Speaker 1: We're right out to the Kawai consper the hotline, though,
Speaker 1: I'll bring on a good buddy, Ryan Michael at the
Speaker 1: Brian Michael on Twitter.
Speaker 2: Ryan, how you doing this evening?
Speaker 3: Doing well? Then? Nick? How are you guys?
Speaker 2: Do it pretty well?
Speaker 1: I put a put a little trivia thing out there.
Speaker 1: Maybe you can answer this. Of the quarterbacks to take
Speaker 1: snaps within the five yard line, I means five yards
Speaker 1: or less to Golden Goost situations, of the sixty one
Speaker 1: quarterbacks to take a snap in that situation, sixty attempted
Speaker 1: to pass. Six players were intercepted, one of which was
Speaker 1: Daniel Jones, who went over three passing in that scenario.
Speaker 2: Can you name any of the other five.
Speaker 3: Off the top of my head? I don't think I can.
Speaker 3: You got me sum Yeah?
Speaker 2: Nick?
Speaker 1: Well, Nick got one. He got lit more Jackson because
Speaker 1: that was one of them. So there are still there
Speaker 1: are still four more. Now you know one of them
Speaker 1: because I told you one after you went down the line.
Speaker 1: But there are still a few out there. So if
Speaker 1: anybody has any guesses on that without looking, I'm sure to.
Speaker 1: I'm sure interested to see who people guess on that. Now. Well,
Speaker 1: we talked last time we talked about quarterback. I went
Speaker 1: on to the Russell Wilson thing, and I wondered about
Speaker 1: the odds of success in Pittsburgh, And you know, what
Speaker 1: are the odds of success for Russell Wilson? What are
Speaker 1: the odds of success for somebody that age moving on
Speaker 1: and you know, getting a championship or being successfull. You've
Speaker 1: crunched the numbers, you crunched the data, and you've put
Speaker 1: out a Twitter chart that notes very few instances in
Speaker 1: NFL history or a quarterback age thirty six plus joining
Speaker 1: their team at age thirty five plus and winning ten
Speaker 1: or more regular season games.
Speaker 3: Only ten in the history of the National Football League.
Speaker 3: And three of those ten spots go to Peyton Manning.
Speaker 3: Two of the ten spots go to Tom Brady. No
Speaker 3: surprise there. But it's really a testiment then to just
Speaker 3: how difficult it is to take up a new system,
Speaker 3: appliment yourself to a new culture, and then to go
Speaker 3: out there and win games. So if you look at
Speaker 3: the chart that I posted on Twitter, I'll start from
Speaker 3: the bottom and I'll work my way up. I decided
Speaker 3: just to rank them by passer rating ranking, so to
Speaker 3: adjust for era. We have some different players, some different eras.
Speaker 3: Doesn't matter so much to me as where they finished
Speaker 3: in terms of total ranking. You know Doug Flutie in
Speaker 3: nineteen ninety nine off all in ten and five he
Speaker 3: didn't participate in the wild card, but he ranked twenty
Speaker 3: fourth and passerating. The Bills had the number two scoring
Speaker 3: defense in the league that year. You move up, Philip
Speaker 3: Rivers when eleven and six he finished thirteenth in passer rating.
Speaker 3: Tom Brady the year he won the Super Bowl at
Speaker 3: Tampa Bay, is the only one of the ten to
Speaker 3: actually win a championship, but he finished ninth in passer rating,
Speaker 3: which was often times the case for Tom went winning championships.
Speaker 3: Is he was that guy who was playing at a
Speaker 3: high level, Yes, but usually towards the middle or bottom
Speaker 3: of the top ten, not towards the top. He's a
Speaker 3: three time NFLNVP, is three time first Team All Pro.
Speaker 3: Didn't win a championship in any of those years. He
Speaker 3: had Tom playing at a little bit higher level. In
Speaker 3: twenty twenty one seventh place, Peyton Manning was fourth in
Speaker 3: twenty fourteen. Wyatt Hittle, I should say actually two of
Speaker 3: the spots and misspoke earlier at age thirty six in
Speaker 3: nineteen sixty two third in the NFL and passer rating,
Speaker 3: and he tops the chart with his nineteen sixty three
Speaker 3: season led the NFL had a one hundred and four
Speaker 3: twenty eight passer rating. In nineteen sixty three, he threw
Speaker 3: a single season record thirty six touchdown passes and that
Speaker 3: record stood until nineteen eighty four when Marino through thirty
Speaker 3: eight that Manning squirreled in and the number two and
Speaker 3: number three spot second place finishes both times. So what
Speaker 3: you're going to see in terms of the trends of
Speaker 3: the ten quarterbacks listed on that chart is everybody, with
Speaker 3: the exception of Payton Manning, had a top ten scoring
Speaker 3: defense behind them Manning. In twenty fourteen, the Broncos finished sixteenth,
Speaker 3: and twenty thirteen they finished twenty second. So if you're
Speaker 3: hoping to win double digit games and even have a
Speaker 3: shot number one, you better be playing at a high level.
Speaker 3: But just as importantly, you need to have that top
Speaker 3: ten defense to back up.
Speaker 2: Well. Right when we look at the game as we.
Speaker 4: Know it now being played from the quarterback position, everyone
Speaker 4: wants exposed to play.
Speaker 2: Now. For me, being a former defensive guy, I'm cool
Speaker 2: with that guy being efficient.
Speaker 4: And yeah, you know you might say, well, he may
Speaker 4: or may not have a great defense, but I want
Speaker 4: high efficiency because every single game, I'll just say, maybe
Speaker 4: three times in a given game, you may have the
Speaker 4: ability to take a shot down the field. But from
Speaker 4: your opinion, what do you want more of? Because when
Speaker 4: we think about those explosive once.
Speaker 2: Again, this one to three times a game. But is
Speaker 2: it explosive or the efficiency?
Speaker 1: Is this the Alex Smith versus Jay Cutler argument?
Speaker 4: No, no, not necessarily.
Speaker 2: But I think when we.
Speaker 4: Look at quarterbacks and we watch quarterbacks throw.
Speaker 2: Eight to ten yards, in my opinion, that's an explosive.
Speaker 4: But they will see quarterbacks throw a checkdown and we
Speaker 4: always say, well, take what the defense gives you. But
Speaker 4: you still get mad at the quarterback because he threw
Speaker 4: a checkdown.
Speaker 3: Well at Tom Brady spent the majority of his career
Speaker 3: defining what it means to be a and a winner
Speaker 3: with throwing checkdowns. He of course had the occasional bam ball.
Speaker 3: It was never his specialty. It wasn't flashy football. So
Speaker 3: you shouldn't have to choose one or the other. But
Speaker 3: if I was forced to choose Alex Smith or Jay Cutler.
Speaker 3: In most cases, I would take Alex Smith. Most great
Speaker 3: quarterbacks are a combination of a little bit of bolts.
Speaker 3: Even guys like Patrick Mahomes and Josh Allen, we're going
Speaker 3: to see a mixture of efficiency and explosive plays. I think,
Speaker 3: you know, trying to make a connection here to Broncos
Speaker 3: Country and looking at bo Nick's style of play. I've
Speaker 3: been calling him for months Drew brees light and I
Speaker 3: think that's the best comparison. His arm is infinitely stronger
Speaker 3: than Breeze's arm was at any point during his time
Speaker 3: in New Orleans and certainly towards the end of his career.
Speaker 3: So if he can channel the occasional explosive play, which
Speaker 3: we saw plenty with Go Nicks to Troy Franklin in Oregon.
Speaker 3: But overall, if the root core of your game is efficiency,
Speaker 3: I think that's the winning recipe.
Speaker 1: That's something that you know, we're talking about quarterbacks aging.
Speaker 1: Is that something that's that's necessary as to get older?
Speaker 1: What about guys like like Randall Cobb in ninety eight,
Speaker 1: Carson Palmer twenty fifteen, and we're looking at like three
Speaker 1: quarterbacks that are joining this list now that have moved
Speaker 1: on to other teams despite advanced age, Russell Wilson, There Rodgers,
Speaker 1: Kirk Cousins, any of those likely to join the list, I.
Speaker 3: Would say that the most the quarterback with the most
Speaker 3: realistic shot of doing that is probably Russell Wilson, just
Speaker 3: given the strength of Pittsburgh's defense and the overall architecture
Speaker 3: of the team. Aaron Rodgers is going to be forty
Speaker 3: one years old and he's coming off a significant injury,
Speaker 3: and that is not a good combination. So can the
Speaker 3: Jets bounce back to the top ten caliber of defense
Speaker 3: that they were not in twenty twenty three but previously. Sure,
Speaker 3: it's possible. And if you're playing complimentary football, as we
Speaker 3: saw with Peyton Manning in twenty fifteen, you can win games.
Speaker 3: Do I expect Aaron Rodgers to be the driving force
Speaker 3: behind the success of New York?
Speaker 2: I don't.
Speaker 3: And there really isn't much of a press than when
Speaker 3: you're looking at the quarterbacks on this list. There were
Speaker 3: a quarterbacks who were carried, and most of the quarterbacks
Speaker 3: played complementary football, meaning they may have been playing themselves
Speaker 3: at a high level, but they have that top and
Speaker 3: top five defense on the other side of the wall,
Speaker 3: I would say that Russell Wilson has the best shot,
Speaker 3: but it's going to be a tall task for all
Speaker 3: three guys when you're looking at Russell Wilson, Aaron Rodgers
Speaker 3: and Kirk Cousins.
Speaker 4: But right, I mean this is when we look at
Speaker 4: the sport of football, it is complimentary football.
Speaker 2: It is having a balance attack.
Speaker 4: It is relying on your running backs, allowing your wide
Speaker 4: receivers to go out there.
Speaker 2: And make plays for you.
Speaker 4: So if you are a quarterback, whether you are rusty,
Speaker 4: whether you are Aaron Rodgers, and you say okay, well yeah,
Speaker 4: I'm a little long into two, I can't do it
Speaker 4: the way that I used to. Why is it something
Speaker 4: wrong with just being considered like a complimentary piece playing
Speaker 4: the quarterback position.
Speaker 3: There certainly shouldn't be And it's a lot easier to
Speaker 3: be that explosive duel threat when we're younger. And if
Speaker 3: you look at the way Russell Wilson played the ball,
Speaker 3: even despite his efficiency late in games last year, he
Speaker 3: was still a shell of his former self. If you
Speaker 3: compare that to prime Russell Wilson twenty fifteen twenty seventeen,
Speaker 3: even going up for twenty twenty, you can clearly tell
Speaker 3: us to different quarterbacks. So I don't see there being
Speaker 3: any purpose in stigmatizing agent quarterbacks who evolve their game
Speaker 3: in order to be complementary pieces. Because if that is
Speaker 3: the way that you preserve your spot as a starter,
Speaker 3: and you lean into that experience in terms of diagnosing defenses,
Speaker 3: good decision making, that's absolutely what they should be doing
Speaker 3: at any age of their career. But if that's what
Speaker 3: they're leaning on more heavily in an advanced age, and
Speaker 3: then once we get the thirty six plus, we're talking
Speaker 3: about advanced age for quarterbacks, I think that's a very
Speaker 3: good thing, not something that we should be stigmatizing.
Speaker 2: As we look at this.
Speaker 1: I mean, how long can somebody of Russell Wilson's skill
Speaker 1: set go on Tom Brady Payton Manning a little bit
Speaker 1: different type of quarterback. Brady, you know, probably more than
Speaker 1: a sort of viny Testaverdi in a lot of ways
Speaker 1: in terms of you know, playing the way later in
Speaker 1: the skill sets that they had, even though Brady did
Speaker 1: at a much better level. How does somebody like Russell Wilson,
Speaker 1: who thrived on athleticism early in the career and the
Speaker 1: ability to take the deep shot. How do they preserve
Speaker 1: themselves for longevity.
Speaker 3: It's going to be a tremendous challenge. In The obvious
Speaker 3: answer is they have to continue to hone their skills
Speaker 3: as a pocket passer. The closest comparison, which isn't going
Speaker 3: to be a fair comparison, is what Randall Cunningham did
Speaker 3: in Minnesota in nineteen ninety eight. He was arguably the
Speaker 3: most explosive dorth right quarterback the sport has ever seen.
Speaker 3: He was a shell of himself in terms of what
Speaker 3: he could do with his legs later in his career,
Speaker 3: but he had the fortune of throwing the Randy Moss,
Speaker 3: Chris Carter, and Jay Reid. So if you put a
Speaker 3: quarterback of advanced age in a situation that's one of
Speaker 3: the best in the history of football. Sure, Russell Wilson
Speaker 3: and a number of other quarterbacks that have success in
Speaker 3: an offense like that, But the reality is Pittsburgh's offense
Speaker 3: in twenty twenty four is not going to beat the
Speaker 3: nineteen on the eight right house. So for that reason,
Speaker 3: despite my very high opinion of Russell Wilson, I'm certainly
Speaker 3: nervous about what's to come. In twenty twenty four and
Speaker 3: beyind So, with.
Speaker 4: That being said, when you look at older quarterbacks and
Speaker 4: they're in that twilight year of their career, can't really
Speaker 4: do what they used to Usually offensive coordinators tried to
Speaker 4: ca the system around them. But pull it back to
Speaker 4: the Broncos for a second. They got two young quarterbacks,
Speaker 4: Zach Wilson and Bow Knicks, who may end up being
Speaker 4: the starter for the Broncos franchise. Do you think because
Speaker 4: of more years down the line for both Knicks and
Speaker 4: he's a young guy, so shall Payon be willing to
Speaker 4: take more risk or as play calling with Bolls, is
Speaker 4: here a younger guy opposed to last season what we
Speaker 4: saw with Russell.
Speaker 3: I would say that because bo is a quarterback whose
Speaker 3: skill set matches Sean's offense, I agree with what Ben
Speaker 3: said earlier today. They're not going to throw him in
Speaker 3: there to be the starter just for the sake of
Speaker 3: throwing him in there. And just from what I'm seeing
Speaker 3: on the outside looking in, I think they're going to
Speaker 3: exercise tremendous patients as far as how and when they
Speaker 3: work him into the system and when that time comes,
Speaker 3: whether it's halfway through the preseason. Whether it's week one,
Speaker 3: whether it's week five, we don't know yet. But when
Speaker 3: his time does come, I don't think that Sean Payton
Speaker 3: is going to be throwing the kitchen sink at him,
Speaker 3: because that's not the way that you established familiarity and
Speaker 3: a system's complex as his. So I think that we're
Speaker 3: going to see a dial bad version of what Sean
Speaker 3: Payton does by the time bone Nicks takes over as
Speaker 3: the eventual starter.
Speaker 1: Talk with Ryan Michael at the Ryan Michael on Twitter,
Speaker 1: you said a great question here which kind of ties
Speaker 1: into something that I've been talking about, and it said,
Speaker 1: would you rather have a ring as a non contributor
Speaker 1: or an all pro on a team that falls short?
Speaker 1: And the you know, the pr answer here is I'd
Speaker 1: rather have the ring and be a selfless person. But
Speaker 1: the real answer for me is I'd rather be an
Speaker 1: all pro man. Like the more I started thinking about it,
Speaker 1: I'm like, I'd rather be you put other people around
Speaker 1: me and we'll get there, you know, at least that's
Speaker 1: my mentality being a non contributor at getting a ring,
Speaker 1: i'most feel like I got carried there, you know. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's gonna be cool to show that hardware all or whatever,
Speaker 1: But I'm gonna feel like kind of a punk, you know,
Speaker 1: if I'm in league circles, I'm showing off this ring
Speaker 1: that I got by riding the pine.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's really a question. It's really a question
Speaker 3: best suited for someone like Peyton Manning who and I
Speaker 3: don't want to use the term carried. I don't think
Speaker 3: that that's fair. He played a very small percentage of
Speaker 3: that season, even half healthy, and there were a lot
Speaker 3: of things that he brought to the table that I
Speaker 3: feel helped contribute to that Super Bowl ring in twenty fifteen.
Speaker 3: But if you just go back to twenty thirteen, he
Speaker 3: had arguably the greatest single season in the history of
Speaker 3: pro football, won a conference championship and not a Super Bowl.
Speaker 3: The late great da Marius Thomas is another good example,
Speaker 3: where in Super Bowl fifty he caught one of six
Speaker 3: targets for eight yards, won a championship, and in Super
Speaker 3: Bowl forty eight against Seattle, he caught a then Super
Speaker 3: Bowl record thirteen thousands for one hundred and eighteen yards
Speaker 3: in a touchdown. And that wasn't exactly garbage yarders. They
Speaker 3: were very hard fought yards, even though they were all
Speaker 3: for or not, they didn't amount to a lot of points.
Speaker 3: So I mean, in which season and in which game
Speaker 3: did he play at a higher level Far and Away
Speaker 3: twenty thirteen. I think most players would say they'd rather
Speaker 3: have the ring. I don't think it necessarily has to
Speaker 3: be one extreme or the other. I think the better
Speaker 3: question is really the Tom Brady question, where the guy
Speaker 3: has seven rings. In five or six of those seven rings,
Speaker 3: he was towards the middle or bottom of the top
Speaker 3: ten amongst his peers. Whether you're looking at adjusted net
Speaker 3: yards per ten, DVA total QBR pick your metric, but
Speaker 3: he had a collection of seasons where he was clearly
Speaker 3: the best quarterback in football and had no rings to
Speaker 3: show for it. I would say that if you're a
Speaker 3: first team All Pro, you're certainly contributing more to your
Speaker 3: team's chances of winning. You're a gold medal winner as
Speaker 3: an individual, for lack of a better phrase, compared to
Speaker 3: a lot of guys who wouldn't even hit the bronze medal,
Speaker 3: but maybe they were the six or seventh best quarterback
Speaker 3: in football winning a championship. The latter is what is
Speaker 3: revered more, but the former is questionably what's more impressive
Speaker 3: in terms of what that individual player is contributing to
Speaker 3: their team's chances of winning a championship.
Speaker 2: I wonder what the eighth place medal would be. That'd
Speaker 2: probably be my home right there.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's a wooden medals you know, something I don't know,
Speaker 1: but Ryan, we always appreciated that. D Ryan Michael on Twitter.
Speaker 1: Looking forward to catch it up with you again here
Speaker 3: Soon sounds good, Ben, thanks for having me on