The First Ever Football Film Room Mailbag!
First, thank you all for your questions and for your continued support of this Substack. I wasn’t sure what type of response I’d get to the mailbag request, but you all delivered. We’ll definitely be doing this again.
I should have said this up front, but I’ll only ever use your first name in the question if you give me permission. It’s more than okay to submit a question and remain anonymous.
Alright, enough wasting time with this intro. Let’s dig in…
We hear all the time about the terrible signings teams make in free agency. But what about the teams that missed an opportunity to sign a great player that could have made a difference? Which team do you think has missed the most opportunity over the last decade? Thanks - Brad
This is a tough one because it’s so hypothetical. I don’t know all the deals that could have been made during free agency over the last 10 years. But generally when I think of a team that missed an opportunity to put itself over the top via free agency (and I include trading for players to be a part of “free agency”), I think about the 2020-22 Packers.
They reached the NFC Championship Game in 2019 and had a 36-year old Aaron Rodgers at quarterback entering 2020 (Slightly younger than Matthew Stafford will be at the start of next season).
We all know about their decision to trade up for Jordan Love in the the Draft that year, which I guess you can’t argue with now. But for all intents and purposes, they sat on their hands for three years while waiting for Rodgers to stop playing at an MVP level.
I know it’s not in their nature (or wasn’t until last offseason), but they could have been aggressive in free agency or by trading picks to acquire a key player at any point during that span, similar to what the Eagles did in 2022 with A.J. Brown. They chose not to.
Even after another NFC Championship Game appearance in 2020, they couldn’t be convinced to make a splash move entering 2021. They also didn’t go and get Odell Beckham Jr. midway through that season when he was available for next to nothing.
The Rams did and went on to win the Super Bowl.
That next offseason, Green Bay inexplicably signed Aaron Rodgers to a large deal while also initiating their rebuild by getting rid of his entire wide-receiver room.
Never during that 3-year period did they push all (or even some) of their chips into the middle. They absolutely could have, even with two of their draft picks going towards Love in 2020, and they still wouldn’t have been “mortgaging their future.”
And that’s clear by their 2020 and 2021 drafts, which we now can see were absolutely horrid outside of Love:
Oof.
These were the draft picks that GM Brian Gutekunst wasn’t willing to give up in order to be just a little aggressive and make a trade, either for a young player who could contribute immediately or an established veteran somewhere in the league.
For all the money they saved by not participating in free agency, and for all the picks they saved by not being aggressive, and for all the decisions Green Bay made during 2020 and 2021 to make sure they were well positioned after Rodgers… Jordan Love and Isaiah McDuffie are the only players from those drafts that are still on the Packers in 2025.
There also isn’t one player on that list besides Love that wouldn’t have been worth trading in 2020 or 2021 to help get the Packers over the hump.
To be fair, Gutenkunst has done a really good job in the last few drafts, and the Packers have one of the best young teams in the league. But it seems like they could have had a Lombardi or two with Rodgers during his last few seasons while also having a team well-positioned for the future with Jordan Love at the helm.
The promise of the rebuild (or the re-tool in Green Bay’s case) is enticing to fans and GM’s alike. It’s fun in theory because you can dream about putting together the perfect team. But there is no guarantee that a rebuild will happen quickly or be successful at all.
Michael Jordan had a great quote about this after the Bulls won their 5th NBA Title in 1997 and there were talks about the team rebuilding instead of going for 6: “Rebuilding? No one’s guaranteeing rebuilding is gonna be 2 or 3, 4, 5 years. The Cubs have been rebuilding for 42 years.”
That’s why I love what the Buccaneers and Rams did in 2020 and 2021 to win those Super Bowls that the Packers didn’t. And wouldn’t you know it, the “mortgaging of the future” didn’t set either franchise back at all really. Both teams are right back in the mix in the NFC and have made multiple playoff appearances since those “all in” years.
Give me a GM and a team that seizes the moment. I’ll take that any day.
Which free agent signing so far has the best chance to make the biggest impact? - Anonymous
As of right now, mid-day Thursday, I’d say Joey Bosa. I know he’ll be 30 this season, has lost a step, and has missed 23 games over the last 3 years. But if he can stay healthy, he has a chance to be the difference-making pass rusher that the Bills have been searching for over the past half decade.
This is a low-risk/high-reward move for the Bills. If it doesn’t work out, it doesn’t work out. It’s just a 1-year deal. Move on to someone else next year.
Not to mention, the Bills will likely be in the mix at the end of the year regardless of what they get from Bosa during the regular season. So they can be smart about keeping him fresh and healthy throughout the year.
If he’s ready to go come January, you might see the Bills finally get past the Chiefs.
Why did the Browns extend Myles Garrett instead of trading him? They could have gotten a huge return - Jim (in Cleveland)
Jim, I asked myself the same thing. Garrett will turn 30 during the season. He’s still in his prime and will likely be an impact player this year, but what’s the history of pass rushers after 30? I’m guessing it’s not great.
The Browns aren’t in win-now mode either. Their quarterback situation is up in the air at the moment. I don’t see them seriously competing in the next year or two. By the time they’re ready in a few years at the earliest, will Garrett be the same player?
Why not sell high on Garrett and get a nice haul in return?
Who is your favorite QB in this year’s draft? - Jim P.
TBD - I’m not done watching film on everyone yet, but I’ll have those breakdowns for you all before the draft. Cam Ward is the consensus #1 right now, and from what I’ve seen (so far), that seems about right to me.
Where do you rank Jalen Hurts now that he’s won a Super Bowl? - Samir
A question like this is so interesting to me because I’ve seen many people change what they say about Hurts now that he’s got a ring. He’s elite, or top-5, or somewhere near the top apparently.
However, let’s go back to the week leading up to the NFC Championship Game. At that point, it was pretty clear that Hurts was the weak link of the Eagles offense. If you had tried to make the argument that he was a top quarterback in the league then, you would have been laughed out of any room you were in.
But because he went on to play well in the next two games and win the Super Bowl (I know, that’s no small feat), many are suddenly saying he’s one of the best in the league.
The fact is, Hurts is limited as a passer. He’s very good on iso routes on the outside, has a strong arm, and his ability as a runner has to be accounted for by the defense. But he played behind arguably the best offensive line, with arguably the best running back, and one of the best wide-receiver tandems in the NFL.
Howie Roseman did a great job of putting together an offense that forced the defense to have to account for the run game and made it difficult to attack Hurts’ weaknesses (namely, throwing in the middle of the field). Because he saw lots of single-high as a result of the run game, he could live on the outside where he got 1-on-1’s and is most comfortable and effective. It was a great situation.
It would not have been the same had he played for any other NFL team.
Bottom line - Jalen Hurts isn’t suddenly a top quarterback just because he won a Super Bowl just like Nick Foles wasn’t suddenly a top quarterback after winning Super Bowl LII.
He’s somewhere hovering around the top-10 in my opinion. Probably in the 9-12 range. He’s not top-5 as I’ve seen some people say.
If there was one game in NFL history you could choose to go another way, which one would it be? - Brock
The Saints-Vikings 2009 NFC Championship Game. I grew up a huge Brett Favre fan. In fact, around 2009, he and Peyton Manning were my two favorite QBs. Seeing them play each other in the Super Bowl would have made the universe explode. Unfortunately, it wasn’t to be.
That’s it for our first ever mailbag. Let me know your thoughts in the comments. We’ll definitely do this again!