August 29, 2024 • 9 mins
Mike Sando from The Athletic does an annual exercise where he talks with over 50 NFL coaches and executives about the league's starting quarterbacks, breaking them down into tiers.
Here's his piece on 2024 QB tiers: https://tinyurl.com/2s4h2yz8
Mike joined us on ESPN1530.
Podcasts of The Mo Egger Radio Show are a service of Longnecks Sports Grill.
Listen to the show live weekday afternoons 3:00 - 6:00 on ESPN1530.
Listen Live: ESPN1530.com/listen
Get more: https://linktr.ee/MoEgger
Follow on X: @MoEgger
Instagram too: @MoEgger
Here's his piece on 2024 QB tiers: https://tinyurl.com/2s4h2yz8
Mike joined us on ESPN1530.
Podcasts of The Mo Egger Radio Show are a service of Longnecks Sports Grill.
Listen to the show live weekday afternoons 3:00 - 6:00 on ESPN1530.
Listen Live: ESPN1530.com/listen
Get more: https://linktr.ee/MoEgger
Follow on X: @MoEgger
Instagram too: @MoEgger
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Coaches, GMS, and personnel people and separates quarterbacks into tiers
t I e ers based on their input. He's got
Joe Burrow as a Tier one quarterback, although not as
many people were as high on him is they were
about a year ago, and you could, I guess understand
why you could read this piece in The Athletic Mike
(00:20):
Sando this week when he releases the tears, becomes like
the go to guy on sports talk radio and on podcasts,
So I'm appreciative of you carving out some time for us.
So he's a Tier one guy. You got a lot
of pushback from fans who were like, yeah, look he's good,
but he's always hurt, so he can't be a Tier
one guy. Some of the people you talk to reference
(00:41):
his injury history. How much should he be dinged as
you compile these tiers, But because.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Of the injuries, I'm fine with her. He set first.
Thanks for having me on.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
It's fun to do, and you know, I feel like
I was taken aback that people were objecting to that.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
But that's the fun.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
Part of doing this is I'm in the process the
whole way through, so I'm not surprised by the end
it publishers. I'm always wondering what the fans or other
media are going to say, And I would say, if
Burrow were to you not play well this year or
have another year that was really dominated by injuries, I
think you'd have to take that into account. I think
(01:19):
I would expect him to slip as a result of
that next year, Like, for example, Aaron Rodgers slipped into
Tier two this year for the first time ever because
he was injured and he's so much older, right, so
some of those factors. I think everybody would feel like,
if Aaron Rodgers were totally healthy and good to go,
he's a Tier one quarterback. But there's a debate to
be had.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Once it's uncertain if you're going to be able to
do that.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
I don't think the people in the league are to
that point with Joe Burrow. I mean, but if he
were to have another injury this year, they might start
to get there.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
Does that make sense?
Speaker 1 (01:50):
No, No, totally, I would agree with that. It's to
me why this is such a critical season, because if
we go into next year and we're talking about three
of his five seasons being significantly impacted by injury of
some of the other stuff that's happened during the offseason.
You have to lead the conversation by mentioning the injuries.
You reference two coaches who bring up his injury history
to you. Was there anybody? Was there anybody as you
(02:13):
canvassed all these people in the league that didn't bring
up his injury history.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
Oh yes, I don't think every single person would mention it.
But there's a good number of them who are worried
about what it means for the long term for him.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
That there's just been enough of them.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
And you know, he stands in there and he's willing
to take punishment, and he's going to play tough and
you know, run free yards when he needs to, and
that maybe his body is telling us that that's not
that he may not last as long.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
As as typically a pocket pastor would.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
So I think there is a good healthy level of
concern about how long he's going to be able to
do it relative to some of the other guys. So
it is important for him to, you know, string together
some seasons.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
Here.
Speaker 3 (02:58):
Most of the great quarterbacks don't make a ton of games,
you know, they Philip Rivers could play two hundred games
in a row or you.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Know, right the most.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
They typically know how to play the position to not
get the worst types of hits. And I think Burrow
really knows how to play the position, but he hasn't,
for whatever reason, avoided some of those things that the
top quarterbacks usually avoid.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
Yeah, no, that's that's well put. Is there an area
of his game that the people you talk with would
express that they'd like to see him tap into a
little bit more?
Speaker 3 (03:41):
I don't think so. I think everybody loves him when
he's played. There's not a big you know, you know,
I mean, what's not to like about him? I mean,
and part of that too, Like I thought one of
the really interesting things that was said about him was
that physically, there's not a huge difference between like a
Burrow and a Kirk Cousin's.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
Physically, it's not a huge difference. There's a difference.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
I mean, Joe's got a better arm probably, but the
difference is in the mindset that Cousins is this kind
of overthinker, you know, who's stressing over everything, and Joe's
just going to go out there and play. He plays
with a great confidence about him, and I think that
is that was a revealing way of putting it to me,
that type of contrast that really sets him free to
(04:27):
you know, play in an aggressive, confident brand of ball.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
It's interesting you mentioned the arm strength because in all
that time we had to talk about the run up
to the twenty twenty draft, knowing they were taking Joe Burrow,
you can find folks who would say, well, his arm
isn't the strongest, and my counter to that was, it
doesn't have to be. It's it's strong enough. And it's
been interesting to me. And this is more of a
comment than it is a question. It's it's interesting to
(04:55):
me that he has done well enough, performed well enough,
and shown I guess in the arm strength that that's
no longer than something people really bring up. Was that
I guess was that your experience in talking with people
around the NFL.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (05:09):
The only concern was that if some of these injuries
might compromise it for him, you know, whether it's the
leg injuries that make it harder to really you know,
plant and drive. And then obviously he had a wrist
injury or a hand an arm injury that that really
could So one of the comments was it makes you
to see how the ball comes off his hand this year,
you know, just in light of some of these things.
(05:30):
Another one I can't remember if I included this in there,
but I have on my screen here. You know, the
commentary that I collected from people on him, and it
was along the lines of the guy doesn't fall good,
he doesn't fall right right. There's a way of falling
to sort of, you know, to avoid injuries. That was
just an observation from somebody who's played him a number
of times. There's a lot of respect for his toughness
(05:53):
and willingness to take those shots. But you know the
results of that have have showed up too.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
Yeah, no question.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Mike Sando from The Athletic, his annual Quarterback Tiers is out.
If you're a subscriber to The Athletic, chances are you've
already read it. If you're not well, you should be,
so go check it out. We have Paul Dayner Junior
on the show every week, so we talk about the
Athletic all the time. Your reference like around the league,
and I can understand why there's a I think there's
a desire by some to see Patrick Mahomes in his
(06:24):
own tier. You've done this exercise for a while were
you tempted to create your own Patrick Mahomes.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
Tier No, but no, but he is unanimous tier one.
And that's not even putting it strong enough. I mean
you could, we could pull a thousand people.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
And you wouldn't find one, you know, to put him
in tier two.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
I think he's historically different too, because he's got two
of his three championships that were one We're on teams
that were not particularly good and actually we're poor in
some cases on defense. I think I think to really
win it all, typically, yeah, it's great to have a
great quarterback, but historically all those guys like Brady Troy Aikman,
Joe Montana, you know, Terry Bradshaw, they were all playing
(07:08):
for teams that were at least probably top ten or
even top five defense to really win it all. And
if you look at like Aaron Rodgers won championship that
he won, you know they were top five defense. And
if you look at Drew Brees the one year he won,
I think they were around top ten on defense and
had a real menacing defense that actually got him into
trouble with the bountygate rules. So for Mahomes to be
(07:31):
able to do this with different types of teams that
weren't configured in that way. Race is a degree of
difficulty in terms of how much pressure is on the
quarterback to carry it. I think that's really remarkable about
him and puts them on a different course than some
of those other guys.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
I was interested in seeing the placement of two AFC
North quarterbacks, and it feels like we're saying the same
things about the Browns and Deshaun Watson we were a
year ago. I guess with the benefit of Cleveland getting
to the postseason last year with Joe Blacko, I was surprised,
And so tell me if you were that that's still
as many people had Deshaun Watson in Tier two as
(08:08):
they did. I think the number was thirteen.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
Yeah, thirteen, yeah, thirty five and Tier three and two
and Tier four. So I guess that shows you that
once you've played well, at some point, you know that
equity lasts for a little bit of a little while.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
He has had.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
Injuries too, so maybe if he can have a little
bit of equ with injuries, he can recapture some of
what he had before. But I do think he's falling.
This is a snapshot in time of a quarterback who
people less and less expect to recover from this nosetive
And now it's interesting that they just redid his contract again,
you know, and they're trying to, you know, manage the
(08:47):
cap implications of it. But there's not a lot of
optimism around Deshaun Watson.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
No, that's uh, that's well put. I know, I know
you get asked to do a lot of these this week.
Honored that you gave us some time. I love your work,
love this exercise every year, and love the subsequent conversation.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
Mike, thanks so much. I love it, mate.
Speaker 3 (09:09):
This is the only one that I've done that's the
Cincinnati focus, So every one of these is unique and fresh,
and I enjoy it.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
So it's great. Yeah, thank you, Mike.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
Sando the Athletic to get his quarterback tiers the Athletic
dot Com. We have like a billion things I have
to get to between now and six o'clock, so I
better get to a break sports headlines and update on
the Reds. Spoiler alert already losing. This is ESPN fifteen
thirty Cincinnati Sports Station. Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty Traffic.
Speaker 3 (09:37):
From the UC Health Traffic Center at the UC Gardner
Neuroscience Institute. You can access the leading brain spine and
Coaches, GMS, and personnel people and separates quarterbacks into tiers
t I e ers based on their input. He's got
Joe Burrow as a Tier one quarterback, although not as
many people were as high on him is they were
about a year ago, and you could, I guess understand
why you could read this piece in The Athletic Mike
(00:20):
Sando this week when he releases the tears, becomes like
the go to guy on sports talk radio and on podcasts,
So I'm appreciative of you carving out some time for us.
So he's a Tier one guy. You got a lot
of pushback from fans who were like, yeah, look he's good,
but he's always hurt, so he can't be a Tier
one guy. Some of the people you talk to reference
(00:41):
his injury history. How much should he be dinged as
you compile these tiers, But because.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Of the injuries, I'm fine with her. He set first.
Thanks for having me on.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
It's fun to do, and you know, I feel like
I was taken aback that people were objecting to that.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
But that's the fun.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
Part of doing this is I'm in the process the
whole way through, so I'm not surprised by the end
it publishers. I'm always wondering what the fans or other
media are going to say, And I would say, if
Burrow were to you not play well this year or
have another year that was really dominated by injuries, I
think you'd have to take that into account. I think
(01:19):
I would expect him to slip as a result of
that next year, Like, for example, Aaron Rodgers slipped into
Tier two this year for the first time ever because
he was injured and he's so much older, right, so
some of those factors. I think everybody would feel like,
if Aaron Rodgers were totally healthy and good to go,
he's a Tier one quarterback. But there's a debate to
be had.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Once it's uncertain if you're going to be able to
do that.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
I don't think the people in the league are to
that point with Joe Burrow. I mean, but if he
were to have another injury this year, they might start
to get there.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
Does that make sense?
Speaker 1 (01:50):
No, No, totally, I would agree with that. It's to
me why this is such a critical season, because if
we go into next year and we're talking about three
of his five seasons being significantly impacted by injury of
some of the other stuff that's happened during the offseason.
You have to lead the conversation by mentioning the injuries.
You reference two coaches who bring up his injury history
to you. Was there anybody? Was there anybody as you
(02:13):
canvassed all these people in the league that didn't bring
up his injury history.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
Oh yes, I don't think every single person would mention it.
But there's a good number of them who are worried
about what it means for the long term for him.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
That there's just been enough of them.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
And you know, he stands in there and he's willing
to take punishment, and he's going to play tough and
you know, run free yards when he needs to, and
that maybe his body is telling us that that's not
that he may not last as long.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
As as typically a pocket pastor would.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
So I think there is a good healthy level of
concern about how long he's going to be able to
do it relative to some of the other guys. So
it is important for him to, you know, string together
some seasons.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
Here.
Speaker 3 (02:58):
Most of the great quarterbacks don't make a ton of games,
you know, they Philip Rivers could play two hundred games
in a row or you.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Know, right the most.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
They typically know how to play the position to not
get the worst types of hits. And I think Burrow
really knows how to play the position, but he hasn't,
for whatever reason, avoided some of those things that the
top quarterbacks usually avoid.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
Yeah, no, that's that's well put. Is there an area
of his game that the people you talk with would
express that they'd like to see him tap into a
little bit more?
Speaker 3 (03:41):
I don't think so. I think everybody loves him when
he's played. There's not a big you know, you know,
I mean, what's not to like about him? I mean,
and part of that too, Like I thought one of
the really interesting things that was said about him was
that physically, there's not a huge difference between like a
Burrow and a Kirk Cousin's.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
Physically, it's not a huge difference. There's a difference.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
I mean, Joe's got a better arm probably, but the
difference is in the mindset that Cousins is this kind
of overthinker, you know, who's stressing over everything, and Joe's
just going to go out there and play. He plays
with a great confidence about him, and I think that
is that was a revealing way of putting it to me,
that type of contrast that really sets him free to
(04:27):
you know, play in an aggressive, confident brand of ball.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
It's interesting you mentioned the arm strength because in all
that time we had to talk about the run up
to the twenty twenty draft, knowing they were taking Joe Burrow,
you can find folks who would say, well, his arm
isn't the strongest, and my counter to that was, it
doesn't have to be. It's it's strong enough. And it's
been interesting to me. And this is more of a
comment than it is a question. It's it's interesting to
(04:55):
me that he has done well enough, performed well enough,
and shown I guess in the arm strength that that's
no longer than something people really bring up. Was that
I guess was that your experience in talking with people
around the NFL.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (05:09):
The only concern was that if some of these injuries
might compromise it for him, you know, whether it's the
leg injuries that make it harder to really you know,
plant and drive. And then obviously he had a wrist
injury or a hand an arm injury that that really
could So one of the comments was it makes you
to see how the ball comes off his hand this year,
you know, just in light of some of these things.
(05:30):
Another one I can't remember if I included this in there,
but I have on my screen here. You know, the
commentary that I collected from people on him, and it
was along the lines of the guy doesn't fall good,
he doesn't fall right right. There's a way of falling
to sort of, you know, to avoid injuries. That was
just an observation from somebody who's played him a number
of times. There's a lot of respect for his toughness
(05:53):
and willingness to take those shots. But you know the
results of that have have showed up too.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
Yeah, no question.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Mike Sando from The Athletic, his annual Quarterback Tiers is out.
If you're a subscriber to The Athletic, chances are you've
already read it. If you're not well, you should be,
so go check it out. We have Paul Dayner Junior
on the show every week, so we talk about the
Athletic all the time. Your reference like around the league,
and I can understand why there's a I think there's
a desire by some to see Patrick Mahomes in his
(06:24):
own tier. You've done this exercise for a while were
you tempted to create your own Patrick Mahomes.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
Tier No, but no, but he is unanimous tier one.
And that's not even putting it strong enough. I mean
you could, we could pull a thousand people.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
And you wouldn't find one, you know, to put him
in tier two.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
I think he's historically different too, because he's got two
of his three championships that were one We're on teams
that were not particularly good and actually we're poor in
some cases on defense. I think I think to really
win it all, typically, yeah, it's great to have a
great quarterback, but historically all those guys like Brady Troy Aikman,
Joe Montana, you know, Terry Bradshaw, they were all playing
(07:08):
for teams that were at least probably top ten or
even top five defense to really win it all. And
if you look at like Aaron Rodgers won championship that
he won, you know they were top five defense. And
if you look at Drew Brees the one year he won,
I think they were around top ten on defense and
had a real menacing defense that actually got him into
trouble with the bountygate rules. So for Mahomes to be
(07:31):
able to do this with different types of teams that
weren't configured in that way. Race is a degree of
difficulty in terms of how much pressure is on the
quarterback to carry it. I think that's really remarkable about
him and puts them on a different course than some
of those other guys.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
I was interested in seeing the placement of two AFC
North quarterbacks, and it feels like we're saying the same
things about the Browns and Deshaun Watson we were a
year ago. I guess with the benefit of Cleveland getting
to the postseason last year with Joe Blacko, I was surprised,
And so tell me if you were that that's still
as many people had Deshaun Watson in Tier two as
(08:08):
they did. I think the number was thirteen.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
Yeah, thirteen, yeah, thirty five and Tier three and two
and Tier four. So I guess that shows you that
once you've played well, at some point, you know that
equity lasts for a little bit of a little while.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
He has had.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
Injuries too, so maybe if he can have a little
bit of equ with injuries, he can recapture some of
what he had before. But I do think he's falling.
This is a snapshot in time of a quarterback who
people less and less expect to recover from this nosetive
And now it's interesting that they just redid his contract again,
you know, and they're trying to, you know, manage the
(08:47):
cap implications of it. But there's not a lot of
optimism around Deshaun Watson.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
No, that's uh, that's well put. I know, I know
you get asked to do a lot of these this week.
Honored that you gave us some time. I love your work,
love this exercise every year, and love the subsequent conversation.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
Mike, thanks so much. I love it, mate.
Speaker 3 (09:09):
This is the only one that I've done that's the
Cincinnati focus, So every one of these is unique and fresh,
and I enjoy it.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
So it's great. Yeah, thank you, Mike.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
Sando the Athletic to get his quarterback tiers the Athletic
dot Com. We have like a billion things I have
to get to between now and six o'clock, so I
better get to a break sports headlines and update on
the Reds. Spoiler alert already losing. This is ESPN fifteen
thirty Cincinnati Sports Station. Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty Traffic.
Speaker 3 (09:37):
From the UC Health Traffic Center at the UC Gardner
Neuroscience Institute. You can access the leading brain spine and
Mo Egger News
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