Marc Ross | NFL Network Analyst

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For important information, visit Principle.com slash disclosures. Mark Ross, one of our favorite guests from NFL Network. He's an analyst with GameDay Live on Sundays and also Total Access on Friday nights. Plus, it's a brand new show called The Insiders on NFL Plus and Mark's background is player evaluation and scouting, longtime scout in the NFL.

Mark, we're excited to have you with us. The cuts have happened over the last couple days. Teams getting down to the 53-man roster, trying to make sure the practice squads are intact and you've got the right personnel in place there as well. What are the emotions and everything you have to do to tweak the roster before the season kicks off? Yeah, everybody asks a question about cut days.

It must be so hectic and it's so crazy, but actually it's not because you've been planning for this. Your pro personnel department has been planning for this pretty much since you start back up. Really, when training camp starts for your team, the pro personnel department is scouting other teams and looking at going to preseason games, watching film of the other teams and having a good idea of not just who's going to make your roster. So you've got 95% of those dudes who you pretty good about who's going to make your roster, but you're looking at the other teams as well and studying those other teams and narrowing it down to, okay, who do we think is on the bubble? Who do we think will get cut and go from there?

So you're preparing all month for this day. So it's not just out of the blue. You rank them, you put them in order of, okay, how we like them and who's better on who might be out there on our team. But the final cut down is never the final cut down, the roster is changing daily, weekly in the NFL. So it's never what this all these rosters, how they're set right now.

Next week, they're going to do it and there's waivers every day. So teams change every day and it's just really a progression throughout the year. The Patriots end up cutting to back up QBs only to put them on the practice squad, but that still leaves just Matt Jones as their only quarterback on the 53 man roster.

What does that say to you, Mark? It's like in MAC we trust, I guess it's kind of odd, the Patriots have always done things a little bit unconventional. And when they had Tom Brady there, they could do that kind of stuff because he kept everything together, the greatest quarterback of all time, the greatest athlete of all time. And they did things because Tom Brady was there and he kept it all together.

And now you're kind of seeing the cracks and the flaws of the way they do things when Tom's not there and it's, well, why are you doing this? And, you know, cutting a lot of players they draft or missing on a lot of reasons that they sign and, you know, the Belichick came out the other day and said, well, you'd like to build success for 20 plus years. And sure, if you got Tom Brady, you can do that. But this is just another sort of unconventional way that the Patriots are doing things with just having one quarterback on the roster.

I've never heard that. Of course, they're going to put someone on there before the season starts. But that's another different way that the Patriots are going about things and we'll see how they react again. It's always changing. The team's always changing.

So the way they have it now, tomorrow, it'll be completely different. Maybe a more dire situation for the Indianapolis Colts who have Jonathan Taylor on a Pup List. They've got a brand new quarterback as in a raw rookie in Anthony Richardson. What's best case scenario for the Colts with their star back?

Wow. I mean, they've really kind of gone, painted themselves into a corner really well, you know, the running backs have no value. But you better give us a lot of value when we trade for this guy. It's kind of the way they've done it. It's kind of oxymoronic the way they've done it. But, yeah, it's, you know, if you have a rookie quarterback, you want a Jonathan Taylor to play, to at least alleviate some of that pressure. And, you know, you can rely on him to not put it all on Anthony Richardson. And but it looks like he's not happy.

It looks like they're not happy. And I could see this kind of going on lingering for a while, unfortunately, for Jonathan Taylor. And all backs, it's what's going on. I never thought when I first started scouting and the importance on running backs and how valued they were throughout the league that 20 years later, 25 years later, whatever it is, running backs actually have no value at all about.

And it's really unfortunate for that position group. But again, we're talking about the evolution of football and how things change. And now we just the passing league and the importance of the quarterback and wide receivers is just kind of where we are right now. So for the Colts, it's, hey, it's Anthony Richardson, you got to go do your thing and we'll make do at running back without Jonathan Taylor. And yet you think about the teams that succeeded last year, almost all of them had a quality running back or at least a quality running game. I mean, we really did see the passing numbers drop last season and a much more of a balance between run and pass.

Right. But the way the NFL is like, yes, we can have a quality running game without investing a lot of value and resources and assets into the run game and or the running back position. And you've seen that the Super Bowl winners over the past X amount of years, 20 years, 15 years, where the fourth round pick here, the seventh round pick, there's a free agent where they just last year, Isaiah Pacheco from from Casey seventh round pick the leading rusher and big, big plays in the Super Bowl.

So, yes, you want to always have that balance. But teams figured out we don't need to have that balance by investing a top 10 pick in that we don't need to have that balance by spending the highest at the market for running back. We can use our resources elsewhere, get quality later on in the draft or lower in the free agency market and still produce in the run game.

If if you have that quarterback who makes it all go and takes the pressure off of it. Big if right there as we get set for the twenty three season, we're excited to welcome Mark Ross back to the show. He's with NFL Network on Game Day Live, one of my favorite shows, and then Total Access on Fridays. And his background is player evaluation and scouting for a long time in the league. It's after hours here on CBS Sports Radio.

All right. With that player eval hat on Mark, we've got three rookie quarterbacks all selected in the top five who will be starting week number one. Anthony Richardson, Bryce Young, of course, and then C.J.

Stroud. Which one do you think is in the best position to succeed right away? Well, Bryce Young and I've been saying this about Bryce Young since he got drafted, since the Panthers were going to draft him and to it's two or two, three, four fold.

I'll just kind of break it down. Number one, I just think the guys are supremely talented, poised, rare sort of playmaker with himself. You know, just the guy quarterbacks, franchise quarterbacks is more about what they do on the field.

It's how they command everything around them. And Bryce Young from the day he was two years old, whatever, played football. He's always been that guy. He's always been that one that can handle everything. Big time high school recruit, Alabama national champion, high school everything that you throw at the guy.

He's handled it and thrived in it. So just his talent and his skill set and his makeup. I just think he's going to be a star no matter where he went. And then now you're dropping him into a Carolina team where it wasn't a typical first pick in the draft team with absolutely no talent. They've got a lot of talent on that team and at all position groups, sort of on the offense with the old lines, very strong.

The receiving core is solid. They got good running backs, tight end. Hayden Hertz is in there now. And even on the defensive side of the ball where they've got a lot of talent led by Brian Burns and Chin and the crew. So you've got talent all around him. And then you've got the coaching staff where you bring in Frank Wright.

But it's not just Frank Wright. You've got Thomas Brown, the offense coordinator, Deuce Daley, Jim Caldwell's on that staff. And you've just got a ton of experienced and talented individuals on the coaching staff. So you've got that foundation there for Bryce Young. So with those three, kind of the three prong attack of I just think he's a supremely talented young man. That's what would be a star anywhere. You've got talent on the team and you got talent in the coaching staff. He's just in an optimal situation to thrive this year.

What's the biggest challenge for a rookie quarterback, even one who has the skill set and is prepared the way Bryce is? Really, it's the speed of the game. You just never see that. And then even up to this point, you know, there's only so many practice reps that you can simulate a game speed.

There's only so much so much in the preseason game. You don't know it until it hits you game one and where it totally goes up tons of levels there. And he's always been in control. He's always had that poise and a vision and controls everything around him. And it'll be interesting to see just how soon that he'll be able to just adjust to the speed of the game. And you see that with any quarterback that really enters the league.

And some can handle it, some thrive in it, some are average and some crumble under that pressure. And we'll see how Bryce Young does, but I think he'll he'll thrive in it. We've seen most teams resolve their holdouts or guys get back into camp. We talked about Jonathan Taylor a little bit. He is obviously with the team, just not able to play. What about Nick Bosa, though? Who has the leverage in that situation?

Wow. Yeah, I think Nick Bosa does. I mean, everything with Sam Fran is predicated on what he does. And franchise quarterbacks, how they raise the level of everyone else and it makes the whole offense, makes the whole team better. Well, same thing on the other side with the pass rusher and how they raise the level. You look at TJ Watt at Pittsburgh, when he plays, they win.

Doesn't matter what else is going on. He plays, they win. He doesn't play, they lose. And it's, you know, the Micah Parsons effect with Dallas. And so those guys and Bosa has the same effect on that D where, all right, we're predicated.

Sam Fran is predicated on our defense dominating people and our offense being innovative and getting through making plays here and there. Well, if you take him out of the mix, that's not the same team. That's not the same defense. It's not the same team.

And they know that. And everyone on that or everyone in that organization knows that. So I think for sure that he has the leverage to say, you guys got to take care of me because I'm the guy. It's not in comparing it to the typical teams of the franchise quarterback. He's the guy on the whole entire team.

So it's not Brock Birdie, it's him. So I think of any player and you look at the situation that needs to get paid, I think he's got the leverage for sure. Mark Ross of NFL Network is with us. Looking ahead to kick off just a week away.

Wowzers, it's after hours here on CBS Sports Radio. Mark, we like to have this discussion on my show before every season starts. Roughly half of the NFL playoff bracket turns over every year. Who are a few teams that you think could make a splash this season and crash that playoff party? The aforementioned Carolina Panthers. I think that just when you look at the landscape of their division, number one, but the NFC as a whole. I think the Eagles are head and shoulders above everyone else.

And then it's wide open. Except for a couple of teams I think will struggle. But when you look at Carolina, you look at the south, you got Tampa.

You got Atlanta, I don't know. And New Orleans, Derek Carter, we're really putting that faith in him. So when I look at that Carolina team and I think they'll win that. I went to their camp this year for the network and I predicted them to win the division then. And I'm going to stick with it just because of all the positives I talked about before with Bryce Young and the staff and the talent. So I think they'll definitely be in the mix and surprise people. And the AFC, I got to go with Pittsburgh and just Mike Tomlin, he just wins no matter what circumstances, no matter what happens, no matter what quarterback, no matter what he does, he just wins.

And now you should have a better Kenny Pickett this year. They stay healthy. TJ Watt namely stays healthy. That division, I think, is the best in football. Just that Central is the best in football. So he wins. Pickett will be better. You know, they stay healthy and Pittsburgh will be right in the mix with all those teams.

And he still never steered the Steelers to a losing record in his entire tenure there in Pittsburgh. Can I interest you in the Detroit Lions considering how they finished last year? Well, you know, I might want to pick them because everyone's picking them, Amy. I got, you know, they're the easy, they're their little hanging fruit that everyone thinks, yeah, Detroit, they finished so strong, they're so fun and this and that.

Well, we'll see. But of course, they'll definitely be entertaining and they'll be in the mix and they could knock on the door. But I want to go a little bit more unconventional than the team that everybody is picking, the media darling team of the Detroit Lions. We've seen the NFC East every year for, I don't know, two decades have a different champion from year to year. Who would be the best candidate in that division to unseat the Eagles? I still got to go with the Cowboys, even though I just don't think they'll do it, just because I think their D will be nasty again. And led by Micah and all the talent that they have on defense, led by Dan Quinn and their offense is going to roll and score points and they'll be competitive and everything. But just when it comes down to it, I just don't think they're as good as the Eagles and they haven't shown the DNA, particularly Dak Prescott, to win big games. The Giants, I think, kind of they supremely overachieved last year. Brian Dabble, I said, start to finish just from game one when they beat Tennessee going for it on that fourth down with coach of the year.

Easy. And I don't I just don't think they're at that level. The commanders are going to be they're commandering again this year.

So I think they'll be at the bottom. I still have to go with Dallas, but I just don't have faith that they can actually get it done. So look for the Eagles to be the repeat NFC chance, barring any major injuries to Jalen Hurts for the first time in X amount of years. Mark, you were an executive vice president with the XFL, a season just completed not that long ago. And I saw on your Twitter that there are 50 different players who have gone from XFL to NFL. How proud are you of not just the season that was, but also seeing these guys find homes in the NFL? Well, that was the goal. That was the goal to say, OK, we're going to find this this underrated, unidentified talent, develop those guys and hopefully they get a shot in the NFL.

That was the whole entire goal of what we're trying to do and how we're trying to work with the NFL. And I think it was it got up to almost 54, I believe, 54, 55. We'll see after all these cuts, how many guys actually make the team. But just the fact that so many got signed, over 100 got signed initially, not signed, but brought into camps. And then over 50 got signed. And we'll see how many make the team. But it's just a testament to all our personnel directors and coaches of how they found talent and how they've developed talent. And now we're just really proud of that. And we thought we had an outstanding product on the field, entertaining games with a high level of play with a bunch of talented players. And this just really shows the goal of year one of this is what we thought and we'll just only get better from here. Definitely was a lot of buzz around the XFL, a nice window there where people are craving their football.

And now they can follow these players to the NFL, which is awesome. Couple of days left here, a couple more sleeps, as we say. What are the emotions from the front office through the players as the season is staring us in the face? Well, you're just ready. You know, you're just ready all the off-season planning. And now we go through the training camp grind and you're just like, all right, it's here.

All right, we're ready to go. And I won't say all 32 teams have Super Bowl aspirations. Some got to be a little bit more realistic of just getting better. But a large chunk of the teams have Super Bowl aspirations. And at this point, you think, man, we're ready. This is the best team we've had years.

All these guys are going to crush it. And then week one comes and reality kind of slaps you in the face. But right now is the golden period of feeling good about yourselves and thinking this is going to be the year. So that's really how all these teams are feeling right now.

Like, this is it. We're going to get it done. And there'll be no better feeling than this feeling right now leading up to game one. And then when reality comes, it all changes. But it's a great time for the NFL and I can't wait for it to kick off again on Thursday.

The hope springs eternal as we get set for those first games. All right, Mark Ross, longtime scouting director and VP of player evaluation in the NFL. And now you can hear the insight on NFL Network with Game Day Live, Total Access on Fridays, plus a new show on NFL Plus called The Insiders and on Twitter at Mark with a C Ross. Well, this is awesome. Always good to catch up with you.

We'll do it again soon. But thanks so much, Mark. My pleasure.

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