It's time for Inside the Numbers. Now inside the number is with Ryan Michael,
right, how you doing this evening? Doing well? Then? Nick?
How are you guys doing pretty well? We gave you a little assignment,
a dynasty assignment, if you will, not the New England Patriots,
but a football bloodlines sort of assignment, as we have quite a few of
those here in Denver, whether that's McCaffrey's, the Mannings, the Sute,
now the Ellises, ELS's Elis's ls I. How do we I don't know
how we pluralize that, but we have a lot of bloodline type stuff here
in Denver and father son, brothers, all that kind of stuff, and
it's been you know, it's it's fascinating that I think that that we have
those football lineage type type of things. What were you able to find out
or what can you dazzle us with in terms of statistics from these football bloodlines.
Well, there's a lot of fun stuff to talk about, and probably
more than we can cram into one segment. A stat that I had stumbled
on before coming on this evening isn't related to any of those four families,
but a shout out to the Greasy family because you have a Pro Football Hall
of Fame quarterback. Bob Greasy led the NFL in passerating eighty seven point eight
nineteen seventy seven. His son, Brian Greasy led the NFL in passerating one
to two point nine in two thousand. What are the odds that two quarterbacks
in a twenty three year span, which is roughly the duration of Tom Brady's
career, would both lead the NFL in passerating. That's really interesting from a
standpoint, But I would have come a little closer to home, like really
really closed, because christ McCaffrey just got a new deal with the San Francisco
forty nine ers. That's kind of taking that running back market that most have
devalued to a whole different level. But I remember Kristen when he was much
of a younger kid running around with his dad. You know, my team
at a McCaffrey. But what numbers do you have on those two and their
legacy as father and son and both both incredible football players. So I'll touch
on Christian for just a second. You know, you're looking at a guy
who, right now, at age twenty seven, has already produced ten thousand,
five hundred and five yards from scrimtage and eighty one total touchdowns. The
cool stat also because I always appreciate players who have success regardless of the surroundings,
the team, the system. He's led the NFL in both total yards
from scrimage and total touchdowns with two different teams. He did it with Carolina
in twenty nineteen he had two and three hundred ninety three yards nineteen touchdowns,
and he did it last year in San Francisco twenty twenty three yards and twenty
one touchdowns. And when you consider the pedigree that he's coming from, Eddie
Mack is one of my all time favorite Broncos and I'll start with nineteen ninety
four. Before he truly became need McCaffrey that we appreciated here in Broncos country,
he was with Mike Fanahan in ninety four with forty nine ers, very
small sample size. There, he caught eleven of fourteen targets seventy eight point
six percent. He had a seventy one point four percent success percentage, which
is an efficient symmetric per Pro Football Reference, those two numbers would have ranked
second and number one amongst wide receivers in the NFL. That year if it
were a larger sample size enough to qualify so cool that he want to ring
there. He goes on to Denver. He has three consecutive one thousand yard
years ninety eight, ninety nine, two thousand and You know, it's not
surprising to see receivers do well with John Elway throwing in the football, but
the combination of Bobby Brister and Bryan Greasy later ed McCaffrey from nineteen ninety nine
to two thousand amongst all players in the NFL six in receptions one seventy two,
tenth in receiving yards twenty three hundred and thirty five, eighth in touchdown
reception sixteen, and eighth in first downs one hundred and fourteen. So bear
in mind he's one hundred and seventy two receptions during that two year stand.
What's more than Randy Moss and Taro Loans too, respectively, caught one hundred
and fifty seven passes each. Wow, that's fascinating, stuf fight. You
know, Christian obviously leads the way in money earned for the family after the
new UH New contract. He said, it's like, you know, walking
up to your dad being the big ball. You know, they go out,
Dad, you know you did all this. But the family, I'm
just saying, you know, and then they've got of course, the Brothers's.
It's incredibly athletic family overall. I mean, you get Max and Dylan
Luke and they just incredibly and to be fair, at least it might be
the most athletic on all of them when all said and done. But you
know, it is what it is. I think I think the mcaffie's are
kind of Colorado royalty as far as as far as that goes. Is Christian
Hall of Famer? Is Is he a future Hall of Famer in my opinion
if he retired today. Yes, very different style of play, but very
Jim Brown asks in the sense that he's been dominant pretty much from the time
he entered the league in two thousand and eight teams. So in my view,
he's the most complete running back, not just in the NFL now,
of his entire your generation. So he's twenty seven years old and have almost
eleven thousand yards and over eighty touchdowns. Not too bad if you're gonna put
a running back in the Hall of Fame from this generation Christians the one.
So keeping with this, whole team about maybe five and son tandems and the
world of football. Jonah Ellis, son of Luther Ellis, one of my
teammates here with the Denver Broncos. Now, Jonah is just kind of getting
his feet wet. But Lutha has several sons who are playing in the NFL.
What do you think that maybe Jonah can bring to the Broncos that might
start that conversation where people start comparing him to his father. Well, Jonah's
arguably the most talented amongst these brothers, and you know whether or not he'll
go on to have the kind of career's father did remains to be seen.
So you know, his brother's Cayden and Atlanta with the Falcons, Christian in
New England with the Tats, and Noah previously played for the Philadelphia Eagles for
a few years. Joonah Ellis, in my view, was the defensive steel
of the two twenty four NFL draft. As I mentioned before, it's second
amongst all the sense the players taken in sacks, only lots who had more
thirteen. Ellis had twelve, and so the projection is good as long as
he can stay healthy. I'm very excited about what he can do in this
defense. His father Luther had in mind you a pretty underappreciated career defensive tackles
that they usually ends up being the case, nig. I mean, he
put together three hundred and thirty one total career tackles, twenty nine sacks.
And to make that Denver connection, he was your teammate in two thousand and
four, the final game of his career November seventh, two thousand and four,
we ended up getting Houston thirty one to fourteen. He got the final
sack of his career sacked David Carr. David Carr went down four times that
game, amongst thirty six trillion during his career, unfortunately, and he had
six tackles in that game. How do you like that, yells is And
in terms of I mean, they got so many that they might be the
mccaffreys of defense. We're if we're like that. But let's go back to
I think the first family of football, the most famous probably family of football,
the Manning family. My father's favorite player was Archie Manning. You know,
I obviously Peyton and Eli, we've got arch you know, kind of
coming up. But I think the thing about the Mannings. For me,
that's interesting is first of all, how good Archie was that. I think
that that gets sort of lost to the mix and say what an incredible athlete
he was. Because we think of Peyton Manning and Eli Manning, we think
it was great quarterbacks, we don't really think of them as phenomenal athletes,
where Archie Manning was Steve Young before Steve Young was Steve Young. Absolutely,
Archie Manning was kind of cut of the mold of Roger Stawback, a little
bit more similar in style to maybe a Trevor Lawrence into a Payt or an
Eli or both pocket passers. I wish I could remember who to attribute this
quote to, but I remember hearing years ago something to the effect that if
Terry Bradshaw had been drafted by New Orleans and Archie Manning had been drafted by
Pittsburgh, Archie Manning would be in the Pro Football Hall of Fame and we'd
be asking who is Terry Bradshaw. That might be a little hyperboling, but
you have to look at what Archie was able to achieve in New Orleans within
the framework of the situation he played. So I got the numbers for Archie
from nineteen seventy one to nineteen eighty one, which really represents the time where
he was a full time starter in New Orleans. Amongst all NFL peers,
he was two completions shy of fourth one thousand, one hundred and forty eight,
eight halfing yards short of six twenty one thousand, seven hundred and thirty
one thirteenth and touchdown passes he threw one hundred and fifteen of us. You
have to bear in mind, you know, adjusting statistics for era. Joe
Namath led the NFL in touchdown passes with nineteen hearing Archie's sophomore season, and
he was a two time Pro Bowl selection in nineteen seventy eight. Nineteen seventy
nine helped lead the New Orleans Saints the records of seven and nine and eight
and eight. So when you consider the teams that he was playing with,
I would say that you could make an argument that his career was an over
achievement. Archie Manning is usually the example people use when they're referring to incredibly
talented college quarterbacks who end up in tough situations. Archie Manning very underrated quarterback
historically, in my opinion, all right, Ryan, we got to take
it back to the defensive side of the field. One of I mean,
I love watching this guy practice. I love watching play because it reminds me
of Champ barely to four who I play with, and that's up. He
is two pats, Tan and tell me because Stan is already he's already gone
to two Pro Bowls all ready. But what does he need to do in
your mind? You got to be put on that same category as his dad,
past sertan senior. He definitely has some big shoes to fill. And
for him, I think he's already displayed the ability to play amongst the very
best at his position at first team All Pro selection in twenty twenty two,
and as you mentioned that, a two time Pro bowler in twenty twenty two
and twenty twenty three. We look at what he's been able to do.
Having some success against Patrick Mahomes, it reminds me of his father's success against
the most dominant quarterback of that generation, Paid Manning ps one for lack of
a better phrase, seven and four against Manning. During his time in the
AFC East. He was a three time Pro Bowl selection two thousand and two,
three and four He was a first team All Pro selection two thousand and
two, and that year the Dolphins had the top rated passer rating defense in
the AFC, holding opponents to seventy two point seven, number one in the
AFC and pass defense the XP again a Pro Football Reference metrics, so very
similar trajectories in terms of the two Sir ten cornerbacks. I think it's just
a matter of continuing to do what he's already doing well. We look forward
to him doing that here in Denver. Obviously, there was a lot of
trade bs out there, which I try to tell people was absolute nonsense.
With get Lebrugs were never trading passer ten. It was never a thing that
was happening. I saw reports that they were put together a package move up
to three that it was all absolute, utter nonsense. He's going to be
a dever Bronco for a long time. You know, I don't know if
Satan is the best corner in the NFL. Those kind of lists are subjective
and all that kind of stuff anyway, But where do you put him based
on what it is that he's able to do, which seems to be about
everything. Where do you put him right now in the league? As far
as ranking him as a corner, I believe that if pats er ten were
to be surrounded and we'll see, because you're not going to be able to
feel the complete defense the caliber of a guy who's the first team All Pro
selection. But I think as we we start to establish greater balance and we
build the defense from the bottom up, you can make the argument that he's
the best corner in football. You know, so far, he's really been
holding his own on some defensive units that haven't quite been the Broncos defensive ole,
the Nick Ferguson era or the Orange Crush era. So you know,
maybe I'm being a little bit biased, and I think with the right support,
having another year in Vans Joseph System, I think there will be an
argument to be made by the end of the year that he may be the
best corner in all football. So there are several guys who are either in
the league right now or coming into the league who their fathers have played.
When you think about Marvin Harrison Junior who is just coming into the league,
Antoine wilferl Junior, Frank Gord Junr. Is now in the league, and
Brendan Rice. When you think about those guys. What's of those guys that
maybe I just name or you just may have on your own, Well,
you think that they can kind of put themselves, not on the level of
their fathers, but kind of start that conversation in comparison. I think that
all of the players you just mentioned certainly have an opportunity to play up to
or close to the level of their fathers. Obviously, the most intriguing of
the names you mentioned is going to be Marvin Harrison Junior. Because he's arguably
the best receiving prospect we've seen in a number of years. And when you
look at the trajectory of wide receivers who are taken at the top of the
draft, you don't see the same correlation with success as you do with the
first quarterbacks taken in other positions in football. But in terms of what Marvin
Harrison Jr. Was able to produce at Ohio State, and given the caliber
a football player, his father was one of the greatest route runners in the
history of pro football, he's the most intriguing. I do think he's the
player on paper who has the greatest upside. It'll be very interesting to see
what he's able to do here in his rookie season. Ryan, we appreciate
it as always, brother, Looking forward to checking in with you next week.
Sounds good, guys, Thanks for having me on the Ryan Michael at
The Ryan Michael on Twitter, our official and official statistician here at PCT