25 Players in 25 Years: Steve Wyche on Nos. 20-16

00:00:03
Speaker 1: Welcome to NFL Daily's Top twenty five players of the last twenty five years. I'm Greg Rosenthal here in the Chris Westling podcast studio alongside one of my favorite people to talk ball with, the man Steve Weiss, who has been covering this league NonStop for the last couple of decades, mostly here at NFL Network. Are you ready to count down from numbers twenty to number sixteen on this list?

00:00:31
Speaker 2: I am. This is such an amazing concept.

00:00:33
Speaker 3: You know when you talk about like impactful players whatever in this list you came up with stylistically, I mean, the fact you pulled this off, I think is CRAMPEDO.

00:00:41
Speaker 1: Don't get ahead of it ourselves here, we got to make it great. But no, we had a great first episode with Mina Kimes. I'm looking forward to talking these five players.

00:00:50
Speaker 4: Yay, let's get going.

00:00:54
Speaker 2: Number twenty Miles Garrett.

00:00:57
Speaker 4: Burrow to throat.

00:00:58
Speaker 2: Here comes Garrett.

00:00:59
Speaker 4: There it is is Miles Garrett. Welcome to the one hundred club.

00:01:04
Speaker 5: He takes down Joe Burrow one hundred career sacks for the future Hall of Famer.

00:01:10
Speaker 6: But yeah, you know, I wanted to know make a known that and I'm the guy I'm number one, no as defender, and that was a statement out I was intended to make.

00:01:19
Speaker 2: I think I'm making He's.

00:01:20
Speaker 5: Got to try it from sixty, it's blocked, ball loose fight fotenzel Ward picks up ward running across the Indianapolis thirty.

00:01:28
Speaker 3: That was Miles Garrett that blocked that field goal.

00:01:31
Speaker 2: Jumps right over.

00:01:33
Speaker 5: He jumped right over the center man. He went superman, no contact.

00:01:38
Speaker 3: They do uniquely that maybe other teams don't come in that.

00:01:42
Speaker 4: That maybe why you all truggle the way you'll have. They have Miles Garrett. That's different from from everybody else.

00:01:47
Speaker 5: Under pressure from Miles, ball out, fight for to the end zone, Miles got home again. Who's got it? Browns tou touchdown.

00:01:56
Speaker 3: Miles Garrett is single handedly taking.

00:01:59
Speaker 2: Over this game.

00:02:01
Speaker 1: Miles Garrett number twenty on the list. You heard the voices of many people there, but some of our friends, Patrick Claybon with a great voiceover, of course, but also Andrew Ceciliano. You heard Joe Burrow talking about what's the difference between facing them and other teams. Yeah, here's the difference. It's Miles freaking Garrett. I'll get into all the accomplishments of why he is on this list. You might notice if you're listening, the back end of the list is heavily weighted towards some of these current players. It's gonna get different soon, But I just realized Garrett already has the resume of an all time great.

00:02:37
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I mean, there's so many different ways we can go here. First off, the fact that he has one hundred and two sacks in eight seasons. I don't think people understand how heart it is to get a sack, especially when you're like the guy on the defense when people are double teaming you. You saw some chips on the play right there while he's blue right through him. Plus he's six four to two seventy five, right, he's built like a sleek defensive tackle. By comparison, TJ. Watt is sixty four two fifty. So this is a massive human being doing some of the things athletically that he does. But the way the Cleveland also, especially Jim Schwartz, has come in last couple of years and moved him around. That's helped him because he's got sixty sacks past four years.

00:03:21
Speaker 2: But here's the biggest part, which shows his dominance.

00:03:24
Speaker 3: Right, like a he does not play on a team that gets twenty point leads and is forcing the other team to throw the ball forty five times a game.

00:03:32
Speaker 2: His team is usually trailing.

00:03:33
Speaker 3: He's had two winning seasons and played on an zero to sixteen team, right, so his team.

00:03:38
Speaker 2: Is usually trailing. So his opportunities to get to the.

00:03:42
Speaker 3: Quarterback are probably far less than some other great pass rushers like a Dwight Freene someone like that whose team stake leads all the time. Like when you talk about impactful greatness, this is a dude who is winning regardless of circumstance.

00:03:56
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think of the players that are going to be on this list, who have been on this list, including Garrett, who have done it in the toughest of situations. I think you have to be that much better, not only as a player to get the attention from the national media to get those All Pros, but also to stay strong as a man as a player, to continue to chase greatness. And yeah, just to go over some of the accomplishments off the top four first team All Pros and two second team All Pros in seven years, he had that Defensive Player of the Year Award from a couple of years ago where he was just taking over games, but he has two other seasons where he was in the top five. Only two players in NFL history have had more consecutive ten sac seasons. Those two players are Hall of Famers Reggie White and John Randall, and that number is still growing. Miles Garrett, I think, is going to continue getting those numbers. I don't know if I mean, man, if he hasn't peaked, that's something else.

00:04:58
Speaker 4: But he and TJ.

00:05:01
Speaker 1: Watt, who we also hit in the first show with me, and they were a little mind blowing for me to realize, like, Okay, they are still playing, but actually, if you look at their resumes and stack them up against some other Hall of famers, they are already among the all time great So I felt like it would not be doing a service to Miles Garrett to just diminish him just because he's in the middle of his career.

00:05:24
Speaker 3: No, yeah, I mean you can't do that. This is going to continue to grow. It's going to be a first ballot Hall of Fame type guy. Look, seven straight seasons with double digit sack on the teams he's played on. Remember and oh to sixteen team. That is insane. He's very good against the run. You saw him block that kick right there. I remember remember the last couple of years he started moving him over the center h a little bit. He is still one of the best athletes in the NFL at that size. Again, it is just there's nothing you can really do except try to go away from him. He knows it and he still makes plays. It is so so hard. Like in Collins, I played the same position as this guy, sixty pounds lighter, but it is so hard to get a sack in the NFL. And think about quarterback dropping back four hundred times a season and getting sacked thirty two times, Like that's a hard thing to do. And he's getting double digit seven years in a row.

00:06:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, and he's also you know, he racks it up since he's entered the league, third in tackles for lost, second in quarterback hits. So it's not even just the sacks, which are just outrageous. He's the first ever player, by the way, to have fourteen or more for four straight years, So it's the consistency. I love what you said about the weight. It is crazy. He actually weighs more two seventy five than what Aaron Donald said. He was playing at at the end of his career and two of the all time greats, obviously, but a guy who when he came out, Miles Garrett and I went back to check some of the coverage at the time, was just a no brainer for one overall pick because you look at him and yes, all these players on this list have a discipline and a work ethic and an intelligence, but a lot of them also are just incredible athletic specimens.

00:07:16
Speaker 4: And I do think of Miles Garrett.

00:07:17
Speaker 1: Oh, he's one one towards the very very top of that where if like you are creating a football player in a lab, it is Miles Garrett. It's just it's kind of a ridiculous person to be next to. You've been around him. I've been around Okay, let's hear it.

00:07:31
Speaker 2: First, of his arms are like thirty inches big.

00:07:34
Speaker 3: When we see the videos of him, he's got like eighty pound dumbbells in each hand doing thirty six inch priometric jumps.

00:07:41
Speaker 4: Well, that's him jumping over the center.

00:07:43
Speaker 1: So that field goal block that he had a couple of years ago, that calt Why did he have.

00:07:46
Speaker 2: To hold U my shoulder ball off.

00:07:48
Speaker 3: But he's funny when you talk about him coming out, because I remember getting a couple of phone calls and Don Blackman, the former Patriots linebacker, long NFL coach, father of our Tiffany Blackman, our former COG College Tiffany Blackman, he called me one day he was just not Texas a and them scouting sex. To you, this guy is going to completely change things in the NFL.

00:08:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, I heard from several other people.

00:08:09
Speaker 3: Don Blackman, who was a heck of a player, a longtime great coach himself. The way he raved about Miles Garrett, You're like, no way, he's going to live up to this hype and again playing that position, registering the number of sacks he has on a team that plays with no leads stunning.

00:08:25
Speaker 2: He's that great.

00:08:26
Speaker 1: He's the youngest player to get to one hundred sacks. He's been on PFF's first team All Pro five straight years. And I actually find PFF's rankings interesting, if only because they're not as consistent as the All pers because it's just in theory on their numbers, and yet the numbers even have him first each and every season. That quote we heard from Garrett was from a game this last season, and I don't think of twenty twenty four as Garrett's best season. Still was one of the very best players and came in third in Defensive Player of the Year, but you know it wasn't like his very best.

00:08:58
Speaker 4: But that was a game against this Steelers in TJ.

00:09:01
Speaker 1: Watt and he shows up and he says, I want to be known as the best EDG dresher. So he shows up, he has eight pressures, three sacks, a force fumble and something else on Thursday night.

00:09:12
Speaker 2: Football Snowglobe game.

00:09:13
Speaker 4: Because it was a big.

00:09:14
Speaker 1: Game, and that does make me think, like, man, imagine if he was playing in more big games, because when he's had to get up, he's gotten up for him.

00:09:21
Speaker 3: I mean, imagine if he played on a team like the Bengals, right that could score thirty eight a game where teams are chasing them or something like that.

00:09:29
Speaker 2: The numbers would just when you talk when you look at the.

00:09:31
Speaker 3: Great pass rushers, even guys going back as far as Taken Jones, and they didn't record sacks. He played with Roman Gabriel, you know, quarterback who was an MVP team to score points that way, So you know he's one of those. Like as great as he is, it's almost like a what if. And you have to think about a former Cleveland Brown and Joe Thomas played eleven seasons, never went to the playoffs.

00:09:51
Speaker 2: He's only been to the playoffs twice.

00:09:52
Speaker 1: Miles Garrett, Well, Joe Thomas has a chance to be on this list. I'm not doing any I'm not doing any spoilers early, but the I will say have over indexed on all time great players. And you mentioned the oh to sixteen for listeners who might not be aware. Yeah, that was Garrett's rookie season.

00:10:10
Speaker 2: It's only year he didn't have double digit sack.

00:10:12
Speaker 1: But also like, what a welcome to the NFL moment, Poor Garrett, Poor Deshaun Kaiser going out there, you know, not winning a single game. And you know, it's interesting that draft he goes number one overall is a terrible Top five in hindsight, Yes, Mitchell Trubisky two, Solomon Thomas three, Leonard Fournette four, Corey Davis five. I have never once heard anyone say that the Browns made a mistake for drafting Miles Garrett in a draft that had Patrick Mahomes. You always give the grief to the forty nine ers, for instance, who needed a quarterback that year, and the Bears especially who took Mitchell Trubisky. But no one ever says, well, how come the Browns didn't take what Patrick bunk because like you took Miles Garrett and ultimately like that, you have to be pretty.

00:11:01
Speaker 4: Great for no one to ever bring that up.

00:11:03
Speaker 3: You know what, Brown's fans loving you right now because that's one of the few times where they're like, wow, they didn't make a mistake, right, but.

00:11:09
Speaker 1: Now you can say they did. But no one knew who Patrick Mahomes was gonna be. There was a little story. And I know you're intimately involved with the Hall of Fame. I'll leave you with this on on Miles Garrett. He was there with his teammates in the preseason a few years ago, I think, playing the Hall of Fame game, and they all went and.

00:11:27
Speaker 2: Did a tour, right but Joe Thomas went in.

00:11:30
Speaker 1: And everyone said afterwards it was like being a kid in a candy store. It was amazing, except for Miles Garrett. And Miles Garrett stayed on the bus all by himself while the team toured the Hall of Fame. Because he said, I'm not going in there until my bust is going.

00:11:46
Speaker 2: That's what I'm talking about. That's what I heard. Steve Smith did the same things.

00:11:50
Speaker 1: That's built different. That's someone with a certain sort of confidence. And I think it is really cool that Garrett is going to be a Brown and if it's not for his whole career, it's going to be for the next handful of years. Two And you know, he's already, like I said, the youngest player to reach hundred sex. He's been in the league a long time. He came in at twenty one. But he basically is it's gonna seem like his whole career is with the Browns hopefully though, and he's.

00:12:15
Speaker 2: Made a lot of money from the Cleveland Browns as well.

00:12:17
Speaker 1: Yes, he did not take a discount on that salary. Know you're worth people, Miles. Garrett definitely knows it now because he's number twenty on our list.

00:12:24
Speaker 4: All right, let's move to our next guy, number nineteen, Zach Martin. Zach Martin.

00:12:31
Speaker 3: I always like to watch his film because he's been doing it for a long time and he's such a technical player, like who's technique and his effort make him stand.

00:12:37
Speaker 2: Out just his past set.

00:12:39
Speaker 4: He's always seems like he's in a right position. If somehow he does get caught, he's always recovering. He's in a good bass.

00:12:48
Speaker 5: Anybody doubted a nickel of Zach Martin, He's worth the same.

00:12:52
Speaker 7: He's costantly kicking, kicking ass and that's just what he does.

00:12:56
Speaker 2: Zach Martin, who's been one of the best in the NFL for a.

00:13:00
Speaker 6: Long time, knows all the tricks of the trade, savvy and got technique to go with it.

00:13:06
Speaker 4: That's a tough combination.

00:13:09
Speaker 5: Zach Martin up huge play.

00:13:18
Speaker 1: Football is such an amazing sport because we can go through who are the best players you know these last twenty five years, and we can have Miles Garrett, who to me in terms of pure athletics and strength and speed, that's what you think about when football players is number one of who I would think of. And then the very next guy on this list is a guy in Zach Martin who we don't even know what play to pick as like his highlight tape because he's an interior offensive lineman who they said, quote unquote wasn't athletic enough to play at left tackle. They move him inside to guard and when I looked at his resume, Steve, I just had a hard time not putting him on this list somewhat as a representative four guards and interior offensive lineman, but also just because he is that good.

00:14:04
Speaker 2: He's a great player.

00:14:05
Speaker 3: I mean, when I saw his name on there, I mean, I don't know if you have a committee, if you did this single handedly.

00:14:10
Speaker 4: I did it by myself.

00:14:11
Speaker 2: Bro, Like, this is.

00:14:13
Speaker 3: A stroke of genius, a guard who could be a first ballot Hall of Famer. I mean guards usually have to wait. Great guys like Will Shields and waited for years, and maybe Zach ends up doing that, you know, after retiring this past March. But it's funny when you think of Zach Martin, all this greatness in this and that what's the first thing that people talk about. They link him with Johnny Manziel, right, because remember in that draft in twenty fourteen, people were connecting Johnny Manzel because of the flash Jerry Jones said a lot of positive stuff about him in Texas.

00:14:43
Speaker 2: Guy going there and they needed a quarterback and so.

00:14:46
Speaker 3: They okay, they're taking Johnny Manziel, Johnny football right here, and they draft Zach Martin and you talk about it's like the music park ride where.

00:14:53
Speaker 2: You're spinning it then the floor drops out.

00:14:55
Speaker 3: Everybody was like, what Zach Martin, when they could have had Johnny Manziel, this might go down is the best pick that they've had in the past twenty five years in the draft. And the fact that it was such a surprise and they get such a great player. I mean seven first team All Pros, nine Pro Bowls and he played what eleven years? You know, I mean that is like we're keep saying, you know how hard that is, especially today's game over the past five years, when defenses have been like we've got the singular great edge rushers like we talked about Miles Garrett. Now we're blitzing guys up the A gaps, right, That's what the guards have to do. They have to eat that right when linebackers fred guys, Fred Warner and what not coming.

00:15:38
Speaker 2: With two or three yard full speed and he just locks him up.

00:15:42
Speaker 3: And so we can talk about all the Dallas A strong running game with Ezekiel Elliott, the protection for Dak Prescott. When you look at a guy who did so much and absolutely made them look like the smartest people in the world for drafting him over Johnny Man's. Don't know Johnny had something to do with that, but what a brilliant stroke by the Cowboys.

00:16:03
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm so glad you brought that up because I would have forgotten. The funny thing is, you want to give Jerry Jones credit, right, Okay, they did take Zach Martin. Jerry Jones actually got on the podium after the Zach Martin pick and said, we could have taken Manzel and that would have paved the way in terms of our the attention that we're getting the box office for our relevance. He literally used the word relevance for the next decade. Christ, but we took this other guy. He had to be convinced, yes, into taking Zach Martin. He really wanted Johnny Manziel and is obviously one of the best decisions the front office ever made, and they got Jerry Jones even though they got the pick. Right, don't say that you wanted Manzel because the other guy could turn into.

00:16:49
Speaker 4: A Hall of Famer.

00:16:50
Speaker 1: So you mentioned the first team All pros nine in eleven years total, seven first teams. He basically wasn't All Pro every single year he was healthy healthy. The only two years that he didn't make it were his age thirty season and twenty twenty, first time really he ever got injured. Before that, he essentially almost didn't miss a snap. Missed a couple one game, I believe, from injury in twenty eighteen, so he was always out there in that entire time. The seven first team All pros, he had exactly seven holding calls. I mean, if that that's the thing I went through, and I did not have Martin on my initial list, and I went through everything in some of his numbers, and then some of the things I read from different offensive line analysts who know the position even better than me, really believed that the gap between Martin and the next best guard of his era was maybe bigger than the gap at any position between any player.

00:17:53
Speaker 4: So that's hard to disagree with that.

00:17:54
Speaker 2: I mean, it's really hard to disagree with that.

00:17:56
Speaker 3: He is one of the most dominant we could talk about interior what he's one of the most dominant linemen over the past thirty or so years for what he did, because again, the game has changed. You got all the A gap action, right, You've got the Aaron Donalds and guys like that, the defensive tackles who are making big money now a lot more than guards. You know, that's that's where they rekl and nobody beat him. But the seven holding calls, there was always this great stat like I forget you know what is the ell the Cowboys? They have seven first downs on that drive. Oh that's ties just as many holding calls as sackmart.

00:18:30
Speaker 1: Right in his career, and only twenty one total penalty. So that includes false starts and any anything else. And if you compare that, and it's not totally fair, but if you compare that to other all time greats at on the offensive line and tackles interior, he really did stand out. And they say, you know, everything I read about him is is his footwork, it's his technique, and I think with all offensive linemen, it's the ability to stay so mentally engaged in so that you can do it each and every single snap without making anyone Well.

00:19:03
Speaker 3: The fact you think he called it holding is right is the brilliance of technique, because you know, it's all inside hand control or to leverage a guy this way. That was so you're grabbing right cloth control was what they call you're you're in here grabbing dude. In the fact he never got caught man's he stayed in here. You know, strong, you have to be, whether it's upper body or you're squat, and then you've got this type of technique.

00:19:22
Speaker 2: Like this dude.

00:19:24
Speaker 6: Yeah.

00:19:24
Speaker 2: When I saw him on it, I was like Greg Rosenthal as that guy.

00:19:26
Speaker 1: Okay, well, offensive Rookie of the Year his first year. He got a number of votes, which is really saying something because he's a guard. You just don't see those guys get offensively. He was first team All Pro as a rookie because he came in and if you'll remember that twenty fourteen Cowboys season was Tony Romo's best season. He got MVP votes. He their offense went to a whole another level. I think it was DeMarco Murray won the rushing title. It is not coincidence that Martin comes in. They get two more rushing titles the way with Martin there with Ezekiel Elliott. So Romo I read some things that he said about Martin and he said he's the only player he's ever seen that when he came on to the team as I was a rookie, I mean, he was like, not only the best player at his position, but he was maybe the best player on the offense when he joined the team. And that's that's saying something for a guy who was third in MVP voting that year and DeMarco Murray's winning everything. So he came in just absolutely no weaknesses and we had to give him.

00:20:32
Speaker 4: Some love and I have well done.

00:20:33
Speaker 8: Well.

00:20:33
Speaker 1: You have to admit though he's the only interior offensive lineman that's going to be on this list.

00:20:37
Speaker 2: Good for you.

00:20:38
Speaker 1: So I apologize if any people are curious out there, just guys that because I like to give a little bit of a shoutout guys who did did not make the list. And we'll do this sometimes when we hit a position that's going to be last time we have that position. Steve Hutchinson was tough to leave off five first Team All pros, was all the All two thousands.

00:20:57
Speaker 4: I mean, yeah, a.

00:20:57
Speaker 1: Lot of Hall of Famers are getting loftof. Alan Fanica, Jarrey Evans are also not on this list, and neither is Jason Kelcey. Different position, but that was a tough one too, So I wanted Martin is kind of representing them all.

00:21:11
Speaker 2: Man, that's a big flag. He's planning right here.

00:21:14
Speaker 4: By you, I mean.

00:21:17
Speaker 1: The Jason Kelce one too, because he has six first team All pros. But just the way people talked about him, there's a guy Mike Gettings who runs a pro scouting service called pro Scout that the NFL uses he was the scout I was referring to.

00:21:30
Speaker 4: That said.

00:21:31
Speaker 1: The only gap he thought in his entire career that was similar at another position was how they used to talk about Dwight Stevenson at center back in the day, that he would put Zack Martin right there with the greatest guards of all time. So Zach Martin, number nineteen. Let's move on to our next guy on the list.

00:21:51
Speaker 3: Number eighteen, Julius Peppers moving away off the Pauls cost to.

00:22:01
Speaker 7: Julius Peppers headed so long Peppers, Oh.

00:22:07
Speaker 4: Man, oh man, you know who hit him? It was Fields number fifty eight came in and just runch, Michael Vick.

00:22:14
Speaker 8: There isn't a man on this field that's gonna catch Julius Peppers when wat's his look at the athletic ability to him, he just one.

00:22:22
Speaker 4: Hands the ball and goodbye. It's gonna give me ro respecto. I'm gonna take it how you.

00:22:30
Speaker 7: Want it.

00:22:30
Speaker 9: He has two distinct sides to his personality. There's Julius laid back, chill, nonchalant, and then there's the football player they call Pip explosive, disrupted, relentless.

00:22:51
Speaker 1: We can get into so much with Julius Peppers, but let's start with the first play that we heard there. That was Mike Patrick and Paul McGuire, both great broadcasters with ESPN rest in Peace. Mike Patrick recently passed away, and that interception return where Peppers, you know, picks it up one handed and then runs at that size for the touchdown, to me, exemplifies just how he was an athlete that is just rare in every possible way.

00:23:20
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think I actually cover that game. When I was covering that, like wow, in the tackle that he beat, Todd Weiner was like a really good player. He was Michael Vick's blindside tackle. And it's funny two years ago, you know, I did the door Knocks the Hall of Fame crew, and two years ago and Bruce Smith was knocking on his door.

00:23:37
Speaker 2: We're going through the whole process.

00:23:39
Speaker 3: I kept saying to myself, like, man, you know, Julius Peppers is a first ballot Hall of Famer, And then you don't realize he's got the fourth most sacks of all time, right, one hundred and fifty nine and a half, because what you just mentioned, everyone thinks of Julie Peppers because you played basketball in north as an athlete. Right, you don't look at him like the same way you know, we talked about Miles Garrett or Lawrence Taylor or Deacon Jones, like is that badass edge rusher who's just taking names and putting bodies in the ground. Right, you look at him as a super athlete who got his way downe. But then you just look at the fact eleven interceptions, four of them return for touchdown. Now you're when you're six eight, Okay, you know part of that, But I mean it's it's two All decade teams, Right, this guy played for eighteen years.

00:24:25
Speaker 1: That's what did it. That's what did it, Steve. That's what helped push him on this list. When I saw that he was second team Hall of Fame All Decade in the two thousands for the Hall of Fame and actually first team from Pro Football Reference they do their own list, and I thought that was an interesting other voice to listen to in the two thousands, and then he's also on the Hall of Fame All twenty tens and second team for the Pro Football Reference All twenty tens. That was what did it, because I'm not I'm trying not to over reward longevity. I want to be about like greatness. But he did have that high level greatness and the longevity put it over the top for me.

00:25:06
Speaker 2: But he wasn't a compiler.

00:25:07
Speaker 3: Right now, a lot of people are like, oh, Frank Gor's got these great numbers, But he was a compiler because he played for so long. Pep was still giving me double digit sacks in years fourteen fifteen playing for the Bears, playing for the Packers, he was still putting up big numbers. And you know, unlike Miles Garrett and he played on some really good Panthers teams. He played in Super Bowls, right, he really affected things. But in covering that division when I worked in Atlanta from two thousand and five to two thousand and eight, like the Panthers were the team. It's always the Panthers and the Falcons, and everyone's trying to out athlete each other. Right, you know, the Panthers got Thomas Davis because he was a hybrid safety linebacker who could spy Michael Vick. He's the guy who could run with Michael Vick. And then you see Julius Peppers, like there's no body on the offensive line, there's no running back or whatever that could handle him, whether it be power, whether it be finesse. And because Pep didn't say much whore I'm talking about a smack on that video clip, but perhaps a real quiet guy. You know, he never you never were just like, man, he took over a game and you're just saying yourself, he made a spectacular play here and there, but he never took over a game. So you're wondering, like, is he really that guy? And then you go back and think about, like, oh yeah, he really was. What was I watching right?

00:26:20
Speaker 1: And it kind of accumulated slowly because he won Defensive Rookie of the Year, he was thought he was the number two overall pick in the draft and viewed as, you know, a generational type of athlete.

00:26:30
Speaker 4: I actually think him and Garrett.

00:26:31
Speaker 1: Have a lot of similarity, I agree of coming out of the draft, and there was a sense in Carolina could he be even more? But three first team All Pros, three second team All Pros, and like you mentioned, those are sprinkled over a number of years. Only player ever with one hundred sacks and ten interceptions. And one thing that strikes me is he got to the end of these contracts, So that says a lot. Yeah, seven years with the Panthers and then he signs a record breaking at the time defensive contract for the Bear ends up four years with the Bears, lasted a while there, he did get cut by the Bears. Then he gets a three year big contract from the Packers at thirty four years old. He plays through the end of that contract and played very well. He you know, I asked Ross Tucker about him who went up against him, you know, just on text and everything, and he said he thinks he's the most athletic player he ever played against. And actually it was Peppers or it was either Ross's first game or I think Pepper's first game that he says he put Ross on the ground and literally jumped over him. So that's the type of thing that he did. I want to talk about a two play sequence in this was back in two thousand and four, just sort of as an example of how great Peppers was and what kind of player he was. If younger fans maybe don't have an idea, it was a two play sequence against the Broncos, and if you have a chance, we are doing these show on YouTube as well, so everyone checked that out. But there's a run at the one yard line where Jake Plummer is going to the edge and he absolutely has the angle on Julius Peppers. This is an athletic player and Peppers somehow runs him down. This is at the end of a ten play drive. The very next play after Pepper's in theory call, Win did backs up in coverage. I challenge a cornerback to have that good coverage and he goes over one hundred yards and he does not make it to the very end, falls on his back. I think it's one hundred and three yards, but he only gets to the three yard line. But those two plays in a row. He said he was sucking wind before that play even started because he had just run down Plumber and then he ends up having this long interception return, and that to me is kind of an example of what kind of freaky.

00:28:46
Speaker 3: Was And for people again who don't realize this, Jake Plumber was a hell of an app Yes, he's a dude who used to run all the time he was on the move. And for Pep just to chase him down like that and then make this play, I mean, that's absolutely fantastic. Now, the linebacker who's trying to get the plumbers to had turned around and picked off the guy, so so Pep could have got to the house. But still, here's your thing. Fifty two forced fumbles. So you think about that, he had eleven picks and fifty two forced fumbles. Right, that's an opportunity for sixty three changed possessions. That is a that is the ultimate difference maker, regardless of who he's playing for. That's why he's able to play in Super Bowl and do some of the great things that he did.

00:29:24
Speaker 1: I think of players on this list, they got to stand out to me, and Pepper's he just felt like he was a player from the future. You could you know, he was drafted now twenty years ago, and if he was you know more than that, right, twenty three years ago, if you dropped him in the two thousand and twenty five class, he would still be the number one.

00:29:47
Speaker 4: Pick, number two pick.

00:29:48
Speaker 2: Yeah, first or second pick.

00:29:49
Speaker 1: You know what, I mean like he was from the future. As great as he looks on these clips, you know now, just comparing him to what was going on back then. One thing under about him maybe his motor. He missed four games as a rookie after that, only two more his entire career. And if you look at like the percentage of snaps he was on the field, he didn't come off like he did not come off the field. So he was a guy who made it onto my list late. I had some tough decisions. He went in over Freey, he went in over von Miller. If I did this list again, like he might be on it next time. I had a hard time leaving von Miller off. But he is over von Miller, He is over Jason Taylor and some more of the great passers.

00:30:33
Speaker 3: We're talking about a pass rusher for the future, Like can you imagine he played in Dom Caper's thirty four where they played the hard edge setting defensive. If he was played would play like a wide nine, like the stuff Solid does and the stuff that Vic Fangio does. How he could get one on one matchups. His numbers would be bigger than they are now.

00:30:50
Speaker 4: Absolutely so.

00:30:52
Speaker 1: Julius Pepper's on the list, and yeah, if you're thinking about edge players. By the way, Michael Strahan was a really tough guy to leave because a lot of the great part of his career was in the nineties. So the twenty five year cutoff hurt Michael Strahan. Although he was pretty awesome, yes he was in the two thousands. He had a very strong case. So it's very tough to pick these guys, but I think Julius will do us proud. All Right, we'll be back after this the next two players back on NFL Daily talking about the best twenty five players of the last twenty five years. Steve and you suggested we should do a show on the omissions.

00:31:38
Speaker 4: I don't want to make people mad, though maybe after like.

00:31:41
Speaker 3: This list, any list is going to make people mad about who's not on.

00:31:44
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, they won't know until until we get to the end. Although I'm spoiling it a little bit. We might have to do a follow up with some reaction, maybe a male band. If anyone thinks that I got anything really wrong. I don't think unless people are crazy, there's gonna be any arguments about the next guy on our list.

00:32:05
Speaker 4: Number seventeen Adrian Peterson.

00:32:09
Speaker 8: This is perhaps one of the greatest single handed runs I've seen, and Adrian Peterson just refused to go down.

00:32:18
Speaker 4: Handoff.

00:32:19
Speaker 5: On third down, he runs to a first down, he squats to the far side across the fifty.

00:32:24
Speaker 4: He breaks the tackle and Adrian Peterson is loose.

00:32:27
Speaker 7: He has scored.

00:32:29
Speaker 2: As sixty five yard touchdown.

00:32:35
Speaker 6: Guess right to make of vich generation would be Adrian Peters with.

00:32:40
Speaker 2: The mindset I had, you know, and then the guy that have will front. You know, I know anything that's possible.

00:32:44
Speaker 9: That's why I continue to do the things, you know, working hard in practice.

00:32:49
Speaker 8: Just the slightest of openings that Peterson goes all the way, I'll let.

00:32:55
Speaker 6: To work right to Adrian Peterson as an animal, I mean, the guys just relentless.

00:32:59
Speaker 2: He doesn't.

00:33:03
Speaker 1: Adrian Peterson came into the NFL as one of the best college runners in history of Oklahoma. In day one in the NFL, he was one of, if not the best running backs in the NFL four first team All pros a few more seconds, the last non quarterback to win the MVP back in two.

00:33:28
Speaker 4: Thousand and twelve.

00:33:30
Speaker 1: I'll let you go with you like your first your first memory, instinct anything covering this guy.

00:33:37
Speaker 3: Well, look, my first thing is the first time I Dumby, I shook his hand, right, So you always heard like, oh and Adrian Peterson shakes your hand, he's gonna break it.

00:33:44
Speaker 2: He broke it. I was like, what did I do?

00:33:46
Speaker 3: Man? Like, what did I do? So every time I actually we're fist bumping. I mean that thing is real. And you know, you hear about guys who are real strong in the weight room. I don't know what he did the weight room, but he's got what I call pipe bending shrink, Like he could just take a freaking engine blockout with his bare hands. He's so strong. And then you couple that with the speed in the vision because the Vikings made no bones about what they were going to do with him in the backfield, They're giving him the ball, he's gonna run it.

00:34:12
Speaker 2: Try and stop me with you can'to.

00:34:13
Speaker 3: He had a really good offensive line in front of him, but there were still guys who were able to try to get to him, and either he shook them knocked them over.

00:34:21
Speaker 2: It was it was amazing.

00:34:22
Speaker 3: Like I tell people, one thing that that blew my mind, blows my mind about Adrian Peterson was. He played for as long as he did because after a year or two people realized how strong he was, they would load up on him. I mean I saw him take some shots that would knock people out. He just ran right through them, got up, and you know what, it just deflated.

00:34:42
Speaker 2: I forget.

00:34:43
Speaker 3: It was a game in the Metrodome against somebody to dB hit him as hard as I've seen a player ever get hit, and he just shook it off like, Okay, that's you know.

00:34:53
Speaker 2: All day, that's my name all day.

00:34:54
Speaker 3: You're gonna be feeling that that dB was like, man, you know that dude just walked through my right hand basically. And and the fact that he just did all of that was exemplified to twenty twelve. Rosie when he comes off the torn acl at the end Christmas Eve of twenty eleven, comes back the next year in Leslie Frayer's coaching the Vikings and Rushes for almost twenty one hundred yards right. They gave him the ball three hundred and forty eight times off of a torn acl and he put up two thousand yards running the ball like he's that specially, he had over a thousand yards like at the end of his career when he was playing for Washington.

00:35:34
Speaker 1: Right, and he's on this list because of those first you know, seven years when he did not leave the field and we remember him, you know, leading the NFL and rushing coming off that torn acl That two thousand and twelve season that you mentioned, that was the year he won the MVP. That was the year he goes for two thousand and ninety seven rushing yards still the second most ever twenty three hundred yards from scrimmage. And of all the guys on this list that have gone back and watched some of the highlights, I think he put the biggest smile on my face, just just like watching this dude gallop in the open field. Some people are just born to do something, and this man was born to run a football and you could see the joy that he played with. He obviously played with a toughness, but I just felt like running hard is a skill and running backs can only do it for so long. You only have maybe so many times you're gonna get hit. If there was a metric for running hard. To me, he's my all time leader in running hard per carry because every single carry of his.

00:36:49
Speaker 4: Career he brought that juice.

00:36:51
Speaker 1: And that's why I despite all the injuries that slowed him down in the back half of his career, he still played till he was thirty six because he still was helping a team out by just running that hard.

00:37:02
Speaker 2: Well.

00:37:02
Speaker 3: I mean, remember the season when he kept on fumbling the ball because he was trying to get the extra yard. That was the thing he was always trying to get the X yar guys are punching out. It comes back to the next year and doesn't put the ball on the ground. I mean, it goes to show you how much it meant to him. Here's something people don't think about when they talk about Adrian Peterson. When you go back when he played those games at the old Metro Dome, the turf on that field was like that long.

00:37:25
Speaker 2: It was a slow track.

00:37:27
Speaker 3: This is your definition of a listeners right about what three or four about two and a half okay, branches long. It was long, like uncut grass for three weeks. The fast turf like today's field turf is maybe a centimeter off the foundation with those rubber pellets in there. If he had played on some of that shorter turf where he could actually dig in tougher and deliver blows and play a little fast. I don't know if his career would have been as long, I don't know, but the physicality he was able to play with I always time I went to the metronome, I was like, why would you have this long of turf with a running back like Adrian Peterson. I would replace this stuff and get on a fast track. And it was just for years he played all that type of turf and still put up unbelievable numbers.

00:38:12
Speaker 1: Yeah, his first really seven seasons in the NFL, he had one, you know, minor injury about six years in that that caused him to miss about four games. But he's putting up seventeen hundred yards on the ground, thirteen hundred and twelve hundred and then the big two thousand. He as just like a pure runner. You're giving the ball, you know. He was not known for his like blocking ability. He had a lot of big receptions actually per catch, because if you just got him on a little swing or anything like, he would take it to the house a lot of times.

00:38:43
Speaker 4: I saw a lot of those on his highlights.

00:38:45
Speaker 1: But he was not as complete a back, maybe as a Marshall falk Or Ladanian Tomlinson for instance, even that first year where he didn't get All Pro, it was actually Brian Westbrook in his best season or the first team All Pro had like twenty three hundred yards. But in terms of running the ball, lateral ability, shifting gears, like, what stands out to you watching him.

00:39:08
Speaker 2: The vision of the power?

00:39:09
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I mean, I'm telling you you saw some of the hot because you know, as big and strong as he was, like his waist, he probably had like a twenty eight inch waist, right, So guys who'd come in and take big shots at him, there wasn't a ton in the mid section to hit.

00:39:22
Speaker 2: He ran kind of straight up.

00:39:24
Speaker 3: He wasn't necessarily always bone guys with the shoulders when he ran, so he was he was dipping it like he could.

00:39:29
Speaker 2: He could shake a guy. The great running.

00:39:30
Speaker 3: Backs could shake a guy in the phone booth or verbial phone. But he was that guy. But then it was just so much heat and strength behind it. You're like, Okay, do I hit him in the thigh, which is the strongest bastle group of his body and he's gonna, you know, concuss me or what am I doing? Here, so he was frustrating to play play against. And when I think about it, I mean think about the twenty twelve season too. Christian Ponder was his quarterback. Oh man, his leading receiver was Percy Harvan.

00:39:56
Speaker 2: Like the bread farmer Barbara was gone, right, you know that? So that brief stint Wow.

00:40:02
Speaker 1: And that's a good call that he had the two thousand and ninety seven yards with Ponder as his quarterback.

00:40:07
Speaker 3: I mean, do you see why he got the ball as many times as he did and they only won ten games. They did win their final four games that season to get into the playoffs and they're losing the wild card. But I mean with that, dude did like he's going to be the last running back to go into the Hall of Fame. He's He's always won twenty seven. He'll be the last running back to go in until Derrick Henry probably maybe Marshawn maybe, But when you think about the way football has changed, he is the last hmm, big bellcow until you get you get to Derrick Henry.

00:40:39
Speaker 4: It's a great it's a great call.

00:40:40
Speaker 1: Now I am hoping that the voters consider my guy Frank or overtime. I'm not saying that you get in maybe one because he to me was a truly excellent player. But you're right, I did not put those guys on this list. I did think about Derrick Henry. He would be the running back right now. Who who would have chance? Certainly Gore, You know CMC. There's there's been some great bats, but Peterson's different. And the fact on a bunch of bad teams, he did make the NFC Championship game with Brett fav as you mentioned, they made the playoffs a couple of times in that eighth nine window, but he did not have a chance to have a lot of playoff success, and yet everyone knew he was that dude. I'm gonna throw to an old colleague of ours, a guy I used to enjoy working with on an outfit called what was it called NFL Plus back in the day. This is Ike Taylor being interviewed for the NFL one hundred series.

00:41:39
Speaker 6: Does he make it the mega sent out for two years? He gonna make it one nightmare? He's Jason Freddy Krueger Like, when you where you talking about the Minnesota Vikers where Adrian Peterson playing, We have to stop this.

00:42:01
Speaker 1: That was just funny to me that he made the top one to one in a year that he didn't play. This is enough players just voted for him anyways. He's that's respect is Ike is the absolute Yes he is. I enjoy watching him play so much that why not let's actually throw it back to his time in Washington. Not what people think of with Adrian Peterson, but him ripping off. And when I went through his greatest plays, so many of them are forty to seventy yarders. This guy was a drive in one play, he was a big play machine.

00:42:37
Speaker 7: My god, touchdown sixty four yards.

00:42:54
Speaker 4: I just like that he was still getting it. That was like year twelve at the end of his career.

00:42:57
Speaker 3: And I'm telling you, man, the load he took in the shots he took. If you were on the field and you watch some of the shots he took before he was coming through the little hole line of script, he took some licks and just I know, the other dude's worse off than me.

00:43:12
Speaker 1: It was an amazing combination of a slasher like he is the slasher and not afraid to take contact and get that extra two or three yards through contact like they teach you. But also when he was in the open field on so many of these big plays. His footwork, just the way he would set guys up, and those feet just suddenly stop start moving really quick when he's about to, you know, make a cut. It just froze defenders and then he gets past them and you're not gonna catch him.

00:43:42
Speaker 3: He's a throwback. I mean, he's a seventies running back. He's a Franco Harris guy. Mikel didn't have a speed, but Earl Campbell type of guy. I mean, he he would have fit so well in that era.

00:43:53
Speaker 1: All right, our next guy would have fit in absolutely any era. I have to admit I feel bad, and this is true for a lot of these guys coming up. We're getting to the real meat of this list. I feel bad for not having him higher.

00:44:07
Speaker 2: Number sixteen Drew Breese breeze.

00:44:11
Speaker 3: It's under center, the snap to spin, the fake handoff, prop tacks, seven torsa saw passing.

00:44:15
Speaker 4: Ends one Pat Pedalley touch touchdown.

00:44:18
Speaker 2: That's craped Fine Hill. That's him, Pats the record.

00:44:23
Speaker 3: Drew Brees has thrown for more touchdown passes than any quarterback in professional football history.

00:44:29
Speaker 8: Drew Brees is all around quarterback and anytime you think of Drew Brees, you think about the regulasy are broken drops?

00:44:37
Speaker 2: Bat looks to the fore sideline. Why tho it's been Drake Laont Smith.

00:44:41
Speaker 4: And Traylenn Smith is gonna go to the end zone? Drew Brees has done it.

00:44:46
Speaker 2: You have just witness history New Orleans.

00:44:49
Speaker 4: Drew Brees is the NFL's all time leading passer.

00:44:53
Speaker 8: Thomas in the backfield. Here's the crowner shocking at the touchdown. Jeremy Shocky in the slot to the road. All right, the Saints are back in the end zone on a two yard touchdown sposition.

00:45:05
Speaker 4: He'd make a habit? Did you make a habit?

00:45:07
Speaker 2: Maybe?

00:45:08
Speaker 8: Yeah? D you make it happen?

00:45:11
Speaker 1: A record setter in so many categories, the leader in passing yards so many times, set the passing yards record, set the touchdown mark at one point in his career. A guy who now is second all time in passing yards and touchdowns to Tom Brady, but a guy who was as consistent as anyone could possibly be, but also had some of the highest of highs. One of those touchdown calls you heard there was a go ahead touchdown to Jeremy Shockey with under six minutes to go in the Super Bowl. Everyone remembers Tracy Porter, but it took Drew Brees driving down the field and making it happen to go take that.

00:46:00
Speaker 3: Well, I mean his competitiveness. You know, we hear this about all the great ones was unmatched. And it's not just on the field or training. The stories you hear are talking to our old colleague Chase Daniel, who backed up Drew Brees for years. Like the preparation he had in meetings and the way he would see the field and see the game and then was in so in tune with Sean Payton as a play caller, was like next level. Like everybody who came from playing behind Drew Brees says, they learned how to prepare now so when they would go to their next team, they could train younger guys on how to study for meetings. But you know, here, here's a really a couple cool things about Drew Brees. Okay, other than Marcus Colston, Jeremy Shockey, Jimmy Graham, until Michael Thomas came to the end of his career, like.

00:46:44
Speaker 2: Who are his receivers? It was a revolving door of receivers, right, But here's a great story that Jameis Winston told me why Drew Brees was so good because the one stat you didn't talk about that we finally started talking about.

00:46:58
Speaker 3: Because Drew Brees completion percentage. So Jamie said, they were playing a game. They were down two scores with like four minutes left. So what's Jamie is thinking? We gotta take some shots here. He's on the sideline, Breeze is playing, and Breeze is methodically seven yards here, nine yards here. So they end up scoring a touchdown. But there's only like a minute a half left on the clock. So Breeze is so he's like, man, why aren't you taking shots? What are we doing with the plays we're calling? He's like, hey, hey, protect the ball, you play within the offense, you move the ball down the field. We see you got in the end zone. We got a defense that can take the ball away. We'll get another chance to get back in there.

00:47:34
Speaker 2: They get another chance.

00:47:34
Speaker 3: They didn't win the game, but where so many quarterbacks are thinking, Okay, you know, Jennale's pumping, we got.

00:47:39
Speaker 2: To go do this.

00:47:40
Speaker 3: Breeze is like, this is how we do things here, this is what works. This is why Jamie's here throwing thirty picks a season and I'm throwing nine, and it's it's just, you know, I covered so many Saints games during the breeze era, and just seeing I'm six to two, right, he's he's about my height, maybe a little shorter, maybe he's he's not as small as you think people trying to diminish his size. But what Sean Payton did with him because of his size, helped teams build their offensive lines a certain way and open the door for shorter quarterbacks. The Tours of the world, the Bakers of the world, and that's built them guard to guard. Right, you talked about Jarry Evans, one of the best guards of the ear in some of these interior alignments. So now you got a pocket, you gotta stele like Toronto Armstead and some of these other guys here to handle the one on one stuff. But more and more teams these days, because of Drew Brees and the way the success had stepping up into the pocket, build their team's guard center guard to create throwing lanes for their shorter quarterback.

00:48:41
Speaker 1: So I love what you said about the completion percentage, which is a stat that I thought at some points could get a little overrated, But I think in Breeze's case, and he finished his career five straight years over seventy percent, like he was setting the record, Like there were three straight years where he had like seventy two, seventy four, seventy four percent.

00:48:58
Speaker 4: Just numbers that you've never seen before.

00:49:00
Speaker 1: Were the reason why it mattered so much, because not just because he was making the right football play and throwing to the open receiver, was that it was setting up despite his reputation one of the most efficient deep ball throwers in the history of the NFL, if you go back and you look through his greatest plays in some of the most important plays of his career, and I went and did that this week, you know how many of them are to Deveri Heerson and Robert Meacham and Brandon Cooks.

00:49:35
Speaker 4: I would say plus forty, like so many. And you want to know why that is?

00:49:39
Speaker 1: Because you're playing zone against Drew Brees and he's picked your part eight nine eleven, eight nine eleven, and then suddenly you get caught sleeping and there goes Brandon Cooks for eighty nine. And you know, like how perfectly each one of those passes were He did not have the arm of Farvard or anything like that, but his timing made up for it and turned him into I think the most underrated deep ball thrower ever because it was such a huge part of his game and even volume wise. They threw a lot of deep balls even late in his career, and they hit him because it was one part of his excellence setting up another part.

00:50:19
Speaker 3: And look, part of the play again. I must have covered I could pay stay tax in Louisiana. I've covered to many Saints games in the Breeze era. But look, they had one of the best screen games, you know, with Reggie Bush and then Pierre Thomas. Right, so they used the screen game as the run game. We know how much he love the tight ends in the red zone. I mean, Benjamin Watts, I think I got a thirteen toychdown cat season.

00:50:41
Speaker 4: Shaki was great.

00:50:44
Speaker 3: I mean, so they utilized a lot of things to set up the deep throws. But the one thing about Breeze too, you always see he had this kind of motion where he when he would throw it, it was almost like, you know, the Greek god type of he was laning back like man, how does he see? And He just trust his preparation so much, his practice reps so much because he's he's got this odd thing. If we go back and look at his highlights, you'll see some of those throws, but so much of it is built on the preparation.

00:51:10
Speaker 2: Let's not forget this was a dude.

00:51:13
Speaker 3: People thought's career was over when he left the Chargers and he had a debilitating, super damaged shoulder, to where when he went on free agent vigits with the Dolphins when Nick Saban was coaching them and the Saints, the Dolphins are like, yeah, we don't think he's gonna be able to last because of that shoulder.

00:51:29
Speaker 2: Goes to the Saints in two thousand and six.

00:51:31
Speaker 3: After they returned from San Antonio because a hurricane Katrina, and just starts dialing it up.

00:51:36
Speaker 1: I am so glad you mentioned the San Diego years because his entry into the NFL was really bumpy. He did not play as a rookie.

00:51:48
Speaker 2: He I think Doug Flutie was playing.

00:51:50
Speaker 1: Doug Flutie was playing, and you know he was a early second round pick because of the size.

00:51:56
Speaker 4: Probably he was six feet.

00:51:57
Speaker 1: You're saying he's looking at you, i'd eyes at six feet.

00:52:01
Speaker 4: I don't know.

00:52:03
Speaker 1: Maybe it was because he you know, he also compared to some of the quarterbacks, relatively slight. I remember, you know, I've walked by him and stuff. He just in a different setting. He looks like a normal guy. Most of these guys don't look like No. So he he comes in his second year after not playing as a rookie, and he's okay, it's up and down, but he's showing promise. The next year, he gets benched in the middle of the year. They are two and nine. He is struggling. He has more interceptions than touchdowns, doesn't totally get along with his head coach. There's like there's kind of like conversation of like does he have a good attitude, like stuff like this, and now knowing his history, like he was a competitor and that team was terrible and he was put in a tough spot. Benched the draft Philip Rivers in the next draft, Philip Rivers is going to start over him and Breeze's career is in a really tough place until well, Breeze until Rivers holds out a training camp very Chargers esque contract negotiations. They can't agree to a contract Breeze comes out the next year and he wins Comeback Player of the Year. He is awesome in training camp, he is awesome in the season. He does not let Rivers get on the field, and he ends up, you know, starting another year in front of Rivers also playing well. But as you mentioned, hurts his shoulder at the very end of it, and that sets up the free agency visit where he wanted to play with Miami, they didn't want him, and he ends up changing, you know, a city forever and that that's he.

00:53:40
Speaker 2: Could run for governor right now, he would win one hundred percent of the votes.

00:53:44
Speaker 1: I don't know if any one player has had a bigger impact on their city than Drew Brees on New Orleans.

00:53:53
Speaker 2: You might be right. He is. He is worshiped. He is held in that high regard.

00:53:57
Speaker 3: And when we think about the primiers, Greg, you know, you're worlds a lot, You're a two lane grad. That guy, what he did for that city, the way he embraced that city, especially coming post Katrina. He showed up there with Sean Payton as a tandem and six.

00:54:11
Speaker 1: Right, So that's their first season and is easily his best season as a pro up until that point, he gets All Pro First Team in that season. People don't remember, they were not really high expectations. They go ten and six, they win a playoff game, they get to the NFC Championship game that year and get turned back and Breeze you suddenly realize this marriage between him and Peyton, how he started winning from the neck up and Lance Moore and just that that whole team was just one of my favorite Reggie Bush.

00:54:44
Speaker 2: Duce McAllistair. I mean, it's just so fun to watch with teams.

00:54:47
Speaker 1: So I mentioned, I mentioned the that's his All Pro team, and he could be higher on this list. I didn't want it to be all quarterbacks at the top. It could be you know, there are a number of quarterbacks.

00:55:00
Speaker 3: Hold up real quick. Ye said that was his All Pro season. Yes, his only All Pro season.

00:55:05
Speaker 1: And that's what's tough about Breeze evalued him this way. He had some of the best seasons ever that didn't win MVP, and he did win second team All Pro four different times. And it's to Manning twice, Rogers, it's to Mahomes and right, it's it's to some of the greatest players of all time. And his twenty eleven season, and I would argue at two thousand and nine because I actually was writing at College dcsports dot com at the time. I thought Drew Brees should have been the MVP that season in the regular season over Peyton Manning. So while it doesn't look as great that he only gets one first team All Pro two of those seasons, man he had his strong argument for it. Rogers had a crazy twenty eleven season and Manning was great in a nine. I would have picked Breeze, but Saints fans will tell you, like, he could easily have three MVPs, So I'm not going to kill him that he was like the second best player in the NFL in those seasons.

00:56:00
Speaker 2: Here's a validation. He's up to go to campon next year.

00:56:04
Speaker 1: Well, yes, there's no going Well, yeah, he's one of those guys you don't even have to make an argue.

00:56:11
Speaker 4: So don't don't come after me.

00:56:14
Speaker 2: I'm not coming after you. I mean, I'm just saying I'm talking about a list of I mean, I love the dude. I love.

00:56:18
Speaker 3: I'm just kind of like, isn't it crazy that he was this great that he's won of the leading pastors.

00:56:22
Speaker 2: Of all time?

00:56:23
Speaker 3: And they made the Pro are the All Pro Team ONTs because again he played look at the ear. He talked about me Yes, Manning, Brady Rogers, mahomes of some of the great quarterbacks.

00:56:33
Speaker 2: And he only was able to make it one time.

00:56:34
Speaker 4: And yet he won. You know, it's crazy.

00:56:36
Speaker 1: He actually won two Offensive Players of the Year, so that you would think is like a higher honor.

00:56:41
Speaker 4: But in those years where he two of those years where he.

00:56:43
Speaker 1: Came in second for MVP, they kind of gave him the consolation prize because he had such an incredible year and he ends up winning Offensive Player of the Year. He won Comeback Player of the Year. But it was not in the year that he's coming back from that horrible Souldier surgery hand it's getting benched. It was from being bad in San Diego. He actually won Comeback Player of the Year in San Diego. So I struggled at first. I had Lamar Jackson over him. He was in our first episode in the between twenty one and twenty five, Lamar Jackson because his highs have been.

00:57:17
Speaker 4: So so high the MVP.

00:57:19
Speaker 1: And then when I looked at it, though, I was like, man, Drew Brees' highs are pretty.

00:57:22
Speaker 2: You're not gonna get free king argue for that.

00:57:24
Speaker 1: Okay, okay, I'm just like, they are amazing, leading the league and passing so many times. One of the best to ever do it. Steve Weis is one of the best to ever do I'm glad you came in for this.

00:57:36
Speaker 3: So glad you asked me to do this. When you told me the project, you know, I was like, this is great, and he pulled it off.

00:57:40
Speaker 2: So far, well done.

00:57:42
Speaker 4: We've just getting going here.

00:57:44
Speaker 1: Our next episode we will tackle players fifteen through twelve. That is gonna be a lot of fun. We'll see you next time.