Does Ryan agree with Adam’s NFL Top 5 Bottom 5 after Week 6?

Alright, before we get to some quarterback things, my friend Ryan Wilson, CBS Sports.com, Pick Six Podcast, and also, and with the first pick podcast he does with Rick Spielman, and we're going to talk more about that than anything else. First of all, if I told you my top five teams were in order, one through five, Detroit, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Miami, and Kansas City, what would you say? I like it.

I like it. I like the love for Detroit. They're such a fun game, a fun team to watch. And I had been saying it for, I asked the question in August and I giggle every time I say it subsequently, but Jared Goff is probably the second best quarterback in the NFC and Jalen Hurts is the number one.

It's probably Brock Purdy, even though he had a stinker of a game in some pretty bad weather in Cleveland. But Jared Goff is the primary reason that team has been so much fun to watch. And I give Brad Holmes the GM a lot of credit for bringing him to Detroit from Los Angeles, where Brad Holmes came from and having the faith and the vision that perhaps no one else on planet earth did, because who among us didn't think that you leave Sean McVay to go to the vast wasteland that is Detroit to rediscover your career. The line is probably the best in football playmakers up and down the roster offensively, and the defense is playing lights out this year. And I love it. I love that Detroit is is getting the love they deserve.

And they're really fun football team to watch. So let me ask you about the Jared Goff thing, because I've talked about it before. So Sean McVay essentially threw him into the trash. He didn't believe that Jared Goff could get him back to a Super Bowl. And now the short sample size was that Matthew Stafford was the quarterback when the Rams won the Super Bowl. So certainly right off the bat, Sean McVay was correct, but he couldn't wait to get rid of Jared Goff. How did Goff become what Sean McVay couldn't turn him into?

You know, I've been thinking about that a lot because you sort of touched on it. I covered the draft as well. And the hardest position to figure out is the quarterback position. Jared Goff's first overall pick. I came into that Jeff Fisher system and Jeff Fisher. I got fired, I think, one year into Jared Goff's tenure.

Sean McVay showed up. And sometimes and we live in a world where we don't want to wait on things. Sometimes you have to be patient with young quarterbacks. And I think that Jared Goff was good under Sean McVay, but he's certainly not playing the level he is now.

And a lot of it, it's just at the end of the day, it's reps and experience. And you watched Jared Goff play now and he plays, doesn't play sped up. And by that, I mean, he's very patient when he drives back, he understands where the ball needs to go pre snap.

He typically gets it there post nap. He's incredibly accurate. And when you're playing and, you know, we see this credit price for playing well this weekend, but the previous four games were it didn't look like Alabama Bryce. And I think part of that is just the speed of the game. The players are so much better.

The windows are so much tighter. Your guys aren't getting open like Alabama receivers is open. And when you look at that with Jared Goff, you feel like it clicked and maybe the pressure of not being in LA was part of it.

I don't know. I think a lot of it has to do with experience. And you know this, Adam, if you don't have, no matter what kind of athlete you are, if you don't have beliefs in your abilities and you lose that confidence, it can go south in a hurry. And I think all those things come together perfectly for Jared Goff and in Detroit, which again, it's plenty to say out loud, but that's Dan Campbell, Ryan Wilson, CBS sports dot com at Ryan Wilson, CBS on Twitter or whatever we're calling it these days. Also, not only pick the pick six podcast, we talked to Will Brinson yesterday with the first pick.

And you do this with Rick Spielman, a former NFL general manager. And I want to play a clip that I actually I think I texted you about it last week that I found, I mean, super fascinating. I believe this comes from last week when I know he is high on Caleb Williams, the quarterback at USC. And you asked him, we ran through it.

I want to play the clip so people get a chance to hear what I heard. This is you and Rick Spielman talking about Caleb Williams as a prospect. Last year's draft class, Caleb is the first quarterback taken, right? Yes. The one before that, Trevon Walkerman first.

So certainly there. What about 2021 when Trevor Lawrence went first? You taking Trevor or Caleb? Caleb.

Nice. 2020, Joe Burrow or Caleb? Caleb. Wow.

Look at that, Deebo. 2019's Kyler, you're taking Caleb there. 2018's Baker, you're taking Caleb there. So you probably have to go back to, I'll go to 2012, Andrew Luck or Caleb. That's a, that's a toss up for me because I thought luck was one of those generational franchise quarterbacks. But I would be real close, but I would probably go with luck just ahead of Caleb. But right there, one A and one B.

All right. There's more to that that we might get to, but that Andrew Luck, who was the perfect college quarterback prospect. I mean, you couldn't, you couldn't have dreamed up in central casting a better prospect coming out of college into the NFL. And if he had stayed healthy, I think we're talking about a hall of fame quarterback and he's like weighing luck versus Caleb Williams.

Is he really that type of a prospect? It's crazy because in the moment you could hear it in my voice, I was like, Oh my gosh, you're a C pass on borough and Trevor. And yes, you're back to 2012. And when you watch Caleb play, you, you see a better version of passion.

My home's coming out and that is what is so crazy. And part of the thing, and Rick, when I was talking about this is that he, and by the way, we went back to 98, he took Caleb over Peyton Manning. And the reason is this today's quarterback can't be a pocket passer.

He can be, but it's incredibly hard to have success. And Caleb gives you that patch from a homes type versatility. Now it's sort of funny that we're having this conversation on the heels of the stinker that they put up against Notre Dame, where they got the brakes beat off of them. But the thing is that we went back and we talked about it this morning in the podcast meeting, Rick, so I went back and watched the game.

Caleb made a terrible decision. One after the next, in the first half, three interceptions, the second half, he looked pretty good. And we, I gave him credit for battling through the beating number one and number two, not quitting because sometimes when you're at that level college or pro, you just like, you know what? I'm good. I'll see you next week.

He kept fighting. And I think that's, what's going to stick with people when they go back and watch those games, but he is special and he is a different kind of special in the patch from a homes comparisons are fair. And I think it's fair to say he is better than Patrick Holmes when Pat was coming out of college. How does he like Drake May as a prospect for the NFL? Rick likes him more than I do. And he Rick understands obviously football.

I do. He was in the, it was in the league. I love that you immediately agree with that. He was in the, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I was actually going to say, I don't know about that. So I have great, I have great respect for Ryan Wilson. I didn't invite Rick Spielman on the show. I told Rick, you can come on this, this, you and me, but look, he, he has seen a ton and he knows a ton. And the thing that he points out, because I say, look, I like Drake May. He's going to be the second quarterback taken, but he has a handful of throws each game where you go, you know what? Those are interceptions at the next level.

Maybe do something differently. And he will counter rightly. They say, here's the deal, man.

The opposite line is a mess. This guy is carrying the team on his shoulders until two weeks ago, there was no Josh downs type receiver to throw the ball to they have Tess Walker. Who's who's been a breakout revelation for Carolina. And you certainly did that against the U over the weekend. And you're doing a lot as Rick made with a little around you and you have to factor that in. And I sort of, I wanted to prod him a little bit. I said, okay, well, we were talking about that last year at this time, 12 months ago with Will Levis. And he said, look, this conversation, which I agree with, because you had to squint to try to find out kind of the good things that will love us. You can see wide-eyed how good Drake May is going to be. He just has to be in a system that supports them.

And, you know, for example, don't go to Chicago bears as they're currently constituted, but go to a place where you have playmakers around you can protect you and do the things you do. So he likes Drake a little more than I do, but we both agree. He's a top five pick all day long. All right.

First of all, here's what Drake May does not put mayonnaise in his coffee and he does not eat the banana with the skin on. So right off the bat, he's way better than Will Levis. I would say this about North Carolina offensive line may be better than the than giving credit. And I think there are more weapons other than just has Walker.

There's McCollum. The tight ends are really good and the running game is good. I actually think you're going to see their offense go bananas here.

Speaking of bananas, over the next six weeks of the sea, I really do. I think their offense is going to kick into a much higher gear than they currently have. It brings me back to the Panthers. And I think you and I have talked about it, that last year was probably not the right year to trade from nine to one to get the quarterback. I think Bryce is going to be fine. I thought there were a lot of good things that Bryce did against Miami. And he's clearly got chemistry with Adam Thelen and none with anybody else.

But last year, trading from nine to one was crazy. Yeah, and we're starting to hear things in the media. Stephen Holder, ESPN, who covered Frank Reichen, Indianapolis, tweeted this out last week that it was a well-known secret that owner David Tepper was pushing for Bryce and maybe the staff was pushing for C.J. I had heard in March that C.J. was probably going to be the guy.

And then, you know, we did the pro day tour and, you know, things sort of shake themselves out. And I didn't think much of it. And Bryce was my QB one. I like Bryce. And as you noted, Adam, he's playing better on that.

Not a lot around them. And I think, yeah, I don't know if C.J. has the type of success in Carolina that he's having Houston right now, but it's just, I get it. I get the conversation of, okay, look, we went from nine to one and we got the smallest quarterback to go first overall in human history. And oh, by the way, and it's Rick gets angry when I mention do teams tank because he's like, it's pretty hard to tank 12 months out for a quarterback like Caleb, because sometimes the quarterback doesn't end up being Caleb. It ends up being levels or whatever.

So those are a lot of moving parts. But you did give up a ton and you're not seeing the immediate return. Frank Reichen is having to answer questions each week about his meetings on Monday with the owner. Why can't they win? Why is he giving up play calling duty? So it's been a confluence of terribleness for the organization. The lone bright spot, a little, a few bright spots is that Bryce is playing better.

The illness established himself. Now you need the Jonathan Mingos and the Hayden Hurst of the world to sort of step up and help out as well. But in my opinion, what they should do is not worry about whatever happens this year and sell it for parts, man. Brian Burns, Jeremy Chin, where they're not even using on defense at this point, he plays less than half the snaps. It's a starting safety and had a great first two years in the league and now they're barely using them. Sell them all for parts.

Just see what you can get. They have to rebuild this team through the draft. There's no other way for this team to get better. They might have to get worse before they get better.

And then by the time they do, they're going to have to pay the quarterback, whether it's Bryce or somebody else. So it's a tough cycle to be in. They're in kind of a Chicago bear cycle. But you know what, Adam, they could be in a Houston Texan cycle.

And that's the encouraging stuff that what they've been able to do down there. I'm not saying you need to change the coaching staff. I want to see what Thomas Brown does play caller. I think that'll be interesting, but you're right. If you can sell the parts off now, because you're not winning division now, let's be honest and have a plan to rebuild the team. Now, the other issue is, and I don't know the degree to which this is true, but when you have an owner who has his fingers in the in the pie more often than other owners, that can also complicate things because you're now having an active owner. And, you know, the owner is the boss at the end of the day, but some owners are passive and some are active in terms of their project. That is the whole team they own.

And that can make things a little more difficult to get to the place you want to get to in the speed in which you want to get there. No question. David Tepper is he's hands on and he's impatient and he has not been able to have the self-discipline to stick to a plan. He just hasn't. They've changed how many how many different quarterbacks that they try in his first four years as owners.

I mean, it was just it was it was a comedy and three different four different quarterbacks in the last four years. And it's all because the owner has been this is what we're going to do. This is what we're going to do. I don't know why people like that don't give the experts the freedom to do what the what the experts are trained to do. They think they know all the time.

But when you when you work 60 million billion dollars, excuse me, you probably have done some things correct in your life and you probably think that you know better than most people. Exactly. And that is the mindset.

Ryan Wilson, you know better than most people. And I appreciate your time. That's why we call you. Thank you, Adam. Have a good brother. You got to take care. Ryan Wilson at Ryan Wilson CBS on Twitter.