00:00The NFC North. So my question to you, John, is and there's questions for each of these teams. Right. But
00:07Detroit and Green Bay, like on paper, they look pretty good. Chicago is obviously the defending champion here in the
00:15NFC North. And Minnesota has kind of the biggest like quarterback swing. Like we don't know what Kyler Murray is
00:22going to look like exactly. So there's so many toss ups here. But I wanted to ask you about the
00:27Bears first.
00:28That's fitting that we go to the Bears first because Caleb Williams, Ben Johnson. Obviously, they're coming off 11 wins
00:34and a playoff win.
00:36Can the Bears, I think, do you think they can win more comfortably instead of depending on those late game
00:42comebacks that they had last year? Like, is this team actually for real?
00:48I think the team is for real because offensively, I think they're going to be one of the top five,
00:53top 10 teams in the league when it comes to offensively.
00:55I think in the NFC North, if any team won this division, you could explain and why it made sense
01:01that that particular team won the division.
01:03If somebody finishes last, it will totally make sense. And you can explain why that team finished last.
01:09If it's Chicago finishing last because their defense couldn't stop anybody and not necessarily that the magic ran out.
01:15But at some point, you got to get stops on the defensive end. Last year, they got a lot of
01:18turnovers via the interception or fumble.
01:21That won't happen again this year because turnovers don't translate. If the Lions were last in the division, it would
01:27totally make sense that the entire thing's off and coach bites your ankles.
01:32Isn't an X and O guy. He's just an emotional guy. If the Packers are last, it would totally make
01:38sense that Matt LaFleur got fired after five weeks.
01:40And now they're looking for a new coach. So it all if every team came in last, it would make
01:45sense.
01:45And if every team came in first, Jordan Love has had an MVP year and Matt, him and Matt LaFleur,
01:50the combination finally clicks.
01:52Hey, if the Lions find themselves in first place, it wasn't Ben Johnson.
01:56And they just needed a year to kind of retool. If the Vikings find themselves in first place, Kyler Murray
02:01is the truth.
02:02And now you have probably the second best quarterback whisperer in football and Kevin O'Connell.
02:07And so if the Chicago Bears finish first, it'll be because they didn't have to come back miraculously.
02:13They took care of business game after game after game and were able to take leads and keep leads.
02:19So all of it makes sense in either way. That's what makes this division the most intriguing.
02:25Every team's got a great quarterback who was a high draft pick.
02:28Caleb Williams, number one, Jared Goff, number one, Kyler Murray, number one.
02:32So you have a lot of elite quarterbacks. You have a lot of elite coaches.
02:38The Lions coach is the only one. He's the only one where we don't know if he can X's and
02:46O the team.
02:48He can rah-rah speech you, but can he X's and O the team to victory?
02:52That is the only one that I'm, I wouldn't say I'm worried about him because he's shown his ability to
02:58lead translates.
02:59It's can they now dig out of a hole that Ben Johnson's absence may have put them in.
03:04So outside of that, man, I really feel like this division is truly up for grabs.
03:09I completely agree with you. And I was going to say this division, I feel like is going to have
03:13one team that doesn't make the playoffs.
03:16So it's like, man, they kind of got the bad end of the deal.
03:19Like they were, they were good. They just weren't good enough in an NFC that has so many loaded teams
03:23and in a division that has so many loaded teams.
03:27Now, you mentioned the Lions, like Jared Goff and the Lions.
03:32For me, much like the Vikings, I don't know what I'm going to get because remember in 2023, they almost
03:39made the Super Bowl.
03:40They should have went to the Super Bowl. They should have beat the Niners and went to the Super Bowl.
03:43They did not. But they did have some early injuries, especially in the secondary.
03:49But they still do, in my opinion, have an explosive roster.
03:53But do you trust Jared Goff? Do you trust the Jameer Gibbs, Amon Ra, Jamison Williams, Sam Laporta offense?
04:02And that defense, which, like I said, has had some early injuries.
04:05Do you trust them to get to a playoffs and make a deep run?
04:09Because the famous meme going around, John, is when Dan Campbell said in 2023, he was like, well, sometimes this
04:16is your only shot or something like that.
04:18And people are like, sometimes you don't get another shot.
04:21Maybe that was your last shot to get to a Super Bowl.
04:24And I feel they haven't touched it. They haven't even gotten close since.
04:26They got into the playoffs, but they haven't gotten close since.
04:30The only question I have is, do you believe in Dan Campbell?
04:33Right.
04:33Because they have the parts. All these parts on offense worked when Ben Johnson was there.
04:37It was unbelievable what they were doing to people.
04:40The plays they were rolling out. The trick plays.
04:42They probably have some of the most athletic offensive linemen in the league.
04:46Like, they were doing things in their playbook that you were like, oh, my God, where did this come from?
04:51Who's calling these plays? Who's driving this bus?
04:54And it turned out to be Ben Johnson because he did some of those same things with the Bears.
04:58And it tend to dry up when it came to Dan Campbell last year.
05:03And so they have the fastest two players in the league, probably, in Jameer Gibbs and Williamson.
05:11And they're indoors in a very frigid part of the country when it comes time to play football games after
05:18September.
05:18So it makes no sense that they can't score.
05:23You've got Sam Laporte. You've got Amon St. Brown.
05:25You have all the tools.
05:27You have Jared Goff, a guy who can get them the ball if given enough time.
05:31So the fact that their offense sputtered made no sense.
05:35The fact that their defense basically broke apart physically makes perfect sense because of the way that they play the
05:41game,
05:41the way that Dan Campbell wants these guys running at 100 miles an hour all the time.
05:46Going fourth on fourth down, all these things tend to accumulate and add up.
05:50And now you're looking at three years of these guys doing this on their body, four for some of them.
05:55And so I just think physically they may be tapped out.
