To Reds baseball against the Cubs here in just a little bit. We'll have the inside pitch coming up in about an hour in about three weeks, maybe a little less than that. The Cincinnati Bengals report to training camp. Hopefully with a healthy Joe burrow. Hopefully with a healthy Trey Hopkins hopefully with Jamaar Chase, ready to be that blow off the top of the defensive, secondary kind of speed, Hopefully, hopefully hopefully Lot of teams are in a lot of different places with players right now, players that have been really good players for them for years, and players they're hoping can bring them to the next level. Every single one Of the 32 NFL teams is hoping the same thing. But I saw a couple of stories this week that caught my eye, both written by a writer that I think is terrific. Sam Monsoon. Sam Munson was with the original pro football focus group. When it was in Ireland. They now operate at, um Cincinnati in over the Rhine. And he wrote a couple of stories. One was five NFL teams with an Achilles heel that could derail their 2021 season. Another words five teams Have something wrong with him physically, structurally, that will prevent them from chasing a championship in 2021 the other story that I wrote that he wrote that caught my eye was this one? Corey Davis and more regression candidates for the 2021 NFL season. In other words, players that excelled in 2020 that may be looking to fall back to Earth, either from a statistic goal or from a performance standpoint. So when you get that much information out of San Munson, you've got to get him on the air. And here he is today on the Fourth of July to join us to talk about both of those articles and more Sam Bronson, How are you on this glorious fourth? Doing great. Let's start first with regression candidates for the 2021 NFL season Now I saw that I said, Whoa! Is he trying to make us believe that these guys are going to fall off the map? But no, The articles just is that these candidates of which Jesse Bates, the third is one of them are players that had such great seasons in 20. 20 or players that you know we're just so long term, very good that it just stands to reason averages will catch up with them, so that's really the basis of the article, right? Yeah, I think you know, one of the things we've learned from all these years of doing. Kids have data that we tend to assume the players just kind of get better and better every year where they're young, and then they Reach a level and that's where they're going to play for the rest of their careers. But it doesn't really work that way. And you see these guys kind of bounce around all over the map a little bit, and the the reputation might not change, you know, player might might be held in the same esteem year on year, but he's going to play a little bit better or a little bit worse. Every single season it fluctuates. And depending on how good he was a year ago, you can have a pretty good chance of, you know, just ball parking, whether he's going to get better or worse, based off where that wants, And there was a lot of these guys that either had a breakout season last year that was so incredible that the chances are they're going to take a step back or You have a pretty good idea of what this guy's career baseline has been, and he had a career year last year, So you know, just by logic, he's probably going to come back down to where that baseline has been. Rather than continue this incredible season, the bait that he had in 2020. Well, how would you then? Great baits? Because Bates obviously was terrific. I think in pro football focus is rankings, he graded out to 20/90 percent. And as you point out in the story that's almost 30% points higher. 30 points are than the year before, so you could see where he may be trending up. But when you see a spike like that, it makes you wonder. Well, okay. Is that a career year year or in some guy's cases? Not necessarily him certainly is. Is it a contract year? Some say the same thing about Trey Hendrickson. When he was in New Orleans. Last year. He had all those sacks and they were saying, Well, you know, it was a contract year. You and I have had discussions about sex in the folly of pointing too much emphasis on those things. But with Bates, you could make a case that he simply continuing to trend up. 90 Plus is pretty damn good, not sure how much harder he could get. But the law of averages with him is, I think based or this story is based on the fact that he had that big spike last year. Yeah, and base is interesting because you know, that was year three. And your three is typically the year where you do see the development and a step forward from young players. So it fits the narrative, right. It's like Jesse Base hit. Your three took a big leap forward, and now he's the best 80 in the NFL or one of them. He was, I think our number one Great and safe. You last season. Um there are a couple of things that jump out of Just a little bit of areas for concern in terms of backing that up next year. One just how big a jump it was from the year before. I mean, it was a 30 point. Great jump over all, it was 25. Point great jump in terms of coverage when you're talking about leaps that big it just screams. Um you know, outlier, more than necessarily true development and the true raising of a gaze level. Then the other thing that jumps out is how to the heavily depended there was on Big plays in coverage. Obviously, that's a good thing for safety. But big plays and coverage are just a difficult thing to repeat your on year because it's not all down to what you did you know, as a safety or cornerback, you're a little bit at the mercy of where the ball goes. You know how much quarterback or receiver gives you a chance to make those plays? So Jesse Bait, let all safeties in combined interceptions and pass breakups. Forced incompletions. All those kinds of things did it while playing, you know most of his time of a single, high free safety where you've got more space to cover, but just the fact that so much of that grade was built on those plays that themselves fluctuate on her volatile statistic year to year. Again. It just stands logically next year. He's probably not going to have as many of those plays and that immediately is going to take some off is great, right? Right? No, I think there's no question about it. And if and if a receiver or a secondary guy is a victim as to where the quarterback may or may not throw quarterbacks figure into this this next category, you say both Josh Allen and Aaron Rodgers Are prime candidates for regression. Now, now, Rogers a age may catch up with him, and there's certainly more going on with Aaron Rodgers than any football fan her team would want with regards to his contract. Josh Allen was so good last year that it just stands to reason that to expect that another year or a build off last year would be asking quite a bit. Even as good as Buffalo is. So is it aged with Rogers? And expectations for Alan, where to each one of those fit into this regression candidate thing. No, I don't think it's even age with Rogers because you know he was all last year, and he had the best season of his career. It's just that it's the fact that it was the best season of his career..