Sneaky big second-year player X-factors
The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL
The Athletic
4.6 • 3.3K Ratings
🗓️ 25 July 2025
⏱️ 52 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
It's easy to overlook second-year players who A) didn't have huge rookie seasons, or B) aren't quarterbacks. But you don't have to be Jayden Daniels or Malik Nabers or Jared Verse to be an X-factor for your team—and, by extension, the league—in your second season. Robert Mays and Derrik Klassen highlight six sneaky second-year X-factors on this episode of The Athletic Football Show.
Rundown (timestamps are approximate)
6:22 Any second-year Falcons defensive lineman
13:16 Christian Mahogany, Lions LG
20:37 Cole Bishop, Bills S
26:56 Kris Jenkins, Bengals DT
36:51 Renardo Green, 49ers CB
44:34 Blake Fisher, Texans RT
Hosts: Robert Mays and Derrik Klassen
Executive Producer: Michael Beller
Producer: Michael Beller
Subscribe to The Athletic Football Show...
Follow Robert on Bluesky: @robertmays.bsky.social
Follow Derrik on Bluesky: @qbklass.bsky.social
Follow Dave on Bluesky: @davehelman.bsky.social
Follow Robert on X: @robertmays
Follow Derrik on X: @QBKlass
Follow Dave on X: @davehelman_
Theme song: Haunted
Written by Dylan Slocum, Trevor Dietrich, Ruben Duarte, Kyle McAulay, and Meredith VanWoert / Performed by Spanish Love Songs
Courtesy of Pure Noise / By arrangement with Bank Robber Music, LLC
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Two Titans of Silicon Valley, one prize, dominance in the world of artificial intelligence. |
| 0:07.0 | Supremacy is the real story behind the struggle to own our digital future and potentially the very nature of human experience. |
| 0:16.0 | Supremacy by Parmy Olson, described as a riveting tale by the new scientist, winner of the Financial Times Business Book of the Year, and now the Waterstone's nonfiction book of the month. |
| 0:27.5 | Listen to the audiobook of Supremacy Now. |
| 0:35.4 | Welcome to the Athletic Football Show. |
| 0:40.7 | I'm Robert Mays. Me and Derek Klessen are digging into year two players today. I think we spend so much time talking about guys as prospects heading into their |
| 0:47.6 | rookie years. And it's just impossible to keep track of everybody over the course of that first season. |
| 0:52.9 | Some guys are immediate contributors. |
| 0:54.9 | Some guys are being rotated into the lineup. But those guys that you drafted in the first, |
| 0:59.7 | second, even the third round, heading into year two, you're expecting them to be big parts of your |
| 1:05.4 | plans. And so that's the pool of players that we took a long look at today. Me and Derek each picked three |
| 1:12.2 | -ish guys heading into year two that we think can swing their unit one way or the other. Sometimes |
| 1:20.6 | this is about realizing your ceiling as a unit. One of my guys was Christian Mahogany from the |
| 1:25.1 | Lions. If Mahogany is a plus starter, as the Lions offensive line again a top five to seven unit in the league? Sometimes |
| 1:32.8 | it's about setting a floor for your unit. If you can get one more guy that's an acceptable |
| 1:37.3 | starter, does an offensive or defensive line come together in a way where it allows the entire |
| 1:43.5 | offensive or defense to kind of be the unit that that team wants it to be. So we pick three guys that we think based on how they play this year could push their unit either positionally or on that side of the ball one way or the other. Really enjoyed this conversation with Derek. Let's get to it right now. |
| 2:10.6 | Derek, I'm excited about this one today. This is an idea that we landed on a couple weeks ago and we were figuring out how we wanted our pre-season training camp podcast to look. |
| 2:16.2 | And I just think this is a group of players we don't talk |
| 2:19.8 | enough about. Just think about how much time and energy we spend, breaking down guys as prospects. |
| 2:25.3 | And then over the course of their rookie years, there's just no way to keep track of everybody. |
| 2:30.0 | And I think we kind of forget guys that didn't necessarily burst onto the scene as rookies as they move into their second year. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Athletic, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of The Athletic and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.

