We are going to go right out to the KWA commons Parrel hotline, though,
bring on one of our favorites, Ryan Michael at the Ryan Michael on
the Twitter. How you doing, Bud? Doing well? Ben? How
are you guys? It's been a fun day, a little all over the
map, but a little busy, but overall been a pretty good day.
Steve was in here a segment ago. We were I was noticing with the
Marlin Brisco thing, the number fourteen pops up a lot. Have you have
you noticed that that number popped up a lot as well? It sure has,
and I've been just waiting for the opportunity to come on to explain to
people why the number fourteen is so much more impressive than it probably seems,
because I bet you a lot of our listeners are thinking of what raw numbers
look like in the NFL today, in a seventeen game schedule, modern day
rules, and they wouldn't necessarily know that fourteen touchdown passes in nineteen sixty eight
in the AFL ranked sixth in the league, and if you combine Marlin's three
rushing touchdowns that year, he tied two Hall of Fame quarterbacks. Joe Namath
and Lenn Dawson for fourth in the league in total touchdowns with seventeen totals.
So it's so much more impressive than just the raw number fourteen or the raw
number seventeen would lead you to believe. And he didn't play the whole season.
I mean, he didn't start until I think it was the first week
of October. He came on a relief in the fourth quarter of the last
week of September, that's correct. And he only he appeared in eleven games,
but he only had five starts in total. So the numbers again just
to break them down, and I love to adjust statistics for Era just to
put into perspective how impressive our forefathers had been. He was seventh in the
league with ninety three pass completions, sixth in the league in passing yards one
thy five hundred and eighty nine, as I had mentioned, six and touchdown
passes with fourteen, second in the league in game winning drives, second in
the league in touchdown pass percentage at six point three, led the AFL in
yards per pass completion at seventeen point one. So it was an explosive brand
of football. So in you compare him to Steve Tenzie, who was the
incumbent starter whom he replaced in Marlin ranked higher than Steve did in completion percentage,
yards per attempt, touchdown pass percentage, interception percentage, So by every
measure, he outshined the guy who they groomed to be the starting quarterback who
would end up taking the gig back the following year. So when I look
back to Marlin Brisco's nineteen sixty eight seeds and he should have been the rookie
of the year, but statistically far more impressive than you would think just looking
at the world numbers. Yeah, it was kind of an interesting year,
you know, with that you had, was it nineteen was it sixty eight?
I think you had eight quarterbacks lebronco is eight quarterbacks on that team,
Steve Tenzie, Jim mcclare, John McCormick, Marlon Brisco, of course DeVito,
who is actually the guy in between Tenzie and Brisco. DeVito who came
in went one of six for sixteen yards, and then they brought in Marlon
Briscoe and you know the rest. Of course, I guess his history as
it were. It's interesting to me that he came in had this success,
they still didn't quite believe in him as the starter. Then they move on
from him, and he just couldn't seem to get a starting job anywhere else.
Part of that, I think was going to Buffalo, where they already
were stocked at quarterback with Jack Camp, Tom Flores, James Harris, you
know all those guys, and they had more prototypical size at that point anyway,
Absolutely, and when he went to Buffalo, he was already a formidable
receiving threat. Bear in mind, and I encourage all of our listeners to
listen to Nick's interview because he really breaks it down in great detail there directly
with Marlin that he had never played receiver in his career before, not in
high school, not in college. By his second year with the Buffalo Bills
in nineteen seventy, he finished seventh in the NFL in touchdown receptions. He
had a second in the NFL in receptions fifty seven, second in the NFL
in receiving yards one thy thirty six, and he was only sixty five yards
shy of leading the league. I think people really need to pause for a
moment and recognize just how impressive it is for a guy to switch positions with
no prior experience at that position, and in the first year where the NFL
and the AFL were merged, he was putting up what would have been the
equivalent of Justin Jefferson like numbers and Justin for era. Incredible. He was
a first team All Pro selection even he was a vote for League MVP that
year at the receiver position. Yeah, he finished. He finished his career
with a Pro Bowl, two time Super Bowl champion, thirty five hundred receiving
yards, thirty touchdowns. You know, it's just it's interesting. There was
a movie are they were trying to get a movie off the ground about his
life, called The Magician, but it was it's one of those things that's
kind of sort of been languishing and development for, you know, for years
in trying to get that thing off the ground. He had a fascinating life.
I mean, he was one of the the fifteen plaintiffs and MacKiev National
Football League in which the Roselle rule was declared violation that he trust rolls is
Back in seventy five, he moved to La became a successful financial broker.
He had a problem with cocaine and then recovered after rehab and became more director
for the boys and Girls clubs. He's just he had a fascinating life and
it's a shame that they can't get that movie, that that biopic off the
ground. I agree, because I would definitely go to see that movie.
I think it's a tremendous story of a guy who broke down barriers, turned
his life around, and really, to this day, I've always been a
very strong advocate for players who I feel are underrated. And when you consider
the success he had a quarterback in really somewhat unprecedented circumstances, and then the
success he had in Buffalo and the success he had winning two Super Bowls with
the Dolphins in that undefeated nineteen seventy two season, source noting in a fifty
two to nothing blowout against the Patriots, caught four passes for one hundred and
twenty eight yards and two touchdowns. So he wasn't just a role player in
Miami. He definitely contributed to winning those championships. Yeah, it's fascinating to
me because it's i mean, the magnitude of what he did and was able
to accomplish, you know, he was he really wasn't the third string quarterback.
He was a corner at that point when he got, you know,
the tap to come in for yeah, to come into play quarterback. It
would be it's similar to like the Kendall hitting thing, except if Kendle Hitton
had gone on to ball out. Yeah. Yeah, I think they are
definitely similar parallels there to be had, and I think, and for whatever
reason, the number seventeen is the stat then that really sticks out to me
to have tied Jon Namath and Len Dawson truly at the peak of their power.
Namith would go on to win the Super Bowl that year the upside over
the Baltimore Colts, and Len Dawson would go on to upset the Minnesota Vikings
the following season to produce an equal amount of touchdowns to quarterbacks who are Hall
of famers playing at the peak of their power, surrounded by Hall of Fame
talent when you're stuck on a Broncos team that hadn't quite found its footing yet,
it's impossible for me to overstate just how impressive that was for a rookie
quarterback. I'm going to do that that number fourteen, Yeah, impressive,
Yeah, it's fascinating and talking about these numbers. I want to get to
the rookie touchdown passing record that he holds. Talking with Ryan Michael d Ryan
Michael on Twitter, fourteen passing touchdowns is a rookie passing touchdown number that still
stands to this day. Part of that is bolstered by the fact that the
Broncos haven't had a whole lot of rookies playing for them since then. You
look at you know, John Always rookie year, only threw seven touchdowns,
Jay cutlerly played five games, Drew Lock only played what four or five games,
Trevor Senming only played one game his rookie season, and you know then
he had eighteen touchdowns in his first starting season. Brockdon plays rookie year,
Paxton barely played his rookie year. Boonix looks like he has the best shot
to break Marlin Brisco's record. I think it's a realistic expectation. You know,
whether he starts week one or we see him get his feet wet sometime
around week three or week four, I can see either of those scenarios becoming
a reality. And you know, it's one of those records that is eventually
going to fall. But I assure you this. As much as I am
the biggest campaign manager for pone Hicks, I think if he throws for fourteen
or more touchdown passes, he's certainly not going to finish fourth in the NFL
in total touchdowns. That would be as if a rookie quarterback stepped in and
put up Patrick Mahomes numbers today. So I'm rooting for him to break the
number fourteen. But let's just keep it into context a little bit adjusted.
Fererra Well, yeah, obviously, And I think there's a part of me
that doesn't want him to break it, you know, I mean, yeah,
I do want to see the Broncos succeed, all the cast up on
succeed, blah blah blah. But there's a part of me that nostalgia where
there's a record that you don't want to see falls. Is there any other
record that you can think of that you would maybe not want to ever see
fall. That's a really good question, because there are so many records.
If we're talking specifically in Broncos history, part of me would say I never
want to see someone throw for more than fifty five touchdown passes in the season.
But you know, being a Bronco fan, I can't possibly say I'd
be disappointed a Phoni fifty six. I think records are meant to be broken,
and for me, as someone who has a great appreciation for pro football
history, as long as you're adjusting for era and looking at those records through
the lens of what they were at the time when they're achieved, there's no
need to feel threatened by having a record be broken. It's all relatives.
Yeah, I think most of the records that I would not want to see
broken would would would would harken from another sport, you know, like cal
Rinkin's Lodgevity streak in baseball, which I don't think will ever. I don't
believe that will ever be broken. Nolan Ryan has several of them, you
know, the leading the league in strikeouts eleven times. I sincerely doubt anyone
will ever be able to do that ever. Again, those those kinds of
things stand to me is nostalgic of my youth type records that I just don't
want to see broken. I'm right there with you, and I don't think
that we have any any reason to be concerned about them being broken in our
lifetime. Even so, I think those are there to stay. Football records
a little bit more malleable. We tend to see them broken more often than
a lot of Major League Baseball's top records. But nevertheless, even if you
look to a number of the career marks, let's say Tom Brady broke career
pass completion's, career passing the yards, career touchdown passes, it's really only
two handfuls of quarterbacks since the nineteen forties who have held those records, and
most Hall of famers never even touched those records. So yes, they're changing
hands a little bit more often, certainly the Major League Baseball, but it's
still rarefied, air records being something even in professional football. Don't let the
haters tell you otherwise. Well that's true. Five six six nights tchne.
I think interesting to me, getting back to the subject of football records,
that while Peyton Manning's touchdown record was fun, exciting and Broncos fans obviously proud
of all that, to me, the record that had the most sizzle that
you were sort of watching multiple times over the years as people got close to
it, it had more accepted. It was almost the home run record in
baseball. He's the season rushing yard record, which has stood since nineteen eighty
four. Twe hundred five yards Eric Dickerson. We saw in my lift,
have see Adrian Peterson come close. He got within was it like eight yards?
I think it was. We saw Jamal Lewis get close. He was
within one hundred yards. Barry Sanders got close. Derrick Henry got close in
twenty twenty. I think he had was a twenty twenty five for twenty twenty
seven yards something like that. TD of course got close in ninety eight.
I remember Chris Johnson. So for me, and it's funny because we use
back by committee now, so that's it's probably even more out of reach.
But that one has had more sizzle to me. And I don't know why.
I don't know why the single season rushing yard has been the one that
I kind of if there's anybody ever close, all of a sudden, I
perk up. I would assume it's because it's a record that hasn't been challenged
as often as a number of the passing records. And you know, the
NFL season has expanded from fourteen to sixteen to seventeen, So when O.
J. Simpson rushed for two thousand and three yards. In nineteen seventy three,
he averaged one hundred and forty three point one yards per game, which
to this day still the NFL record. Just punching numbers real quick in a
seventeen game season, that would be two thousand, four hundred and thirty two
point seven yards impossible, an impossible number. And so he actually averaged more
yards from scrimmage in nineteen seventy five, when he rushed for oney eight hundred
and seventeen and was more formidable threat through the air. I think records that
stand for longer periods of time tend to be more hallowed. I think that's
human nature. So whether or not anyone's going to break Dickerson's record, you
know, we could wait in another twenty years and still be having the same
conversation when we both had gray hair. I understand the appreciation for that record
for sure. Yeah. And would you say both of us have gray hair.
I'm assuming you're a friend yourself, because the grays are creeping in for
you know, from a and by creeping, I mean they're here. Oh
my goodness, talk about Ryan Michael. Let you Ryan Michael on Twitter.
All I we gotta we gotta hit a break here. When we come back
on the other side, I want to talk to you about Tom Brady's struggles
here in devth the greatest of all time struggled here in Denver. What lessons
we can take from that, and maybe if there's things that that the Denver
Broncos can do uh with a natural maybe built in advantage, we'll get to
go inside the numbers then as well. You listen to Broncos Country to Night
right around Kaway. Welcome to it. Broncos Country Tonight. Benjamin Albright,
Gret Smith, the Man, the Myth, the Mustache back there himself be
Ryan Michael on the the Guest hot Line. We'll get back out there for
a second. Shout out to my boy Nate Skinner who's listening to the show.
I joined his podcast. It was last week. He's got a link
up for that. If you guys want to listen to it. I retweeted
it. You can find all Bright NFL and find the retweet there and you
get a chance to listen to it. He's up and covering. Man.
It's got a good little podcast. You guys want to listen to, Uh,
listen to that as well. Five six six nine zeros. The text
line you want to get involved in the conversation. I had several people text
in their see you there just ten a chance to get back to you guys.
If I don't respond on the text line sometimes I mean I don't see
it just means a lot of times to time to get back to you during
the breaks and we have what seemed like lengthy breaks forever, but there are
actually things going on during the break as well. We're talking with the Ryan
Michael on Twitter, Ryan Michael before we went to before we went to break,
and we wanted to talk a little bit about do the Denver Broncos have
a built in advantage here? If so, figuring out exactly what that is
at altitude and how do we harness that against the great quarterbacks that we have
to play against in this division. You put some data together after we put
the poll out there, but you know why, I wanted to know why
Tom Brady struggled at mile high. So Ryan, you got the data,
run us through it. Yeah, I would say to generalize, Ben,
it's a combination of altitude culture and aggression on defense. Because we've had success
against great Hall of Fame quarterbacks over decades, with different head coaches in different
defensive coordinators, so it's impossible for me to quantify the impact of altitude.
But I don't think it's any secret that opposing quarterbacks struggle when they come to
Denver. Using Tom Brady as the example from two thousand and one when he
took over as the starting quarterback for the New England Patriots through twenty fifteen,
the lost in the NFC Championship Game to Manning and the Broncos and that historic
defense, Brady finished with a record of two and seven in Denver, Colorado.
He ended up going three and l after that point in time, but
it's really that two and seven that's worth honing in on. It actually started
his, for lack of a better phrase, whose unofficial rookie season in two
thousand and one. It was actually his second loss before going on that Super
Bowl run. They had lost to Kurt Warner and the Saint Louis Rams on
Primetime, but a little bit before that, they lost to US thirty one
to twenty and Brady threw four picks. So it started there and it really
didn't let up all the way going through twenty and fifteen. So when you
look at the history of a quarterback the caliber of Brady. Many people consider
him to be the greatest of all time. He sustained long period of losing
here in Denver, some of the more notable losses being the two thousand and
five NFC Divisional loss to our guy, Nick Ferguson and the rest of the
defense there Ferguson with the safety blitz Champ Bailey with the famous one hundred yard
interception return. You fast forward a number of years to the twenty thirteen AFC
Championship team. That was the game where Brady was overthrowing receivers left and right.
Peyton Manning put up four hundred yards on Bill Belichick in that defense.
Then comes twenty fifteen and there's the brock Osweiler Wine Anderson's forty eight yard game
winning touchdown run and overtime. That was the difference between the Broncos being the
number one seed versus the number two seed, which gave us homefield evang In
the af Championship game, he goes on to throw two picks, really three
if you consider the game loser on a two point conversion attempt and interception,
which it was a pretty rough history in Denver, Colorado. So we're looking
to try to carry a little bit of that tradition over to the next generation.
And so far, a little bit of luck against Patrick Mahomes, Well,
we would need a lot more luck because we've only beat Mahomes one time
and he sort of had the fluid that game. So maybe we need a
little more with that. But is there anything to harness from that? Is
there is there anything you know with those struggles? Is there any any element
of that that we can sort of harness and say, Okay, this is
why quarterbacks struggle here in Denver, and this is how we use this to
our advantage. I would say it's a combination of scheme, play, style,
altitude, and personnel. So under Wade Phillips in twenty fifteen, we
saw a lot of one gap penetration up front, right man coverage on the
back end, and we just really smothered our opponents. And you look at
the personnel that we have that year, Chris Harris Junior, a key to
lead TJ. Ward von Miller to Marcus ware Branded Marshall, Derrek Woolf.
I could go on and on. When you have that kind of personnel,
it allows you to be a little bit more aggressive up front. So we
look to what Vance Joseph does and we're still very much in the process of
assembling the personnel in order to play that aggressive style of football. Right,
You're going to see some base three four, some high safety on normal downs
and distances oftentimes of safety in the box. On run plays, it'll cover
one, they'll cover three. But the common ground here is the fast and
aggressive nager. So you bring in a guy like Jonah allis a guy who
can generate pressure where we really really needed to generate pressure. Last year didn't
have the success certainty that we've had in previous years. So I think if
we can find a way to combine that aggressive play style and assemble it with
personnels who can really win, especially in those one on one matchups, it's
the perfect recipe combined with combined with altitude to give these posing quarterbacks a lot
of trouble. Yeah, and I you know, I tend to agree with
That's something I've I've harped on and Nick and I really you've talked about quite
a bit. Is I feel like something that Broncos could do offensively, uh
is go up tempo right off the bat. You know, come out,
come out the gate, go up tempo with a nice you're on the script.
You should know what the plays are. I shouldn't be confused with They
go up tempo and gass them on that first drive, you know, really
get them sucking that you know, that thin air early. Uh, and
and do it fast enough where they can't substitute. And I think that puts
you on the front foot, you know, kind of kind of you know
in game something that Broncos really you know, I don't know, haven't done
that much of in recent years. Uh. There are other things I think
that that you could you could do kind of tweak that to your advantage,
but that seems to be, you know, a big one. And then
you mentioned sort of the way that Wade Phillips and his protety events Joseph want
to play defense versus what we've done the last few years, you know,
with with Wade and with Vance. Uh you see that that you want to
kind of send everything that you can at the quarterback, put your guys on
an island and play middle of the field closed one high, you know,
three high type coverages with with with Vic Fangio and a geral Vero and then
even advanced last year, kind of continuing it to a degree. They were
playing quarters match. He was tight front. You know, you want to
send the least amount of people at the quarterback possible, drop everybody else back.
It's middlefield, open, C two, C four to six, you
know, even coverages stuff like that, and so it's it's interesting to see.
It'll be interesting to see this year if they do pivot all the way
back to what vance Joseph wants to run, because it looks like, based
on the personnel decisions that they've made, that that is what they want to
do. I agree, and I think at the end of the day,
it's going to come down to personnel. We really have to take a moment
to appreciate just how special that twenty fifteen team was. That was a nineteen
nineties Yankees all star lineup of defensers, defensive players that allowed us to do
a lot more than most teams could take chances and succeed. So it's a
gradual process. And as I've been saying, in terms of what we've been
assembling through the draft and through free agency, with the resources that we have
in the reality of the salary cab hell, that we're living through right now.
It's going to be a slow retooling. It's not something that's going to
happen overnight. So we look back to the Peyton Manning era offense of the
twenty fifteen era defense. We'd love to have even a poor man's version of
either of those two things, but it's going to take some time. It's
going to take some patience. I'm confident we'll get better, but those are
some very high expectations to live up to. Absolutely. Talking with Ryan Michael
v Ryan Michael on Twitter, you talked a little bit about Tom Brady's struggles
here at never somebody who didn't struggle here endeavor Peyton Manning. Manning is widely
considered one of the best quarterbacks of all time. You you might even pause
it that he was one of the best, if not the best quarterback of
all time, even though he didn't win the same amount of rings as Tom
Brady, and I think it's interesting to take a look back at, you
know, what Tom Brady and Peyton Manning were able to do. Contextually,
it's interesting to note that there was an article out today or yesterday as it
were, a six thousand word opus on why Mike Jordan's nineteen eighty eight Defensive
Player of the Year award was actually a phantom. And you go back in
this guy who wrote this article, complete with tape and everything else. They
were cooking the books on the stats. He evered something like four steals and
two blocks a game at home and then you know regular numbers on the road,
and they were cooking the books for Michael Jordan while and nobody I guess
caught it or whatever. He wound up winning DPOY in nineteen eighty eight.
As we look at these numbers, as we look at what they were able
to do in their career, why would someone consider Peyton Manning better than Tom
Brady. I would say that when you're having a discussion Ben about who the
greatest of all time is, what I often see is I'll see two sides
of the debate having two different conversations at the same time. It really comes
down to what one's criteria is. So say I'm the Manning guy in the
scenario and you're the Brady guy. The Brady guy is going to come to
the debate table and say, well, Tom Brady won seven Super Bowls,
he had the highest winning percentage of any start quarterback in NFL history. He
has all of the volume records in terms of career completions, passing yards,
and touchdown passes. That's a close case, especially if championship rings are the
best measure for greatness. Because he has seven. Auto Graham also had seven,
but in terms of the modern Super Bowl era, nobody else has more
than four. And I would say that if that were a good criteria,
I don't think there is a discussion that's worth having. Not only would Peyton
Manning be number two or number three, but he'd be a distant number two
or number three if that were a good criteria. And then you'll have a
conversation with a Manning guy who will say, well, Manning is a five
time League MVP, more than anybody in history, a seven time First Team
All Pro selection, so in the modern Super Bowl era, and nobody else
has more than four. Aaron Rodgers has four. A handful of quarterbacks,
including Brady, has three. Manning has seven. He broke the NFL's all
time touchdown pass record at the age of thirty eight. Brady didn't break that
until the age of forty three. He broke the all time passing yard record
at the eight to thirty nine. Brady had to play until age forty four
to break that record, And so what you're having is a debate with two
completely different criteria. So what I say is, if you're looking to Tom
Brady as the greatest of all time, and if you're going to start that
debate with team wins in Super Bowl rings, use that own criteria against Brady
himself, because I'd make the argument that the greatest seasons of Tom Brady's career
were all non championship winning seasons. Two thousand and seven, far and away
not only the greatest year of his career, but one of the greatest single
seasons in the history of American sports. Twenty ten. League MVP through thirty
six touchdowns to only four picks in twenty ten. Nowadays it stuff to have
single digit interception totals if you're playing sixteen games. Come through four in a
sixteen game schedule almost fifteen years ago. League MVP again in twenty seventeen and
had some incredibly underrated years that are acknowledged to advanced metrics like DVOA. Twenty
twelve was a tremendous season. Two thousand and nine was a t end of
season. I made the argument in twenty fifteen when we beat him in the
AFC Championship game, he should have been the league MVP. So if the
greatest years of Tom's career are the years that he didn't win championships, then
how is championships the best argument to be made for him being the greatest of
all time? Because you might love Tom, you might appreciate all the success.
He's an easy guy to love. He's an easy guy to root for.
But if you're going to acknowledge him as the vote because there's seven rings,
what you're doing unintentionally, that is you're underrating two thirds of his career.
The man played over twenty years. So when you adjust statistics for Eric,
we're just talking, certainly from a statistical standpoint. Hayden Manning and Tom
Brady both retired as the all time touchdown path leader passing yardage leaders, But
you look at the actual adjustment Carra. When Peyton Manning was a twenty two
year old rookie, he finished fifth in the NFL with twenty six touchdown passes.
Kit would have been thirty seven touchdown passes during the last sixteen game season
in NFL history. Twenty twenty, he was third in the NFL, number
one in the AfD and pass yards with three thousand, seven hundred and thirty
nine yards. That would have been seventeen from twenty twenty. Third place would
have been four thousand, six hundred and thirty three yards. Then you adjust
for the fact that they actually did play a considerable amount of time in different
eras a lot of people. You know, there's obviously the overlap from the
head to head matchups, but people forget Peyton started fifty games before Tom made
his first start, and Tom started one hundred and twenty seven games, to
his credit, the greatest quarterback by measure of longevity, far and away after
Manning retired. That's a one hundred and seventy seven game non era adjusted swing
that basically takes away from Manning's numbers and adds to Brady's numbers, especially if
we're talking from an efficiency standpoint, And despite that one hundred and seventy seven
game stretch, Payton Manning every single efficiency metric with the exception of interception avoidance
interception percentage, so he had a higher completion percentage, higher yards for attempt
to average touchdown pass percentage, more passing yards per game, lower sack percentage.
So by every measure, Peyton and a top Tom Brady. And that's
even without factoring in one hundred and seventy seven game adjustment five six sixty nine
Zero's the text line. Quite a few of the texts disagree and think that
Brady was and always will be the Goats. I guess we'll have to reload
that argument and give you another chance to break that down at some point.
What does Sean Payton have to gain this season? We know Sean Payton came
back because he loves coaching, but he also came back because Sean Payton wants
the Hall of Fame, and he knew he was not getting the Hall of
Fame unless he did something significant with another football team without Drew Brees. It's
similar to the Belichick Brady sort of thing, you know. And so Sean
Payton has an opportunity to come in here to Denver. He's trying to do
something no other head coach has ever done, and that's win a Super Bowl
with two different teams. But what is it that Sean Payton has to gain
here in Denver? Ironically, then I think that Sean Payton has found himself
in almost the exact same situation that Russell Wilson has found himself, in the
sense that if Russell Wilson had, for whatever reason retired as a Seattle Seahawk,
he would have put together a decade of dominance that very few players in
all of NFL history could compete with, and in my view, he would
have been a first ballot Hall of Famer. The fact that he came to
Denver struggled tremendously in twenty twenty two was a lot better than given credit for.
But people are still going to focus on the win loss record from twenty
twenty three. Now people are saying it's to make it or break it.
In terms of his performance in Pittsburgh, I put him in the Hall of
Fame regardless. He's a top twenty five all time quarterback. I don't think
there's anything he can do to take away from that. But that's a very
comparable situation to what Sean Payton finds himself in, where if he had just
retired along with Drew Brees, he would have gone down as one of the
greatest offensive geniuses of all time. I believe he put together nine seasons where
the offense ranked top five in scoring. Two of them led the league in
New Orleans. That's as perfect as a head coach of resume as you could
ever ask for, at least from an offensive perspective. But the issue is
he hung in there after Drew Brees retired. He came over to Denver eight
and nine last year, and I'll defend him in so much as to say
that it could be a lot worse than eight and nine. Bronco's country has
felt greater pain than eight and nine, But it's not the standard that we're
hoping for because the combination of Russell Wilson Sean Paigon, we were hoping for
a Super Bowl. Now were in a little bit of a different scenario.
If he wins a Super Bowl with the Denver Bronco, it's a slam dunk.
Will be a first Hall of Famer realistically, being able to be the
first person in all of history to win a Super Bowl of the second team.
It's not likely, but I'll tell you this. If he helps rebuild
Denver into a competitive, double digit winning playoff contending team, and if he's
able to develop Bo Nicks into a Pro Bowl caliber When I say Pro Bowl
caliber, I mean top three in the conference, not the game itself,
no game anymore. But if he's able to help bow Knicks become that poor
man's Drew Brees that I refer to him with affection, I think that that
makes a very compelling case for him in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
If things go in a different direction, you may also see his chances for
inductions to the Pro Football Hall of Fame become more of a struggle than they
would have been otherwise. Ryan, we always appreciate the time at the Ryan
Michael on Twitter. Look forward to catching up with you again next week.
Brother sounds good Man, appreciate having me on take Care