[Music] [Applause] welcome to unexpected points Kevin Cole here your host I mean do I have to this whole intro every time I guess I should um but I am joined by Josh Herms Meer it's Tuesday it's Herms day um a national holiday we can celebrate on a weekly basis and today we're going to talk quarterback rankings I know not the most unique topic or idea and probably something that most podcasts covered like a month or two ago but we do things a little bit differently over here and we have herm's analytically with analytical intuition Vibes rankings versus what I'm producing on the site with my own rankings Josh how's it going bud going great going great so my my rankings are going to be on the Fly based on pure Vibes and my knowledge of the players and obviously that's informed by the analytics but I can't wait to uh to pair them up with what your new ace metric has uh kind of added to your to your whole formulation yeah yeah got some new new new wrinkles in here I mean I guess I can quickly kind of talk about some of the some of the nerd [ __ ] when it comes to uh what's going on with the the rankings so if you look I have these basian quarterback rankings that I've been doing for a while now which basically have a a prior or an assumption going into it which starts at the beginning of someone's career with their draft position and then it updates for all the evidence that we're getting in the NFL and of course if they're performing better than what the prior would have thought then it's a slight incremental change higher that their that their projection will go and the reverse if it goes down in the other direction now what's a little bit different for this year is in addition to you know I have some stuff on here I'm kind of just flying through this on YouTube for anyone who wants to look at here looking at PFF grading EPA per play is the major statistic here but what's a little bit different this year is I have this adjust usted quarterback efficiency metric that I've put out for the last two years that's really all I have the data for when it comes to um charting data that I'm getting from um from different data sources that just goes back a couple of years on this I don't have the PFF data going back further where it looks at things like dropped interceptions fumble recovery luck and then other things that come with the the NFL redar NFL fastar data that I use for everything else like Yak over expect ation which is an indication of maybe schemes that are a little bit easier to implement for a quarterback and they don't deserve all the credit for it um and then other things like defensive pass interference which may which may add to um different quarterbacks ratings their strength of schedule whether uh you know in a dome or not is going to have a factor on a lot of these things and by incorporating that I think it helps the measure align a little bit better with people's perceptions of these quarterbacks um but it is something to keep in mind that like when you're projecting the actual just absolute unadjusted number going forward it could be a little bit off from what my rankings say I mean for instance like Brock perie you'd have to put him near the top not at the top but very very very near the top and he's pretty close to the top now uh someone like Tua you'd have to put very very high based upon the fact that he's been really good by the unadjusted Numbers over the last couple years but those are two guys who have had large adjustments down according to this metric that I put together and that's going to affect where where they're ranked here which again will align somewhat probably somewhat with your Vibes based stuff and somewhat with what the market is saying is that clear I have a I have a nerd question first before we get into this because I know you're using NFL reader so do they have participation data coming this year or is that is that gone away I don't know the last thing that I heard about that was no that something was broken um but we shall see um it's not super important for for this particular calculation but I have done some stuff in the past um especially with these NFL plus minus numbers that I put together in the past to calculate really non-quarterback values where that becomes more of an issue but as of now it looks like the 2016 to 2023 stuff still looks okay I thought we might even lose and some of that stuff would go offline but we we'll see going forward great great yeah like I said I'll be doing this on the Fly kind of calling [ __ ] on some of your model stuff if I I feel like I need to and uh if not hey all the better yeah I mean the model the model can uh is infallible so just keep that in mind as you're going through um all of this different stuff here now we also have maybe I'll use as a bit of a check I was going to use Mike Sando who I spoke with last week you guys can check out that podcast uh I was going to use that as like my NFL Insider check on what the the general perception is saying the problem with that and it's only a problem in that I think it doesn't quite align with General thinking is as part of the definitions on there for the teering definitions it really leans heavily on pure passing situations and and things of that nature which I think is why Joe burrow was higher than Josh Allen and you know Lamar Jackson has always been rated a little bit lowly in that so instead of that I have some quarterback rankings that just came out at the athletic which I might you know reference from from time to time to see how we might be out of alignment with General Media analyst type of perceptions and you know it's a good place to be I think to be out of alignment with that uh in the right circumstances agree with that agree with that yeah my my rankings probably will not align perfectly with the executives or the consensus but uh there will it's it's always the case whenever we look at like for instance I remember probably five years ago when we were all work on cpoe and EPA and trying to figure out the best most predictive way to kind of evaluate quarterbacks wasn't saying they were the best but we were just saying here are the things that are the most sticky you know it would come up with you know things like Kurt Cousins at the very top and and and in small samples things weird things would happen and we'd always get clowned on because um you know obviously they don't doesn't match the eye test right ocular regression would would tell you something else so uh I will be trying to uh adjust for that right now yes there that's part of it yeah the cpoe wars which was a war which I participated in within the analytics Community where um again nothing is it was binary on it but you know it is a little bit humorous to look back and again it's it's a it's we don't have a large sample and I'm sure it's very useful in other circumstances but believe it or not uh looking back in our year of the Lord 2024 it's it's a little bit difficult to figure out that handful years ago it was like Russell Wilson versus Patrick Mahomes and who is who is actually the better quarterback because according to cpoe you could make the argument that momes was being schemed up a lot of easier stuff and then Russell Wilson was completing more difficult stuff because his CPO cpoe was so much higher than his corresponding efficiency so you know that that's that's an interesting take because I always thought that that was kind of disproven and by other metrics like if you look at Patrick Mahomes completion percentage in obvious passing situations right in his EPA for play in obvious passing situations that's where he was the King right so to me those are difficult situations and and and what we would look at with Russ was third Downs right he always was set up run run P run run P by old Sneaky Pete so I think that's kind of why we thought perhaps Russ was actually underneath it all a quality quarterback was because he was asked to make these really tough throws in these really high leverage situations um you know I guess here's another question before we get into your stuff about Russ do we believe he wasn't good like and or and then then he fell off a cliff or excuse me do you do we believe he wasn't good the whole time right and he was just being protected by Sneaky Pete or do we believe he was good and then kind of his his skill set deteriorated got married started having a lot of sex lost his Focus you know what was already before that but maybe there was less sex in his previous marriage I'll give you that so I mean where where do you land on on Russ how do you how do you view his career I I view him as a guy who was good like I think he actually showed early in his career when he had some mobility and he was asked to make those difficult throws I mean you don't get to Super Bowls at least in that period of time and sense without having a decent quarterback so yeah yeah no no no I think he was definitely a great quarterback uh perpetually underrated quarterback there was just a weird thing that happened with him where um I want to get my timing correct because he started to fall off a little bit at the end of Seattle so I want to say post 2019 may have been the era and the beginning of 2020 he was on fire and then things fell off at the end of 2020 wasn't so hot in 2021 was traded in the off season and then 2022 and 2023 with um with the Broncos so I think that was a time so it was really at the end of 2019 beginning of 2020 um where he was doing really really well where there was this you know there was an idea because his numbers like his EPA numbers didn't reflect him being quite as good as some of the perception of him so I've always been like if you just take a straight EPA numbers they've been fantastically good in in and of themselves um even at a low volume has been enough value added to make them an easy Hall of Famer um my thing was like I think we should trust maybe these EPA numbers a little bit more than saying we equally combine cpoe and EPA which Ben Balwin had done some research on to show that that was the most predictive formula for projecting EPA in the future rather than doing that and say oh Russ is basically equivalent to someone like Patrick Mahomes who doesn't have that good of a cpoe but has a much stronger EPA so I think that was it was was a little bit of a of a technical sort of discussion it was someone where I was always a Russ Defender the entire time but it really got to the point where people were putting him as a 1B to mahomes's 1A maybe in quarterback rankings and I never quite got there with him yeah I I don't recall it being a 50-50 split but I know there was a regression that kind of waited the the two metrics and and found the most predictive waiting so um but you know I believe in that right so like if you're going to if you're going to try and make a projection right that's the way to do it um do do projections necessarily track one to one with how we view quarterback quality or reality no everything's caught up in that surrounding cast the scheme the coaching the people they play so all that stuff matters too yeah I mean there's just a couple of factors I mean the cpoe it doesn't include sacks right so that's like a factor where I think quack it is right correct so I'm saying like the the Divergence between cpoe and EPA um so if someone was someone you could sustainably see continuing to take sacks into the future but that's not always the case um with different quarterbacks then maybe you should put a little bit less faith in cpoe and then there was the third down thing also where you know every throw is treated equally via cpoe which probably works like a lot of the time because third down uh variants could mislead you like Carson Wentz in 2017 but if we have enough of a history of several years of over performance or underperformance on third down Russ being more on the underperformance side someone like kurk Cousins being more on the underperformance side Patrick M and Josh Allen being on the over performance side we could probably start to to believe some of that stuff going forward and maybe downweight cpoe because of this all right let's roll into your stuff all right let let's get going here so uh unsurprisingly it's not gonna surprise anyone everyone on the planet now has Patrick Mahomes as the top quarterback in the in the NFL uh I presume you agree uh the only point that I'll make here is maybe just to highlight the degree to which he is above the rest of the NFL and this has been the this has been the case for a couple of years I think reputationally he's probably taken a step forward this offseason despite the fact that he actually had his worst regular season when it came to quarterback efficiency before going nuclear in the playoffs um but like where he ranks and then again I'm I'm like projecting these going forward so my best case estimate for how he's going to rank going forward Ward which is not going to be as good as he has been because he still theoretically has something to prove you know could prove more by continuing to be this good for another you know five six seven years um but still that projection would still be higher than any quarterback has ever performed over their career in the NFL so I put him at the hundredth percentile for for this type of projection Payton Manning being the being the guy that would have the highest career number other than Patrick Mahomes so like his projection his median projection is higher than pton Manning's career number going forward so that gives you an estimate of like how good he's been uh versus the number two quarterback I'll get to in a little bit is down in the 90s something percentile but once we get out on the outliers it doesn't sound like a big difference to say oh someone's 95th percentile versus 100th percentile but there's a huge difference in those percentiles when we get out near the tals of these projections yeah no I think that's appropriate I think we're watching the greatest quarterback in the history of the NFL and uh probably has the best chance of I think how many three Pat opportunities have there been the ners um I can't think of the other there was one other but anyway definitely the best chance uh to to actually get this done they they accomplished the repeat in the season where he was man that was a hard watch I think we've talked about this before but last year was just tough tough to watch in the regular season they were not a fun team um and uh and and now I think they've got the weapons uh or at least they're upgraded from over over last year and uh um you know we'll see what happens with Kelsey how much they use him but I think I think that with Juju taking those intermediate uh targets um hopefully he can be efficient there and uh and you know they got a couple outside weapons I know I'm excited I'm excited to watch Patrick Mahomes be Patrick Mahomes this year rather than a shadow of himself during the regular season yeah I was looking this up here I knew the Cowboys had a chance for a three repeat and did not accomplish it cowboys yeah did the Steelers no I think the Steelers they were all spread out so I don't think they ever ever had a three Pat chance but there was another one that I was thinking about when they were winning those championships in the 70s so what one thing I'll say about Mahomes then for this season you mentioned Kelce um I think we can be at least somewhat confident that Travis Kel's production this season is going to look more like it did last season than it did two seasons ago and prior to that I you know sorry he old you know he's for all these years you know he's basically the same age as Gro right um without without as many um injury issues and back issues that that groon had so he's he's someone who's up there in age also you know he's he's reeling in he's reeling in uh spending that time reeling in uh Swift and those those billions there so you know props to that I can't can't help cannot cannot uh help it if that hurts motivation a little bit uh going forward here but I do think they have at least some players on the outside some options you know instead of saying we're gonna we're going to have rasid rice you know uh unproven uh draft pick come in we're gonna have cadarius Tony headcase cadarius Tony we're gonna have um Sky Moore who just seems like kind of a flop um as the other options at least now we're talking about that they you know they drafted another receiver and they're bringing in Mars Brown and some other guys where hopefully that means that that Mahomes will be in a better situation than he was last regular season with all the different options um and can do a little bit better this year but I do think it's still going to be interesting to see I mean I was negative on Mahomes going into last year I was kind of one of these weird situations where I thought he could he's probably gonna have his worst year he did and then they still and then they still won the Super Bowl so so you can't like even if you even if you're correct about that just because I my theory was guys like Juju Smith Shuster sure he's he's not good but at least at that point in time he gave gave him a credible option instead going to have like I said kadar's Tony or someone out there and you'd have to you'd have to kind of figure it out but we'll see I think Kelsey is of course the factor how they how they work around that that going forward and for the team wise you know how the defense performs this year yep and I think as we mentioned earlier in the different pod that Andy is on the record is saying that the number of routes that kelse is going to be running this year is going to be similar to last so uh I absolutely agree with your take it's going to be production similar to last year's during the regular season and if you're drafting I I don't imagine could be drafting anymore but perhaps if you have any drafts coming up it's a reason why you Seena ADP is like tight end five and six and some sharp leaks so yeah yeah I mean really talk about the cliff we always talk about the cliff right so like the the most Kelsey kind of worked his way further and further up as the tight end landscape and fantasy football changed where he was like sliding into the back half of the first round and then boom and then the cliff happens happens very suddenly and something to think about uh for Trent Williams talking about Trent Williams early we'll see that when that Cliff may come uh for him in the 49ers okay so second for me and again so going from the 100 percentile for Patrick Mahomes down to the 94th percentile and a decent lead on the rest of the pack is Josh Allen um so 2020 breakout he still has the 2019 and 2018 numbers where he was ranking in the 20s when it came to quarterback EPA per play but then really this you know not unprecedented but almost unprecedented type of breakout three years into the career which we typically do not see the last four seasons and this is lowering the threshold for for dropbacks down to I think it's 200 or 250 so some guys can sneak in here who didn't even have complete seasons Josh Allen in those four seasons has been third fourth Sixth and six over those those Four Seasons so you know he hasn't been second or better any of those Seasons but when you have that type of consistent performance and the rest of the guys other than Mahomes are jumping up and down it puts him very solidly at qb2 going forward so this is where I think the metrics may be missing something and the executives may have something so I'm just wondering how replaceable are those short yardage touchdowns at the goal line that he rushes for um I know the bills believe he's their best option there but they drafted Davis uh running back in the third I think it was the third round in this past uh this past year and I think he might be a hammer because I and he might take those away and so if you do take those out of his repertoire if he suddenly becomes a guy that you're relying on to pass for touchdowns rather than Rush on those short short yard situations is he as valuable using the metrics we all rely on and I think it's I think he take probably takes quite a hit if you go from 15 or 14 touchdowns whatever he had last year to something like five um and and I think that may be what these executives are kind of hitting upon when they downgrade um in their ranks and I think there's something to it so I'd be curious to think ask what you think about that well you know I'm just I I had these numbers because part of one of the graphs that's in there is the last five years where I contrasted the EPA per play versus the PFF grading so the five years would include the one bad year or or muted year of 2019 and there so it includes this for Josh Allen but even still if you do EPA per dropback and that will include scrambles and other stuff that he may score near the goal line so it's not a completely wiping out the rushing um value boost that you're talking about but it but it wipes out some of that right um because it's going to wipe out the design runs he's still second over that time versus Patrick Mahomes and there's a huge gap between momes and Allen over the last five years and then very very tiny gaps down to Aaron roders down to Dak Prescott Lamar Jackson uh Jimmy Garoppolo uh Philip Rivers Believe It or Not desad Watson some other names in there who aren't going to rank so highly so in that way you could I would say that if you eliminate those things maybe you get less of a differentiation between Allen and the next tier like maybe he's not in his own tier below the Patrick Mahomes tier um but I still think he's he probably fits into to being second even without that that rushing capacity that you're talking about well then let let me throw out another adjustment using the same logic you used last year when you predicted a down year for momes his surrounding cast is no longer including his number one wide receiver um I mean does that knock him down a little bit for you then because that's kind of where I have it could now I remember this is I'm trying to stick with more just the machine numbers on this where like I didn't make an adjustment to my to my rankings for momes last year I just this is more contextual uh commentary SL mental adjustments that I was making making based upon it and I would do the same thing for Allen this year now if you hopefully you're you don't see these things if you're not hanging out too much on the on the Twitter but um there was a halfday news cycle of the fact that I guess it was an ESPN article where they asked I don't remember who it was players somebody they were asking most overrated quarterback and Josh Allen ended up getting the most votes as part of that and like whatever Jaylen Herz was had one less vote it wasn't like there was that big and a bunch of other guys have one or or two fewer votes it wasn't there wasn't a big difference there but it's sparked the whole discourse and I my Allen take is maybe underrated if you don't recognize that he's like the second best quarterback in in the league at the same time I would say if you if you projected him to take a to have his worst year since 2020 this season I wouldn't argue against that because of these factors that you're talking about great great because that's kind of where I'm at and you know we come in for a lot of criticism Us in the analytics Community or whatever because we we put these lists out that are based on the numbers and we say here have at it this is what the this is what the data and the evidence suggest um that doesn't mean that I don't have my own rankings like and I or I never so it's like poker like I I I went by the Numbers the first four or five years I played right it was always I was always calculating implied pot odds I was always trying to figure out what the optimal play was and you do that enough and and it becomes a part of the analysis and you no longer actually have to go by book anymore and now you get to play more of the soft stuff and you can let those newsy vibes EA in infect your thinking a little bit more because you know you won't stray too far from right five five 10 per from what the what the numbers say and and I think and I think that this is one of those cases where like you said um you know last year looking at my homes I wasn't on that I was looking at it and saying look Casey is the best bet to have another huge upside year on offense in all the NFL so I'm GNA get as much of them as I can everyone is saying that again this year yeah there were some there were some signs right but I said look they got momes they still have Kelsey returning there's nothing to suggest Kelsey's gon you know on that Cliff but you never know when the Cliff's got to hit whereas this year I think there's enough kind of signs pointing to Josh Allen maybe having a bad year that that I'd be willing to knock him down a couple ranks for this season right not not like who's the best quarterback right like that's a different question but for this upcoming season yeah I I I think I would kind of temper my expectations no I I I that makes perfect sense and I think what happened with momes is you know he he won the Super Bowl right so when you win the Super Bowl you even you know even going into to last year um it cut you some slack you know like if Josh Allen if the bills won the Super Bowl this last year and then he lost players people would probably write off some of the player losses more than they should in a way but you know we we can't we can't quite have that um when he's had these playoff struggles meaning continuing to lose to the to the to the Chiefs you know when uh when and in many of those cases uh Mahomes and the chief's offense uh playing at like the 99th percentile type of thing so he he probably gets a little bit less he gets less slack I guess and that's part of the perception issue with him um than then Mahomes or even some others may get because of the underperformance in people's minds relative to to how good the team has been over these last I mean I think he's been you know he's been the best quarterback in the NFL since 2020 he has one second Team all pro to show for it when it comes to accolades he has one AFC Conference championship appearance not not Super Bowl appearance to show for it he doesn't have a lot to show for it but and I think that holds down his reputation quite a bit yeah no and I agree with you I think he's the second best quarterback in the league I think he's still a guy you can build around for another five years I I think he's fantastic talent I was completely wrong about him uh he changed my view on quarterback but I just want to like just levels that I mean when I come at this problem every year I do it as humbly as possible um and I don't have strong takes on anyone outside like the top two and the bottom five right everyone else is just very mush um and so that's why I let the Vibes kind of control after we get past this but I do I do want to I do want to say I'm not trying to knock uh Josh Allen as a quarterback or a talent I think he's fantastic I do think he belongs at number two I just wonder about this year okay so now who comes in third according to these rankings and I put in a little bit of an age decline type of factor here there is not a for all intents and purposes Miss season Factor as part of this you may know you may have some idea of who this may be based upon how how how I'm talking about it already um be and what's tough about projecting declines is they come it comes very slowly and then all at once so you can try to you know split the baby a bit here and say well if there's a 20% chance of an of a 50% decline then that's what I'm going to project in this one year that's not really how it works right like it's really more of a bifurcated type of outcome that we're projecting somewhere in the middle which ends up being somewhat confusing so with that long- winded intro I'll just say that Aaron Rogers still shows up as being at the top of a fairly wide tier of quarterbacks outside of momes and Allen um mostly because he still gets carry over from the 2020 and 2021 season where he won the back-to-back MVPs and then while there's some up and down to what happened between 2015 and 2019 including a fully midseason in there too um just the strength of that prior performance still has some waiting although it is decayed over time so it's not nearly as much as what the recent performance has been uh that still helps buoy him a little bit above some of these other quarterbacks where you know to be honest these other quarterbacks have flaws so so that's what puts them up um puts them up above them slightly at this point yeah so I'm probably quite a bit lower on the Jets than market like quite a bit maybe a win and a half and so a large part of that and it's not even fully captured in the way I I kind of do my thing uh do my stuff it it's that old quarterbacks right coming off Achilles first of all there's not a lot but almost every single case we have is very very bad like they do not even approach their previous Neil pay my former colleague at 538 wrote this up I think uh a couple weeks ago and he just looked at all the cases of quarterbacks coming back from Achilles injuries and uh it's not it's it's not good and and then he looked at the age Cliff argument right and and how how to kind of project old quarterbacks and with the exception of Tom Brady maybe a Warren Moon season out there it's just not pretty at all and so I don't think the market I don't think people are really taking that into account now the argument against what I'm saying is obviously that Aaron Rogers is special right so so that that certainly needs to be taken into account as well but um and he has a great surrounding cast right the Jets should be a good team um they have some weapons on offense I don't know about the line but they do have some weapons on on offense and defense is is is pretty good so yeah they could definitely win 10 games you know like the market seems to think or nine and a half I think is the over under maybe it's 10 and a half I can't remember but uh but I am I am I am down on them because I do think that Cliff is here for Aaron Rogers and I think that the smart bet as you say is to lean into or excuse me the smart play is to lean into that bet because it's not going to be the case that he's just going to be average right he's probably if this is what I think it is he's going to be like bottom third and if he's a bottom third QB this season then the Jets aren't a playoff team and U and and that's that's a problem okay bottom third all right do we we may have to do another informal wager on to where Aaron Rogers comes in um I just think if you're going to if you're going like you said if you're going to to take a position on this right yeah then you need to lean into it right you can't be wishy-washy uh so I I think I think if you're if you're gonna say that like the age Cliff comes but we're gonna split the baby I don't think that works here I think you either need to say he's going to be fine right and they're going to win their 10 games and make the playoffs you're going to say no they're going to miss the playoffs and it's not going to be close because Aaron Rogers stinks now and I I'm looking I'm looking at this Neil uh I missed this when Neil put this out does great work you should check him out uh just Neil pay. sub stack.com the thing is he covers like every sport so it's just it's a little much it's I don't know how he did it when when I worked at 538 the guy did something every week in every sport I I don't know how you can be good at every the volume of stuff he puts out is really incredible and I I would be interested to know like the TG audience like is there really someone who's looking for a stats based take for I mean legitimately this guy is like branching out to you know a dozen different sports sometimes even does NASCAR dude yeah different stuff so I so sometimes I miss the NFL stuff but I'm looking here okay um so he mentioned some Achilles so only a small handful of other NFL quarterbacks have suffered it so that's the problem I think he has Johnny at age 38 back in 1971 Rodney Pete at age 25 in 1991 Dan Marino I remember Dan marinos for sure uh 1993 he was only 32 years old you know it's weird to look back like Dan Marino I would have guessed he was like 38 or something but when that happen how how quarterback's age nowaday I just remember in the early 90s he just had that leg brace and he just looked arthritic it just it was it was just always a bad sight seeing him out he's just worried yeah still still never taking any uh any sacks so that was great uh Vinnie testy at age 36 in 1999 Ty Detmer and then of course Kirk Cousins they put in here so yeah I mean that's part of the problem is we don't have it I don't think Achilles has become like ACL where now ACL used to be a career Ender or crippler you know a number of decades ago and it's become fairly routine now so I don't think we reach that so yeah it is a concern I guess I would still put it in this bucket of not really knowing at this point and I don't know when I did the my QB goat overall career value rankings I want to say Rogers came in Fifth Fifth or maybe sixth of all time great quarterback I do not dis so again I think when you get in that sort of Realm it's kind of tough to tell what's going on here and plus you know he's using all kinds of experimental Shaman and other things to get his to get his achilles going again so that could be a positive or A negative depend how you put it in there but just so just so people know based upon the pure numbers if you want to use that as a counterweight to the prevailing I legitimate ideas of him being old in Decline Achilles didn't look great the last full season he had in Green Bay wasn't around all last year we've kind of forgot about him I mean if you just look at like year-over-year you know he we did there's just not the same feeling about him going on there even on top of the Achilles because he wasn't there maybe it's a little bit of a counterweight to say ah maybe we could be a slightly higher on him or like you know or you could be Herms Meer and just start continue to shovel dirt onto onto Rogers if you want to I just think you have to take a stand and oh there's even more Vibes though right so there's there's like Whispers within the organization that he's just impossible to deal with you know which we've heard in many places where he's been he of course did the Egypt trip and then there was the sideline confrontation with uh Wilson and and look I think all of that adds up to more likely than not right that we're looking at one of those L seasons and you know it happens every year uh a preseason favorite turns into a disaster and and I think the Jets just have a lot of markings of that type of Team yeah yeah there's definitely a big a potential bottom outcome floor outcome is very low for them um but they are a team that's dealt with uniquely awful quarterback play for a very pretty long period of time so um we could get interesting thing Rogers doesn't play well and they're still winning games and then people think that maybe he is okay sort of sort of thing there could be some weird stuff going on where uh Josh is yelling at the TV every week that Rogers is is toast as the defense plays well and they scrape by and win some games and um Bill bellic's favorite Bree Hall is is winning is winning games for them w w with the rushing attack I look I'd be happy to see it happy to be wrong okay next on here now this is one where this quarterback has the largest negative uh adjustment according to my adjusted quarterback efficiency number and it's just too good of a sample over kind of like a year and a half I would say type of sample without any down sample right without any down sample mixing into it and that's Brock pie comes in as being slightly higher than some others that are before him despite the fact that he has this huge discount that just shows that you know I I have this graph in here where it looks at over the last five years grading versus EPA per play you know he's he's the unadjusted number is the difference between him and momes is the same differences between you know momes and a Dak Prescott or someone like that as far as how they've actually performed you add in the discount that I give them which moves them down into that more category you have the fact that our only sample has been fantastic and has been recent and he still fires in at this number where you know I guess from my own perception I'd be wary to put him put him this high but I think he might be closer to this than if some people are putting him in as an average-ish sort of quarterback I don't think he's average um but there's no chance I'm putting him at number four um so number five then I'd put him seventh seven or E I think somewhere around there but the thing is he's going to get paid like a top five quarterback right um and and I I don't think there's any doubt about that and so the the market speaks as well you know and that's going to be the Niners the problem the problem of course is what all the football guys will point out is that how much can you disentangle the system from the quarterback and the 49ers are are are the are the the classic example of of of having trouble disentangling the system from the quarterback people argue Montana was a system quarterback um I think prie just lacks even the small things that you could point to for someone like Montana and say well you know actually when Montana was young he was incredibly mobile like his feet were a huge asset and people kind of underweight that and he was massively accurate besides being really smart and cool Under Pressure so all of those all of those quarterback things that we just really have trouble capturing in data or even Scouts everyone right cuz no one knows anything about quarterbacks uh all those things seem to be kind of exemplified in in in in the person of Joe Montana and I just don't know how much of that we can like kind of conjure up for Brock pie right he's just this guy who just seems to do his job in Shanahan system and no one really gets excited about many of the things he does um I enjoy watching him like I think like I said I'm not I wouldn't put him in the middle uh put him like seven eight but no I couldn't justify putting him this high and uh again there's my vibes Bas base take yeah I think for perie it's interesting because when you talk about Montana the the the analogy I I think is pretty good in that you only have Garoppolo when it comes to to perie but even for Montana you could say well you know Montana was there then we transitioned to Steve Young Who AR arguably had a had a stronger Peak even that Montana did that same system you had guys like uh I guess Elvis gerbach as you mentioned the other day wasn't that great but Jeff Garcia had a number of very solid Seasons eventually down the road you know we're starting to get further and further away from Montana but you've had other guys who who performed well now I think Garoppo's poor performance with a kind of somewhat of a dysfunctional Raiders team there on a we're talking about 170 pass attempts that he had there with the Raiders really affected maybe pere's perception it was like oh garoppolo's been found out um of course you know I'm number one Jimmy Garoppolo defender of anyone so I will point out that his yards per attempt were the same as Jordan love last year would have been top half of the of the NFL he just threw like a billion interceptions which is is not good and he had the worst game ever in a nationally televised game that everyone was watching um so I don't know I I think py may be unfairly but he's pretty mobile too he has some other things going on I don't know I I I think he could get here I guess but I agree with you that I would have him a bit a bit lower on the scale do you want to just tell me who you would have after momes and Allen or do you have more of a cluster that that you would have after those two yeah no I have no strong opinions when it gets past the the first two so I'm just gonna take a stand what happen I'm gonna wait through this well I mean I take a stand where I have to um I took a stand on being down on the on uh on on Rogers but these other guys where I don't have a strong take I don't I don't feel any need to be a takes man okay well let me let me let me give you my rankings then and we'll see if uh it's a jumping off point for some for for some of your takes so next on the list was the quarterback who came in second in unadjusted EPA per play last season according to my numbers and also second in adjusted EP per play both of them behind Brock pie last year with a much smaller adjustment uh than py and that is Dak Prescott so what I didn't realize in some of Prescott's numbers is that even in the unadjusted EPA rankings for previous years in 2022 he was eighth which is pretty good 13th in 2021 so not great 2020 you know he wasn't necessarily the most efficient but he had Gody um Counting stats before he went down to injury and then fifth in 2019 and if you go back even further there are a couple of Seasons sprinkled in there 2018 is pretty good um 2016 was incredible 2017 was a little bit of a step back uh I mean we really are starting to rack up a lot of like top 10 strong efficiency seasons for Dak Prescott where you know there was a there was a discussion about him though at the end of his rookie contract as to whether or not the Cowboys should even extend him with some people uh even analytically inclined people saying no at that point because he wasn't like an elite type of quarterback but he's taken a step up now in his game the last few seasons and that's what separated him in the numbers slightly from some of the other quarterbacks who have been more up and down that we put into that like eleish sort of bucket and why he's stuck in there what what are you thinking about Dak Prescott at this point because again he's definitely someone where the lack of playoff success has hurt him a ton um because he hasn't even played he hasn't played well also in in in in the games that stick in people's minds I think that might be part of it I think you know that the Cowboys failings in the in the postseason you know predate Dak Prescott um you know there's Tony Tony Romo's 10 year there's just struggle struggle for a long time I think it's been 20 years or so 30 years gosh it's been a long time um so no I don't I don't think it's fair to lay that at dak's feet I I mean I can't argue so he's one of those guys where I just here's what I will say he doesn't belong in at this ranking you have to have Lamar Jackson ahead of Dak Prescott guy with two MVPs has to be above the guy with no MVPs but has some really good counting stats and not a lot of wins right in the postseason um you now Lamar gets that Ding as well um and he doesn't have the counting stats uh like he like perhaps Dak does and I'll have a hot take here on on Lamar I think we've probably seen the best football he's ever going to play um and it's going to be a a downward a slow downward slide and then the cliff um so I I don't I this isn't like you know boosterism for Baltimore in any sense but I do think um it's kind of ridiculous right to have a ranking that doesn't have Lamar over Dak Prescott okay let me let me okay I mean I hat I don't enjoy being a Lamar detractor but uh you got to do it sometimes so I would put out there that Lamar is has to be the least accomplished two-time MVP of of of all time I mean and like if you look at anyone who's won multiple MVPs they've won Super Bowls um they've had more than just one really outstanding regular season I mean I'm still kind of on this train that Lamar wasn't that great in the regular season last year and I don't know I guess I just look at him since 2019 where if you take his EPA rankings it was 13th 18th 12th eth now this last season but eth with a pretty big gap between him and the guys who were near the top and he's someone where at least according to my adjustments he doesn't get adjusted up now maybe that's a mistake because you know the the film hipsters will tell us that he's he's so unique you can't quantify what he does in changing you know the the the elemental uh Vortex of the NFL and and the effect on the game um I don't know I I guess I think there's I think you can look at lar Jackson and say if you just put the MVPs out of your mind one of which is highly Highly Questionable one of which I don't question at all um there hasn't been like the the consistent I'm a top 10 efficiency quarterback every season it's just hasn't it just hasn't been there yeah I guess I would say that you know there's even analytical hipsters who talk about the gravity of of Lamar Jackson and how he influences the defense and opens things up for the running game and and underneath just by his presence I would say the problem with that argument after last year is and he slimmed down this year apparently and is trying to look like his old Louisville self according to R after bulking up the year before these guys just go back and forth basically correct correct and and I think that was protective right he wanted to try and survive the season right it's like Tropic Thunder you survive and so I think I think I think he did that he accomplished his goal he got his MVP they won a lot of games um you know obviously they overperformed and I agree with you there they got more wins than probably they deserved good for them good for Lamar um it has to happen to someone right and uh and that's why I think that that's the high water mark of his career I mean it's going to be a downward slide from there because I don't think he's running like he used to and so that gravity argument will slowly become less and less important to his game but I do think it's a real a real thing and I do think it's a an important argument to make because I think he influences how they can be uh effective offensively and to ignore that I think is to kind of ignore like the essence of football like this thing you were talking about like how how how the game is actually played on the grass Kevin and so uh so yeah so know I I will defend Lamar at third fourth wherever we might end up might end up having him um just based on his his resume now the the this this these adjust these other adjustments so it's kind of like the adjustments on the adjustments um that I wrote about I I did a post at the end of of last season about the adjusted quarterback efficiency and then I said okay well let's address some of these like Lamar Jackson ideas and try and figure out out how much they can affect so I think you're right there is an effect there um I mean My overall take was I said okay well let's look like how much the Baltimore offense has been how efficient they've been running the ball um versus others let's figure out what how much of that differential might be because of Lamar Jackson being that their you know the Run blocking is graded pretty well and their running backs have graded pretty well let's give him most of the credit let's do that let's let's try and add some some more things about you know not just his rushing ability but again like the running back's rushing ability other things that are happening here so I I I did that and I said okay we could probably get 05 EPA per play maybe a little bit more just based upon like how much better these offenses are with rushing quarterbacks with great rushing quarterbacks and then giving him the highest number possible uh it still doesn't bridge the gap though so that's the thing I think I think that's that's like the missing part of the conversation is if we I'm trying to fill in the missing part of the conversation is whereas if we say oh you know Dak Prescott has a 0.1 EPA per play advantage over Lamar Jackson and then the the the Jackson Defenders and and film hipsters say well but you can't look at that because Jackson does this and I say well well let's look at this and try to have an estimate for what this is and then we get maybe halfway there uh I guess that's where I come out with him where he could be a bit higher based upon that he could jump Dak Prescott even based upon adding that little bit more of a benefit but it's not enough to say he should have like been the the clear MVP last season at least according to to to what I to to what I my analysis was yeah I by the MVP argument I don't know he was the most deserving um but when you win a lot of games like that's just what happens right um but but but I agree he should be overdeck yeah best player on the best team that was another thing that I'm seeing a lot and it's like I I guess I mean if you want to make those arguments it's fine but people are going to not follow those arguments if the conclusion is best player on best team in a different season is not the person they like then they'll just throw that thing out so it's like if you're gonna pick an argument you gotta you gotta stick with it you gotta stick with it when it doesn't align with what you can demand consistency all you want you're never gonna get it okay well how about you you have to I'll say they have to do that in order for me to acknowledge that it's a that it's that it's a good argument um of course they won't actually do it okay so other guys that I have in here who are essentially equivalently tied with Lamar Jackson or maybe even slightly higher I got Herbert I got CJ stra which I was surprised that he actually ended up this high in here I mean I have a I give them a boost based upon rookie year numbers because he had a discount uh he didn't he actually had negative adjustments and his adjusted efficiency and he went down and then the guy that I'm really surprised by well number one we still haven't gotten to burrow yet so they'll Burrow's still not in this category so then I'll tell you something um but the guy that I was most surprised by and he has the biggest positive adjustment up where very where a lot of guys don't have that much of a positive adjustment up over the last two seasons and that is Trevor Lawrence falling in there where I guess I wouldn't have thought that he was in there but he actually looks pretty good after these adjusted numbers based upon what he's done the last couple of years I think I'm gonna lose you for sure on that one what what do you think about Herbert strad and Lawrence two of those guys strad and Lawrence I well strad I would have thought would was overhype this year but I actually have him as being as being pretty high Herbert and Lawrence guys who have disappointed but at least according to my adjusted numbers still look okay I think it's okay to be excited about CJ strad so my vibes based take is his numbers were great he proved the S2 doubters completely wrong you know the stupidest guy ever to take the test now they've walked that back since I need to be fair they thought there is reporting that they said at the time that this was probably an anomaly and an error in how the actual testing process went down like didn't take it seriously something along those lines and that they kind of flagged it and said you know don't wait this that may be the case at the end of the day it was leaked and the perception became that this guy was you know mildly athletic but didn't have the head on his shoulders to be a quarterback right coming into the season and he had to answer questions about that which was completely unfair and then he came in and he made throws Big Time throws he read defenses like a a Savvy vet and all those things should continue to help him build on uh on his NFL pro career so I don't I don't see any reason to expect him to heavily regress right um now I think your numbers support that so that that's a great thing for CJ if the argument is that there was a lot of unlucky things that happened to someone like Lawrence I would just say like I just haven't seen anything like the heights we saw at of CJ strad last year from from jaylaw like you just never got the feeling that he was just becoming the guy that everyone said he was at the 1.01 and uh so I don't I don't understand how even now um you know even even with even with some kind of evidence supporting it that you could rank him ahead of someone like CJ who seems to have all this upside attached to him as well whereas jayw seems to have this kind of unknown floor and a diminishing upside so I would say that would be how I'd sort those two guys out in terms of Justin Herbert and he's in the mushy middle I know there's a lot of people who just are in love with his arm he's a fun guy to watch play so I'll bump him up on my vibes based rankings just because it's really cool to watch him spin it you know really fun to watch a guy with a big arm play football I'm here for it let's do it um but again I think he's more in my my jaylaw category um but a lot of that can be explained Away by just an absolute mess of an organization um and a poor offensive system um just wasn't taking advantage of of him I don't know that Jim Harbaugh is going to be the guy to make him into an MVP um but he certainly can be a guy who can help manage him right and make him efficient um and hopefully he will be because I don't think he's going to have the volume to really get up there and and kind of compete with someone like Doc Prescott on yards and touchdowns I'm a little under the weather if my if my voice is is cracking here yeah yeah no didn't notice anything I I I guess for Lawrence he just like again he just gets a bump up according to these adjustments so I don't think it looks great A lot of times that I've watched him um there's some some inability to execute slash two years ago some boneheaded turnovers which weren't so so hot but uh you know there there are some somewhat thin margins between some of these players so if you bump up someone by even um oneth of a point in their EPA per play it ends up uh dropping him above some some other some other players and he had Urban Meers I mean like him being with with Herbert is probably right it's probably correct I mean there's lots of contingency stuff surrounding his performance as well so I need to throw that in there now the one thing I don't believe is that in the QB tiering for Sandos he was like well into tier three you know I I think some of these guys strap them up to the polygraph I I don't think they would actually not take Trevor Lawrence over a lot of the guys that they're that they're ranking higher than than Trevor Lawrence or they're not putting Trevor Lawrence above them I think you give a lot of teams out there in the NFL who don't have one of the top Elite quarterbacks and you say uh will you take Trevor Lawrence and sign him to the richest QB quarterback contract in the NFL and they'll go okay sure I'll do it you know so so I'm gonna call Malarkey on on some of the some of the stuff that that's in there where I I I understand they're doing a we're not going to rank you that high until you prove it but I think there are people who still believe that he's gonna get there even if they're not going to be willing to tear tear him as such in that in that Insider piece um Joe burrow ends up rounding out the top 10 for me uh interesting about burrow is he was someone who going into this last season was second to Patrick Mahomes in preseason MVP odds he may have even been seen as being second to momes going into last season in a lot of people's eyes he was second to Mahomes this season uh according to these tear that came out from the Insiders and according to the athletic here again their week one QB rankings which I'm not sure how they put this together it says we on here so maybe there's a number of analysts who were putting this together has him as third behind Mahomes and Josh Allen and still above Lamar Jackson despite the fact this is the thing with burrow that has kind of made me a little bit anti- burrow at least from a perception standpoint over the last few years is his EPA per play ranks in his career 20th is a pretty good rookie campaign even though he was 20th there because he was in a very difficult situation 20th 9th nth and then 20th again in a decent sample last season it wasn't like he only played one or two games I understand he had the he had some injury stuff going on but when we're peing when we're peing at Ninth um yeah I know you made the Super Bowl I know you beat Patrick Mahomes largely due to a great defense in the second half that one game and some other things um but I guess the numbers the pure numbers just don't put him up in that top five range that a lot of people seem to be throwing him into yeah I I I'm open to that and that's why I'm so mushy on this middle ground but I still have him one notch below Lamar Jackson and uh you know shocker I have the Bengals being the team that wasn't in the playoffs GNA make the playoffs in the AFC this year so uh I think he's good and and yeah I think it matters that he beat Mahomes I think it matters he went to the Super Bowl um I think all of that speaks well of him he's his time at in college in LSU I mean he was fantastic he's a fantastic quarterback I think I loved him coming out uh I thought he's a guy even even then that you could build around there were some things like for instance his arm is a little suspect he was called baby arm bur the first couple years I think they were haters they were definite haters of him as a prospect yes yeah and so kind of I kind of still have that in the back of my head that maybe people are kind of discounting him for for weird reasons but when Zack Taylor finally started not making him throw these ridiculous deep outs from opposite hash and just not not putting him in situations where he was you know going to struggle I think he and of course he's got you know some of the best weapons on the outside uh in all the NFL so I think that for all those reasons I think the the Bengals are a team that are going to be good and and burrow will will bounce back and and look ninth in EPA per play uh with a good team around you that that's good enough that's good enough I'll put him I'll put him fourth or fifth okay so I'm presuming that you probably wouldn't have had Trevor Lawrence as being part of this part of this top 10 um but looking at some other names is there anyone else that you would have elevated above a A stoud or a Herbert or a perie or I guess a I guess you would have elevated a lot of people above Aaron Rogers um when it comes to some of these other names and these are the guys that are at the that are at the right outside the top 10 according to the the basian rankings um but close enough easily to get in there uh Jaylen Herz is next uh Kirk Cousins is next after that he was having kind of his best NFL season last year and he threw it incredible volume so it actually affected the projections quite a bit because there was a lot of evidence in a very short period of time for Kirk Cousins last year Stafford Jordan love is in there now this is a little bit lower than what you see for some others Kyler Murray and Tua to tooa comes in next after that um what do you think about oh Jared Goff after that too so goff's a little bit lower you know than his than his contract status that's kind of really it I would say versus the guys below I don't think anyone would look to really Elevate them up um any names jump out there as guys that we should be giving more love to when you see you see Stafford quite quite often getting quite a bit of love here and then Jordan love uh you know pun intended I guess uh getting a lot of love from people too yeah love floats up there um I actually like to them more than most um I I would put him at the bottom of this next tier um and uh Herz yeah I think Herz is fine like again this is one of those gravity kind of arguments um just the he's not a pure thrower of the football he you know maybe you take away the tush push and I can make the Josh Allen argument is it really isn't that just replaceable production and so all of those all of those same kind of arguments come into effect um but he's certainly a guy you can win with right and uh for those guys I think I'll put above some of these guys on on worst teams that really haven't proved it love he's he's he's he's a he's a tough one so people are trying to I mean I think I've even heard you talk about how they're like splitting the season in different you know thirds or halves or whatever and you know I I kind of look at the whole thing and and he was good and he want a play off game I mean heck that is a solid and oh and then there's the whole he did Ed on himself all that crap so I I am rooting for love so Vibes that was me S he did better himself yeah yeah right that we had that conversation so you know that all all that Malarkey so I'm I just so that's why he I think Rises up for me from the den there and kind of makes his way into the top 10 because uh I really like how he conducted himself how he didn't he put himself first in a way and bet on himself in a way that's kind of like Wisconsin humble right you know it's like he he didn't require the team to pay him or he showed it and then when he did do the thing right he did the damn thing then he got paid like paid probably way more than he actually deserves right from a from a healthy team bu building standpoint but like but I love it and I'm rooting for him and I hope green B do great this year what do you think about Jared gof because I he came in pretty low here and so the reason being is that there's still there's still evidence affecting him negatively in this projection from 2019 2020 and 2021 where he was 19th 24th and 26th in QB efficiency those Seasons so pretty bad numbers those years and then he's come back and been top 10 these last two seasons but his his Yak over expectation number is through the roof so it gets discounted a bit based upon that um I don't know like should we be discounting even higher I guess those last season seasons in in that he had with the Rams and not caring about it as much if we're really trying to do a projection for this season and in that case move them up a bit on these rankings I I'm open to that and and I think you know I got to give Les neas flowers I think he has effectively managed this rebuild from the all-in uh build uh where he where he you know luck boxed into the Super Bowl but I'm not trying to take anything away they won the damn Super Bowl uh the question was always what do you do after you go all in like that and you just go stars and scrubs and their argument was hey we're going to find these guys in the third fourth fifth six seventh round and like he he kind of has um they just moved on from Ernest Jones um this past week it traded him for nothing like I I I don't like that part of it like if you have a a solid starter even at inside linebacker you should be able to get more than a pick swap two years down the road like that's crazy to me but the fact that he's got someone like Omar Spates waiting in the wings an undrafted free agent out of LSU and he's got a bunch of other undrafted free agents on the roster and he looks like a demon he looks like he he actually struck gold there with the udfa and the fact that he got PUK and AA last year it seems like he's got another like third or fourth round uh guard or Center I think it's a center who looks pretty good like so this is a detour but the point is that that that Stafford has a team around him that I think can continue to extend his career and make him look good by metrics by wins by all the things we pretty much care about I don't know how much the guy himself uh is really adding anymore is could be more like a really talented quarterback at the end of his career that's you know doesn't quite have it all together like he's not in an LA category but kind of that career Arc where he's they can still win a lot of games with him because he has you know the vestiges of his old talent and he's smart now um and he has a good team around him so I I I do like LA Rams year I think they're going to probably be pretty good and if some have argued that this could be the year that San Francisco completely implodes right and I mean I think they're the best team in the NFC but if if they do struggle I like LA Rams to be one of the teams that that makes the playoffs instead you know when it comes to having bold takes and um sticking to them you know what's funny I actually saw I was looking also at the power rankings the good old team power ranking for the athletic and um Sams 49ers are fifth in the P the power ranking here and I was like come on bro like I get it it's not even something that'll actually get him in that much trouble because they didn't win the Super Bowl and The Vibes are bad although iuk sign so maybe The Vibes are getting good over there but I just can't take that stuff seriously once I see that I just feel like I don't know I have 10% shot of winning the Super Bowl second to the Chiefs and the Chiefs I probably have over rate I have 16% that seems high even even for my like optimistic Chiefs homerism but like yeah but but I think signicant what's up said AFC is still a little bit more of a gauntlet to get to get out of um yeah but my Sims you know take that into account so it's just it's purely my my my exuberance for the Kansas City Chiefs that's that's driving this so hey it's more fun if you can allow that to bleed through high into into the rankings okay so the rest of the guys on here and this is when we start to get into some names where yeah I don't know like Derek Carr I have DeShaun Watson next um yeah uh you know Anthony Richardson and Levis and Bryce young eventually come up young being the furthest down there we just didn't see enough from them um quite a negative adjustment to efficiency that we did see in a very small sample from Anthony Richardson last year uh I mean it's probably like you just roll the dice and one of these three guys potentially two of the three guys are going to like vastly outperform what their their ranking is but I don't know if that means the rankings are wrong it just means you don't know anything about these guys so um so so they could jump up to be to be much higher um but the other guys that fall in here Wilson Baker Mayfield and Gino Smith goino Smith is probably the one name that I've seen people project fairly highly and I guess I don't know my numbers just aren't that that big on him do you have any thoughts on these these other second year the non CJ strad seconde quarterbacks or any of the any other names in the NFL who we should be looking at a little bit harder than just sliding them into uh mid to bottom tier quarterback yeah I think that you know based on what he did before he got injured I think uh a rich is is a guy that has a lot of upside and I think you know it's it's in those cases that I I think the fantasy industry and the anal analysts are a little ahead of NFL analysts in that regard because this is the guy if if he continues to do what he did in that small sample I mean he there's no reason why this a absolute athletic freak can't be the type of Hurtz Allen you know Lamar game wrecker you know Gravity Guy um that those guys are and and and win a lot of games for the Colts but you know of course there's all the answer questions about you know can he string a number of games together in that regard can he stay healthy he's been injured quite a bit in his career um you know and and so of the of those that you mentioned I think he's the guy and and because I have him on a lot of my fantasy squads I am rooting for him uh but book you're talking your book right now well you know I think Vibes right so I I I drafted him because I had an analysis that I believe in and so of course I would talk my book um and then what was the the other guy you just mentioned at the Ender Baker Gino or Baker I guess Gino so Gino is surrounded by a lot of talent and he has a new coach who I think is extremely bright and again I'm talking my book this is a guy I know a little bit and he I think that team is gonna outperform but I don't believe Gino is anything more than a bridge quarterback right and I think if you're planning right now you're planning with an eye towards moving on from Gino so I don't think he's the answer to any question that's important to ask but I do think that they can they can be a playoff Contender and maybe squeak in this year if if things you know fall right and it's not La um if San Francisco flounders and that it might be Seattle um and that's just based on just based on Mike being a good coach and and then putting together a really strong offense around their other Supporting Cast so those would be the two of that group that I would kind of elevate and say have a little more upside and how about um Sor I'm just trying to pull up the year-by-year numbers here for for Russ for good old Russ so we when we're talking decline about um Aaron Rodgers then we must certainly be thinking about decline for Russell Wilson what's what's interesting is I remember when Wilson was after he was traded there was some Anonymous sourcing from the Seahawk where I thought it was I thought it was a little low class almost at the time to be like sending out some stuff to kind of kick him on the now that he was gone saying that specifically saying that because he had lost just a bit of that scrambling ability it was like gamechanging on what he could do as a quarterback now maybe maybe they're actually right on that so so I I thought they were trying to I thought they were trying to like you know PR their their trade away but as it as looking quite uh pre at this point in time um but when we're talking Wilson and again we have seen Rogers have this mid 30s uptick we've seen a lot of quarterbacks actually who are Hall of Famer type of guys who have come back after a handful of poor Seasons but has it just been too awful when it comes to to Russell Wilson because if we do look back in the past we're talking about a guy where his EPA per play ranking over the last number of years believe it or not it was eight it was it didn't seem that good last year um in the 20s the year before 19th the year before he was even traded 17th the year before that where he fell off in the second hand of the year but the two prior years to that he was he was well in the top 10 and he has a number of top 10 years in his past is it just too are we just too far down the road to think that he has a greater ability to jump back into the top 10 than anyone else who has struggled over the last few seasons he's the team captain now he beat out Justin Fields um if you don't have the quarterback as a team captain that's that's a that's a bad sign uh I guess so it's call it call check the box so yeah uh but you know there there could have been other ways for the team team to Signal they were unhappy but kind of just going through the motions and and so to that extent maybe we should be a little more bullish on Old on Old Russ but uh and then again you have to make the argument if you're talking about Coach strength and scheme and and just culture Pittsburgh's probably one of the the outest and and strongest in the league and so I I think you know he's definitely going to put some guard rails around him the same way that Sneaky Pete did um they're going to rely on their defense in their run game as well not ask him to do too much that's probably what they're betting on trying to rekindle that old Russ but as you said if if he can't scramble if he's lost that ability to be mobile and and create on the key third Downs then yeah I don't know how much he has to offer and how long he's going to last before they move on to someone who can create in that manner in Justin fields yeah I think it's just with Russ it was you had the elevated sack rate um but it came with the Escape ability in a high enough proportion of similar circumstances where like you know he a certain number of his running around in the back field would turn into sacks and a certain number would turn into big plays down the field where if you turn the dial just you don't have to turn it that far um and you know he gets tripped and and and get takes a big sack as opposed to escaping and making a big play down the field if that happens um a handful of times in the wrong direction it just destroys his overall efficiency and I I think that may be what we've seen happen yeah yeah great Point all right um that that that pretty much wraps it up for the quarterback rankings here I appreciate Herms bringing in The Vibes uh Jets fans you can go and find him on Twitter Frisco Josh when when they start winning some ball games at the beginning here maybe maybe Aaron Rogers you can get Aaron Rogers personally to go after you that would that would be good for um that'd be good for for the content um anything that you want to now highlight coming into the season air yards is is is going to be launched I assume post week one yeah it always starts week two because can't do the model without any data uh it's actually used stop doesn't stop some people from having doesn't stop some people it's true uh it's actually really good those first couple weeks because even on small small sample it it can it can point you in the right direction and again this year we're going to be throwing it right into an app that automatically does and finds you with correlation Stacks the optimal lineup based on an aggregate of projections for that week so that you can just go ahead and you know do a drop down and and and try and fit in all these guys who the B model likes and optimal lineups kind of save you a step so that's exciting I'm looking forward to that um later today I'll be on Wharton Moneyball so check that out if you like those guys be talking shop and U I'm excited to do that so that's my stuff yeah I think I might have a appearance scheduled for next week you know they went to you first then they go then they go to the second tier I heard nothing but good things about you from Kade so yeah then they move on to the to the Tua tier I'm like in the Tua tier and you're in the the Josh Allen Patrick Mahomes tier but hey just apprciate to be to be recognized it's appreciate I will take that I will take that comparison how all right um thanks so much for everyone tuning in uh I'll probably float out a solo pod later this week uh definitely reacting to Thursday night because people are just going to be feing after uh all the numbers that you can get there all the adjusted scores and whatnot for that game any other news that may be breaking between now and uh the weekend otherwise we'll be coming at you again next week to wrap up week one talk about maybe some things that are missed out some things that are getting overhyped in as part of the cycle and then we could talk a little bit about uh all the different air yard stuff that Josh is g to have available for you to to make the quick moves as something that's also in fantasy football in my opinion get those guys on waivers like quickly as possible because you never know what's what's what's going to happen don't be don't be hesitant and wait around to see what's gonna happen that probably seems like it's the case also with the air yards model so uh thanks everyone for tuning in and I'll be talking at you later this week thanks [Music] [Applause]