What's The Right Way To Build Your NFL Team?

WJFK-FM / 106.7 The Fan

The Bengals just paid Ja'Marr Chase and Tee Higgins, and it brought up this conversation; How would you build your NFL team?

Transcript

00:00You heard from Tobes. I don't want to steal your thunder here. It tells, but it's basically

00:04an elite corner, nasty in the trenches. And then of course your standard quarterback,

00:09et cetera. You're not really paying skill guys on offense.

00:13Yeah. I mean, kind of, I mean, I want a good receiver, but I would like good players everywhere,

00:18but I'm more so I'm going to live through the draft on that. I think I can find a dude,

00:21whether it's in the first, second or third round, I think I can find it. If I don't find

00:25it one year, I think I can find it the next. I think if I just keep throwing assets that

00:29play, find a running back through the draft. I think that's how I'm going to go about it.

00:32I want a corner that I'm locking down an edge rusher. I'm locking down and obviously the

00:35quarterback talking about building your team. How would you do it again? Forget about an

00:38individual player. We're not doing a fantasy draft. It's just in general. And if somebody

00:41comes along, that's not in a position you normally would prioritize, who's excellent.

00:45You don't just let them go. You, you, you adjust accordingly. For me, I think of those

00:49old Colts teams with Peyton Manning and company, I'm going to pay, obviously my quarterback,

00:54but an elite wide receiver and elite tackle. And then my resources are dedicated to both

00:59lines and just doing my best everywhere else.

01:01I want a star pass catcher and then an apprentice pass catcher or a value on whether it was

01:07tight end back then where they had Dallas Clark, you may not be able to get away with

01:11that now, but I'm always kind of searching and finding their resources for offensive

01:15skill guys. And that's where I try to, I try to build that way. And then I'd have some

01:18great pass rushing. That would be how I'd build there. What would your build look like?

01:24So while you selected that, those old Colts teams, I'm going to go with those teams, the

01:28teams that beat the Colts a lot. I'm going to Patriots where I want the star. I want

01:32my star power on defense. And of course I do want my several offensive stars sprinkled

01:37throughout, but I'm going to believe in a system on offense.

01:40That's going to work. That's revolved around the quarterback and revolved around the run

01:43game and revolved around having pretty good, solid offensive line that may lack some star

01:48power. My star power is going to be on defense. I'm going to have, I'm going to have the trenches

01:52filled. I'm going to have pass rushers. I'm going to have elite linebacker play, and I'm

01:56going to have elite cornerback play from all, from all three levels of my defensive guys

02:00mainly. Absolutely. So you, you wouldn't like, I can't forget, forget the specifics of an

02:05example, but you are probably not spending a premium resource on a wide receiver. You'd

02:10go the Noah Brown route over a, Oh, I want to go hit a home run and free agency. Yeah.

02:16What the Bengals did, I could have done, I could have done one. I couldn't do two. I

02:20could not pay both of those receivers. A hundred million. And that's what got us into

02:23this conversation at topes. Let's tag in is I don't think I would have paid both of them.

02:28Again. I liked T Higgins a lot. I was beating the drum when he's come out of Clemson. I'm

02:31going, people should be more interested in this dude. Just catches a bunch of passes

02:35and can kind of do everything. He's pretty good. And now he's about, he's making almost

02:3930 million a year. And Jamar chase is a superstar. I get wanting to keep those guys, but now

02:44that's kind of how your team is built. That's your brand. Go ahead.

02:46So here's the interesting part about this is I'm a defense guy. I have no issue with

02:51them paying both of these guys. If you want to go a different route and you feel like

02:55this is your foundation, I have no problem. So I don't mind it. My hot take, and I'm not

03:00a hot take guy. Generally my hot take this kind of goes away because of the injuries

03:04to T Higgins. But if I had to choose, I would keep T Higgins over Jamar chase. Jamar is

03:09nasty. There's no question he's better, but for the price tag, I'm going to keep the big

03:14possession guy and I'm going to go find a speedy dude on the other side versus Jamar

03:20is nasty, but 40 mil is just so much for receiver. Not to say that given T what he got is not

03:25a lot, but I would probably go with T Higgins. And for the amount that you could get, if

03:29you were to trade Jamar chase, that's my hot take. I'm probably wrong, but that's my hot

03:35take. And I don't have many.

03:36That might be the Toki take right there. Now Toby is very reasonable, structured sound,

03:40but Toki Virginia tech Hokie is well notice ACC guy, T Higgins. I heard something there.

03:48Interesting to me. How would you build your team? Just fundamentally think about it. Let's

03:52go to Steve at Chesapeake beach. Steve, you get the exercise, what we're thinking here.

03:56Yeah, I got to smell what you're cooking here. Yeah, go for it. I would get a dominant left

04:06tackle to go with my quarterback. Uh, I would get an above average center. Other guys are

04:13average defensive line. I want an above average D tackle above, above average, one above average

04:23D and everybody else. James, I need a dominant middle linebacker. I need one shut down corner

04:31and I need one good safety and I need one good wide receiver to grow with my quarterback

04:37and that's about it. Everything else, fill it in. Yeah. Do the best you can. I think

04:43it doesn't mean you're, you're literally starting like air or like a piece of paper airplane

04:47there. You're, you're drafting and developing. You're doing the best you can. You got to

04:50be shrewd no matter how you build your team. It's a given. I think any prerequisite that

04:54even, even, even the right now with, with Washington, right, they've traded away a bunch

04:59of picks. No matter what you do, when you commit resources to a player, draft him on

05:04undrafted free agent, signing a free agency, a trade, you've got to be right more often

05:09than most people.

05:10And this front office of course was, they, they had a really high batting average. It

05:13doesn't mean they were a hundred for a hundred. It doesn't mean that anytime they said, we'll

05:16give you 3 million bucks that they got a Dante Fowler return. That's remarkable. That doesn't

05:20happen very often, but it happened to them. It wasn't like we were calling Cleveland Farrell's

05:25name every Sunday, right? But that was one of those. It was a low cost thing. You hit

05:30on enough of those things. You get known as a good front office. So of course it's a given

05:33you got to draft. Well, you got to fill in some of these spots, but the point is you

05:37can't pay everybody, right?

05:39If you could, there was no salary cap. You said, yeah, I want to dominate this, this,

05:43this, this, this. You get all 22 positions. Yeah. But you'd be pretty good. So the thing

05:46that's interesting that he brought up is middle linebacker. And that's something that if you

05:50would have asked me this five years ago, I would have said that I need the middle linebacker.

05:53I think it's a little less important now because I need a guy that can play in the passing

05:57team. So we talk about this off air all the time. You know, the, the guys that you get

06:01excited for, I'm the big linebacker safety hybrid kind of guy. And that to me, you know,

06:07they, they had that in Dallas a little bit with Barkey's bell. Isaiah Simmons was a little

06:10bit of that in the league as well. I would lean that guy versus, but we were also having

06:14this discussion down in West Palm before you got down there, we're talking with our guy

06:18Daniel with the nets about dominant linebackers.

06:21It seems like Superbowl champions always have one Zach bond for the Eagles. You think back

06:25to Levante, David, Nick Bolton, some of these guys that they have really good middle linebackers.

06:31And so I think maybe that is something that we sleep on a little bit is having a linebacker

06:35that is just a good field general in the middle. There is probably a little more important

06:39than sometimes we get credit for. Let's go to Des and temple Hills. Des, how you building

06:42your squad?

06:43Hey, what's up, man? Hey, I'm, I'm kind of leaning somewhat towards what you Danny on,

06:49you know, everything that you said, but I was just about to bring up the point that

06:53Toby was just talking about. You have to have a legit middle linebacker. He is the

06:58quarterback of your defense. If you don't have one, it's just like, it's just not going

07:02to work. Cause cause what my whole thing is, I understand like what you were saying when

07:07it comes to offense, but I fall under the old thing.

07:10Offense wins games, defense wins championships. So you gotta make sure that, okay, you got

07:15a straight up offensive line, legit left tackle. As long as the rest of the offensive line

07:20is good to a little above average, you straight, the defensive line, you need a standout defensive

07:26end, middle linebacker, at least in a one above average safety, both your safeties can't

07:32be average and your corners at least have to be both. They both got to be great or one

07:39of them got to be great. And the other one got to be above average. If you really want

07:43to have that shut down defense, the one that scares other teams, all fences, you got to

07:48have that on the offensive side of the ball. If you've got like that kind of love with

07:53the, with the commanders are doing, cause we've got our X, we got our X that's Terry.

07:57We got our shift. You guys, that's Debo. You got our big catch, big body wide receiver

08:02and Noah, even though I think we probably could have upgraded a little bit, but if Luke

08:06steps up, you know what I'm saying?

08:07And he can take this position, but I think you need those three things. And one more

08:10thing, I got Toby said, you gotta have a speedster. You gotta have one guy that can just stand

08:18on the line and take off. And that scares the hell out of everybody. You gotta have

08:23that one guy. I mean, if you've got those and your quarterback is at least sign me up.

08:28Yeah. That's pretty good squad. Des great phone call, buddy. Really appreciate you making

08:31it 800 636 1067. So the middle linebacker thing, he, this is, this is one of the things

08:36you always think about, right? Ray Lewis was great. Polo famer. Nobody's saying anything

08:40different, right? There were probably some schemes you want to talk about hot takes.

08:45This is my Toki take right here. I think there are probably some schemes where Ray

08:49Lewis would have just been a regular or pro bowl or some years where we wouldn't think

08:52of him as one of the greats of all time. That 34 that they played with Tony Syragoose and

08:57rotating cast of, of, of Volkswagen's in front of him, where he's clean as a whistle running

09:03the make plays.

09:04I don't know that he gets to do that in a four, three. I know that he gets to do that

09:08in a one gap scheme where guys are trying to get upfield and he's, and he's got to clean

09:11up some trash and deal with more pulling guards and fullbacks and people throttling them a

09:15little bit. Again, great player, hall of Famer, not saying anything about him, but you see

09:18the point I'm trying to make here. When you get to the middle linebacker spot, I think

09:23it's hard to discern for a lot of us, regular mortals, the difference between solid Sam,

09:29who's going to rack up a bunch of tackles and knows where to put people.

09:32That doesn't cost you Luke Keekly money at the top of the board versus the like, Oh my

09:37God, you've got Mike Singletary in his prime where there was no blade of grass. That guy's

09:42not going to end up hitting somebody on and he knows the play before they do. You know

09:46what I mean? Like, I think you can find a guy that fits you that knows what the hell

09:51to do. But to me, my priority is, can you run with everybody? Right. Versus do I have

09:58a 200 tackle Brian or lacquer a little off of that?

10:01Something that I think is interesting is everyone talks about edge rusher and how important

10:05that is. You can almost make the argument that D tackle is undervalued because the reason

10:11I bring this up, the reason I bring this up is you talk about how clean Ray Lewis was.

10:17So I worked with Leroy Butler when I was in Milwaukee hall of fame safety. He was the

10:20first player in NFL history with 20 sacks and 20 interceptions. So could you grab that

10:24name? Toby just dropped. Thanks. Go ahead. Plays down in the box playing a little bit.

10:28And he talked about how Gilbert Brown, the grave digger kept him clean and that's how

10:32he was able to play the way that he did down in the box. And if you have a nasty guy in

10:37the middle, Vita, VEA, Haloti, Nata with those Ravens teams that can eat up dudes,

10:43they might not even end up with sacks.

10:45They might not end up with tackles for loss, but suddenly Joe Schmo middle linebacker box

10:50safety is ending up with double digit tackles every game in the backfield because they're

10:56not getting touched. They're able to shoot the gap that this guy created because he's

10:59just mammoth. And so, you know, you also talk about pass rushing, getting off the edge.

11:04I can ship with the tight end. I can do this. You can double in the middle that might open

11:08up another guy. But if I win one-on-one, if you leave me one-on-one as a defensive tackle,

11:12this became the new paradigm. Yeah. How to bother Brady, how to bother Manning, how to

11:15bother my home. I'm immediately in here. And this is something that happened in the super

11:19bowl where Patrick Holmes would step up in the pocket.

11:23There was no pocket. He's running into Jalen Carter. He's running into Milton Williams.

11:28So, you know, I think there's a legitimate argument. You say, would you rather have the

11:31tackle or the edge? I don't know that there's a right answer. No, especially with the games

11:34evolved with the short, quick passing kind of being the extension of the running game.

11:39That's why it's so fascinating because every one solution leads you to something else.

11:42Again, one of my favorite economists of all time, Thomas Sowell, said there are no solutions,

11:47only trade-offs. Anytime you turn up one fader, you're changing something else about a different

11:51position. It's interesting.

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