Final Week in NFL + Top 10 QB Ranking

In this podcast episode, the host discusses Week 18 of the NFL regular season, Wild Card Weekend, coaching changes, and her top 10 quarterback rankings. She talks about the outcomes of various games, including the Chiefs vs. Raiders, Titans vs. Jaguars, Browns vs. Steelers, Bengals vs. Ravens, and Patriots vs. Bills. She also predicts the outcomes of upcoming playoff games. The host mentions coaching changes in the Broncos, Colts, Panthers, Texans, and Cardinals, and discusses her top four quarterbacks: Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen, Joe Burrow, and Jalen Hurts. Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to the best podcast on the planet. Not yet, but it soon will be, right? Maybe. One day. A girl can dream. A girl can manifest. Today, I'm going to be talking about a few different things. We're going to be talking about Week 18, the final week of the NFL regular season. We're also going to be talking about Wild Card Weekend and what I predict to happen there. We're going to be talking a little bit about the different coaching things that happened. Coaching changes, who's asking to interview who, and I'm also going to be giving you guys my top 10 quarterback rankings, so let's start off with Week 18, the final week in the regular season. All right. I did okay. I felt like I was on a good streak, and then suddenly things started happening that I did not expect. Number one was the Chiefs at the Raiders. The Chiefs won their game easily, which was expected, honestly. Who didn't expect that? Maybe Raiders fans. Maybe they had hopes. I don't know. Then we have the Titans at the Jaguars. Now, this was a game to watch, guys, because whichever team won, that was going to really determine some playoff stuff, right? I predicted the Jaguars winning that game, and they did win that game, so the Jaguars are moving on to the playoffs. Then we have the Browns at the Steelers. Now, this game really didn't matter much, but we do have the Steelers who won that game. Well, I guess it, you know, actually, I take that back. It did kind of matter because the Steelers did need to win in order to, because they still technically had a playoff shot, but they aren't in the playoffs even though they did win because the Dolphins won and took that spot. Then we have number four. I predicted the Bengals to defeat the Ravens, and they sure did do that. No weird seating point toss thing needs to happen. The next game I predicted was the Vikings up the Bears, and I put the Vikings as winning that game, and they won their game. Bears were already out. It didn't matter. Vikings, it didn't matter either, but they won. Patriots at Bills. Now, this game did matter for the Patriots. They needed to win. They did not win. The Bills won their game, which also assisted the Dolphins in their playoff pursuit because the Dolphins needed the Patriots to lose, and that did happen. Jets at Dolphins. This was a really important game for the Dolphins, and they won it, and now they are in the playoffs. I'll talk about what I think is going to happen there, but they're in. They are in for the first time since, I believe, 2016. Now, here's the first game I incorrectly predicted, the Buccaneers at the Falcons. The Falcons won. I did not think that would happen, but the Falcons did, in fact, win. It didn't matter. Buccaneers are still in the playoff picture. Then we had my next incorrectly predicted game, the Panthers at the Saints. The Panthers won, and I thought the Saints would. Good job, Panthers. Not that it really mattered for either of you. So, I mean, moving forward, I guess, the Texans at the Colts. Now, this was really funny for me, okay? I had put the Colts as winning that game, and the Texans, I don't know why they did this to themselves, they won that game, but in winning that game, they lost their first round draft pick. That's crazy. In fact, I believe, could I not write that in my notes somewhere? Hold on. Ah, I did. The Texans winning let the Bears clinch the number one draft pick spot. Come on, Texans. Really? Really? You choose that game to win? You choose that game to win? Whatever, it's fine. But I got that one wrong. Next was Cardinals at 49ers. I predicted correctly that the 49ers would win. Now, this is one that is really hard to talk about. I actually did not watch this game until the fourth quarter, because I was at the Dallas Stars game, which was going way better than the Dallas Cowboys game. I'm looking at the score while I'm standing, sitting in the stand at American Airlines Center, and I see we are down 13-0, and I text someone, and I was like, do we have our backups in? And they were like, no, our starters are playing. I was just like, okay, maybe we need some momentum going. We didn't score a single touchdown. We got two field goals. Two field goals. We lost that game, and that's embarrassing. Embarrassing. It was a pitiful performance. I did not watch it, but I have been told that by several people. Even Jack himself was like, this performance sucked. Blah, blah, blah, blah. Whatever. I thought we would win that game, and we didn't. So I got that wrong. Moving on, we have the Rams at the Seahawks. The Seahawks needed to win, and they also needed the Lions to win, which did happen. But the Seahawks did win their game, increasing their playoff chances as they anxiously awaited the Lions game. Now they're in the playoffs because of the Lions dub there. The Giants at the Eagles. I got that one right. I was kind of hoping I wouldn't. The Giants weren't putting on a show until later on. The Eagles, they did win, though. Even though the Giants, they ended up showing up at the end. They actually closed the gap quite considerably. Didn't matter because at that point, the Eagles had already clinched their spot as the NFC East Chinks. Chargers at Broncos. I put the Chargers as winning that game, and that did not happen. Didn't matter for the Chargers, though. They're still in. Lions at Packers. I actually thought the Packers would win that game. They needed to win that game to make the playoff. The Lions won. They showed up. They took the dub. I mean, I think a lot of us are kind of going for the Lions at this point. But that's Week 18, so let's go ahead and talk about the playoff picture. Wild Card Weekend. So we're going to have the No. 7 Dolphins playing the No. 2 Bills. I'm going to go ahead and say what everyone's thinking. The Bills are going to win. The Dolphins do not have what it takes. As well, Tua is out. I know people think he's overhyped. I don't. I think he's a good quarterback, and I think he's necessary for this team. The Dolphins barely squeeze into this playoff spot, and I do not see them winning. Then we have the No. 6 Ravens playing at the No. 3 Bengals. Joe Burrow is fantastic. I have high hopes for him. They're going to win that game. No. 5 Chargers at the No. 4 Jaguars. Now, I actually think the Chargers are going to win. I think they're the better team. I think the Jaguars barely squeezed in as well. We have the No. 1 Chiefs on the bye week. Over in the NFC, we have the No. 7 Seahawks at the No. 2 49ers. Seahawks got in kind of on some luck. I think they're a good team, but I think the 49ers are a better team. So they're going to win. You have the No. 6 Giants at the No. 3 Vikings. I actually almost picked the Giants to win this game, but the more I think about Kirk Cousins and how he's done this season, I ended up going for the Vikings. I think this might be a close one. This is definitely going to be one to watch. We have the No. 5 Cowboys at the No. 4 Buccaneers. Brady in the playoffs is dangerous. It's dangerous. The Cowboys are always unstable. They're always, always going to be unstable. Therefore, I think it's another one and out for us Cowboys. Buccaneers are going to win. On the bye week, I hate it but the No. 1 Eagles. As far as coaches getting fired, we already had a Broncos opening, a Colts opening, and a Panthers opening. Additionally, the Texans fired their head coach as well as the Cardinals. The Broncos have, as far as what I've seen, requested to interview Dan Quinn. I believe that's really all we've got so far. In terms of head coach openings. That's what we're looking at there. The only other significant news, which I already talked about, was that the Bears did take the No. 1 drop pick due to the Texans winning their game. Now, let's get into the fun, guys. Fun for me. All day long, I feel like I have been working on my top 10 QB ranking. I did most of this based on the 2022-2023 season. I did take into consideration some of the past. I did a little bit. It's hard not to when you've known some of these quarterbacks for so long. I also took to my social media and I asked people to give me their take on things. And some of the voting and whatnot that I got, it was really interesting to see what people said. So, let's get into that. Now, my top four have remained unchanged. And I fully believe these are the top four candidates. Coming in at No. 1, we have Patrick Mahomes. Anyone who argues with this is just really, really working hard to find a reason to not put Mahomes at the top spot. That man is consistent. He is really, really good at football. I hated him so much for no reason. I've grown to love him because he is a good quarterback. No. 2, Josh Allen. Josh Allen is another one of those solid quarterbacks who is consistent. He's likable. He's good at what he does. I will say I did kind of flip back and forth because my No. 3 pick is Joe Burrow. And it was kind of hard for me between the two of them because I believe they're both phenomenal quarterbacks. There's just something about Joe Burrow. He has the rigs, guys. He is really, really cool. I mean, look at that guy. He has so much confidence. When asked this past week how long do you think the Bengals are going to be Super Bowl contenders or playoff contenders, whatever, he was like, so long as I'm their quarterback. Dude, okay. Like, talk about confidence in yourself and just what you do. But Josh Allen, I do think he's got a little bit more of an edge. It was just really hard to place those two for me. So, Josh Allen, 2. Joe Burrow, 3. Number 4. I went back and forth on this, but I landed on Jalen Hurts. He has taken the Eagles to a phenomenal record and I hate to say it, but Jalen Hurts deserves that top spot, that top 4 spot because of what he's done over in Philadelphia. I also just think the guy, as well, is likable. I hate how Eagles quarterbacks always somehow seem to be likable for me. I like him, too, and I don't know why. Like, I hate the Eagles, but it's hard not to like Jalen Hurts. Number 5. Now, this one I went back and forth on, as well. I put Justin Herbert. Justin Herbert has really great hair. Not that that's why I put him there. He's on the Chargers. If you don't know that, now you do. And as far as his stats this year, he was second in his yards. He has 4,739. He had 25 touchdowns and his overall percentage was 68.2. His completion percentage. So, that's really good. That's the majority of his passes. I mean, a lot of these guys, obviously, are in the 60% and whatnot. But being 68 point whatever it was I just said, is really high and is one of the top. Justin Herbert, I did put in that spot. Again, I did look at the stats a little bit. That wasn't what overall helped me pick different guys, because I think my list would be totally different. Like, for example, well, spoiler alert, I have Tom Brady on the list, but he's pretty low down. I think if I had just gone on certain stats, he would have been a little higher. Justin Herbert, his stats do show up. As far as the Chargers go, they didn't have an awful season. And they got 2nd in the AFC West. Their record was 10-7. So, they had a positive season. And overall, I felt like they did a really good job. I mean, yes, they lost 7 games. But, I mean, a lot of teams really have records like that, if we're being honest. The Dolphins had a worse record, and they made the playoffs. But the Chargers, I do think Justin Herbert takes that number 4. Sorry, number 5 I thought. Number 6, and this one has got some controversy. Now, I did post about this one on my socials. I asked the people, does Tua belong in the top 10? And 78% said no. Only 22% said yes. I am going to keep him at number 6. And here's why. Tua, he had, whenever he played, because he missed a lot of games, guys. I kind of, let me see how many games did he miss. He missed 1, 2, 3, 4. And he passed 4, and I wrote this down earlier, and I don't have my notes out right now. But he passed 4 3,548 yards. Now, the reason that impresses me is because Dak Prescott, who I know did also miss a few games, passed for significantly less than that. Imagine if Tua had played all his games. As well, he got 25 touchdowns in his time, okay? And his completion percentage was 64.8, which isn't crazy high compared to some of these guys. But again, I argue how much better would he have done had he played for all those games? I do think if Tua were healthy, that they would have a shot at this playoff run. Without Tua, they don't. They have some great receivers over there, but Tua makes a huge difference. I think a quarterback makes a lot bigger of a difference than people realize. Yes, there's other people on the team, but the quarterback is the leader of the offense, right? And the offense is who scores the points. Tua is number 6. Number 7, we have Trevor Lawrence. I was really back and forth on this as well. Again, another one with beautiful hair. Not that that makes a difference. This man is young, too. He's 23 years old. He played for Jaguars. He passed for 4,113 yards. Also 25 touchdowns. His completion rating was 66.3. Again, not super high. Now, the reason I would put Trevor Lawrence at number 7 is because they, generally speaking, did well. They did make the playoff. They were number 1 in the AFC South. Not that that's much to say, just giving that you have the Colts and the Texans and the Titans in there. Their record was 9-8, so not super fantastic, but they did end on a 5-win streak. He took off. Overall, from this season, I think going into next season, he's going to be a lot stronger. He's probably going to go up in my ranking, to be honest. I mean, I hate to predict so early, but yeah, he's got number 7. Number 8, Kirk Cousins. Now, I debated putting him higher. I did post about him, as well, on my social media. Originally, I did not have him in my top 10. 70% of my voters said put him in. Only 30% said no. Now, here's the thing, and I know I had some Vikings fans who voted in my poll. I had a couple of them. He really did take the Vikings far. The Vikings clinched the spot. They are the number 2 seed. That's not an easy thing to do. It's not. Oh, sorry. No, there's the number 3. There's the number 3 seed, which is not an easy thing to do, especially right now with the NFC being all crazy. Also, as I'm doing this podcast, breaking news, former Stanford head coach David Shaw interviewed with the Broncos about their head coaching job. Interesting. Anyway, Kirk Cousins had a record season. I used to watch him in the NFC East, and I hated him because of NFC East, you know. It's kind of like Jalen Hurst, though. I kind of liked the guy, but I was like, I can't because of who he plays for. He plays for Washington. The works. Kirk Cousins had a great season, and I think that, honestly, he might deserve to be higher up on my poll than I put him. I'm going to put him at number 8. Number 9 and number 10. Oh, honestly, okay, look, real quick. The top 1 through 4 were easy for me. Okay? They were easy. 5 through 10, I struggled because there are some good names, there are some good, good names. A lot of the QBs just kind of are the same level at this point. There's no huge standouts. Back in the day when we had, like, Tom Brady and Russell Wilson and Aaron Rodgers and Peyton Manning and Eli Manning and all these crazy names. And, um, Big Ben over from the Steelers. We had so many insane, amazing quarterbacks, and it's just not the same anymore. It used to be so hard to put the top 10 together because of like how many amazing quarterbacks there were. Now it's hard to put together because a lot of them are just kind of the same level. Got a few standouts, and then the rest are all the same. Maybe it is controversial. I don't know, but that's how I feel. But number 9, I really, honestly, I almost left him out. Dak Prescott. I don't, listen, the intercession king. Like, what is going on with Dak Prescott? I actually on Sports Radio today over here in DFW, they were, you know, they talk to Dak. They keep up with it, whatever. I guess Dak has been rushing plays or something because he feels all this pressure. He feels like he doesn't have enough time to really figure out a game plan, and so he'll start throwing the ball before his receivers are out of their routes or whatever, which, granted, there's not too many good receivers on this team right now. I think we're really lacking in talent in that area. There's a big difference. So when we first saw Dak his rookie season, they always talked about how much time he spent in the pocket and just scanning down the field and making sure that he made the right play. And he's just phenomenal. Like, he really, like, showed himself there. And lately, it does seem rushed. He doesn't have that same cool, calm demeanor that he used to have. You can tell he's playing stressed. I think Dak Prescott has potential to be a top 5 QB. And I know some people put him there. I almost left him out of the top 10 entirely because I just didn't feel like he really, truly had that spot. So I'm keeping him at 9 because I do trust in him. I do think he is a great quarterback. I think he's just had a really tough time, and he needs to, he honestly needs to take it back to the days when he used to take his time in the pocket and really think through his plays before he made them. Number 10. Another one I almost left out. Tom Brady. I love Tom Brady. I think he's a great quarterback, but this season he just didn't deliver. The only time I felt like he really, really the only time I followed him, truthfully, was when he played the Cowboys, which isn't saying much. I mean, I hate to say that because it's my team, but you know what I mean? Like, come on. Like, you play the Cowboys, and you'd see they're gonna be like, holy cow, the Cowboys are doing phenomenal, or you're just gonna completely destroy us. You know what I mean? Tom Brady did not deliver. I know he had a lot going on this year, personally, and I think that did come into play. All in all, if he comes back next season, I don't really know what the deal is with all that. I think he'll do better. I know Gronk on social media has been making jokes about returning to Tampa Bay. I don't think anyone would be upset to see that kind of reunion happen. You know? But that's my top 10. So, again, I have number one, Patrick Mahomes. Number two, Josh Allen. Three, Joe Burrow. Four, Jalen Hurts. Five, Justin Herbert. Six, Tua. Seven, Trevor Lawrence. Eight, Kirk Cousins. Nine, Dak Prescott. And then number 10, Tom Brady. I'm curious people's thoughts on it. I had a few people tell me Dak did not belong. I did not tell them that I agreed, because what kind of person would I be if I went against my quarterback like that? But yeah, I mean, that's kind of what I did there. There was another one, Aaron Rodgers, who a few people told me belonged in there. I didn't agree. I don't think he belongs in there. And the majority of people in my poll said no. I did have a few people vote yes. Initially, almost everyone was voting no for Aaron Rodgers. But then I had a couple people throw in a yes. One is a joke. I don't know what the others are thinking. But Aaron Rodgers, he just did not deliver this season. He should have. They should have won against the Lions. I know the Lions are doing good, and I know we're all rooting for them, but come on! Aaron Rodgers, you're going to take out the Cowboys? Blow us out of the water when you're sucking as a team? And then you're going to lose to the Lions? The joke used to be that you go to Detroit to kill your career. Whatever. Anyways, I had a few people jokingly tell me Dak is number one. What are you doing? Put Dak as number one. I had one guy literally take my phone and type in in my notes, because I had it all listed out in there. He took the number one spot. He actually added a spot at the top and put Dak there. And then had Mahomes second and so on and so forth. I know I live in Dallas and I'm full of a bunch of Dallas fans, right? There's a bunch of Dallas fans here, obviously. But Dak does not deserve that spot. I don't think he'll ever take that spot. I do think he can move up in the top five territory, but we're in a new era of football, guys. We're in a new era. I grew up in such a good era of football, I feel like. Even though the Cowboys always suck, it's fine. But now we've got some new names on the field. Mahomes, Burrow, Allen, Hurts. It's a tough crowd out there. A lot of these are in the AFC. The AFC's tough. I've got teams like the Dolphins who have potential, but they have to go up against the Bengals, the Bills, the Chiefs. It's a hard life out there for all of them. But anyway, that's what I have for today. This is a longer podcast than usual. I've really been enjoying this. We're going to talk about the wildcard weekend, what happened there next time, and then we're going to... I'm probably going to be depressed when I do that podcast, depending on how the Cowboys do, of course. But with that, thank you for tuning in. You can catch me on TikTok at MoProblems13. You can catch me on Twitch at MoProblems13. Instagram, Mo.Cruz. Cruz spelled like Tom Cruise. And otherwise, I look forward to speaking with you soon.