Jared Dubin, CBS Sports NFL Writer

It's been a three year wait, but the Olympics are back and the CBS Sports Podcast Network has you covered with everything happening in Paris. It's a new era for the US women's national team and attacking third will tackle all the women's soccer action. First cut will keep close tabs on golf while beyond the arc will follow the US men's basketball team on a quest for another gold. And we need to talk now will provide comprehensive coverage of women's athletes at the Olympic Games. Follow and listen to all CBS Sports Podcast for free on the Odyssey app and wherever you get your voice.

Thanks for watching this Truth Network Podcast. When you use bounce dryer sheets and your clothes look amazing. It's the sheet less static in your life. Yeah, it's the sheet.

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Thank you for taking the time. Jamal Adams to the Titans. Is he even going to play? Is he healthy? What are your thoughts on this signing? Yeah, I mean I don't personally know if he's healthy. I would imagine that they have a role in mind for him if he is healthy. He's going to a team where the defensive coordinator comes over from the Ravens and they like to use a lot of three safety looks, especially with bringing one of those safeties down into the box, which is basically the only role that is kind of.

Reasonable for Adams at this stage of his career, given his inability to cover it deep down the field, and if you want to use him in subpack and stuff like that, I think you could maybe could get some use out of him, but I wouldn't expect him to play a significant role just because of the injuries and because of. The way those injuries have made his skill set deteriorate from where it was at the peak of his career. Well, Jared, we talked about the division you talk.

You talk about health. We know Anthony Richardson. Hopefully he comes back from his shoulder injury and you think about the Texans and what they did, surprising everybody into the playoffs. The Jags, the money that they've thrown around. How do you think this division is going to continue to evolve a few years ago? Just kind of like man, but now the AFC South is pretty competitive, I think.

Yeah, I mean, I hope so. Like it wasn't that long ago that you looked at this division like you said, and it was the worst division in football for a period of several years, and a lot of that obviously was just because the quarterback play was really bad. But now you look at the division. You have CJ shroud. You have Anthony Richardson.

You have Trevor Lawrence. Hopefully will have us for the Titans can sort of step his game up and get onto the level with some of those guys like things are looking much better for the division. Houston, you would imagine is still going to be a very good team like Jacksonville before things went haywire last season was, I believe, 83 and then went like one and one and five down the stretch, but got off to a really good start to the season.

Hopefully, like if the defense plays as well as it did in the first half of the year, and if they can get more out of their offense than they did last year, the Jags and maybe they can be better. I think that James Megan has consistently gotten the best out of whatever quarterback. He's been associated with, you know, he was a quarterback coach for the Chargers and Justin Herbert's rookie year. He was the offensive coordinator for the Eagles during, you know, Jalen hurts a set to being an MVP candidate.

And then last year he had, you know, functional offense that was in like the top half of the league with Gardner Minshew playing quarterback for the Colts. Like he is going to get the best out of Anthony Richardson as long as he's on the field. And that's really exciting to have all those guys in the division at the same time. And Jared Dubin is joining us, covers the NFL for CBS Sports. When you think about the league and where it's at, we had coaching rankings released today. I know everybody's ready for training camp. We might as well evaluate the coaches.

We got to do something at this point in time. And Andy Reid, courtesy of CBS, who did the list, came out on top, followed by Sean McVeigh. No shock there. Kyle Shanahan. John Harbaugh sitting there at four. Matt Lafleur at five. Brian Callahan is at 30. Jerrod Mayo just showed up at 31. Dennis Allen's at 32. What are your thoughts? You know, you take a look at this list and we just get into it.

It's July. Yeah, I believe that Cody Benjamin did those rankings for us. And I am in pretty firm agreement with like the top four or five.

I think you can quibble beyond that. But I mean, if you don't have Andy Reid at number one, I don't really know what you're doing. I think that McVeigh and Shanahan and Harbaugh and Matt Lafleur, I think they have to be next in some order or another. Like the way that McVeigh and Shanahan and Lafleur especially put their guys in position to succeed offensively, like that's the most important thing an NFL coach could do at this point. And then Harbaugh, we've just seen, is so willing to completely overhaul his philosophy on both sides of the ball to fit whatever talent he has on hand. So even though he's not like an offensive genius or a defensive genius and he was a special teams coach before he gave there, the flexibility that he shows and the ability that he shows to get the most out of his team on both sides of the ball by innovating and tapping into new coordinators on both sides, I think puts him up there too. And then as far as the first year coaches, there's really nothing you could say. I don't know how good a coach Brian Callahan is. I think he's done some good stuff as an offensive coordinator. I have no idea what he's going to do as a head coach. Same with Jerrod Mayo, same with any of these guys that are first year head coaches. There are guys obviously with bigger track records that are not all that inspiring. And I understand why they go ahead just because they do have the track records. But to me, that top five, like it's Andy Reid, then it's the next four guys.

And then after that, it starts getting into preferences. Jared Dubin is joining us, covers the NFL for CBS Sports. You know, you mentioned the first year head coaches. Last year we saw a first year head coach and a first year quarterback go to the playoffs and shock everybody. You were talking about the Houston Texans. Is there a team that you see this upcoming year that could make the leap? Are we talking about the Bears? Granted, they don't have a first year coach, but they got a rookie QB. Is there a team that you think can make that leap? I mean, I think it's not, again, it's not a first year head coach, but I would point to the Colts just because that division, like, as good as I think the Texans are, I do think there's a possibility like they've got the first place schedule now.

Maybe somebody comes up and catches them from behind. And I think that the most important thing to for finding offensive success or sorry, finding success in the NFL is finding offensive success. That's just what drives success in the NFL now. And I have a lot of confidence that that seems like and we'll get the most out of that offense, even if I'm not in love with the pass catchers that they have in terms of the overall group. Like, I think the quarterback is incredibly talented. I have a lot of faith in the play caller, and that's really what you need to be able to come from behind like, like Houston did last year. Obviously, D'Amico Ryan's the head coach. He brought Bobby Slowik with him from San Francisco, and they just did such a good job of putting everybody on that team in position to succeed. And that comes from obviously Slowik as a play caller, but that comes from the top down, like Ryan's instilling that confidence in everybody and being identifying, sorry, Slowik as the guy that he wanted to bring with him from San Francisco. And then being able to hit the ground running with an offensive line that was the most injured offensive line in the league and a rookie quarterback and a rookie number one or two wide receiver like what they did was incredible.

Well, Jad, let me ask you about something that you wrote about. You want to talk about quarterback and OC combinations. Hackett and Rodgers. Are we looking at a landmine? Is this going to be a disaster? Is this a match made in heaven? Hackett has his goal.

What are we looking at? Yeah, I mean, I would say I am much more skeptical about the Jets than the general consensus. Like Aaron Rodgers is what, 39, 40 years old, and he's coming off a torn Achilles.

That's just not a recipe for success to begin with. And in addition to Rodgers coming off the injury, they're counting on guys like, you know, Tyron Smith, who last year played 13 games. I think he had played 13 games in the two or three years before that combined, you know, Mike Williams coming off another injury and has had issues staying healthy.

Morgan Moses is getting older there, too. And the rest of that offensive line, I think there are question marks all over on the interior. And, you know, beyond Garrett Wilson, are their pass catchers all that good?

Like Breece Hall, I think is a really explosive running back, but it's hard to be consistent if the offensive line in front of you isn't consistent. Like to me, the offense just has way too many questions for them to be like a top five or 10 unit. And then you're counting on the defense being as good as it was over the last couple of years.

And it's just really hard to keep keeping that up. So the Jets are going to be a disaster this year and then they get blown to smithereens in January, February, right? I mean, that if you look at the history of the Jets, that's what happened. I don't want to, you know, attribute, you know, the 2000s or the 1990s Jets to anything that's going to happen this year.

But I am on the skeptical side compared to others. So I guess you could throw me in that camp. Jared Dubin is joining us from CBSSports.com. Here in Atlanta, Georgia, a lot of conversations about what's taking place, what has taken place with Pennix and then also Cousins. How do you foresee that playing out? Is Cousins on borrowed time or is Pennix going to be in mothballs for a while? I think in the best case scenario for the Falcons, Pennix is in mothballs for a while, like you said, and I don't think that's a good thing. You know, like in the best case scenario for them, Kirk Cousins plays so well over these next three years that Pennix doesn't see the field. And then all of a sudden you have to decide whether to do it all over again and pay Cousins and keep Pennix on the bench for even longer. That just doesn't feel like a tenable situation to me. And if it doesn't work out that way, then, you know, one of the two moves that you made was a pretty significant mistake. And, you know, Cousins also is coming off significant.

Obviously, he tore his Achilles as well. I think that there is a little bit more skill position talent around him. I have more faith in the offensive coaching staff than I do in Nathaniel Hackett, and he's not someone that has ever needed to move around at all in the way that Rogers did for a lot of his career. So maybe there is a little bit easier of a transition to coming back from the injury, but he's obviously not as talented as Rogers either.

So it's sort of a balance. I'm not quite as high on the ceiling for the offense as maybe some others are just because I'm really skeptical about older quarterbacks coming off significant injuries. But I do think it will be at least somewhat easier for him, and they do have an infrastructure there that should allow them to do some good things. But one way or the other, I think you're looking at either the Cousins decision they're going to regret or the Panics decision they're going to regret, and that just doesn't feel good to me. And, Jared, sounds very Falcons-like. You know, as we start to wrap things up, I do have to ask you, he's not a first-year coach, but this is his first year coaching the Chargers, and that's Jim Harbaugh.

He was listed at No. 7 on the list of coaches, and we know about his success with the Niners, we know about the national championship in Michigan. Herbert not coming off of a major injury, typically pretty healthy out there, but they're trying to rebuild things in a different way. What is your outlook for the Chargers this season? I think that Harbaugh, as he always does, will get the absolute most out of that team that he possibly can.

I'm just not sure that that's going to be all that much because it's kind of an under-talented roster. Like, you look at what they've got at the skill positions, it's really, really bad. And then in the defense, except for in the secondary, I think that they are incredibly lacking. And while I think Jesse Minter is a good defensive coordinator, and that's Michigan-style, Ravens-style defense that they're going to run, that Mike McDonald was with Baltimore, then came to Michigan, then went back to Baltimore, and Minter took over for him.

That's innovative, and they're going to do a lot of fun, interesting stuff. I just don't know if they have the talent to get good results on that side. And on the offense, they want to be this Harbaugh-style, Smash Mouth kind of team, but their running backs are Gus Edwards and J.K. Dobbins and maybe Kamani Vidal, and I don't think their offensive line, particularly on the interior, is going to be the kind that runs over people. So they'll get whatever is there to get out of those guys, but I'm just not sure that that's going to be all that good because they don't have the talent yet that they need in place to really play the way Harbaugh wants to play at a high level.

Yeah, I think it'll be a few years. Well, Jarret, thank you for taking the time. Where can people follow you and your work at CBS Sports? Hey, thanks for having me. It's just CBSSports.com, and then for me, we'll do my stuff on Twitter, I guess we're still calling it, jajubin5. Appreciate you having me.

Have a good weekend. It's been a three-year wait, but the Olympics are back, and the CBS Sports Podcast Network has you covered with everything happening in Paris. It's a new era for the U.S. women's national team, and Attacking Third will tackle all the women's soccer action. First Cut will keep close tabs on golf, while Beyond the Arc will follow the U.S. men's basketball team on a quest for another gold. And We Need to Talk Now will provide comprehensive coverage of women's athletes at the Olympic Games. Follow and listen to all CBS Sports Podcasts for free on the Odyssey app and wherever you get your podcasts.