00:00But Bill Barnwell has put out his annual list of the best and worst of the NFL when it comes
00:04to playmaker cores, wide receivers, tight ends, and running backs. One of the things we talked
00:10about earlier was this was all based on 2025, that season. So he has been naming Bajon Robinson,
00:17Kyle Pitts, Drake London for the Falcons. He's got them ranked fourth, but we've brought in
00:21new guys. How could they change this ranking? It is strange to look at it and think about
00:28specific playmakers and Bill Barnwell ranking you fourth. You're like, oh, great. And then you
00:32realize that's without even a number two wide receiver, right? Like we haven't even started
00:37to scratch the surface. And I only say that because, you know, you look at the rankings from
00:43last year, it's, we had all three of the same people and Darnell Mooney was coming off almost
00:48a thousand yard season and you're ranked at what was the last year, nine or 10. It just, it,
00:53it's almost like you removed this preseason thought of a thousand yard number two, but
00:58Kyle Pitts had a much better year and all of a sudden you've jumped five or six spots.
01:01And so I just think that when I look at Dotson, Zacchaeus, Branch, anybody else that we could
01:06get involved in that passing game, not to the level of like a, you know, Marvin Harrison
01:12in Arizona or anything like that. Um, you know, the impact that's possible or even a Jamar
01:16Chase, uh, you know, T Higgins kind of thing, but just getting a secondary receiver
01:21involved, I feel like there is room for improvement that could lead to a possibility
01:25of, you know, even in a better outlook for the Atlanta Falcons.
01:28Well, it's weird for me because he talks about how he, in his, in his, one of his
01:33qualifications is five deep. It's like, it's like the, the, the five playmakers on
01:39your, on your roster, which we just, you just said that we only have three. And then
01:45he says, and wide receivers count more than running backs. I value them more than
01:50running backs. And the best of our trio is a running back. And now the second best is,
01:56is a wide receiver, but in the one guy that really had, I mean, you can talk about Kyle
02:04Pitts obviously had a great year last year, um, career year and, and number of catches
02:11and touchdowns, not in yards, but, but John Robinson of the three was, had the, had the,
02:17had the best year. And he even, and, and the majority of his writeup on the Falcons is
02:22about who?
02:23Bajon Robinson. He talks about, um, the growth in Bajon Robinson from a guy who was
02:30missing the one thing he was really missing from his, um, I guess his resume was the big
02:39play capability. And that's what he broke last year. And in fact, the first big play of
02:44the year last year was a outlet path dump off to Bajon Robinson that he took 50 yards.
02:50Yeah. And, and, but I also think that probably what propelled the Falcons up the list, Mike,
02:57and interesting to see what you think about it was Bajon Robinson as a receiver. Cause he
03:03also had a career year in yards and catches receiving wise last year. And I wonder if that
03:09helped him grow up or not, not him grow, but the, the team go up the list by a, a,
03:16a number
03:17of slots considering based off what we saw last year, they lost the depth of the offensive
03:24playmakers.
03:24Yeah. I think that's a, it's a very valid point. I think that the way I look at that
03:28is what I'm talking about, about a secondary receiver coming along. And maybe, maybe that
03:33is branch. I don't know, but I think that that has to almost, that, that has to be carved
03:38out of what Bajon was able to do in the passing game last year, right? Bajon's receiving numbers
03:43should fall this year. Let me be very, you want them to actually want them to fall. You
03:52shouldn't have to utilize him all the time as a slot receiver or the only guy you want
03:57touching the football on 30 to 35 plays a game. That should not be the way the offense
04:02is constructed, but because you didn't have anybody else behind Drake London, you had
04:06to do that. And, and you also had Tyler Algier and the ability to put him in the backfield.
04:10I love that you brought that up. Let's, can we touch on that for a second? Because I told
04:14you guys, we talked about it yesterday. You remember I did that Twitter spaces thing, which
04:19I had no clue even what it was until Zeno was like, you want to do this? I'd never, I
04:24had
04:24no clue how it worked. And it was basically just, you know, it's like verbal Twitter, you
04:30know, it's like you, instead of tweet, it's just all in there and you just interact. And
04:35one guy, I can't, I don't, I don't remember who it was, but he was like, Arthur Smith did
04:40a really good job. He was brilliant with how he used Bajon in the first year because he
04:43didn't over, didn't overuse him. I think he underutilized him that year, but I agree to
04:50the fact that he broke, he broke him into the NFL by not just dumping a workload that maybe
04:57he wasn't ready for. And you got to be careful, especially with running backs, with rookie
05:03players, because that, that rookie year doesn't start in training camp. It starts as soon as
05:12they leave campus. And you know this as well as anybody going through the process. You,
05:17you, you train, you do the combine, you do all the interviews, then you get drafted, you
05:22go to rookie, you go to rookie mini camp, OTAs, mini camp. Oh, here's a couple weeks
05:28off, but you're, which you don't even know what to do with, but you can't really rest because
05:33you want to be in shape. And then the actual season starts, which is the longest season
05:37you'll, you've ever gone through. And then, but that, but that whole conversation was about
05:45can Bajon hold it up because it got into his contract. And we talked about his, we talked
05:50about his contract with the pit staying and where is that at? And the conversation needs
05:55we had that you want it to drop and a, and no one should be complaining when they're not
06:01using Bajon enough. You want Bajon to not have to. And that was, I remember listening to
06:06Dukes and Bell last year, like four or five games into the season, they're like, why did Bajon
06:10only touch it 22 times? He should have touched at least 30, but you needed that last year.
06:16The whole point of what you did this off season, especially to me with Zachariah Branch was to
06:22make it where you didn't need Bajon to line up in the slot and you have to throw to him.
06:27He has to get 10 targets. Like the whole point is for him to not, and it's not, doesn't mean
06:32that they're not utilizing him. Right. I had this conversation, uh, after Drake's extension
06:37that, um, with a buddy of mine, he's like, Hey, for that much money, he should be going
06:41over 1500, 1600. That's not like, don't look at, stop looking at the amount of yardage
06:47and thinking that's somehow a good thing for this team. It's not, that means that there's
06:50a, that means there's a fault somewhere else. That means you don't have as many other weapons
06:54as you want there to be. If you're having to feed him the ball where he's going for a hundred
06:58a game, that means you never did find a number two. That means Dotson's not doing much.
07:02That means, uh, you know, the Zaccheaus didn't do much and branched it and develop and Kyle
07:07like you can only throw for so many yards in a season. We're probably not going to get
07:12to 4,000 passing yards this year. Right. I mean, I think, I mean, I would love it, but
07:16we're probably not going to. And so when you look at that, you have to start dividing those
07:20things up and realizing you got to knock down the expectations for a successful team.
07:24Now, if you get into a pinch where it's like you need a play, you're going to go to Drake
07:28and hopefully there's broken tackles and hopefully there's explosives and everything
07:32else. I'm not saying don't hope for that, but if Drake were to go out and have a 1700
07:36yard season receiving, I would say something probably went wrong. And I don't know if you're
07:40in the playoffs. It's fair. Like my bond, I used to get into this when I was producing
07:45our show and Julio would have like six touchdowns and he'd be like, Oh, I guess he's just the
07:51world's most expensive D equally. Why does he catch more touchdowns? And I understood his
07:56point, but I couldn't, I would get so upset with it. Cause I'm like the offense is still
08:02averaging like 26 points a game. Yep. Calvin Ridley came in NFL and he had two 10, uh, plus
08:11touchdown seasons his first two years. You know why? He played opposite Julio and he was
08:17good enough. He was, especially when Calvin first broke in before it went a little bit
08:23off the rails, he was going to be a number one somewhere, but he was good enough to, to
08:27stay, to get open and, and, and catch those because Julio was getting a extra
08:31attention. And basically he was catching those touchdowns because you couldn't guard
08:36him one-on-one in that area. That's the point it's. So if Kyle pits or Drake's touchdowns
08:43go down this year, but you're, but your, your points per game go up as an offense, don't look
08:49at individual stats. It's a solid point. It's a phenomenal point. I do want to point out something
08:55else about this list. The teams that are ahead of us on it are the lions, Rams, Bengals. They all
09:00three have established top 10 quarterbacks. We don't, how does that fold into this? It's,
09:06it's wild that we're that high. Yeah. I was thinking the same thing. It's wild that we're
09:10that high. It shows you the respect that a lot of people have for our big three, but Sean to
09:18me,
09:19if not the top, I think it's him and Jim Mary Gibbs right now is running backs. I'm sorry. I
09:23just do.
09:24And I think Jeremiah Love has a chance to bust onto the scene, but it's, it's Gibbs and, and Bajon
09:30again, I'll tell you this. Um, but then you look at, uh, pits, Drake London's got so much
09:38respect, but the pits thing to me is that shows you what a lot of people think. If he, if
09:44he
09:45really, really, really figures it out and he, and somebody else really figures out that that's
09:50what he could be. I mean, he could be one of the top playmakers in the league. Yeah. To
09:56me, it goes back to Allie, the conversation that I think a lot of people have around teams
10:00like the Minnesota Vikings. It's like the Minnesota Vikings. You look at the one, two
10:05punch, they have a wide receiver and you're like, Oh, elite. You know what I mean? Add
10:08in a running back, add in a tight end. But at the end of the day, you still know who's
10:13throwing in the football. You know what I mean? And so I think that they have a lot
10:15of, cause the Vikings are listed at eight here. And I know that there's probably a morning
10:21radio show in Minnesota right now, having a conversation about the Vikings going, if we can just find
10:25a quarterback to get on the ball, you know, we can just find some consistency from the
10:29young guy we drafted a couple of years ago or the veteran we brought in on the one near
10:34deal for, for minimum. If we can just find some consistency out of those spots, everything
10:39else will kind of, you know, find its place and grab its footing. And it's the same conversation
10:43we're having. So it actually, the, the, the thought that we are gaining that respect, but still
10:48don't have the established passer. I, it's a good thing to me because that it feels like
10:52that's the, you, you, you're already securing other spots and now it's just, I need that
10:57one other domino to kind of fall in place. Why do you think the Vikings are that low?
11:03Um, TJ Hawkinson hasn't been quite going to say health. I mean, he's listed health for
11:08a lot of these guys. Okay. Yeah. And he says that's a big deal. Um, they're, they're running
11:15their backfield is no, they don't have anybody that is Bajon-esque. I think those are
11:21Jordan Mason. Jordan Mason. Um, not a knock on him. He's just not, he's not. And you know,
11:26Justin Jefferson is, Justin Jefferson is one of those guys we've, we've, they, we've thrown
11:33around the word quarterback proof. He's been quarterback proof, but Jordan Addison, you
11:38know, he was suspended last year for what? Four games. I think he had a little bit. And
11:43Justin Jefferson missed a few games last year too. Well, I think, I think it's some of
11:47that. It's funny that we said, well, they're not completely in the running back room, but
11:51then we look at our wide receiver room and it's one guy. I think there, I think Minnesota's
11:56constructed a lot like Dallas, aside from quarterback, like Dallas is going to have
12:00the one-two punch at wide receiver. There's been some injuries at tight end and the running
12:03back spots like, I'm not sure. But he literally leads off the article by saying, I put more
12:08value on wide receivers. I know. I know.
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