron Brown. Oh,

quarterback from South Florida. That's all you. I know nothing about it. I have a 36, and this is a total tilt in the shoulder, swinging for defenses here. I might be a year early. He's only a retro sophomore. He operates in that kind of Tennessee area.

Super spread offense. The Bryles looting tune stuff. Yeah, so it gives me some heartburn watching it. And I know college football fans go, well, they scored points, so who cares? But as an evaluator, it stinks. But watching him, when you see him

out of structure. When you see him actually get to play football and he's not mechanical, that's where it's like, oh, okay. You see, again, throwing guys open. He's got a real live arm. The long ball is not great. I'd say it's okay, but he can throw through a wall in front of him. He's a good athlete. He can throw while getting hit. He can change arm angles. It's kind of like most offenses that really helps court

quarterbacks out because it makes it easy on him him i want to see in any other offense because it's like i want to see him get like go and do some fun things rather than be so mechanical so that was a that's kind of a him and riley so that that's the pitch to watch usf football this year yeah yeah check out some usf football like they're gonna score points but i will i i like because before he's fun like he's legit fun they play alabama september 7th might be ugly but they

But they play him. So, yeah, Bethune and Cookman before that. So, but I'm telling you, he's got something to him. And there might be, again, like I say, it might be a year away when he becomes a real prospect. But I kind of want to throw him on this list to see what kind of thoughts were on people. I'll just get real quick, a couple defense guys.

I have Travis Hunter as just a corner. We talked about this a little bit the other day. Corner is loaded overall. Like there's a guy from East Carolina that's pretty good. There's a lot of good corners in this class. We talked about Will Johnson the other day. There's Benjamin Morrison from Notre Dame. I mentioned Denzel Burke, Ohio State. Siobhan Rebell, East Carolina. I just mentioned him. He's got some good size. I had him in my top 40 as well. But then last one. Oh, top two guys.

Michael Williams. I didn't even talk to you about Michael Williams the other day. What are your thoughts on Michael Williams? Because he's Georgia. He was my number one prospect on my big board. And it's, again, you're extrapolating from a little bit. Right. That's what I would say. You're extrapolating a little bit. I think this year is huge for him. Because to me, last year was a year where it's like, oh my God, you're so close. You're right here to being one of the most dominant players in the entire country. And now to me, it's just like,

How can you speed up your process just a little bit so you can get actually home and finish some of these plays that you're starting? But you're not going to find too many guys like that size that can move like that.

And I really do think maybe with some of what we're seeing from Tremont Walker in Jacksonville, where he's not a dynamite number one edge rusher, but we've seen more pass rush out of him in Jacksonville than we saw at Georgia. So way more, way more. I think that, you know, it's just,

It's really just like this. I don't know how much of this is made like national conversation, but like reckoning with the style of defense that colleges are playing now and how it translates for NFL pass rushers. Because Michael is someone who I think when I watch him play, his style of play is much better suited for the NFL game than his.

playing these mint and tight fronts where you're going to be stuck at 4-I even though you're 265 pounds and it's not really all that conducive for you. Through Iowa State a couple years ago, they had Will McDonald who weighs 240 basically playing B for the tackle. And that's...

the weird part where college football finds the defenses in. But you also have to play to what's in front of you. And it does help to play that way against all the spread stuff. It does. And we might see more of it in the NFL. I came back to it. It's frustrating because you see two good plays. You're like, yes, yes. And then you don't see them on the field again for like a quarter because they rotate their guys. So you're, okay, I got 20 plays to work with here. You got the playing time deal breakers. Yeah. Playing style deal breakers for me. Yeah.

Yeah. So you got like six plays a game that I get. It's almost like JJ McCarthy for quarterbacks where it was just like, all right, I got five plays to work with here. Okay, cool. And then it took the whole season, but that's why he has 26 solo tackles in 28 games. He only had four and a half sacks last year. And I even say, I was like, so why is he so high on my board? Dude is long. He can bend and he's really strong. And it's like, can't find those guys. And like you said, the he's lined up so much inside. He's still good at it. It's just that

in the nfl he's going to line up way wide and just get to go and that's what you want to get to see and that's why i think he's going to show more this year number two was uh penn state abdul a pimp state edge abdul carter uh same kind of thing where he wears number 11 so everyone's going to say michael parsons he played his off-ball linebacker this past year even though he played some on the edge and then now they're transitioning him to edge so everyone's saying oh he's like michael parsons so people were saying that about last year about shop robinson

These comparisons, though, actually kind of sort of work for Carter. He is twitchy. He is freaky. He does the things you can't teach. He plays hard. He's strong. That's what you always want to see when the guys are twitchy. There's a twitch to strength kind of thing. Why are they strength, I should say? Are they able to outplay if they're 248? Can they still push back a tackle that's 310 pounds? He can do that.

He's moving to the edge full time this year. I think he's going to be a terror. I was pretty excited having him at number two. And that was Dan Brugler from the athletic who does amazing work. Came out with his big board today and he had him at number two. And we were texting the last night. He goes, where do you have Carter? I go, I go too. And he goes, God dang it. So did I. We both thought we were going to be the one that I'm going to hide. So we both ended up at two, but he's, if he ends up at one, I wouldn't be shocked. Like he's, he's pretty sick. And so I just want to people get eyeballs on Abdul Carter this year. Yeah. Yeah.

That was a live show. Not really a live show. It's a in-person show. We got an audience here of three. It's great. They're all clapping. Brett's looking at his phone, so never mind. But yeah, we're closing it out today. We'll be back on Tuesday. It's going to be fun, as always.

I'm Nate Tice. You can find me at Nate underscore Tice. This is Charles McDonald. Where can they find you, Chuck? You can find me on Twitter at 4vert. It's been great being here in LA and looking back to getting, you know, sitting in my own office and playing Dynasty. Being far away from you. Playing Dynasty. Let's go back over the headset. This is enough in-person talking, but please subscribe to us.

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Just see me and Chuck talk ball. Yeah. Give off our Joe Burrow takes from accounts together that surely no one would be upset about. But thank you guys so much for all your help. Thanks, Chuck. See you guys next time.