This is the Athletic Football Show.

Welcome, the Athletic Football Show.

I'm Robert Mays.

Great show for you guys today.

We are continuing our lingering questions from 2023 series focusing on the AFC North.

One of the best divisions in football last year, I think has the potential to be one of the best divisions in football again.

But a lot of unanswered stuff, whether it's the way that these teams played in the playoffs or

some of the evolution on offense or defense from a couple of these units, a lot of very important

questions to dig into and here to help us run through those questions for the AFC North.

It is my old buddy from the ringer. Stephen Ruiz. Stephen, how you doing, man? I'm feeling good,

and I feel excited because you gave me a good division to work with. Usually when I get invited to these other shows, I have to talk about the NFC South and the Panthers. So it feels good to be talking about some good teams for change. I was very excited because the way that this process is gone with everyone is that I have sheepishly asked people to do this, even though it's way more work than you should ever ask about a podcast guest. And I've said, all right, you send me your questions and then I'll send you mine and we can figure out what we're going to do. And when you sent me your four for the AFC North, I was like, yeah. Like, this is exactly the type of stuff that I wanted to dig into with all of these teams. So I'm very excited to do this.

And let's get it kicked off.

Let's start with the Ravens, the defending AFC North champions.

What is your lingering question from last season about the AFC championship participating Ravens?

My question is, what's next for this offense?

Because we spent a decent amount of time during like October, November,

talking about the improvements they had made on offense and how we're seeing the best of Lamar

Jackson, how he's become a real passer. But I spent a decent amount of time around Baltimore

live in the area. And I asked Todd Munkin in like October, I think, like, how much better is

it going to be in year two?

Like, how hard is it in year one to be a coordinator and explain how like everything gets better in year two?

Like, not just on the field, like the meeting rooms, like how meetings are run, how you talk to players,

...