 Another episode of Time 2 Football will be filled with a lot of salary-capped discussions with free agency coming up in less than a month. We named 10 players who could be traded or released prior to free agency at the start of it on March 17th. One player who could be dealt this offseason is New York Jets quarterback Sam Darnold, who hasn't had the best NFL career thus far. But does that mean that he's a bad quarterback? We watched the film on Darnold and we're going to break him down and give you our honest opinion on Sam Darnold. As well as discuss current free agent JJ Watt is next destination in the NFL on a brand new episode of Time 2 Football. Glad you guys are joining us for this Thursday night. My name is Sasan Khan, the host of this show. If you guys are watching this as we premiere it on Thursday night, thank you guys so much for joining us. I'm going to be joining you guys in the chat as well. How are you guys doing? And ask any sort of questions that you may have if you just want to hang out and watch this episode and just talk about football, whatever it may be. Just hang out and I'll be joining you guys in the chat and chatting with you throughout the entire duration of this show. And if you guys are listening to us on iTunes, on the podcast app, we appreciate you guys joining us on the go and listening to us on that app. Make sure you guys rate and review, five stars, nothing less, subscribe to us so you can listen to us whenever you want at your convenience. Free agency is coming up and it's hard to believe that this week or these past couple of weeks have flown by so fast right after the Super Bowl, didn't seem that long ago since the Buccaneers won, Tom Brady won in the 7th Super Bowl, 31 to 9 against Kansas City Chiefs. And now a lot of people are having withdrawals because I know myself, personally, a Sunday passes by and I'm like, what do I do? Because I'm just out of the routine and I have no idea what to do with my life on Sundays. But we want to keep you guys updated throughout the whole entire offseason. We want to treat the NFL like a year round thing as it should be. And that's the reason why we want to keep this podcast going. Just because looking at the statistics and the logistics of it as well, especially on iTunes, we have a decent amount of listeners every single week, even throughout the offseason. So we wanted to keep it going for them. But also we wanted to treat this, like I said, a year round thing with free agency coming up and then the draft happening after that as well. This episode will be filled with a lot of free agent discussions and you guys are going to enjoy it a lot. But first, before we get into that, we're going to get into some NFL news, news that's going around the NFL for this week. Let's start off with some more free agency talk. Chris Carson, the star running back, if you want to call him a star, I think is a pretty good running back of the Seattle Seahawks unlikely to return to Seattle next season. That's because it's going to cost eight million dollars if the Seahawks want to keep them around. And at this point, the Seahawks with the run game that they have, the offensive line, they feel like that you can just plug in almost any running back at that point and you could do fine. They have Rashad Penny right now as the number one back if Chris Carson were to leave town. But Chris Carson not coming back. It'd be interesting to see where he's going to be landing in free agency. That's going to be a pretty good topic to talk about. But leave your thoughts as well as we are talking about any of this, any of these news or headlines. What do you think Chris Carson is going to land? Which team do you feel like would be the best fit for Chris Carson? And do you feel like the Seahawks could excel even without Carson on that roster and Rashad Penny, the first running back that the draft did a couple of years ago, is going to step up as a number one back as they would have wanted a couple of years ago. Another hot commodity, a hot name that probably will not return for their team, Jameson Crowder, unlikely to return for the New York Jets. Now, this is just according to some reports out there by some sources. It could very well be that Jameson Crowder stays in New York, but the $10 million that he's due in 2021 could be a little bit too much for the New York Jets who want to rebuild at this point. So we're going to talk about Sam Darnold later on, and this is going to be a huge loss for Sam Darnold if Jameson Crowder or to leave town. Speaking about some NFL draft news, let's take a break from free agency and talk about the NFL draft. I thought this was an interesting nugget. Multiple teams have Zach Wilson, the BYU quarterback, rated higher than Trevor Lawrence in the NFL draft. Some teams believe that he's the better quarterback, the better prospect, because they have the better NFL career. That's hard to envision with all the hype and all the media talking about how this is one of the best quarterbacks, Lawrence at least, to come into the NFL draft probably since Andrew Luck in 2012. So to say that Zach Wilson is kind of conflicting with all those reports, but hey, I'm not an NFL scout. I'm not Daniel Jeremiah or Mel Kuiper or any of these highly respected guys, but I mean, do you feel like Wilson has a chance to have a better career than Trevor Lawrence? If so, which team do you feel like Wilson would be the right fit or the best fit to have that better career than Trevor Lawrence, who we presume is going to go to the Jacksonville Jaguars? The Eagles talked to the Colts and the Seahawks about tight end Zach Ertz. So the Eagles actually reached out to them to see if there's a possibility that Zach Ertz could be traded and dealt to Colts, whose head coach is Frank Reich. And now the quarterback is Carson Wentz, who they just traded for this earlier this week. But then also the Seattle Seahawks have been in the market for a tight end for a very, very long time. So Zach Ertz seems like the Eagles in that relationship came to an end in the preseason when he had that blowout and he was upset about something and could be contract issues, could just be Dallas Carter's emergence. He's not being used a lot. And Ertz wants to be dealt out of Philadelphia. And speaking of Philadelphia, Aushawn Jeffery, another weapon for that Philadelphia Eagles offense is expected to be released on March 17th. So he's going to be hitting the free agent market. And unfortunately at this point 2012, Aushawn Jeffery, yeah, would have made an impact in the NFL, but 2021 Aushawn Jeffery, hard to envision that he's going to be making an impact in his NFL career for the rest or the entire duration of his NFL career at this point. But he's going to be released by the Eagles. The Detroit Lions are likely to franchise tag wide receiver Kenny Gallade. That's a big discussion. Matthew Stafford out of Detroit goes to LA. Marvin Jones has interest of playing with Matthew Stafford in LA. He's going to be a free agent. Kenny Gallade, they got to work out his contract as well, is going to get franchise tag and he has no chance or no choice but to play for Detroit moving forward. Good, bad on the Lions part as far as Kenny Gallade's career as well. Who didn't play that many games last year. Is this a good move for Kenny Gallade? The Miami Dolphins are committed to Tukovai Loa for his long term development. There's been talks about Deshaun Watson about other quarterbacks coming into the mix to compete for the starting job with Tukovai Loa or Deshaun Watson gets traded to the Dolphins in exchange for Tukovai Loa going over to the Houston Texans. But the Dolphins just dismissed all of those rumors and it seems like Brian Flores is content with Tukovai Loa as his quarterback moving forward. We talked about Carson Wentz being traded earlier this week for a couple of draft picks to the Indianapolis Colts. He wears number 11. However, with Michael Pittman the second year going into his second year for the Indianapolis Colts wide receiver stated that he's not giving up his number 11 jersey to Carson Wentz. They talked about it, Carson Wentz wanted it. Pittman said, nah, I'm going to have to decline. Carson took it like a champ and said, okay, that's fine. We want to finish off the NFL News segment with Cam Newton. It was expected to be a free agent after that whole experiment with New England did not work out. He stated that COVID-19, that diagnosis that he had in week four, I believe, prior to the game against the Denver Broncos, that affected his game playing. That's the reason why he had a bad season. Now, you read that, you read that headline, you say, oh man, you roll your eye. So like, okay, of course, you're going to blame it on COVID-19. But then you really think about it and you think about the stats and read those. Kind of makes a little bit of sense. Let me first read the quote that he said. He said, I was one of the first football players to catch it and it happened so fast. When I came back, that's where the lack of an offseason and the lack of time and the system really showed itself. I was behind and I was thinking way too much. The offense kept going and I was stagnant for two weeks. It was all new terminology. I wasn't just trying to learn a system for what it was. I was learning a 20-year system in two months. Okay, so he was talking about how after week three, week four, he had to go in and learn new terminology and he's stagnant for two weeks, but also talking about how he came into the system with New England in the offseason and had to learn everything that Bill Belichick and Tom Brady and Josh McDaniels as well created in that time span. But you roll your eyes, like I said, but if you read the stats, you look at the stats. The first three games prior to him getting diagnosed with COVID-19, 238 yards passing per game, including that 397-yard passing game on Sunday Night Football against the Seattle Seahawks, six total touchdowns, two passing for rushing, and only two interceptions prior to the COVID-19. And after that, that's when it really went downhill and did not have that good of a season outside of his rushing numbers at least. But yeah, leave your thoughts in your comments. Do you feel like this is a cop-out that Cam Newton's making, or do you feel like this is legitimate? And he's telling the truth. Cam Newton also under being talked about in the media with that young kid, just that high schooler talking crap about him. I don't know, that whole situation is stupid, whatever. Kid apologized, he was forced to. Otherwise, he didn't want to get grounded. But anyways, moving on to the topics for this week's show. Free agency has been the theme for this show, and we want to talk about 10 players that have a realistic possibility of being cut or traded prior to free agency on March 17th. So the past couple of weeks, I've been talking about this website called Spottrack.com. Not sponsored by them, I just think it's really cool how this website keeps track of all NFL teams and their salary cap figures and NFL players' contracts as well. And they have a cool tool on this website to where you can release a player on a team, restructure their contract, whatever it may be, and then within seconds, right there on the spot, it gives you an updated number on the salary cap for that NFL team. And I want to use this website to give you guys a little bit of knowledge and discussion and give you guys a reason on why an NFL team would release a certain player. So first, I'm going to show you that website. And if we scroll down a bit, we're going to see the available cap space for all NFL teams. As you see, this is ranked from 1-32, the most cap space down to the very least. So right now, you see the Jaguars have the most amount of cap and then scroll all the way down. League average is around 16 million for cap space, but then all the way down at number 32, the New Orleans Saints have the least amount of cap space. By the way, I'm going to close out of these freaking ads. I get it. You got to make your money. I totally understand that. But gosh, dang, we hit the X and it's not actually an X to close out of the ad. It's actually something else. But it goes to another ad. It's kind of annoying. But anyways, yeah, we just wanted to show you that cap space number and give you some teams that are in need of releasing some certain players in order to free up some cap space. And these players have to be expensive or well known, a high name players, high profile players that you have to release because they make the most amount of money and you need to free up that money to sign the right amount of free agents. So some teams, if we're looking at it right now, you got the Saints, the Eagles, the Rams, Chiefs, Falcons all in the bottom five, the Raiders, Steelers, Vikings, all these teams that need to free up some money in order to make a splash and free agency prior to the NFL draft. Player to release number one on our list is Joe Hayden of the Pittsburgh Steelers, the cornerback. Big name was a good player with the Cleveland Browns and the Steelers is not bad. He's still a very decent player. But with the amount of money that he's making, you would expect that the Steelers have to make that decision. Okay, do we move on from him at this point? So if we pull up the Pittsburgh Steelers roster at this point and pull up how much money it'll free up if you release Joe Hayden, you see on the side is the available cap space that they have, negative seven million dollars. They're going to have to trade some players or release some players to try to free up the cap space. And then on the side, on the left hand side, you're going to see the players that make the most amount of money. So you have Ben Rothesberger, obviously making the most amount of money, then Joe Hayden is right there at number two. Now the Steelers could go down the route of releasing Ben Rothesberger. I know that Kevin Colbert, the general manager, has been talking about, yeah, this is the situation that we have so far. Ben Rothesberger saying, I'll take a pay cut. I'll do whatever I want or whatever I need to do in order to stay in Pittsburgh. I get it. But a realistic possibility of that happening of Ben Rothesberger being released or traded this off season currently, more than likely probably won't happen. It's probably, if it were to happen, probably going to happen next year. But this year, probably not. So you're going to have to make the decision on who else you can release. And it's going to have to be Joe Hayden at this point. The other players that are making a lot of money, they're pretty decent players. So if we go here to Joe Hayden, and we just hit this red X underneath the column that says release, and we hit that, all of a sudden on the side, you see that on the gray, the dark gray, it gives that number, the updated number of five million dollars in cap space and the positive is now so that's going to be a big decision that the Steelers are going to have to make. And it could be a real realistic possibility. And we look right next to Joe Hayden's name where you see 2021 cap figure, that column, you see it got rid of the $15 million contract that he had, but you have to acquire 2.9 million of dead money. I mean, to free up what what is this 12 million, 13 million to sign whoever you want a free agency, I think that's going to be a realistic possibility that Steelers are going to have to go down that route. So Joe Hayden is number one on our list. Number two is going to be a wide receiver who could be on a little bit of a decline this late in his NFL career. And that's Emmanuel Sanders, good player, can still be productive when it matters. But Sanders is just costing way too much money, $10.5 million that he's owed in 2021. And you want to get rid of that amount of money to free up the cap space or the lack of capital space that you have negative $65 million or $70 million actually is what the New Orleans Saints are at currently. So we look at the numbers for the contracts. They have a pretty decent defense. So I don't think that they wouldn't want to mess with you know, our Jenkins or Quan Alexander. But if you just keep on scrolling down and you look at the names, who do they want to release at this point? Emmanuel Sanders makes the most logical sense. So if we just release them. And by the way, you can hit this, let me scroll up so you guys can see it, the trade column, we can elect to trade a player as well. So if you wanted to trade Emmanuel Sanders to another wide receiver, needy team, say for instance, the New York Jets, we elect them, you can process that trade and he's gone. So he's gone from the roster, you have to acquire a little bit of dead money. But that's fine. Look on the side right here, if that's a freaking ad, dang man, these ads are brutal. Close out of these ads, you see in that gray side right there, the dark gray, negative 63 million. Okay, you freed up $7 million at that point, which is a lot of money for the Saints. So Emmanuel Sanders getting rid of them, trading him for a draft pick to a wide receiver, needy team, whatever it may be, realistic chance that that could happen for the New Orleans Saints. That's our number two player that could be cut or traded. Number three, this is obvious at this point, Tyden Zachar to the Philadelphia Eagles. He's not happy being there. The Philadelphia Eagles are ready to move on. They're ready for Dallas College to be the number one Tyden at this point. No distractions. They've already inquired about trades or contacted other teams like the Colts and the Seahawks. So if we go over to the Philadelphia Eagles roster, and then we see number seven down here, Zach Ertz is going to be the seventh most expensive player in 2021. Eagles want to get rid of them. They have no need for them at this point. So let's say for instance, that they elect to release them because they cannot find any trade partners going into 2021. They elect to release them. We hit the red X. You're going to see right there. They have to eat up $7.7 million of dead money. But at this point, with a lack of production that Zachar has been having with the relationship and him not wanting to play there anymore as well, more than likely that's probably going to be the best bet is just to eat up that $7.7 million and not even worry about it. You get $5 million in return. So hey, not going to hurt at all. But you know, he could be released if they don't find a trade partner, but we can trade them as well. If you want to go ahead and play that game, we pull up the trade window. Let's say for instance, they trade them to the Seattle Seahawks and you process that trade. You see the cap figure on the side. It's still the same amount of money if you were to release them as well. So you're still going to have to eat up that dead money regardless. But number three, Zach Ertz, realistic chance that he were to get traded or released. Number four on our list, if we want to keep with the tight end trend, Kyle Rudolph, the Minnesota Vikings, let's pull up the Minnesota Vikings roster right here. We'll click update. We scroll down here to Kyle Rudolph, number eight, the eighth most expensive player going into 2021. Now, Rudolph, we expect to be happy with his release. We expect him to go to somewhere like Cincinnati or Jacksonville, a team that needs a tight end. But if you for some reason wants to take a hometown discount and is okay with being the number two tight end, no judgment. But if you want to do that because he wants to stay in Minnesota, that's a okay. What the Minnesota Vikings could do at that point is hit the base salary restructure icon, which is this little recycle button icon right here in between the red X and the trade icon, you hit that, you're going to see his salary went down from $9 million down to $5 million. And that's going to help out a lot actually for the Minnesota Vikings. You're going to see on the side of $5.6 million now in the red. So you can elect to do that. But if we just want to reverse that and release him at that point, okay, you're still going to have to eat up some dead money. You're going to have to eat up $4.3 million. But you're going to have to get rid of Kyle Rudolph at that point as well. So if you want to keep him, you could restructure, but I don't know if the agent or Rudolph are going to be okay with that. Honestly, I feel like Rudolph is ready to move on at this point. So Kyle Rudolph, number four free agent that could be let go. Number five, the tight end train just continues on with scotched the Chicago Bears roster. Let's talk about Jimmy Graham, who's 35 years old at this point and more than likely the tail end of his NFL career and the height and the prime done for had a decent season in Chicago, but with the amount of money that he's making with the emergence of Colcomette as well, especially towards the last half of the season, I don't see the Bears wanting to keep Jimmy Graham and that expensive contract as well. So let's scroll down a little bit to the Chicago Bears who aren't that far away from the positive as far as their cap space goes. But Jimmy Graham is up there as far as how much money he's going to be making. If we can find them right here, number seven, seventh most expensive player and even $10 million is going to be making in 2021. Last year of his contract, you want to go ahead and just release him just because it just didn't work out in Chicago. So if you release him, I don't feel like they're going to find a trade partner for him, release him. Yep, you eat up $3 million. That's okay. Look on the side. We now are in the positives for the Chicago Bears, $5 million that you have freed up for a free agency that you can spend on anyone else. So number five, Jimmy Graham is our player. Number six, we kind of talked about this a couple of weeks ago when we talked about the Houston Texans, Duke Johnson, they're running back so expensive in Houston, and they could elect to get rid of David Johnson, who's going to be making eight, close to $9 million in 2021, but he had a pretty decent season. I feel like if the Texans, if you want any hope of keeping your players and want to keep them happy, your offensive players in Houston, you're going to have to have some sort of offensive weapon on that side of the ball because Will Fuller is going to be a free agent. Brandon Cooke is making way too much money. We're going to talk about him in a sec. Deshaun Watson wants out. You want some sort of life in your Houston Texas offense, and I feel like you're going to keep David Johnson, but Duke Johnson, on the other hand, who was brought in by Bill O'Brien and just a good player has made some incredible plays here and there, but $5 million, not worth it at this point. So let's scroll a little bit down for the Houston Texans. You could trade them to a running back needed team. It doesn't matter as far as a salary cap figure goes. So let's just go ahead and hit release right here. Boom. Look at that. $0 and dead money. And look on the side, $12 million in cap space. Now, just to continue, he wasn't on our list, but we talked about the Houston Texans just to give you guys a recap a couple of weeks ago. What the Houston Texans could do because they're just in a terrible spot at this point is trade Duke Johnson. You eat up no dead money at all. You get maybe a fourth, fifth, sixth rounder. That's okay. It's still a draft pick for a team that has no draft picks in the first two rounds. And then Brandon Cooks, who's been traded a lot. I get it. He's going to have to find another NFL team because if you scroll a little bit up, he's not on our list, but Brandon Cooks, we just wanted to highlight them real quick. Number three, the third most expensive player is Brandon Cooks. You could trade them and get a draft pick out of that. And on top of that, you free up some money if you wanted to resign Will Fuller, whoever it may be. But Duke Johnson is our official number six player that could be released or traded on our list. Number seven, we have John Brown, another wide receiver of the Buffalo Bills. And the reason being is because if you looked at the way that that Bills offense operated, it seemed like you just have any sort of speed at wide receiver. And Josh Allen and that Bills offense can make it work. John Brown, great player, great player. But if last year taught us anything with him being injured, and even though he made some good plays here and there, they could do without them. They can make the NFL play out, so they can have a good offense. And they can keep on putting up some big numbers as well without John Brown. So if we go down to number six, 31 years old as well, he's in the last year of his contract in 2021, $9.5 million is what he's set to make. You could elect to release him. And right there, you only eat up $1.6 million of cap space or of dead money, and your cap space is now up to $10.4 million. So John Brown is our number seven player on our list. Number eight, this is kind of a, I don't want to sound douchey by saying this, but let's just be realistic right here. Even though it is a feel good story for Alex Smith, he's going to be very expensive going into 2021. So glad he came back really am, but if the Washington football team has to make some pretty tough decisions as we pull up the Washington football team roster and order of how many or how much money they have to give to their players, Alex Smith is at the top of the list. And if you're in need of a quarterback at this point, you don't want to keep your most expensive player who's a quarterback on your roster. You'd want to give them up. So Alex Smith set to make $24.4 million. Good player, but it's not worth that at this point. You already are well above average in cap space, but imagine if they were just to release Alex Smith, or if Alex Smith were to restructure, whatever it may be, let's first start off with the option of Alex Smith getting released. You release them, you eat up $10.8 million, but that's a sacrifice you're going to have to make in order to gain $14 million. That's okay. We hit the plus sign. Let's redo that. Let's hit restructure. What happens if we restructure the contract for Alex Smith? He goes down from $24 million down to $15 million. It's still not worth that at that point for the Washington football team. So let's just reverse that. Let's hit the red X. Let's release them. $45 million. Now you have freed up that you can use on the free agency period this offseason. So Alex Smith feel good story, but number eight, more than likely is going to get released by the Washington football team. Number nine and number 10 kind of coincide just because they're on the same team. Not only are they on the same team, but they play the same position on the Las Vegas Raiders. Derek Carr and Marcus Mariota have been in discussions to be traded this offseason. People saying Marcus Mariota could be the next Ryan Tannehill. Didn't work out with his first team, goes to another team, could work out with them for Derek Carr. He's been a topic of being traded for like three years. It seems like at this point, but he's the most expensive player. If we look at the list right now, Derek Carr, let's say we release them. Okay. That gives us the, uh, dead money of $2.5 million to free up $20 million is well worth it or, you know, close to 20 million is well worth it. But I just hit that release button because it kind of tells us how much dead money they're going to have, but Derek Carr more than likely is going to get traded. So if we trade him to a team that is in need of a quarterbacks, for instance, the Chicago Bears, you get some draft picks out of them process that trade. Okay. Now you have the same amount still there. So releasing and trading, you still acquire the same amount of dead money regardless of what that transaction is. But for Marcus Mariota, if you reverse it, if Derek Carr were to want, were to be the one to stay in Las Vegas and Marcus Mariota were to be the one to move on, let's go ahead and redo that whole process and show you what happens if Marcus Mariota is the one to be dealt. Let's scroll down to Marcus Mariota, seventh on that team, as far as how much money they're going to make. They played, they paid a lot of money for a backup quarterback just because they love the talent that Marcus Mariota brings to the table. $10.7 million is how much he's going to be making in 2021. So if the Raiders elect to trade him, which would be the same amount of money as far as releasing goes, let's just hit the release button just to show you how much money they're going to have to take on. And you see right there, $0 of dead money that they're going to have to take on. So the Raiders at that point, okay, let's trade them away. What's a team that needs a quarterback? The Washington football team, according to some rumors, is interested in Marcus Mariota. Let's process that trade, get some draft picks out of it, and now look on the side, you're closer and closer to the positives as far as cap space goes. But number nine and number 10, Marcus Mariota and Derek Carr on our free agent list. So to recap, Joe Hayden, Emmanuel Sanders, Zach Ertz, Kyle Rudolph, Jimmy Graham, Duke Johnson, John Brown, Alex Smith, Marcus Mariota, and Derek Carr. 10 players who could be released or traded this offseason. What do you think about that list? Leave your comments down below, interact with us, and if you feel like there are any other players, offensive side, defensive side, special teams even, that some teams want to move on from to free up some money, let us know in the comments down below. A player that could be dealt this offseason, Sam Darnold, New York Jets quarterback, Robert Sala, noncommittal on the future of Sam Darnold has not come out and said that he's going to be the quarterback of the future, moving forward for the Jets and could be dealt. Some people are speculating to a quarterback needed team. The question is, are we sleeping on Sam Darnold? Is he, as a matter of fact, a very good quarterback? And we just don't know about it. You look at statistics, and the first thing that comes to mind when you hear that question is no, he's not a good quarterback. 45 touchdowns to 39 interceptions in his career. His best season was 19 touchdowns to 13 interceptions in 2019. He's been sacked more than any of the quarterback in that 2018 draft class, 98 times in 38 games. His top targets that he's had to deal with, the majority of his NFL career, Robbie Anderson and Jameson Crowder. He hasn't had the best protection either. We all know this. And how can we forget the ever so loveable head coach, Adam Gase, best coach in the NFL. Darnold has really had a lot thrown at him with the New York Jets. And that has really clouded everybody's judgment on whether he's a good quarterback and is he really a first round talent like he was when he was drafted number three overall by the New York Jets in 2018. What we wanted to do is we wanted to really analyze this and watch some games of Sam Darnold and really break down the film and some throws that he's made. So we looked at the stats and we found three games last year in 2020. There's been some positives for Sam Darnold, three games that he had over a 90 quarterback rating. And that was week two against the 49ers, week 13 against the Las Vegas Raiders, and then week 15 and then upset against the LA Rams. Those three games we watched every throw that he made. And this is what we came up with three reasons why he is, as a matter of fact, a good quarterback in the NFL. Number one, he's accurate. Just hold on right there. I know you're going to say look at his completion percentage. 59% of his passes completed, I think two years, it was 59%. And then his career high was in 2019 when he threw for 61%. I might be wrong on that. But yeah, 61% on a career high, that's not that good. But if you look past the stats and you look at the reason on why he was so inaccurate in those three seasons, a lot of things make a lot of sense. For instance, we watched those throws that he made in those three games against the 49ers, Raiders and the Rams. And a lot of those were dropped passes. A lot of that was due to bad protection and him having to throw away the ball. For instance, a specific example, Braxton Berrios, the wide receiver on the Jets, dropped a pass in that game against the LA Rams and what would have been a touchdown for Sam Donald. But Berrios dropped the pass incomplete, bad protection as well. We know that Mackay Beckton has shown some flashes and is a very good player, but that offensive line, we know the struggles of the Jets offensive line has. But if you look past all of that and you see him throw in a clean pocket, I'm on record of saying that he's one of the better quarterbacks in a clean pocket as far as accuracy goes. I'm not talking about deep ball, I'm not talking about just as far as accurate goes. He's almost, almost near perfect as far as the location and precision of his throws to his receiver when he has a clean pocket. So if you give him a good offensive line and receivers that don't drop the ball, where James the Crowder is at your number one receiver, who knows. The accuracy of Sam Donald is really going to show at that point. And I feel like a lot of more people are going to see that Sam Donald is worthy of being a first round talent just because of how deadly accurate he can be when he has the weapons around him. The number two reason he's smart, that's very broad because quarterbacks in the NFL, all of them are smart. You have to know a whole entire playbook. You have to know defenses and coverages and it's a very, very hard position to play. So Darnold is a very smart man, but he's smart. I would say at the quarterback position just because of the way he played really showed us how smart he is. The stats won't show it, but just from watching him play, it looks as if he knows what coverage a defense is running on every single down. I get it, every quarterback is smart and every quarterback may know what coverage a defense is running, but he has such great awareness that he knows which players are blitzing, which players are going out on coverage. He knows which players are playing in the flat or playing deep. He knows all of that just from watching him play. He doesn't have to explain any of that, but if you watch him play, you can just tell that he has a good sense of reading a defense. He's aware of how many players are blitzing, like I mentioned, and even though he knows that a player is blitzing, he stays cool in the pocket the whole time and he makes the throw that's, like I said, number one reason, accurate. For instance, in that game against Las Vegas, there was a play where there was a DB blitz. I believe it was a corner, maybe it was a safety, but it was a corner that was blitzing. Sam Darnold knew that. Sam Darnold, on the side, you could see him look over and he still did not panic, took advantage of that coverage because where that DB came from, from the blitz, he left the receiver open in that area where Darnold can make that throw and make a completion right in front of him with another defender tailing him. The number three reason on why he's a very good quarterback, he gets the ball out quick. I get it. Every NFL quarterback needs to get the ball out quick. It's basic knowledge, but if you watch him play, not only does he get the ball out quick, but he gets it to a player that he knows is going to get 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 yards, get the first down with that yards after the catch. And that goes back to how smart Sam Darnold is. Maybe it's a lack of talent on the New York Jets offense. Maybe it's because of the battle line that he has to get the ball out quick. Maybe it's because of the lack of talent at the wide receiver position. When they can't get open that easily, he has to check it down or have to get the ball out quick. Otherwise, he's going to get sacked. Maybe it's because of those reasons, but he's learned in those games that we watched, in those positive games, in those games that he performed really well, gets the ball out quick, is smart, and is accurate. Three things that's going to be the making of a good quarterback in the NFL, whether it be with the New York Jets who brings in maybe a good offensive lineman in the draft. Maybe it's a wide receiver. Free agency. They land some good free agents. I don't know what it may be, but if he gets some talent around him with the Jets, gets traded to the Bears, another NFL team, who knows? And he has some talent. Sam Darnold, high possibility he could be a quarterback that could be productive in the NFL. But leave your comments and leave your thoughts down below. Do you believe that Sam Darnold has been unfairly seen as a bad quarterback in the NFL? Or do you feel like that he has potential of being one of the better quarterbacks if he were just in the right situation? Last topic for this week's show, JJ Watt is still a free agent as he tweeted out that he needs more time to make a big decision in finding the right city and the right team. So Watt is the biggest name out there in the free agency list. Question is, who is going to land JJ Watt and which team will he have the most amount of production with? We have to dive into the head of JJ Watt and where he wants to go and what he wants this late in his NFL career. And at this point is pretty much given that he wants to win an NFL championship. He wants to go to a team where he can win some games. And after that debacle of a season, what it was with the Houston Texans where JJ Watt apologized to Sean Watson for feeling like they wasted the season of his career, whatever it may be, JJ Watt wants to go to a team that's a contender at this point. So there's been certain teams right now, I have listed down seven teams that could have a realistic chance of landing JJ Watt. And we're going to talk about each of those teams and then rank, give you our opinion from highly likely to least likely, which team is he going to land with? Let's start off with just naming the list, the Packers, Titans, Steelers, Browns, Buccaneers, Bears and the Bills. All of the teams that have inquired about JJ Watt have reached out to him. There have been rumors out there that he could play for them. Or JJ Watt himself has reached out and wanted to play for that team. Which team needs him the most and which team could sign him? Let's start off with the Chicago Bears. The Chicago Bears are a long shot. If you can't tell, I'm going to go from least likely to most likely in that order. So with the Bears, this is a long shot. They're the second worst out of all of these teams, all seven of these teams in sacks per game last season. So to kind of read off and kind of give you an idea of how many sacks per game each one of these teams had last year, the Steelers, number one, 3.3, first in the NFL. Then you've got the Buccaneers, 2.9, sixth in the NFL. The Packers, 2.6, 11th in the NFL. Bills, 2.3, 15th. The Bears, 2.1, 18th. And the Titans, 1.4, sacks per game, 29th in the NFL. And the Bears are ranked 18th. They're not going to have a lot of sacks this season, so that could mean that the defense around him, around JJ Watt, if you were to sign with him, or the defense in Chicago, isn't the best as far as rushing the quarterback goes. So you really need to pay up for JJ Watt because he wants to go to a team, remember, that's a contender. And the Bears, even though they made the playoffs last season, they're not a team that you would really look at and be like, okay, they have the same amount of talent as maybe the Buccaneers, or the Packers, or the Chiefs. You want to go to a team that is in that same level, and the Chicago Bears automatically, at that point, are ruled out. The only way that they're going to tie JJ Watt to sign with them is to pay him a lot of money, and they're already below the cap. They're in the red. They're in the negatives. So you're going to have to release some players to free up some money for JJ Watt. So the Bears, at that point, I feel like is the least likely option out of the seven teams for JJ Watt to sign to. The Tennessee Titans, at first, I thought that this was a realistic chance of JJ Watt going to the Titans because, you know, Mike Vrable, who was in Houston in that good relationship and the culture in Tennessee, it seems like is one that players really love. But then I really thought about it, and I thought about going back to the Sacks per Game stat about how they had 1.4 Sacks per Game, and they were ranked 29th in the NFL. Again, I just don't feel like JJ Watt would want to go to a team where there's not a lot of good talent on the defensive line around him. There's some good players. Yes, you've got Simmons. I understand, but the production that they're putting up on that defensive line and that defense, I don't feel like JJ Watt wants to be a part of that. So unless Mike Vrable and his liking and the connection that they have with him because of his time over in Houston, unless that's a deciding factor and him wanting to sign with Tennessee, I don't feel like JJ Watt would want to go to Tennessee. So, least likely you got the Bears, and then after that, least likely the Titans. Moving on to the fifth most likely team to lane JJ Watt, the Buffalo Bills, Contenders. Listen, just like the Titans, I thought about this. They're up and coming. They're young. This would be a good team that JJ Watt could go in and be a veteran and help out this defense. But then I thought about it more, and it's a tough decision because all the other four teams that are ranked ahead of the Buffalo Bills that we haven't talked about yet have better reasons and why JJ Watt would want to play with them over the Buffalo Bills. And that's really the only reason why I have the Bills ranked fifth likely to lane JJ Watt. Let's move on to the fourth most likely team to lane Watt, the Green Bay Packers. A lot of you guys may have them higher. I get it because of the hometown discount. He's from Wisconsin and their Contenders as well. They're in the NFC Championship. They're so close at making the Super Bowl. But the reason why I had them fourth likely is because we have to be realistic as far as the salary cap goes. If it wasn't for that, I would have the Packers ranked probably one or two. I really would. I feel like Watt would want to go there when a Super Bowl in his home state. But because of that, I don't think that it's a realistic chance that the Packers were to release a very pricey player in order to sign JJ Watt. Because the pricey players that you have on that team already, obviously there's Aaron Rodgers. You're not going to release them. Then you have the Smith brothers like Preston Smith as a Darius Smith. They're not really brothers in case you guys are wondering. But these are good defensive pieces that they brought in the last couple of years that really helped out their defense. I don't think the Packers would want to release them just to sign JJ Watt. It just comes out of money. And the only chance that I could see this happening is if JJ Watt were to take a hometown discount. And that's why I had them ranked at number four instead of maybe like sixth or seventh because of the hometown discount. But I don't think that's really happening. So the teams remaining we've got are the Steelers, Browns and Bucks in order. Which team is the third likely to lane JJ Watt? Number three, the Cleveland Browns. And the only reason that I put the Browns over the Packers, because I would have Packers over the Browns. The only reason is because there was a report out there that said that Watt is considering, seriously considering signing with the Cleveland Browns. And if that report is true, then I'm going to put the Browns at the third most likely team to sign JJ Watt. May the playoffs, they could get better and better if they sign the right free agents and draft the right players. And the Browns are also above average as far as salary cap goes in the NFL. So not only are the Browns contenders making the playoffs, not only is JJ Watt considering signing with the Browns, but they have good incentive as well and giving him a lot of money so he doesn't have to take a hometown discount of any sort. So the Cleveland Browns high chance that he signs with them. The number two team, a lot of this or this team is probably number one on a lot of people's list, but I'm going to give you a reason why I have them at number two, the Pittsburgh Steelers. Strong contenders, strong contenders, very good team. And he would play with his brothers, Derek Watt and TJ Watt. And that seems like a high chance of that happening with Watt wanting to finish his NFL career playing with his brothers on the same NFL team. But the salary cap is limited. And they would have to replace or release certain players in order to free up some money. And what on his end would have to take a massive discount on top of that as well. And the reason why I have them ranked at number two, because the Packers are kind of similar with Packers are in the same situation where the cap space is kind of limited just like the Steelers and they're both contenders and in same scenario, I understand where you have to take a discount. But the reason I have the Steelers ranked at number two and the Packers ranked at number four is just because with the Packers, strong contenders, but the only incentive of playing with the Packers as out of them being strong contenders is you take a hometown discount. You're played your college ball in Wisconsin. Here for the Steelers, it's you take a discount because you want to play with your brothers. That makes a lot more sense. And that makes a better reason for Watt to sign with the Steelers than for Watt to sign with the Packers wanted to finish out his NFL career with the Pittsburgh Steelers and play with his family. So that just leaves one team left to be the number one team in the running to sign JG Watt. You're going to hate me. And I hate myself for saying I really do. But the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the number one team, the only reason is because I don't understand where they get this amount of money. First of all, maybe it's because these veteran players when Tom Brady signed with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers are like, yeah, let's go down to Tampa Bay. Let's go take a discount. Just sign a one-year contract for almost no money so that we could just win a Super Bowl. And guess what? It happened. That's exactly what happened. The star players came in, they won a Super Bowl and JG Watt, being a star player, could do the very same thing. Just sign a one-year contract, play with Tom Brady, win a Super Bowl. What's the harm of that? You play in sunny Florida as well. They have the cap space, which I don't understand how they get so much money. They're above average, just like the Cleveland Browns in cap space for this season, for this off season. Watt could be a Tampa Bay Buccaneer. And the reason why I had them ranked at number one as well is because there was a report out there. I don't know for sure who the source was. If it was Jason Lock and Ford, then forget everything that I'm saying because we don't know if it's credible or not. But there was a report out there that said that Watt reached out to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to let them know that he's interested in signing with them. They didn't reach out to him. Watt reached out to the Bucs. So because Watt himself, the source himself, reached out to the team, then I'm going to believe that Watt wants to sign with the Buccaneers over any other team. So to put it in order, we've got the Buccaneers, the Steelers, the Browns, the Packers, the Bills, the Titans, and the Chicago Bears, one through seven, and which team is likely to sign JJ Watt? Leave your thoughts, leave your comments down below. Let us know which team do you feel like is going to sign JJ Watt and which team will we play for in 2021. But that's going to wrap up this week's episode of Time 2 Football. Glad you guys are joining us for the whole entire duration of this show. If you guys did, don't let your efforts go to waste. Make sure you guys subscribe to this channel so you can stay up to date when we come up with more podcasts every single week. Like I said, we're going to keep this thing going throughout the offseason, throughout free agency, throughout the draft. We're going to keep you updated for you guys that have those football withdrawals and want to be up to date with the NFL and talk about football for the duration of the whole entire year throughout the offseason going into the next season. If you guys are listening to this on the podcast app, make sure you guys subscribe to us so you can listen to us on the go rate review on top of that as well. With all that said, thank you guys so much for watching this episode and I'll see you next week.