Who is the best true utility player in the NFL?
The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL
The Athletic
4.6 • 3.3K Ratings
🗓️ 1 June 2026
⏱️ 46 minutes
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Summary
You ever think about where an elite middle linebacker of yesteryear might play in today's NFL? You ever find yourself pondering who the best true utility player in the league might be? You ever wish that smart football folks had a bit more skepticism around coaching hires that look great on paper? Then this edition of The Athletic Football Show's mailbag is for you! Robert Mays and Derrik Klassen dig into all of those ideas, and a whole lot more.
Host: Robert Mays
Co-Hosts: Derrik Klassen and Dave Helman
Executive Producer: Michael Beller
Senior Producer: Katy Duffy
Social Producer: Scott Krinch
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 Dave on X: @DaveHelman_
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the athletic football show. |
| 0:21.6 | I'm Robert Mays. It's another mailbag Monday here on the podcast. Just quick heads up programming-wise. This is going to be running on Monday. We are not going to have a show tomorrow, but we are going to have a show Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday of this week. I'm just going to be getting back from vacation. So a slightly different schedule. And then we're going to be back Monday through Thursday thursday starting next week the week of june 8 so just something to keep on your radar but we're going to |
| 0:26.2 | have four shows a week essentially all the way up through training camp a lot of fun stuff that we've got |
| 0:31.2 | on tap that we've got planned our first lingering questions show is this week so a lot of our favorite |
| 0:36.4 | offseason content is is right around the |
| 0:39.1 | corner. Today, it was me and Derek answering your mailbag questions. Sincerely appreciate |
| 0:43.7 | everyone who spent the time to send those in another really good batch of them. Let's get to it |
| 0:49.3 | right now. All right. |
| 1:00.4 | It's another mailbag Monday here on the athletic football show. |
| 1:04.5 | I have about 10 or so questions we're going to try to get through today. |
| 1:07.4 | The first one is from Moose. |
| 1:09.1 | It says June 1st is just around the corner. |
| 1:10.9 | The hypothetical A.J. Brown trade is the big thing to keep an eye on. But what other trades or |
| 1:16.2 | cuts is the league watching for? What names run your short list here? I don't think there's |
| 1:22.4 | that many. I don't feel like. Brandon Ayuk is obviously, I think, the name that is probably going to |
| 1:27.4 | be biggest that people are looking for. I think, the name that is probably going to be biggest |
| 1:28.7 | that people are looking for. I think there are a couple of those younger quarterbacks that are like |
| 1:32.7 | either, you know, trade candidates or have clearly been pushed out of their starting role, |
| 1:36.9 | Anthony Richardson, Spencer Rattler, but I feel like we've already given those a lot of air. |
| 1:41.1 | Keon Coleman is maybe still on the board for some teams if the bills are kind of done with |
| 1:45.6 | that and Joe Brady wants to kind of be in a different era as he takes things over. But I didn't |
| 1:50.5 | have that many like newer interesting names that we haven't already talked about. Two I would throw |
... |
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