Five Wide Fullbacks is back this week with another variety of questions that need to be answered. Today we’ll discuss the power of offensive coordinators, the big quarterback shuffle coming this NFL off-season, Irish in the Super Bowl, the growing legacy of Joe Burrow, and USC cashing in on the spoils of the Transfer Portal.
1) With Tom Brady and Big Ben retiring with some other big name players like Aaron Rodgers, Deshaun Watson, and Russell Wilson potentially in new homes, where are the best organizations for quarterback to go to right now?
First, let’s scratch off the team’s we feel comfortable knowing they are not changing quarterbacks for 2022, including: Bills, Patriots, Jets, Bengals, Ravens, Titans, Jaguars, Chiefs, Chargers, Cowboys, Rams, and Cardinals. That leaves the following teams:
Dolphins, Steelers, Browns, Colts, Texans, Raiders, Broncos, Eagles, Commanders, Giants, Packers, Vikings, Bears, Lions, Buccaneers, Saints, Falcons, Panthers, 49ers, and Seahawks.
In terms of a landing spot, Houston, Denver, Washington, New York, Green Bay, Chicago, Detroit, New Orleans, Atlanta, San Francisco, and Seattle all feel like a combination of weaker teams (Texans, Giants, Commanders, Lions, Seahawks) and/or franchise’s that are going to stick with what they have (Bears, Saints, Falcons, 49ers) for now. That leaves these top 8 destinations:
#8 Colts – They likely can’t get out of that Wentz contract until the year after next but we don’t like to see prime Quenton Nelson years wasted.
#7 Eagles – Philadelphia barely has any money tied up at quarterback, a lot of picks to play around with, and a decent roster.
#6 Dolphins – Tua has 2 more years remaining on his rookie deal but has been dangled as trade bait pretty consistently for a year or more.
#5 Raiders – Will Josh McDaniels be satisfied with the soon-to-be 31-year old Derek Carr going into the last year of his contract?
#4 Vikings – Kirk Cousins’ final year of his contract is already guaranteed but he’s turning 34 next season and this offense could use an upgrade if Minnesota could arrange something.
#3 Browns – Cleveland picked up the 5th year option on Baker Mayfield’s rookie deal and he’ll be involved in approximately 17 million trade rumors this year.
#2 Bucs – It looks like no Tom Brady opens up about $20 million in cap space for Tampa Bay. I’m sure this off-season they’ll see a little more roster upheaval but there are plenty of pieces to like if you’re a star quarterback.
#1 Steelers – This team made the playoffs with Big Ben basically unable to throw a football. If you’re a big name quarterback you have to love the franchise stability, stout defense, and enough pieces on offense to do some damage. Although, the division is pretty rough these days.
2) Is there any way to explain the rise of Joe Burrow since his second season at LSU? If the Bengals go on to win the Super Bowl where would Burrow’s legacy rank in football history after just 2 seasons in the NFL?
I can’t remember someone having this type of personal and team success so quickly from college to the NFL while being this likeable. I remember back in 2018 we maybe brought up Burrow once all season after he transferred from Ohio State to LSU. No one saw what was about to come in college for him in 2019.
Winning a National Championship, Heisman, and Super Bowl with the freaking Bengals all within a 2-year period would be dumfounding. Burrow should retire in the stadium in Los Angeles if this happens. Only Joe Namath and Joe Montana have won a National Championship and Super Bowl as a starting quarterback–kind of unbelievable right? If the Bengals win, Burrow will be the only one to have a Heisman with a title at each level.
It does seem a little too good of a story, doesn’t it? I wonder if Burrow is flying a little too close to the sun and there’s going to be a come down soon? For example, does he do something soon that makes a lot of people turn on his likeability? What if the Bengals get their doors blown off by the Rams and/or he suffers another major injury? I have a hard time seeing Cincinnati winning just because Burrow success would be way, way too much to handle and unfathomable. And, I think the Rams are better.
3) So, Caleb Williams to USC huh? Welp. We all saw it coming didn’t we? Can you make me feel better about this?
No, not really. I already wrote about Lincoln Riley coming to USC and the rivalry heating up. There’s enough evidence to show that the Trojans may have a much more bumpier ride than the hope of Williams under center provides.
Fair play, USC.
It’s the mobility of Caleb Williams that really scares me. USC traditionally has started brick-footed quarterbacks and the only time they didn’t in recent years is when Sam Darnold’s modestly decent running gave them 250 yards on the ground with the program winning 10 games and the Rose Bowl for their best season since Pete Carroll left town.
Williams can run for 1,000 yards and that will be really difficult to defend. It’s not like we can bank on Isaiah Foskey teeing off on a stationary target like has been the case against USC in the past.
4) If there was some sort of VORP for college football coordinators do you think offensive coordinators or defensive coordinators would have more value?
It’s more valuable to have the defensive mind. For a long time, I wanted a new head coach to follow Brian Kelly who had an offensive background. With Marcus Freeman, I think it may be better to know your head coach has that defensive background because offensive play-callers can be a little more interchangeable with similar results.
I looked back at the coordinators for the National Champions since 2013 and this is the list:
Offense: Todd Monken, Steve Sarkisian, Steve Ensminger, Tony Elliott, Jeff Scott, Brian Daboll, Mike Locksley, Lane Kiffin, Tom Herman, Ed Warriner, and Jimbo Fisher as his own OC for Florida State.
Defense: Dan Lanning, Glenn Schumann, Pete Golding, Charles Kelly, Dave Aranda, Brent Venables, Jeremy Pruitt, Tosh Lupoi, Kirby Smart, Luke Fickell, and Chris Ash.
Who among that list from offense is still thriving? Daboll did a great job with the Bills and will get to spread his wings as the Giants new head coach. Kiffin is doing well on his 5th reclamation project. Fisher is holding his own at Texas A&M. Elliott just got the Virginia job. Otherwise, it’s not great. Even if you want to substitute in Joe Brady for LSU’s Ensminger he struggled in 2 seasons with the Carolina Panthers and is now set to be a quarterbacks coach in Buffalo.
The defense list is much more appealing and even with some of the no-name guys you have to factor in Nick Saban and Kirby Smart being defensive head coaches.
To me, it feels like in today’s game talent level on offense is more important than ever. Nick Saban has cycled through 8 offensive coordinators with the reality being just don’t mess things up. On defense, I feel like structure, system, gameplan, and teaching fundamentals are more important than what you need on offense.
There’s a case to be made that really average offensive coaching and play-calling hurts you more than the same on defense where it’s easier to be reactive but I firmly believe steadier high-level defense is born more from coaching than what you see on offense. To this day, we’re still not really sure how LSU’s 2019 happened other than Burrow/Edwards-Helaire/Chase/Jefferson/Marshall/Moss being a perfect mix of talent to come together at once.
5) Ben Skowronek didn’t even get his own scouting report for the NFL Draft last year on this site and yet is one game away from wearing a Super Bowl ring. On the other side of the field we have Khalid Kareem with a chance to become NFL Champion. Which player are you rooting for more?
Kareem is one of my 10 favorite players from the Brian Kelly era so this isn’t even close for me. I was kind of shocked at how low he went in the Draft (5th round, 147th overall) and really thought he’d shine quickly for Cincinnati. Through 2 seasons that really hasn’t happened while dealing with some injuries limiting him to just 28 tackles, 2 TFL, and 1 sack so maybe his Draft slot was accurate.
Oh, Benny.
Skowronek just snuck into the Draft last year 249th overall and 10 picks away from Mr. Irrelevant. That he pulled this off and made the Rams roster as a rookie has been amazing. Now, he did benefit from the injury to Robert Woods in November, although less so with OBJ being brought in to town mid-season. Prior to that Woods injury though, Skowronek had 3 targets and 3 catches all in the same game against the Texans from the Rams’ first 9 games. Immediately after the Woods ACL injury, Skowronek had 5 targets against the 49ers from 18 total targets in their last 12 games.
He’s clearly not a big part of this Rams offense but you never know when your big moment could come. Just don’t drop a sure touchdown in the end zone during the Super Bowl, my man.
Caleb Williams should get those finger nails checked out.
it’s paint not dirt lol
I mentioned it last week but I think i’m ready to hate USC again. At the very least nd usc should become a prominent rivalry again
On this subject, Lincoln Riley was pretty clearly recruiting for SC while at OU, right?
Really? I doubt it, when did he even know for sure he was going to USC? Couldn’t have been more than a few days. Riley as a recruiter was selling himself, kids commit to him as a coach more than they were committing to the University of Oklahoma. So when his school changed, so did theirs. Had he stayed at OU, so would they.
Yea this would be my take. He probably went from USC calling to deciding to go to USC in a matter of hours – at most a day.
He probably wasn’t doing a whole lot of anything else during that brief period.
Even as a Steelers fan, I would rank them below Minnesota, Miami and possible Philly as far as where I would want to go as a top QB. Steelers o-line is completely awful, they had to overly rely on Najee (almost 400 touches) because they have little else, the WR’s are inconsistent and more focused on TikTok dances then winning, the 2nd round TE from Penn State has had like 3 concussions last season. GM is leaving, DC retired, lots under the surface that this is a team that peaked and needs to finally have a couple down seasons before gearing back up rather than patching the needs with a vet QB to make a run.
Stable organization and all and they actually have cap space for once, but I’d think the weapons/high picks of other places make them at a better spot in the process. That said, if Rodgers for some reason disagreed and wanted to come, maybe he attracts some weapons and they patch the line and I’m signing a different tune. Highly doubt that comes to pass, though.
True. That OL is almost Cincinnati-bad. Like the Bengals, they need to do a lot more to address it than they did last offseason.
Takacs in the portal, 2TE formation stocks down today, 2RB formation stocks up!
Still a pretty stacked position for ND. Maybe Takacs feared losing some playing time to the younger guys.
II guys say he’ll end up at BC. See you in the fall G.
Maybe, but the offense knew his value (i.e the anecdote of Rees clipping like 7-8 plays to show the team and they were all Takacs highlights to emphasize team-first and effort away from the ball). It’s a loss for the offense this year, as much as losing any solid TE2 is a loss. Takacs is closer to being a TE1 somewhere that doesn’t have a Mayer more than he is getting passed by younger players, imo
He’s a blocking TE. Heaven forbid, if Mayer were to go down, Takacs would be passed by a younger guy for the #1 spot. IMO.
If Raridon was healthy, then maybe. But I doubt it. It’s not uncommon that guys Notre Dame ends up putting in blocking TE role (Brock Wright being a prime example but even Tommy Tremble getting a rushing TD in the NFL) that end up showcasing more ball skills when given a different role.
Takacs will get that chance now without having to count on an injury. He wasn’t really at risk of getting passed by Mitchell Evans or Kevin Baumann, Takacs is much closer to being a P5 regular TE1, which now he is. Don’t see much reason to believe this as younger ND tight ends rising so much as Takacs’ chance to start at a fairly high level.
“He wasn’t really at risk of getting passed by Mitchell Evans or Kevin Baumann”, … Maybe not Baumann but, certainly Evans and Berrong (when he gets healthy) were going to give him competition for that spot.
It wouldn’t be much of a competition, Takacs is well ahead of both of them in every regard as a 5th year player with over 400 snaps last season. He was recruited back by an offense that valued him for what he added. Takacs would have absolutely no reason leave ND out of concern that a guy who tore his ACL last October is going to take snaps away from, that doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. He left to be a starter on a team that doesn’t have a Michael Mayer. Getting circular so we can agree to disagree and leave it here.
it seems to me, from what I’ve read, that it was basically suggested to Takacs he could/would be the #1 T.E. at other Power 5 programs by some of those programs encouraging him to enter the portal. I can see him landing at B.C.
I don’t believe Denver is satisfied with their QB situation. Being in the AFC they also have the advantage of being a more likely trade partner with Seattle or Green Bay. Even with moving Von Miller they still have a solid defense- 3rd in ppg and 8th in ypg. They made the big move for Manning, I can see them making another one.
Burrow would be the first QB to pull the NC, Heisman, Super Bowl trifecta, but not the first player ever. Marcus Allen did it (1978 NC as a freshman backup RB, Heisman 1981, Super Bowl MVP in 1984 (83 Season)). He’s also one of 4 players to win the Heisman and Super Bowl MVP (Roger Staubach, Jim Plunkett, Desmond Howard).
I am very excited about the prospects of ND USC becoming a huge nationally relevant rivalry again
I grew up with my first memories of ND USC being the sad beatdowns of 07 and 08 and the heartbreak of 09 though so i have greatly enjoyed the last decade or so
also the nfl isn’t real until matt rhule loses his job
Also, this is a few days old, but seems a good enough place to put here that our old friend Pat Narduzzi is still going out of his way to think and talk about Notre Dame but definitely is not jammed up about it…
Also kinda wonder if McNulty was like, “so uhh, Takacs, you sure you don’t wanna come start for me at BC?” I bet coaches talking to players who aren’t in the portal happens all the time, but of course Narduzzi had to go out of his way to keep ND in his mouth.
https://triblive.com/sports/pat-narduzzi-tells-sirius-radio-notre-dame-back-channels-asked-kenny-pickett-about-transferring-before-21-season/
making narduzzi so mad that he fogged up his face shield in rage is without a doubt a top 3 moment of ND’s 2020 season
Thanks for including, saw that on twitter and seemed relevant. Narduzzi is forever the victim. He sucks
Bit of revisionist history going on here though, right? did anyone think pickett was very good last year? I remember hoping trey lance might want to make a run at high level college football and eric mentioning bailey zappe but I never thought of pickett as some great qb
I had to look up Skowronek’s stats, every time I’ve seen a ball thrown to him, it has been a drop. Of course I haven’t watched all his games, or even all his targets in a single game.
From the Rams website:
11 Receptions 133 yards 12.1 avg 35 yds longest 7 first downs
ESPN adds a bit more perspective:
24 targets
So he is catching less than half his targets. I would imagine that he should be catching around the 60% mark to stay a starter. That drop against the 9’ers was pretty egregious.
read ESPN stats wrong… 20 targets