Preseason Breakdown 2025 AFC East/West

Welcome to another edition of the Pond Pony podcast! This week, OG and the Fantasy Uncle Persian dive into a comprehensive overview of the AFC East and West. We kick off the episode discussing some noteworthy preseason developments, including significant injuries and standout performances. we analyze each team within the AFC East and West, sharing our thoughts, predictions, and interesting tidbits about the Buffalo Bills, Miami Dolphins, New England Patriots, New York Jets, Kansas City Chiefs, Denver Broncos, Los Angeles Chargers, and Las Vegas Raiders. We cover everything from record predictions to player performances and coaching changes. Join us for an in-depth discussion as we gear up for the NFL season!

Chapters

• 1:02 Sports news
• 2:50 Preseason week 1 thoughts
• 15:31 Buffalo Bills
• 19:22 Miami Dolphins
• 22:37 New England Patriots
• 24:50 New York Jets
• 29:04 Kansas City Chiefs
• 31:17 Denver Broncos
• 36:00 Los Angeles Chargers
• 40:24 Las Vegas Raiders
• 44:37 Final Thoughts and outro

Transcript

jason: 0:10

Welcome, welcome to another edition of the Pond Pony podcast, as always got me OG and the fantasy uncle. What's happening Persian. Howdy. Glad to be back another week. Plenty of preseason nuggets to go over. So we will jump right in. Yeah. Oh yeah, man. Week one preseason. Lot of injuries. A lot of injuries. So, we'll, we'll start with some news and notes. Get into quick thoughts about the preseason games and and then we'll get into breaking down the a FC, east and West, giving our predictions for the records and just little nuggets that we think about each team. So let's, as he said, start the show. Alright, so just a quick little note I wanna make about MLB'cause I think it's deserved. They had their first female umpire. Do a regular season game, Jen Powell. So you know, good stuff for any sport to adopt a female into it as well as a male driven egotistical MLB, you know how those umpires can get, so maybe it's nice to have a softer tone. Yeah. There. We'll see. We'll see if, if she, if she ever starts crying, she's gonna fuck it up for all the rest of the women. Listen. Yeah. She just better not be like, what's his name? An Angel Ramirez or whatever his name is. That one guy who just blatantly calls whatever the hell, he feels like it. Oh yeah. This is the one you brought up on the pod before, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Fuck that guy. Yeah. Fuck that guy. Yeah. And then just a quick note about the MLS Charlotte FC sucked in the league's cup, but that's okay because that's it. It doesn't matter for a regular season. It is a fun little cup between Mexican league teams versus like USA league teams. So that's pretty cool. But they got their asses kicked in the first two games. And then they won the third game. But with that being said, they are on the up and up for the season. They have won 16 points out of the possible 19 points in the last five or so games. So hell yeah. You know, they're, they're looking good right now. Looking real good. Just signed a new, another kicker. I mean, another, football brain, another goalie. So always good to have a backup goalie. I was about to say, all of them. Bitches better be kicking. If they're a soccer team of kickers. They're all kickers. That's hilarious. Anyway, alright, so moving on to week one, preseason thoughts. I thought it was pretty interesting how many starters played. That's not usually the norm. And Matt LeFlore had some, some data that kind of didn't work out in his favor. It, it said something along the lines like, the likelihood of a player getting injured is. You know, it's worth the risk and, well, Jordan Love had to have a little bit of a finger surgery. But he's fine. He, he is expected to be back at practice like in, before the season even starts. So yeah, it's not his throwing hands. So I, I think that that basically takes away any concern I would've had. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And then Romeo drops. Apparently he is injured. I hadn't seen it, but apparently he is. If anything, his ego or his mindset should be injured because of how many times he drops the ball. It's just amazing. It is amazing. Have you heard the the season drop percentage records for your packers? Have you heard about this stat before? No, I have not. Please enlight me. So, so last year, drop Avian Wix. Had since the year, since the year 2000, had the highest percentage of drop balls that were catchable, right? He had the highest percent of, of, should have been caught balls as dropped. I think it was 15.9%, which is very high percentage. It, but what's really funny is that the, the, the record that he broke was actually Romeo Dobbs. The year before that had 15.6. These are the two worst drop seasons of any players in history since the year 2000. Breaking each other's record for like, hold my beer while I don't hold the ball. Yeah, and everybody wants to blame Jordan. Love. Yeah. Blasphemy blasts. Yeah. I, I think Jordan Love is in for a bounce back, hopefully. That receiving core isal in for something of a bounce back and that they could work in tandem, but we'll see. Well, Matthew Golden has worked his way into why receiver number one just by purely catching the ball. Yeah, I, I saw that he, he was on the field for a hundred percent of the snaps with the first team. Never rotated off the, you know, we, we basically heard that that was what was happening in training camp, but we, we got to see the, the run through on the field, which is always the nice, yeah, he got the penalty. Penalty called on sauce, but you know, sauce is all over him, man. But. No, he had two targets, so nothing major, but it's preseason. Moving on Gino Smith gave the finger, gave the guy the fingers. And coach Pete Carroll backed him up. He said the, the media said, what do you think about him flicking the fans off? And Pete Carroll goes, did you see the sign? And the sign says, bigger Bust Gino or JaMarcus Russell. Damn. That's fucked up. That's fucked from a Seattle. The guy was wearing a Seattle jersey. Oh. So like, oh, he's, he's buffer. He's salty. Yeah, he's salty in one. That's a stupid sign.'cause it doesn't even make sense. Gino has been in the league a lot longer than JaMarcus Russell ever was. Yeah. A far better career. I mean, that, that's it's just, that's, that's crazy. That's just just a shitty thing. I, I completely understand why Gino Smith. Is angry because you work so hard to actually, literally improve and develop his first two or three years certainly was really bad. It was, I mean, it was just the way that we think of like Wilson, what's the, the, the Ross Wilson? No, the, the kid that that guy? No, the, the kid. Zach Wilson. Zach Wilson. Yeah. Like he, he, he was supposed to be hot shit. He wasn't. And he is really bad, and we'll see if Zach Wilson ever does like, become a, a starting level or reliable quarterback. But the thing is that Gino really has consistently been better and better every year as he's gone on. And that's nothing like what JaMarcus Russell was able to do. So the fact that you would even do that, it's like you're purposely trying to be a bitch about it, which you probably just deserved the, the birth at that point. He was so, yeah. Got no problem with it. Love that Pete Carroll backed him up and they kept it moving. Another note. DJ Ukulele has made his debut with a 51 yard dime for a touchdown. I mean, on the money. I, I would love to watch him play more just so I can see if he, like, if we were just wrong all along and he wasn't meant for college football, oh man, maybe this is his bread and butter. Wouldn't that just make you more frustrated though? It's like, oh, now you wanna be what you were supposed to be eight years ago. I mean, no, he's outta college football now, so now I'm just like. Whatever, you're, you're no longer a nuisance to me because you're not playing for another team and do, and he didn't do better at either one of the other teams, so he did not. Yeah. Like that was enough for me. That was enough that, that was enough justification for me. I mean, he was so disappointing. You know, after, after like the, all of the hype from the, I guess his freshman, true freshman season or whatever. Yeah. He was so disappointing the last two or three seasons to the point where. They were like, oh, he, he might not stick on a roster, he might not make it on an NL roster. Right. Looks like he at least has a chance to. So, you know, we'll see. He does, he does. 49 ERs came out and said IU is gonna be back at the earliest week six. So, Ooh, that's bad. You hate to hear earliest. Ooh, yeah, that's bad. Because see, the thing is like, like even if he's back week six, week seven, week eight, there's gonna be a ramping up period. So like just to get a full allotment of snaps, full usage, you'd be looking at like week 10 or week 11. If things went well for you. And the thing is, if you're a 49 ERs fan, you're probably thinking, oh, now we got him for a playoff run, I guess. But I, I mean, the expectations when it happened were like, oh, he's got enough time to be back for the start of the season. So there must have been some kind of setback. It's unfortunate, but I, I guess at the end of the day, I, I've just never liked him that much as a person, so whatever he'd be all right. Indeed, indeed Indubitably. Hey man, Shadu Sanders looked for all purposes, looked pretty darn good. And then I saw a video of him on the sidelines, you know, picking Miles Garrett brain on like, if I do this, what are you gonna do? You know, if I do this, what would you do in that situation? A as someone attacking me and this and that. So, you know, yeah, I think maybe he'll be good. I think this is exactly what he needed. No matter what happened, the media was gonna react. So you know, I'm, I'm happy for him that it was a good showing not you know, face, plant or anything like that, that everyone for the most part has been giving him his flowers and said, Hey. Yeah, he, he, he should be the starter. He should get a, you know, I'm not making too much out of, you know, a, a half preseason preseason game or whatever, but for what it's worth, he looked good when he could have looked bad. So I like it, you know, it's always a plus rather look good than looked bad, for sure. Yep. And then the last little fun fact I had for my preseason notes the NFL said that. They are not competing with any other sports, and in fact they are competing with Apple and Google. So that's who Roger Goodell views as his competition. And that's purely rugby based for sure. So he, so he's basically saying we're not necessarily in competition with, with sports fans, we're just in competition with other forms of entertainment altogether. Is that what that Yeah, that's what I gathered. Yeah. And you know, not only that, but also in the aspect of like, how much money does my company bring in versus Apple and Google? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like how much leverage, like in that market, how much leverage do we have? Yeah. So I got you. Yeah, man. So just a lot of craziness there. Any, any thoughts that you had for preseason before we move on? Yeah. A couple running backs that I thought were notable. People weren't really sure what the situation was gonna be in Jacksonville. They, they were excited about drafting Behe Tootin and, you know, tootin had that insane combine and all that. He was clearly third. It was definitely Travis Etn, then Tanks Bigsby, then basal tootin. So as much shit as, a lot of football fans and certainly even fantasy fans have given to Travis et NI think the expectation should be that he's going to at least start the season as the main guy. We'll see how things go along and then perhaps the opposite situation in Denver where. It was actually RJ Harvey that got the start. Most people were expecting it would be JK Dobbins. They'll probably start the year in something of a 50 50 or some sort of you know, close timeshare like that, I don't expect either them to, to dominate the snaps. I think there there's a chance that they'll both be like flex worthy fantasy options at the beginning of the season. And I think toward the back half of of the season, it'll be like go time at some point for RJ Harvey where he'll get a lot more work. But who knows? We'll have to see. And then the last one I was gonna say is the New York Jets. A lot of people worried about Bree Hall and what was gonna happen to him. The new coaching staff comes in o obviously Aaron Glenn brought a couple guys from Detroit with him, and Detroit loves to do the the one two backfield and they said basically we like all three backs. We wanna have a three man committee. A lot of us, including myself, didn't really believe that'cause Brie Hu's just better than Braylin Allen. Isaiah Davis, but all three of them really did share similar snaps. I think it was five for Brie Hall with the starters, and then three a piece to the other two. So I think probably arrow down for Brie Hall. I think a lot of the coach speak. That we didn't take seriously. Oh, probably. Might be, might be real. You know, so we'll have to see how that goes. Don't you say things like that to me. I know you got him in our dynasty league. Don't you don't. Yeah. Yeah. Dude, man. Don't, don't talk about him like that. We'll see. I mean, he's the best guy. You gotta trading block. I'm putting him on the block. Hey, put him on the block. Hey, you, you did get a good deal for him though. I thought you, I thought you got him at a good price personally, but for Bri Hall. Yeah. I thought, yeah. I thought I also, I also fleeced you for Trey McBride. Maybe, I don't know. I love Puka though, man. I just love Yeah. No, no, no. I, I mean that was a fair, that was a fair trade. Yeah, it was. It was essentially, it was puka for Trey McBride, so, yeah. And then I, I picked up a wide receiver that I could use. So it's a, I ain't mad about it. I needed tight ends for sure. I was, I didn't like my tight end situation. Yeah. Yeah. You were like trying to give me a tight end back and I was like, bro, you need both tight ends. What do you mean? I need all the tight ends? I was just, I, I mean like, I threw that trade out there just to get the ball rolling. Because I could give up a wide receiver, I, I got what I think pretty decent wide receivers plus the wide receivers in the rookie draft. I think a good portion of'em are starting right away, so I, I like my odds there versus the tight end. I'm not in love with Tyler Warren or Colson Loveland, so I'm good nonetheless. All right, man. Well, let's get into it. Let's start off with the A FC East. Teams, the Buffalo Bills, they went 13 and four last year, projected about the same for me, 13 and four, probably. They're gonna, they're in line to win their sixth division. Title, second streak, streak second only to the chiefs. So, I mean, they're pretty dominant. Offense remains the same. MVP, caliber, qb, all the guys. The defense is where this team really needs to make a step forward. For me, they allowed way too many passing yards and touchdowns. But you know, they did draft cornerback Maxwell Harrison, so it looks like, and safety, Cole Bishop remains a concern so. You know, we don't know how the rookie's gonna do, but at least they are trying to address that issue. I haven't been watching any of the hard knocks episodes, so I've been staying away from the poison. That is hard knocks. It's'cause I ain't try, I don't need to get hyped about a team that's already hyped. You, you just don't want any pro bills propaganda fed to you. Right? Yeah, no Pro Bills propaganda. But I mean, looking at the division they're in. I, I could see them easily winning this. I'm not concerned with, like you just said, the jets, the Patriots until prove that otherwise no concern and the dolphins have haven't been able to beat them. In any recent history in anything that's worth a damn. So I'm not worried about them either, so I, I think this is the Bills division all locked up barring a Josh Allen injury or something of that nature. Yeah, I, I, I agree with that. For the most part, I do think that Patriots are arrow up right now with a lot of the guys. They, they brought in, I, I got faith in their coach. I think things are gonna go better from the sort of organizational standpoint. But, but still, it is actually, like you said, which is like. They're gonna have to show that they could actually play with the bills before I would put'em up in there. The dolphins I'm afraid are actually the going in the wrong direction. So it is pretty much the bills to lose. Yeah, a hundred percent. What do you, what's your projected record for them? Oh, for the bills 10 and seven. Wow. Mm-hmm. Man, that's wild. I did not expect that, to be honest with you. You thought I was gonna say 11, like 11 and six. I thought you were just gonna say higher like me, 13 and four, you know, like really, you know? Yeah, I, I mean, I just feel like the a FC, not necessarily their division so much as the AFC is going to have I don't remember their schedule, but I, I remember thinking that. They're gonna drop, they're gonna drop more games than people would assume, I think. But I, well, there's, I can't remember the schedule. The schedule is the easiest in the league. Oh, is it the easiest? Okay. I'm, yeah, it's among the easiest in the league. Oh, okay. I thought it was one the hardest part. It's, I've got them mixed up with someone else then. Yeah. All right. Well. If you wanna just edit that out, I'll just start over and I'll say, oh, no, no, no, no, no. Just go with it man. Just gimme the new record. Yeah, no, I'll say 12. I'll say 12 and five 12. I think that, that, that is, yeah, that's fair. I think that's the place where they'll land. And I do think that that'll be easily enough to win this particular division. Right? A hundred percent. Yeah. Yeah. Alright, moving on to the for mentioned Miami Dolphins. As you said, they are arrow trending down for me. Last year they were, let's see, eight and nine. I could easily see that again or even worse. I, I just, this team sold, its sold early down the road. With the players that they brought in. And that was fine, but Tua ended up getting just way too many injuries. And I think this team is too like dependent on Tua being healthy. And so with all the drama in the off season, the poorest offensive line that they still have the defense that gets older and older with every passing gear and just is deteriorating before our eyes. I just don't see them even sniffing the playoffs for me. I, I, Mike McDaniels is gonna have to do something because this is gonna be his last season as the Dolphins. I, I probably got them going seven wins max. Yeah, that's exactly what I have them. I act, I actually thought about going six, but I, I. I still got faith that they're gonna figure something out. I, I think they brought in a lot of guys on the defense to kind of help with Wilkins leaving and, you know, the, another guy they lost, I can't remember early in the off season. So I, I think the defense will be kind of all right. But the thing is, like that offensive line is so bad. Tua didn't have time to do anything, but just dump it off to Devon chain or dump it off to John Smith. And the thing is that now they don't even have John U. Smith and it's like, what do they even have? Right? They've got Darren Waller. I don't, I don't expect him to work out. I mean, if he could come back and be Darren Waller, who, who was in his prime, that would be great. But. That ain't, that's not what's gonna happen. I don't think anyone should have that kind of expectation. And so I, I just don't know if they're gonna be able to get to the big plays. They, they're not gonna have time. To have the big plays developed down the field like they did two and three years ago. You know, I think that Waddle is a good wide receiver. I think that Tab Hill still has enough gas in the tank to make some plays that offensive line's just not gonna give them a chance to do much. And so it is a six or seven win team for. Ooh. Ooh man. How far they have fallen. This is incredible, man. Mike McDaniels is on the hot seat for sure. It's fiery. And Mike. Yeah, like I said, I mean it really does feel like they're going the wrong direction. This the arrow down team. And you know, you hate to say that when a New Season's coming up,'cause almost every team makes moves to try to. Right. You know, trick the fan base into thinking we're, we're on the, on the come up. And you know, you everybody but Dallas, you end up with more than half of the league. You're, you're feeling like they're going in the right direction, but yet, you know, you've got some of these teams you just know like, nah, this ain't, things are getting harder for you. Yeah, for sure. Oh man, that's hilarious. Alright, moving on to the New England Patriots. They were four and 13 the last two seasons. It got brand new head coach Mike Vrabel. He's with his with their third different coach in, in as many seasons. So they've hired a new coach every year. This one's probably gonna stay'cause this is the one they wanted all along. Yeah. I did like what they did in the off season. They added quite a few pieces. Four Drake Ma to get some help. You know, Stefan, dig Morgan, Moses Carlson, Davis, you know, some players on the defense and whatnot. And, and so. You know, added with that punch in the mouth, that variable likes to run. And you know, I, I think this team is trending upwards, but I don't think they're trending that far upwards. They could get as many as 10, 10 wins this season, but I think they're more in the I'm gonna go on the higher side. I was thinking six wins, but I'll give them eight. Eight wins. Eight and nine. Yeah, that, that's what I was gonna say. I was gonna say nine and eight. But basically like a 8.5. It's a eight or nine win team. I think that they're gonna be like a playoff bubble team. I do think that they'll be in contention toward the end of the season. They'll be on the graphics as you're watching the football games and they're, they're previewing the playoff picture. I think they're gonna be like a bubble team. I think that they will be competitive. They are going in the right direction. But I, I don't think that the offensive line and the weapons that they brought in are go going to completely, you know, take a bottom of the league sort of weapons, bottom of the league, sort of pass protecting and get it to the top of the league or anything. It's just gonna be a little something more towards average. And I, I think that that's enough for Vrabel to work with. I, I feel like Vrabel always had like lesser talented teams that he ended up getting a decent amount of yardage out of. So I got faith in him to keep them competitive, even though I, I don't think they're quite where they should be yet. They're in the right direction though. Right on Moving to the Jets last year with Aaron Rogers. They were five and 12. They went full rebuild mode. Aaron Glenn is the new head coach. Justin Fields is the new qb offensive line is looking pretty good. So for Justin Fields, that's, that's a plus. He actually has protection. Garrett Wilson is still there, so you know Bree Hall, even though you think that's gonna be a downturn, I think with Justin Fields, you know, Bree Hall might be able to do a little bit more just because they can also worry about Justin Fields running the ball. At least that's what I'm hoping maybe. Pushing a little bias there. But the, the defense, you know, we knew when Salah left that the defense was gonna take a step back, and they did. So I, I think this is, this season is more on the defense for the jets than it is the offense. So with that being said. I don't like, I don't trust Justin Fields at all. I mean, he did decent in Pittsburgh last year, but they do have a good offensive line. I'm struggling on this one, but I still think they go six wins. I, yeah, I feel you there. I'm gonna go five wins. I, I think things are even. A tad more bleak than that. I do agree with you. They have done a good job of investing in the offensive line in a way where you, you could finally feel like it's paying off. It actually looks like a good unit at the end of last season. It did, and certainly now going into this, this next season, it certainly looks like it should be one of the top ones on paper. That being said though, man, it, we are in a time where the beat writers are in complete hype up mode for almost every team, almost every player. Oh, it looks so good and this, that, yada yada. And yet weve had bad vibes around Justin Fields this entire time. I mean, the beat riders are saying like, it doesn't look like he knows what he's doing. It doesn't look like he understands the plays, doesn't look like he's on the same page with, with his receivers, Ty Rod Taylor clearly looks better than him and it's like this is not sound good. You know? And then when you combine that with the fact that they've got, like, did these squad outside of Garrett Wilson, I mean, you know, you got him passing to Van Jefferson, I guess, right? Is that. Yeah, I, I just don't even know, like it's, it's gonna be Garrett Wilson and maybe Mason Taylor, the rookie tight end can step up, but I mean, he hasn't even been able to practice. He's got like a high ankle sprain or something, so I, hopefully he'll be like, available for the regular season. But it's just like, things just don't seem good and maybe the, that defense will be good enough. The offensive line will be good enough that they could just run. And play defense. But I doubt it. I doubt it. I think that Justin Fields is going to have to be a better version than what we saw you know, in Pittsburgh and certainly than what we saw in Chicago. And it just doesn't seem like he is impressing anyone at this point. And it's just always, you know, we're, we're in that hype. A point in the season where it's like you can't necessarily take seriously all of the glowing praise that the beat writers will give, but you can take seriously when they're actually like, you know, calling players out. And so we'll see, you know, the, the games haven't started yet. Maybe he's gonna get on page with the playbook, his coaches, the receivers. Maybe things will go better than what I expect right now. But right now I just. I just don't think things are gonna go well for fields. And I think if they don't go well for fields, they just won't go well for that offense. Right. Oh yeah. It's, it is totally dependent on fields, for sure. Okay. Move it over to your division, the A FC West. Looking at the Chiefs first, they obviously went to the Super Bowl at 15 and two last year. You know, until they don't win the division, I've got them winning the division. Yeah, I mean, you can't not trust Patrick Mahomes and Andy Reed in this situation. It, it seems, no matter what hits them in the face, they're still able to come out every week and produce wins. Yeah, two and three point wins every week. Yeah. They, they brought, you know, they got a safety, Jayden Hicks Rising Playmaker, who replaced Justin Reed. So looking good maybe on the defensive side of things. You know I mean, it's hard not to, to see them going 15 to two again, but I mean, I think the Broncos are a lot better this season. The Raiders will, will be a little bit better, so they could actually give them a run for money. And same with the Chargers. The, you know, I'm, I'm liking Chargers and Hobar year two, so I've got them, I'll put them at 12 wins. Chiefs 12 wins. 12 and five. Yeah. I think still winning the division though. Yeah, I, I had 12 and five as well. I do think they win the division. I think your first statement was probably the one that sums it up the best. It, it's like until. They actually fail. I'm just going to expect them to, to succeed. I, I don't think we need to make it any more complicated than that. It, it really is that simple. They tend to find a way, they have been a contending team, whether it's with running the ball and, and short dump offs and just having really good defense. Or several years ago when it was just the, the most pass heavy offense in the league. However they need to win. They figure out a way to win. And I, I think that they, they will be in the contention again, for sure. Yep. Moving to the Denver Broncos, your squad I mean this, this team is arrow trending for sure. Second season under Sean Peyton. You know Marvin Mins, hopefully he, he takes a step forward. You still got Courtland all of a sudden on the field. Mm-hmm. You know, bro, Nicks, you know, year two looking for him to make some better decisions. You know, they'll be on the, the heels of the chiefs all year long, I think. I don't think that they, they quite get. Get to that 12 win range. But I do think that they are a legitimate contender to make the playoffs. I do think in the playoffs they are a legitimate contender. So I, I've got them in the wild card with a, with a 10 and seven record, which is what they were last year, 10 and seven. So yeah, that's basically how I see it too. I did have them at 11 and six, but. Pretty much you summed it up pretty well. I like how the offensive line really overperformed versus my expectation for them. And the cool thing about that though is that they're bringing everybody back. Every single member of that starting offensive line is coming back this year with the same offensive line and offensive coordinators ev everything is the same. So if anything, the unit could, could even continue to gel and. You know, continue to sort of hone their various relationships or whatever. I like how both Marvin Mims and Troy Franklin were playing preseason week one as number two and the number three wide receivers. This signifies to me a little bit more trust. Hopefully we're taking a step forward this season. I mean, they're both young guys. Certainly not outta the question that they develop a little bit. It would certainly be great for the offense'cause they, there was all these various pieces, Devon Veley fucking. Little Jordan Humphreys and these, these really specialized design plays for like this one thing that they can do well. But if we can get guys like Marvin Mims and Troy Franklin to be more dynamic and we could use them more ways, we could keep them on the field more, that would be great. I love that they brought in Evan Ingram. You know, McVeigh loves passing to the tight ends and last year they were actually getting. A lot of work to guys like Nate Atkins, Lucas Crawl, Adam Troutman. These guys are just fucking blocking titans. You know what I mean? So now we've got a actual like catch and run sort of yard yards with Right? Can make things happen with the ball in his hands. He starting to get up into his thirties and I'm not a fan of that, but for the, for, for this season. Too old. For this season, I think it's gonna be arrow up. Because they brought in like a pretty good sort of weapon at tight end and we we'll see about defense. They did lose a couple pieces, but the most important guys I would argue are still there. I like that they went and they got I forgot his name. They got the top cornerback in the draft. Pretty much fell to them. Jadi Baron, I think was his name. But at any rate, I, I like that.'cause that was kind of the, maybe the shakiest part of the defense was that secondary really kind of bolstered that again, feel pretty good about that. So I think that they're probably going to be just a little bit better. I think that teams will be a little bit more. Sort of hip to the shit that Bo Nicks likes to do. They've got, you know, a full season of, of NFL tape on him now. That's a fair point, but yet I still think that they will get a little more. And so that, that's why I'm expecting that a, an 11 win team. And I do think they get into the playoffs well, and you gotta think Sean Peyton expects them to have more tape. So, you know, being the QB guru that he is, I think Bone Next will be just fine in year two. Yeah. And I mean, who knows? They could flip the script and, and we could be completely wrong. And the Chiefs are in the second spot and the Broncos are busting heads. Man. Man, that's high hope. Okay. Alright. Moving over to the Chargers. I expect them to compete with Denver. They could hit that 11 wins, 10 wins. They had 11 wins LA last year, so I've got them going. I got'em tied with Denver 10 wins this season. You know. Just because offensive tackle, Rashan Slater, he's, he's out for the season. And then the Edge you know, Nick BOA's absence, they've got a new guy in there. Hopefully he's, he'll be able to take over for Bosa. But I mean, I like Herbert, but Herbert just. He's not always spectacular. It's like he hasn't quite hit his prime yet. And a lot of that is because of coach prior to Harbaugh, I think. And, but Harbaugh likes to run the ball, so I do like that they have Amari and Hampton. But again, the offensive line. If you have like your one key guy that holds it down and he's out, then you get an injury, then you've gotta do a lot of shuffling and that tends to be an issue. And so, you know, hopefully they've got a plan for the offensive'cause. The offensive line is always an injury issue. It's just one injury bug away from being decimated, and it happens to. Almost every team, every season for the most part. You know, you have a few outliers there. So the fact that they're so dependent on running the ball, that kind of takes me back a little bit from like, pushing them up to like a 12 win, like fighting for the, the division. So I, I've got them at, at 10 and seven as well as, as I did for the Broncos. Yeah, I have the Med 10, 7 2. I think that this is the team that we might be able to edge out and be basically second place in the division. I don't expect to be able to, to knock off the chiefs necessarily, but I do think it's likely that, that we can overstep the chargers here. I, I think that unfortunately for the Chargers, they've already been hit pretty hard with the injury bug. Najee Harris still can't. Open his eye without looking weird. He hasn't been cleared for contact. He, he hasn't been able to do anything since July 4th. So that's weird and unfortunate. And of course the Rashaan Slater thing, that's a huge deal they're gonna have to take. The right tackle, which is Joe Old. He, he was a good right tackle as a rookie last year and moved him to left tackle and that might be okay. Like he might be, you know, good enough at left tackle, but it's not where he loves to play. It's not necessarily going to be as good. And of course at Right tackle now you've got a, a huge drop off. Luckily, they do have a guy that they could stick at, right? Tackle that has started games before, so he's not like, oh, bottom of the barrel, bringing someone from the street off the practice squad, whatever he is, you know, a decent depth piece. But it, it's, it's rough. Rashan Slater was definitely the best part of that offensive line. And so it, it hurts everyone. It hurts the, the run game. It hurts the pass game, the, the offense. In, you know, on the whole, and then there was another cat I can't remember which one it was. On the defense, al already injured. Probably long term, like six to eight weeks sort of recovery or something, whatever. So they, they've already been getting hit, hit hard. And I just don't think that they necessarily brought in a lot of guys. They. Drafted O Omar in Hampton, which I do think will be an upgrade over JK Dobbins last year, but I don't think that they had a bunch of big needle movers the way that I think the Broncos might actually be able to move the needle on offense. They, they brought Keenan Allen back, but I mean, he's not the same guy that was that superstar for them years ago. That old guy, right? Yeah. So I mean, he's just not the same superstar he was for them before. He's. Better than Mike Williams, I guess. But you know, it's just yeah, I think they will be competitive just like the Broncos will be. But I have the Broncos at 11, them at 10. Hopefully that's how it goes. Yep, yep. And the final team of this episode, the Las Vegas Raiders. As we stated earlier, Pete Carroll, Gina Smith come in to save the day. They're not gonna do much saving this season. I do like that they picked up Ashton Genty. I mean that was just a bonafide stud replacement from Josh Jacobs a year ago. And, and whoever else was back there, I can't even remember it'cause they were so bad. The Raiders in general. But they also brought in some vets, Alex Kka, Jeremy Chin, to help out. So. You know, the schedule is, it's not bad. Like they could win a lot of games, but it's kind of like, where do you really expect Gino Smith to actually do? Because to me, from when he had canals. He kind of dropped a little bit and you know, in all likelihoods, probably not gonna have a good season this year'cause they just, they don't really have anybody impressive other than Brock Bowers catching the football and Ashton Genty. So it's really gonna be those two that are just gonna be dominating the ball. So it'll be interesting to see what happens. And Jacobi Myers, he, he was pretty good though. Yeah, Jacobi Myers is there, but I. We'll see. I'm not high on him right now, but that's, that's probably a more of a me problem. But they went four and 13 last year. I don't see them gaining much more wins over that I'm gonna say six to seven wins. Yeah, this was a hard one for me. I, I feel like this might actually be like. The hardest team to try to predict of the entire NFL just because so much change. So much change and yeah, and like you can kind of squint and you could see where it could work. You're like, okay, they brought in. You know, it was pretty bad offensive line last year, but they brought in Kafka and I think they drafted another guy that's supposed to be a hot shot. So maybe the offensive line is not that bad. They certainly brought in a really good running back that that has pass catching and pass protecting skills. They, they, you know. Gino Smith and Pete Carroll get to inherit basically the best pass, catching tight end in the league, and a young guy you know, it's gonna be there for as long as they wanna be there. And Gino Smith, like I was just saying before, it's a guy that's quietly just been kind of getting better and better as a passer, even as he's aging. And so it's kind of like, well, Pete Carroll was a pretty good head coach and Gino Smith is low key, like pretty good last year with a horrible offensive line in Seattle. So it's like you could kind of s Right, Quint. You could see the silver lining. Yeah, you could kind of squint and see like, like maybe this is actually a competitive team and we're just like. No one's quite paid attention to it. But then also you could see how this, this like, like a brand new offense is being installed. You know, obviously brand new head coach who's coming in. There's a lot of changes on the defense. I'm not sure what to think of that defense. I, I guess they're probably just below average though. There's Max Crosby and not a Ton House. A lot of. Question marks. Maybe there's some upside with some of these young guys. We saw that defense last year, but it's, it is like you know, it's hard to tell what's gonna happen. I just settled on six, I said I, I think, yeah, I think they'll probably be a six win team. Definitely better than last year. It's. It's, you know, they, they gotta go up from there. But it's like watching porn in the nineties, you gotta like squint through the, the TV fuzz. Yeah. You know what I mean? Every now and then you see some beauty. Yeah. Right. But otherwise it's just kind of a wavy line. Yeah. Yeah. I so I guess what I'm saying is it wouldn't surprise me if they ended up being a competitive team. But it's not what I'm gonna forecast. I I'm gonna say six wins here. Yeah. Well, we, we certainly were on the same page for a lot of these guys, you know, I mean, to be fair though, so this, the first division's kind of. It is kind of lackluster, but you know, the spicy division is the west. That's the one to look at on the east, west lookout. But anyway anything else you care to bring up or about Ben? Phil, you good? Yeah, nothing off top of my head. I, I think we're probably good. Okay. Yeah. If you wanted to bring up any news items or anything we didn't get to for a minute or so. Got a couple more. All I got, it just hit me. On the way out, John Gruden, the, he like in, in the court case and all that, he, he basically won, he basically beat, beat out the NFL, but the NF L's gonna appeal. And he also said John Gruden, that he would love to be in college football. He's never coached in college football. And I say to that, to that man. Dude, just ride off, man. Just like you're not a good coach. You were never a good coach. You took over two teams that were somebody else's, the built, and then you, you took over another team when you came back, destroyed that team, and then you got busted for a scandal. Man, just just take your X's, your Y's, and your banana hand and your banana fly zipper route. And, and like go somewhere. Just, just be somewhere else. Yeah. I mean, wasn't he the one that, that got outed as sending some racist emails? Yeah. Yeah. And then, you know, the outta Dan Snyder and all that kind of stuff. No one, no one wants to root for you. I'm sorry, but you know, you, you, you, you shouldn't think like that. That's bad enough. But then to go shoot'em off in some emails, like, nah, nah, I didn't, you know. Nah, sorry. That's not cool. I hope that you feel bad about it. I hope that you've changed the way that, that you treat people and talk about people and shit like that. But either way, no one wants to root for that. I'm sorry, but you're done, bro. You're done with me. Especially if, if he gets another job, like he's not gonna think that he did anything wrong, so Oh yeah. He is gonna be like, oh, people have accepted it. They've forgiven me. They don't care anymore. Yeah. You just go and hide out for a couple years and then they don't care anymore. Yeah. They've forgiven me problem, whatever. It's like, I don't, I don't hate you or nothing, but I'm, that's not what I, that's not what I'm trying to root for. Man. Don't, please don't coach the, the buffaloes or nothing like that. I just, bad enough dealing with pride, man. Jeez. Alright, well that's all we got for you this week. Starting next week we'll do the A f, C, north and south, and then the following week, NFC East west, and then NFC North south. And that'll take us into week one of the football season. Woo. We'll have some betting lines on that last episode as well. And then you know, we'll start the season off with review and then a 20 minute or so episode of a preview for the following week. As always, with the betting lines and all the good information. So we are here, we made it. Football season is back, baby. And as always, you can argue with us on Threads Blue Sky Instagram. I mean, if you want to and hit us up on emails, pine Pony Podcast twenty2@gmail.com. And that's it. That's all we got. Adios, adios.