The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Von Miller traded to the Rams, Derrick Henry injured & Mailbag talking Eagles, Cowboys, NFL rule changes & more with Benjamin Solak

Episode Date: November 2, 2021

Benjamin Solak of The Ringer joins Robert Mays on the heels of the Von Miller trade, which sends the All-Pro from the Denver Broncos to the Los Angeles Rams. They react to it all + the Derrick Henry injury news before diving into your mailbag questions concerning the Eagles, the Cowboys and Kellen Moore, choosing between the Browns and the Bengals, a fun spin on an NFL rule change and much more. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the athletic football show. Welcome to the athletic football show. Today's Tuesday, November 2nd. I'm Robert Mays. We got a jam-packed show today. A lot of things went down this morning that we're going to get to, and I'm very excited to welcome. The ringer's own Ben Solac.

Still getting used to saying that, but very happy that I get to. Yeah, I got the breaking news this morning on the phone with our mutual buddy Riley, who's now the guy who has to deal with all my excessive film face and excitement after previously for many many years, he dealt with yours. So for Riley, he says hi. And yeah, we screamed about Von Miller for like 20 minutes today. It was great. Well, Riley's a Rams fan. So this is a big moment for him.

The only like real Rams fan I knew in Los Angeles because Riley's fandom is very strange. No one gives a shit about this. But no one knows who Riley Magatia is to listen to this show. Riley was a Kings fan. He was a Rams fan. He was a great person to have. have in the office. I think Riley and I annoyed a lot of other people in the office whenever I would be there because we would just talk about sports in public in this open space office. And I was

appreciate that about him. He's a great office mate. Yeah, he's, he's the man. He also has a horrible beard and mustache right now. Oh, God. That should be noted as well. That sounds terrible. It's something else. All right. We have a lot to get to today. Obviously, the Von Miller trade went down earlier today. We're going to talk about that. We're going to talk about the ramifications for both the Broncos and the Rams. and we had some huge Derek Henry news. But let's start with Von Miller, and let's start from the Rams side of this. Just makes all the sense in the world,

considering what their timeline is, the way they operate, where their needs are. I mean, as soon as I saw it, it's shocking, obviously, because he's a Hall of Fame talent. He is so identified with that franchise. He's been there for over decade.

And on that side of it, it's like, oh, man, Von Miller got traded. But if you actually think about it for 10 seconds, It's like, okay, this makes a ton of sense. He's going to be a free agent next year. This is how the Rams operate. And they understand what their window is and they're trying to pry it open by any means necessary.

Absolutely. And the biggest issue with the Rams this year was new defensive coordinator Rahim Morris with no background in a Vic Fangio, Brandon's daily defense, trying to graft his coaching process and his thought process into that system because they wanted to remain generally in that structure.

Right. And there was a lot good comment. out of that, right? Jalen Ramsey's maybe playing too much slot and they're struggling to figure out corner two and, you know, obviously Aaron Donald, Sebastian Joseph Day, Leonard Floyd, those guys are still playing great, but they're a little bit missing Morgan Fox and Michael Brockers. And so it, you expect it to be a learning process. Adding a player like Vaughn just helps. It just makes it easier for everybody, you know? Like, I think, I think if you go on film, their biggest concern isn't really pass rush. They've been getting decent pressure, been blitzing a lot. But it's been the coverage on

the back in. It's been the guys other than Ramsey trying to fill all those gaps in coverage. Well, adding Vaughn, you know, it's not like they're adding a corner. It's not like they're addressing the problem directly. But man, like when you're on a passing down and Vaughn and Leonard Floyd can tee off, we've seen the Aaron Donald effect for these outside edge rushers, how much attention he demands and how easy it makes it for them. Like coverage isn't going to be asked to do as much as it has been the first half of the season once you get Vaughn in the building. And so this is a, a necessary addition to take some of the load off of Rahim Morris's shoulders as they come down the home stretch here.

Yeah, and they're blitzing more than it did last year. I think they're 11th in blitz rate. I mean, that's just been more part of their identity this season than it was last year, which makes sense when you consider Rahim Morris's background and what those Falcons defenses look like near the end, especially. It's not shocking to me. But now, do they have to do it less, does it put less strain on the back end? I think those are all the questions that you're going to have to ask.

Von's 32, which as someone who's 34, I'm not going to say that he's past it. I think that he still has a lot of good football left in front of him. And the numbers would say as much. He's a 15th in the NFL in pressures so far this year. I think on a per snap basis, he's right kind of in that same range. He still is a really good player. And now you have a Rams team with him. He and Floyd do very different things.

Like, they didn't have this bendy edge guy that could really just kind of pin his ears back and go. They haven't really had one of those guys with Aaron Donald in a long time. Now they do. It changes the complexion of their defense. And from just a proposition standpoint, from a gamble standpoint, from a gamble standpoint, you give away a second round pick and a third round pick next year. The Broncos pay most of his remaining salary. So essentially Denver is buying a second and third round pick for $9 million, which I found fascinating.

But this is not something out of character for the Rams. They have said over and over and over again with their actions and with their words, we are going to go about this differently. We value draft picks in a different way than other franchises do. We look at the known quantities that we've traded for, whether it's Brandon, in Cooks or Jalen Ramsey or whoever as more valuable for our current situation than whatever those draft picks might turn into. And I think that this is another example of that.

And so far, it's worked out okay for them. Absolutely. And I think that I'm not only interested in the Rams aggressiveness and their willingness to go all in their willingness to push the chips in the middle of the table, but even more so, the job security that Les Sneat has, which allows him not only to do that once, but to do that twice and then to do it a third time. And to me, those things compound on each other. When you trade multiple first round picks for Jalen Ramsey, it's like, holy smokes,

this is bold. But Ramsey's probably the best corner in the game. That changes the way you do things defensively. And it certainly has from the moment they drafted, they traded for him, excuse me, even when it was Wade Phillips, and then when it was Brandon Stanley and now with it, when it's Rahim Morris. Well, guess what? It didn't take you all the way because you still had an issue of quarterbacks.

Now you get to do the second one, Matt Stafford, multiple first round picks. And yeah, offense was good with Jared Gough, but there's no way you can argue against the idea that Stafford has changed the way this offense worked and drastically improve the offense altogether. The throws that he's able to make the way that he opens up the field. You had a great pod with with Giante and Seth from PFF talking about how this offense has just changed structurally because of what Stafford allows them. Well, the cardals are really good. The NFC's really good. So even both of these moves may not have gotten you all the way there. So you know what? We're pot committed. Third one. Here we go. Let's trade multiple picks for Von Miller. And that's again going to change what

they do structurally. They're again going to adjust to focus on those star players. And that's what's really something else about the Rams. They're just the top heaviest roster in the league by a mile. They just have, they have top one players at their position in Ramsey and Donald, then top five players at their position in Vaughn, Stafford, and Cup, and then like another top 10 guy in Robert Woods. And then besides that, there's just like a lot of places on this roster you would generally call gaps, but you don't even know how much it matters because they have some. Watch elite talent. And that's how they're going in and they're going to continue to push that and push that and push that until it gets into the promise land.

So it's not just the fact that they make them move. It's that they do it again and again and again. There's no limit. They're always going to push it. That makes it really feel like a winning strategy. And I appreciate that. I appreciate the commitment to this version of it. I would say the difference here compared to what it was with Ramsey, with Stafford, even with Cooks, is that Von's a free agent and he's 32 years old.

With Stafford, when you make this move, his contract is the last year of his deal is next year. But they're going to commit to him. He's going to be their quarterback for at least the next five seasons. I don't know what the financial commitment to Vaughn looks like after this year. I mean, they're going to have to find some money in the couch cushions if they're going to keep him. They only have a few million dollars in cap space. I was looking at some of the numbers. There aren't a lot of avenues to freeing up space for them next year.

They always seem to find a way. But if they wanted to redo Stafford's deal, for example, I think he's at a $23 million dollar cap at next year. Let's say you get that down to 10, 12 with some sort of extension. They can find a little bit of room. But I will say that is the one kind of differentiation between this and the Ramsey trade. Because what they've done, and again, this is something that they have both said behind closed doors and at times in public, they want these foundational pieces for everything else to rotate around. And that's what Ramsey was for them on the back end. That's what Donald is for them on the front end. And now that's what Stafford becomes for them

offensively. I don't know if they view Vaughn as one of those foundational pieces. Is that something they're going to commit to long term or is this a 20, one move? It's a lot to give up for a 20, 21 move. But if you're this team and you have this mindset in this moment, I think it's probably justifiable. Yeah. And if it is a 2021 move, they sent a second and a third. And they weren't even going to, like, as you said, send both, it was getting the $9 million off the books that, you know, listed to the second pick being included in the deal. For all of their trading, they've got a second and a third and a third

one thing. So this was the 2021 move, right? This was the rental and they're getting a third round comp pick this year because Brad Holmes was hired by the Detroit lines. And they'll get others. John Johnson goes, Troy Hill goes. Right. And that's what I'm saying.

You're going to get those. You're going to get a Von Miller compick in the event that it's just a rental. Guess what you're going to be in a position to do at next year's trade deadline when you're seven and one again. This, you know what I mean? And it may not be Vaughn this time, but if there's a player who would like to come win a championship, or at least fight for one, you have a really, really good selling point. You have the experience making these deals.

And that's the other thing about it that I think is really starting to become interesting for the Los Angeles Rams in L.A., brand new stadium, great player coach in Sean McBay, great player coach in Rahim Morris, really likable, fun dudes to play with. And guys like Matt Stafford and Aaron, Donald, Jaylon, Jay, Ramsey. People that you've heard players talk about for a long time is like fun dudes to be around. this is becoming a really just attractive destination. You want to go. Let's go hang out in L.A. for a year.

Make it to the Super Bowl and play with some of the best players of this generation. Like, that's a sweet gig for any free agent, for any over 30 still really good star who wants to push from another ring. Like that's a sell line. Yeah, exactly. I'd buy into that for sure. And so even if this is a one-year rental for Vaughn, man, I think you can keep that style of trade deadline pushes and one season pushes going for a bit.

I totally agree. And I think that's why this makes sense and why I think we're going to see more of this from them until it stops working. I mean, this team has a chance to win a Super Bowl this year. But let's say they don't. They still have those foundational pieces. They still have those things, those little focal points that everything else revolves around heading into next year. Do they have to do some scrambling to figure out what the rest of it looks like? Yes, but they've had to do that over the last couple years.

And it's continually worked out for them because the star power that they have is so good. I fully appreciate a team saying, fuck it, we're going. after it in a world where so many other teams are content to just stay on the hamster wheel over and over and over again in a way that I find boring and mindless. Yeah. Like, oh, the Rams are going to be bad in the future. Who gives a hoot, man? You're good now.

You know what I mean? Like, it ain't your team and it's your money. Let them push. I love it. So on the other side of this, we have a Broncos team that I think this is a more interesting decision from them that it might seem on the surface. This is a four and four team that is in the playoff on theoretically. in the AFC, and they just traded away, arguably, their best defensive player, in the middle of

what could be a playoff push. And I think they deserve credit for that. That's a level of self-awareness and just a realistic outlook about where you exist in the hierarchy of the league that we don't often see from teams that are obsessed with self-preservation. And it says a lot to me about where the franchise is overall, but when you think about this move from Denver's perspective, what sticks out to you about it? I listed out some on Twitter, like some other Broncos players in contract years. I mentioned Teddy,

who's on a one-year deal, and obviously the Saints of a quarterback need. And a lot of people were like, they're four and four. Why would they sell? Firstly, they're one and four over the last five games. You've got to acknowledge again, that three-and-o start was Giants, Jags, Jets.

We got to remember that that was a thing. But secondly, I think in his moves, since he was brought in as the general manager, George Payton, the new GM of the Broncos, we can easily, you know, riddle out that he was not brought in to make the playoffs in 2021. If they do, like, you know, sick, that's nice. But the paths on Justin Fields to bring in Patrick Sertan, the discussion of the franchise quarterback and the patience and finding one and whatever. You know, obviously, Big Fangio staying for another year, but generally like a lack of aggressive moves.

They've got a ton of guys on contract years right now. It's not like extending Cortland Sutton, extending Bryce Callahan, trying to keep the core or anything like. that. It seems to me very much so like Peyton was brought in with an understanding with ownership that listen, we're going to use the 2021 season to evaluate exactly where we are with this head coach, with these quarterbacks, these star pieces. And if we feel like we should retain, extend and push off what we see, we will. But if we feel like we need to step back and tear down a little bit to rebuild in the future, we're going to do that. And so far, that's what it looks like. Right. And the trading of bond is obviously, I think, the biggest signal in that regard.

What they do for the rest of the deadline will be interesting because they've, because they've made two acquisitions, right? Stephen Weatherly and Kenny Young, both of whom are, you know, Wedley was like a rotational guy. Young was obviously a starter for the Rams, players who could be ascending, players who could do better and bigger roles, so on and so forth. So maybe they're in that acquire young potential guys sort of a position and hopefully quickly turn this thing around. But it seems to me that Peyton was brought in with a presumption of patience. That was way too alliterative. I did not mean to do that. But he was brought in with the understanding that this might be a quick turnaround, but it might be a long one.

And after what we've seen through eight games, we're expecting a longer one. So we're going to take that long road. We're going to acquire assets. I wouldn't be surprised to see the Broncos sell again before we reach deadline on Tuesday. I wouldn't either. And I think this is a reminder to me, an indication to me, that the goals and the motivations of this front office and this coaching staff aren't necessarily aligned. Yeah, 100%.

And that over the long term would be a problem for a frame. franchise. But I think right now there's an understanding like you mentioned on the George Peyton side of this. He's going to be here next year. I don't think the coaching staff is going to be there next year. I think this goes back to the Justin Fields selection and the Justin Fields conversation. Part of the reason I believe that they didn't draft a quarterback is because they didn't want to draft a quarterback for a lame duck coaching staff when the new staff would come in and have had no say in who that quarterback was. Yeah, absolutely. And now this is another example of this, where right now the coaching staff is trying to do everything it can to win

games and save their jobs. George Payton is trying to build the best football team he can for the next five years. When you have a 32-year-old edge rusher who is on the last year of his deal and you're a team that is stuck decidedly in the middle of the league with no clear path out, getting a second and third round pick for that guy is probably a good move. It makes sense when you think about their overall trajectory, their overall timeline, even if it doesn't seem to align. with what the coaching staff needs right now, where the franchise seems to be in this very moment. No, 100%.

And that disparity between where the head coach is and where the general manager is, is like at times good. You generally want your head coach oriented on winning now and your general manager oriented on winning a couple years from now. That's like the corner of balance, the tension that you want between your two team leaders right there. That's how you stay healthy for now and stay healthy for the future.

But it can leave you mired at eight and eight. which has kind of been a Bronco struggle under Vicangio is the defense have been good enough for them to beat bad teams and they can put a quarterback in there and as long as he doesn't throw free picks, they're going to win a game. And it's like, all right, we can do that. But it really feels like in the AFC West, that ain't going to cut it. You know what I mean? That's a step below the bar with how some of these other teams are playing. We need to reassess. And when you see the changing of the guard in the front office, L.A. putting to a different role, Peyton brought in. I think that's an indication of that. And that fields point is right on the nose, right?

They could have picked fields and you could have been good, but then you have to hire for fields. And that could potentially limit your coaching pool. You don't necessarily want to be in that spot if you anticipate being there next year. So I'm curious, if you're George Payton and you're running the Broncos, let me put you on the spot a little bit here. And you look at the core that you could possibly have next year and where you would go from here with this group. What are your priorities heading into the spring? Are you tearing this thing down and starting from scratch? do you think there's a group of four or five players that you think is the future?

There's a lot of flexibility here. More flexibility than you probably think when you would list off all the guys who they have on this roster. But Cortland Sutton's a free agent. They can get out of some of these deals. They're not committed to a lot of these guys financial. I think they could have like $60 million in cap space next year without cutting anybody. So they could go a lot of different directions. There are some pivot points here with this team.

And now they have some extra draft capital. Do they try to trade for a veteran quarterback? Do they try to move out for a rookie quarterback? I'm just curious which pathways and timelines are most interesting to you. Yeah, so they obviously were the primary team in the Rogers discussion when that that Domino first fell in April come draft time. I don't know how legit that is. If you have an honest shot at three years of Rogers, you do everything you can to retain a team, retain young receivers, retain good offensive line, retain good defensive backfield, and you tell Rogers we can do it.

Firstly, because you experienced Peyton Manning, you were there. You were the team that did it, right? So you know firsthand, if we can get this guy in here, I mean, it changes our free agent prospects, it changes our competitiveness, like, boom, we're moving. It changes what Corton's Coulin Sutton is, you know? Like, when I think about Demarius Thomas with and without Peyton Manning, it's just a very different thing. It changes the complexion of your roster instantly.

100%. Right. So you do your best to anything that was that you think was attractive to him previously. You emphasize that you have and you're willing to go for it and you retain that. in the event that Rogers is not the path. And you don't think you're going to be able to bring in a veteran quarterback. We know that this 22 quarterback class is looking a little funky. I think if you're picking at like 14 and one of them falls to you and you don't have to trade up,

you can take it. You know what I mean? Washington with Dwayne Haskins, Patriots with Mac Jones. If a guy falls, it's worth the swing. You're not trading up. That's cheap. You know what I mean? That's a free swing at the plate.

But I generally like where this offensive line is in terms of their young players, Garrett Bowles, Dalton, Reisner, Quinn Miners in the third round this past year. And then defensive line like Draymond Jones, Shelby Harris, they generally like in the trenches, they're good. And that's enough to kind of keep a team afloat. You know what I mean? You're not going to, I think, completely implode. So if you retain that young line and on the defensive front remains strong, hopefully Bradley Chubbs able to come back and be healthy, that's obviously been a tricky thing. You're going to be like, okay.

I don't think this has to be like a full dolphin. You know what I mean? We don't got to like get all the way into the cellar to climb all the way back up. And we saw from Miami, like, they got a lot of draft bags. Ain't work perfect. You know what I mean? That feels really nice at the top. When you get to the end of it, all of a sudden you made a couple of mistakes.

You realize maybe it wasn't worth that long of a skit. I think you can make this a position where you let some of your guys like Fuller and Bryce Callahan and maybe even Cortland Sutton or Tim Patrick Walk get some nice complex for 2022 and into 2023. Work those two drafts. That's what you brought Peyton in to do and position yourself really nicely to install that rookie quarterback and be strong 2023 and beyond. I don't think it has to be a multi-year teardown. I think that's right. And because they have guys at real positions. You talk about

the tackles. You talk about in the secondary as well. You know, you have Sertan. They have Darby for a couple years. They have Justin Simmons now for the long term. I'm looking at who the edge rushers are. And next year's free agent class, just like, all right, if now, if we let Vaughn go for whatever he was making and you could replace him with somebody who's making half of that, you know, if you give Judevian Clowny 10 million and you kind of patch that together. I mean, they suddenly become an interesting roster with the right quarterback. And I think that obviously becomes the biggest question is who the quarterback is

and how they seek out that quarterback. And that'll tell us a lot about how they view themselves. And I also think that's going to depend on what the coaching staff look like next year. And yeah, the other point is like, you know, talking about attracting Rogers. If you have an open head coaching position,

you can really attract quarterback. Go ahead and let's Nate Hack it, baby. head coach Nate Hackett. Aaron, you want to come play for the Denver Broncos? Like, you can really, really use that head coaching vacancy as we talked about leaving that open, not sticking themselves with fields. You can use that to leverage a pretty big move. I cannot.

In the world of NFL football, I cannot imagine two people more different than Vic Fangio and Nate Hackett. In terms of personality, there are not two more people in the NFL. I think more on other sides of the spectrum when it comes to just how. how energetic they are and how just it would be very different for the people covering the Broncos. That's all I'll say right now. All right. Let's move on to the Derek Henry side of this.

News comes out. Derek Henry, foot injury is likely done for the year. A tough break for the Titans. I guess not the most shocking thing in the world. He had 219 carries over the last eight games. We think about his workload last year. This was always in the back of our minds when it came to Derek Henry and what he had been asked to do for Tennessee and their offense over the last season and a half.

there is no team losing a running back that would mean more than the Titans losing a running back, not only because of the production that Henry has, but just because of the structure of their offense. So now it just becomes such an interesting question, not only about who replaces him, but about what the plan is for how you build this thing and how you approach this thing,

because we've set it on our show over the last couple weeks. This Titans' offense was finding itself. It was really settling in to the version it needed to be, in 2021 that looked like kind of a sibling of the version we'd seen over the last couple years. Now you remove a key, key piece from that entire formula. And I don't know what happens next and where they should go from here. Yeah, I suggested immediately after the Henry news kind of broke,

you cannot try to bring in a running back and then replace Derek Henry's effect on your offense and opposing defense. You don't think Adrian Peterson at this stage is going to replicate it? And it's a great name. Like, Adrian Peterson, that's a dude. But it just simply, it does not have the same, like, psychological effect on a safety. It just simply doesn't. I was thinking more so.

Richard Peterson is 36 years old. Jesus. I just looked at it. I know. And it's funny because people are sharing, you know, like clips of him with, like, big runs in 2018 and 29. It's like, guys, he was a free agent for a reason. Like, you know, you just got to kind of be where we are right now. Three years and running back years is a long.

long time. Let's just bring in Todd Gurley, baby. In 2018, he was pushing for MVP. That was 2017, but whatever. I think you're better off saying, listen, Ryan Taney Hill, we have a quarterback who's greatly benefited from play action. He's greatly benefited from our run game. We understand that.

But he plays well. He's played good football for us since we acquired him. We probably need to look at our passing game as the engine for this team. We have always viewed the engine as Derek Henry. That's been our framework. We cannot replace him. No combination of Jeremy McNichols, Darrenton Evans, and Blank does it.

So we should look at A.J. Brown, Julio Jones, and optimally, like maybe a potential addition, as the engine for this team. Ryan Tano is going to take us where we need to go. And Todd Downing is the new offensive coordinator there. He came under fire in early weeks for not really running the office-smith offense like you were talking about. They kind of settled back into that over the course last few weeks.

Now you turn to Downing as a guy who ran more 11 personnel when he was with the Raiders and he had that job. you say, he comes from a more traditional place. Yeah, we might have to turn back to that page in the playbook, turn back to the, the, the less heavy formation, spread it out a little bit more, look for some more true vertical shots instead of working our in-breaking stuff, and say, we need Ryan Tannenhills, very effective, intermediate and deep passing to lead what will be a volatile offense, but still explosive offense to enough wins to win this AFC South.

When you think about their wide receiver depth chart, obviously, you know, we know about Julio Jones and AJ Brown. After that, it's much, much thinner. When you think about the types of guys they might deal for, who might be available, the skill set they need, if they're trying to step into a different version of what this offense is going to look like, who comes to mind of what is that skill set? Right. So the thing about AJ Brown is he's largely been like an outside receiver for them because they only have outside receivers because they're largely living in 12 personnel and they have tight ends heavy. This was a guy coming out that played the slot at Ole Miss. And we thought was going to be like a Quincy of Noonwa type. He was just going to be a giant slot receiver.

I don't know if you want to put him more inside now. Go spread out and put him in the interior because you haven't really been doing that. So to me, I'm looking for guys who can play the slot for me. James and Crowder is a guy who's kind of fallen out of the rotation in New York, right? He's one that that seems acquirable. He's on a contract year. James Washington from the Steelers, not really a slot guy, more so like a vertical stretch player. But if you're looking for a caliph Raymond replacement, a guy they lost in free agency to the Lions to get some more downfield shots. That works. You call the Niners on Brandon Ayuk. You say, hey, you know how you guys don't like this player? We would like him. We would use him, please. But I don't, I can't make any

promises as to what Brandon Ayuk situation is. I don't know his availability at all. You know, beyond that like Deshawn Jackson, you know, you make these calls. If you're looking for that true slot, you know, nickel and dime guy to replace the easy four or five yard gains you were getting the running game, crowd is your best option. He makes the most sense if that's what you're trying to do. we have seen AJ Brown in the slot I think when he's been a full-time player more over the last six, eight Titans

games than we did previously. And he's been good there. So if you're not looking at that, do you think about, all right, let's call the Texans about Brandon Cooks and have him as like an outside option if AJ Brown's going to be in the slot more. I think there are a couple different ways you could go with this. The idea of adding a receiver

and having that be the way you make up for this is really interesting. I get where you're going with that. I looked at some of the numbers on it because I was just curious. Tanna Hill with three or more wide receivers on the field is ninth in EPA per play over the last three years, which is higher than I thought it would be. Honestly. So it's fifth overall, but that with when you take into account every single passing play,

but ninth with three or more receivers on the field. And it's ninth out of the shotgun in those situations as well with no play action. So they've been better in just more traditional formations, alignments, situations, just slinging the ball around, might think they just haven't been this efficiency monster in the same way they have been when their offense can be structured and tailored the way they want it to. And that's what it is. It's you're going to lose your efficiency.

So you got to, to me, you got to turn into the skid and lean on explosives, right? Like if we're talking about Brown on the slot, go get like Tim Patrick from the Broncos and just have three towers on the field and just choose you want to chuck a contested ball to and hope you rip off three yards. Yeah. And that thing is like, Tan Hill will play that way. He'll sit in the pocket. He'll take a shot to the jaw and he'll put a catch.

ball up for Julio Jones 35 yards down the field. And that's the thing is like with Julio and AJ, two healthy players, really dominant physical players, you're going to have a really good passing attack. It's the depth that makes me want to make a trade acquisition. Because I anticipate playing more three receivers. And I know that both Brown and Julio have been guys who can be touch and go with injuries over the last season. And so I'd like to add a third player, I feel confident putting out there, not just so I can live in 11, but so I can survive two weeks of a Julio absence, two weeks of an AJ Brown absence. God forbid that those happen. Well, yeah, They survived those absences over the last month because they could give the ball there.

They lost to the Jets. They survived that. They survived that times over the last month and a half because they had Derek Henry and give him the ball 30 times. That outlet is no longer available to them. And I'm not sure more snaps from Nick Westbrook-Akeena, who does have a first name, is going to be the solution here. All right.

Let us move on to the mailbag questions because we did still want to incorporate this, even with all of the news that has. come out over the last day or so. And we are going to start with some Eagles questions because we had to. I was waiting. I was holding off on the Eagles questions until you got here. So let's get to our first voice mail. Hey, Robert.

Hi, Ben. Eagles question. I need you guys to help me. I don't know what to think. Last week against the Raiders, I got all down. This week, I'm riding the high because I thought they looked really good, even though it's Detroit. And I look at their schedule.

and I think they can beat the Giants twice. I think they can beat Washington twice. I think they can even beat the Saints in Denver. Help me. Can this team win 10 games or am I just completely delusional? Thanks, guys. Robert, did you notice that that timbre of quivering desperation? That's bread and Philly right there.

You don't get that anywhere else. I loved it so much. The emotional ups and downs of just that 30-second clip are wonderful. We don't spend a ton of time on this because I do want to get into some nuts and bolts, Eagles questions, but I did want to use this kind of as a palette setter for the mindset that some Eagles fans may be in right now after what the last couple weeks have looked like. Where are you at after that game against Detroit yesterday? How do you feel about this team just overall? Because they are confounding to me, not about how good they are.

I don't think they're very good. That is not a big question to me. That's not what I'm confused about. what the next 12 months of Eagles football should and will look like, that is what is confounding to me. Yeah, it's confounding to the front office and the head coaches too. And that's why you've seen what you've seen over the last eight weeks. The Eagles are in figure it out mode in terms of like the coaching staff and the players on a week-to-week basis.

You know, Nick Suriani, first time head coach, not a ton of play calling office of coordinating experience, now has a quarterback in Jalen Hertz, who is a very unique player in terms of where he throws the ball well, where he doesn't, how he likes to leave the pocket, loves to throw to his right, loves to scramble around. How do we coach that? Jonathan Gannon, the DC, comes from Mike Zimmer defenses with Anthony Barr

and Eric Kendrix, from Matt Everfrews' defenses with Darius Leonard and Anthony Walker. Now he walks into the absolute worst linebacker room in Philadelphia. And for six weeks, he has no idea why his defense can't work. He doesn't have linebackers. They're integral to this approach. You have young coaches with a very aging roster

that's turning over that doesn't have really a lot of young. exciting talent. That's why you see like, we're just not going to run the ball at all. And then the next week, we're going to run the ball a lot. Right. They are in figure out what works mode. And that takes time and it leads to some really, really mercurial week over week performance. All right. Let's get to this question from Brian Carney about Jaylen Hurts specifically. He said, as an Eagles fan, it felt like the most important thing to answer the season was whether or not Jaywin Hertz could be the guy. So far, it doesn't seem like he can be. Obviously, there's some factors to consider here, but his play this season is shown why he was still around to pick 53 in the draft.

If you're Howie Roseman, what do you need to see from Hertz for the rest of the season to stick with him? I get that he's only started 12 games, but as of now, the Eagles are sitting on three top 10 picks in the first round of next year's draft. It doesn't seem like this can't miss quarterback is coming out of college this year. And I can't imagine a premier veteran like Rogers or Russell Wilson would want to come here considering how weak the roster is. So should the Eagles just try to get top tier talent at other positions instead? Yes, that's where I lean right now. Really? Interesting. Okay. I can promise you in the building.

They're just praying the Seattle Russell Wilson situation goes bad because Howie Rosamman has like a taped photo of Russell Wilson in an Eagles jersey swap over his bed for last 10 years because they missed out him in the third round when they were going to take him and they took Nick Foles and they still have buyers remorse over that. They won a Super Bowl with Nick Foles. They still wish they got Russell Wilson with that pick. So I think they're going to sit on those picks. hope to be able to acquire a quarterback trade with those picks.

But with how the class looks and then critically with how the roster looks. Like, it cannot go overstated. It's the worst defensive back seven roster in the league, bar none, in my opinion. And so- They're also none of those players back next year, right? Every single one of them is essentially on a one-year deal. Exactly. And most of the players that you would circle as, like, good players right now are on the wrong

side of 30, Gary Slai, Fletcher Cox, Rodney McLeod, Like there are there are very few young building blocks and Eagles altogether. There is one on defense. Josh sweat. Javon Hartgrave, you can argue like he's 28 and he's coming into his own, but he's got two years left on his deal. They just extended sweat.

There's no like rookie contract players on the defense at all. That's very, very hard to do. But that's what you can't do that when you're spending your second round picks on Jay Zarthega, White side. Yeah, third round pick on Davian Taylor, who just simply doesn't know which way the defense is supposed to face at this stage.

I guess just really, really rough right now. So they can leverage those picks into a veteran quarterback trade. I think that'll be prudent. That'll be wise. If you have a chance of getting a Russell Wilson, you go for it. But in general, the drafting has been so bad that the Eagles simply must use premium picks on the positions that have gotten weaker and week over the last few years. For as distasteful as that may be to Howie Roseman, who issues the linebacker position like

there's no tomorrow, eventually you have to have a linebacker who can play, especially if you're going to have a defense coordinator like Gannon, who asks his linebackers to drop in his own and do good work. They don't have that player. I'm not saying spend a first round pick on linebacker. I'm saying there are very few impact rookie contract players on the Eagles right now. And accordingly, you're going to have to make some early picks at some non-premium positions. So let's say, and I think that makes sense because it's not like Jaylen Hertz is a disaster. If you have to live with him for one more year because you're not really attracted to the quarterback options available, there are worse outcomes. I can understand landing there.

So do you feel like, I don't know how much you've looked at the, this draft class so far. But do you think that focusing on the back seven of the defense as just a general strategy would make sense for this team with some of those picks if they do end up making them? Yeah. And I've looked at the class of fair bit. It's one of the best defensive classes we've had. It's very defensive heavy.

Offense is not super great. Strongest position is probably going to be the offensive tackle, offensive line. The Eagles believe in building in the trenches. That's how they got their Super Bowl team, dominant trenches. But they have discovered over the course of the Jim Schwartz era on defense and now entering the Jonathan Gannon defense, that there is a inflection point where your defensive backfield is so bad. It just does not matter how talented your defensive front is. If good, smart quarterbacks, like Derek Carr is a great example. Nobody would call Derek Carr an elite quarterback,

but he's a good, smart veteran quarterback. If he can complete 31 of 34 passes against you and just distribute the ball immediately, still have a high A dot and generally not take sacks or pressures, you could put Vaughn next to Donald, next to Lawrence Taylor, likes to Regiment. I don't care who you put out there. Ball's coming out. That's the era of football we live in, right? That's like the post-West Coast era. Is that if we need to, we can just nickel and dime and tragedy. We know how to do it at this point. You're going to have to make those investments, make those picks. That's like that, you know, the pass-wrest-per's coverage idea. That's a good debate. But the realization is that once they hit their seller,

they're limiting factors on one another. There's just, you have to have at least a bar level of talent in order to get by. You want to keep investing in the defensive line, live through the trenches. That's fine by me. You have to be passable on the defensive backfield. Otherwise, the best quarterbacks in the league and dice you up to the, I think this was Brian's question. He did ask what we need to see from Hertz. And I don't think I answered that at all. I think I just went on the defensive backfield ramp, which is pretty difficult for me. Right now he only throws to the right and he doesn't throw intermediate middle at all. They select their deep shots and they throw outbreakers and RPO's. He has to be able to

throw to both sides of the field. He's got to be able to throw on the dropback game. If you have to, they don't trust him in the red zone at all, if they don't give him anything to read out. So the processing speed generally has to increase so as to open other areas of the field. Because if he remains as limited in terms of the play calls you can make in the areas of the field you can target, he doesn't stress defenses. And if your quarterback's just playing in a defense's hands, you're dead in the water. And so simply must become more willing to throw the ball on different concepts in different areas in time. Natural maturation process. we'll see if we get there.

So James Farrell asked a similar question. I hope that we answered your question, James, but I just wanted to acknowledge that you ask something similar. Let's get to our next voicemail here. Mays, hey, it's Yancey Edwards from here in Maryland, big fan of the work, keep the pots coming. Cowboys fan over here, ready to have my heartbroken in January, as it's been for quite some time.

I want to talk about the coaching situation. A lot of issues with Mike McCarthy, and the way he's been running things. The offense seems to be clear. And it seems pretty clear to me that Kellan Moore will not be on the Cowboys sideline next year. Someone's going to pay them a lot of money to be their head coach. I'm thinking, and I'd love to get your thoughts on the precedent for firing us as a successful head coach in lieu of an up-and-coming coordinator. You know, we've kind of seen the success of building a sustainable franchise with an offensive-minded play caller.

So curious if that's something that's been done and what your thoughts would be if the Caliq. was with a cut with Mike McCarthy and Roll with Kellan Moore. Thanks again. Take care. We got a similar question from Sam Robinson. I find the overall question and the considerations involved with it fascinating. I know what I think will happen. I know what I think should happen, but I'm curious about your take on the whole situation.

I just love the fact that the Cowboys just won a game with Cooper Rush at quarterback. And Cowboys fans are like, listen, McCarthy's going to get us, man. He's going to get us. They just can't, the boogie man's behind them, right? At all times, they just can't get out no matter what happens on a Sunday. It's a very dangerous precedent. I don't dislike the idea at all. I think that the Cowboys are going to be willing to go to World's End or retain Kellynne Moore.

I think they know how valuable he is. I think they know he's a rising star. I think they know that Dak loves him. He's doing such fun, creative stuff. I've never seen so many offensive linemen in the back, but I think it's the coolest thing in the world. But the issue is that if Moore doesn't step in to that head coach job and immediately at least match the McCarthy success,

if not improve upon it, that decision gets put under a microscope really, really quick. I think that's a lot of pressure on Moore in his first ever head coaching seat to be really good, really fast, assuming this is as I believe it was Anthony, who expects this to be, we get to the playoffs and we lose a playoff game. Like when Moore gets that head coaching job in Dallas,

it's going to be all right. He's got to get us to playoffs and win that playoff game. It's a huge. on a first-year head coach. There's a learning process there. So I wouldn't be surprised if they'd try to do something like it. I think it'll be something that's conversed. But to me,

it is if they go for it. It's a really, really strong, aggressive move that I think could backfire really quickly for as much as I like Kellemore because of the pressure that'll go on him in year one. If you're looking for precedent, it's kind of funny because the Cowboys sort of did this, right? Jason Garrett was the head coach in waiting at one point when he was the

offensive coordinator. But that was a completely different situation than what's going out with McCarthy. McCarthy is much younger. this is a team that's winning right now. Moving on from him would be really different than anything that we've seen lately. What the Bucks did with Dirk Cutter, they fired their head coach in order to retain Dirk Cutter to not lose him because of the way that he was working with James Winston. That's another situation that was kind of an odd dynamic.

But if they were to move on from McCarthy after winning 12 games, it's unlike anything that I can remember happening. And I don't think it will happen. I think the only way to keep Kellen Moore there is paying him a, a ton of money, making him the highest paid assistant coach in the NFL probably, and trying to do with him what the Patriots have done with McDaniels, where you say, we're going to give you a boatload of money, we're going to make you, you know, one of the guys here, we're going to try to talk you out of possible jobs because they're not good enough and you could have more success

here. You just wait. Pete Carmichael is another person that he's not a play caller, but he's been the office coordinator for the Saints for forever. So I think that giving him a monster deal. and trying to just convince him, you know, this, let's just wait. Like, let's wait for the perfect job for you. But I do think that he is not going to be there next year.

If he doesn't want to be, if he wants to be a head coach, I think the opportunities will be there for him next year. And I can't see the Cowboys moving on from McCarthy after the season that they're having. Yeah, and I think this is a good cautionary tale for in general the head coaching approach in the league, which is if you want to bring in a Mike Tomlin-esque, you know, good decision-maker, your good game managing head coach as your new hire, you better hope you get coordinators right, but not too right,

because if you get them too right, they're out of there. And all of a sudden, you have constant turnover, and that's really, really tough to deal with. In general, like I think you see this with,

like even a team like the Bengals, they lived through a lot of poor head coaching decisions early on for Zach Taylor, but they wanted him calling plays in that offense. And here they are in year three, playing better. Taylor's generally making better in-game decisions. You kind of live with those.

lumps early because it helps you secure that guy who you want calling the offense. Offense is kidding in the NFL. It's kind of reality right now. I have maintained for several years that this is how I would do it every single time. I would have a play calling offensive head coach with very few exceptions. I think there is a world where if a Brandon Staley comes along and I appreciate his 360 degree view of the way that all of this stuff works, maybe I would make an exception. but that bar is very, very high for someone to clear in my estimation. And that's because this is what you run into. The only other thing I would say is that there are worlds where the quarterback

becomes the offensive coordinator a little bit and that allows you to sustain success even after you can shift through those guys. Like the Steelers with Ben Raffaesberger over the last five years when Randy Fickner and Todd Haley were there, for example, they were still a very good offense because essentially Ben Rathesberger was the offensive coordinator. Right. If you maybe trust Dax's imprint on the offense to keep going, even when Kellan Moore is gone, maybe you can talk yourself into that.

But I think the structure of this offense and the levers that they pull are such a huge part of what's made them successful this year that I don't think that's a realistic kind of outcome. Yeah. And that works, I think, a lot better in passing game than a running game. And one of the most impressive things for the Cowboys with me right now is the way that every week, they're like, hey, our running game is totally different. Screw you. You can't, like, you know, quarterback can only get that going so far.

That backfield in the way they approach it. To me, Kellyn Morris fingerprints all over that. And when you lose that, the margins for error for your offense comes a lot thinner. When there was a world where you could just live in 11 personnel and just spread out out of the shotgun and just pick teams apart and just be just a quick game monster and have that spread type of offense like the Packers were with Rogers like Raffisberger was with the Steelers for those couple years, you could survive that way where the quarterback really does control everything. Payton Manning is another good example. Now, a lot of the best offenses in the NFL don't look like that. So I think that overall model is going to be harder to replicate than it might have been five years ago. Yeah, right now, offenses in the league go into 11 to give you the base to give you what it looks like so that they can fool you with 12 and with 21 and with 20 and with ponyback those or whatever.

And that's what you see the Cowboys do. Like, oh, we have all these wide receivers. They're so good. Here's a seven offensive lines set. Deal with it. Like, you were not ready for this, you know? Defenses are too good, man. You just can't be that static anymore.

You cannot be a version of those offenses that we saw when the quarterbacks were controlling everything. I think that's just a recipe for failure at this point. All right. Let's get to our next one here. Nick Smith, I like this question for a specific reason. We'll get to it. He said, I like intentional grounding because it takes an obviously bad situation,

laughs at it, and gives you a penalty. Most importantly, you lose that down forever. He said, what other penalty would you like to see include a loss of down as punishment for doing football bad. And the reason that I wanted to answer this is because I had a very specific example in mind from the games yesterday. But I'm curious if you had anything. So the number one thing that bothers me, and this isn't specifically with a loss of down,

but it's with, you know, watching that Carson Went's DPI drive, right? At the end of the game against the Titans and just being like, man, we got to do something about defensive pass interference. I know we've been saying it for years, but it's still just a all-go. up my butt. Peter Wu and Brandon Gou of Carnegie Mellon had a piece for NFL big datable where they argued for a tier DPI system where the ref judges, which already were a little bit on thin ice, but the ref judges, the degree to which the contact was deleterious, like if it was incidental,

if it was grazing versus if it was like very clearly like, I'm tackling you because I'm out of position. Oh, this is going to be a disaster. Yes. And the less, it's already disaster. The lesser contact is like a 15-yard foul and then the greater contact is a spot foul. I like that idea, but again, like anything that puts more power in the refs hands freaks me out. So that drives me nuts just because you see those end of game drives where it's just chuck it up deep and let guys play physical and hope you get penalties.

And that just feels like such a cheesy way to get down in the field. So that always drives me nuts. I will say what does need to be changed that I learned in the Eagles Lions game is that the Eagles had an eligible man downfield. But Jalen Hertz accidentally ran out of balance before you threw the ball away. So they didn't call an eligible man down field because they ended up counting as a running play. That was garbage. That's the dumbest thing I've ever seen. You got to take that out of the rulebook.

Mine is, I love when a guy catches a touchdown after drawing a pass interference or gets a sack after drawing a holding. Yes, Miles Garrett did that. To me, it's like dunking on somebody and getting an N1. Like, it's the football version of that. And I've always appreciated it. I don't think the pass interference or the hold should just be wiped off in that. situation. On a touchdown, it should be tacked on.

The hold should be tacked on an additional 10 yards. You should still be penalized for making a negative play, even if you didn't prevent them from making a positive play. So that's one for me. Like, if you score a touchdown and you draw a pass interference, it should be a 15-yard penalty on the kickoff or assessed at the start of the drive or whatever. You should get an additional 10 yards taken off of a sack if you hold on top of allowing a sack.

because I just think we should reward players for those moments. I liked that. There was a Miles Garrett sack against Dan Moore where he 100% was getting held. And if Rathusberg was able to move off his spot, it would have been called a hold. But it wasn't because Garrett just ate him alive right away. And it's like, okay, he should get a penalty for that. And I understand that it wouldn't matter. But also he should just for the sake of analytics, for the sake of data,

I don't know, but he deserves one. I think that would be fun, right? That would be a good way of including it. They should also add. The Mike Devons play yesterday was the one I had in mind. He drew a pass interference while catching a touchdown. And I want to know, I tried to do some research on this. And it's hard to find out because they don't keep track of the defensive pass interference calls on those plays because they stand as plays.

So I want to know if somebody can look this up, who over the last 10 years leads the NFL and football and ones, where you make a catch on top of drawing a pass interference on the same play? Evans or Devonzee Parker has to be my guess, right? One of these guys. Evans was my guess. And that's why it was on my mind. He's got to be up there because he's just the perfect guy to do it. So somebody who has a better sense of the way pro football reference or one of the stats

sites works, please look this up for me because I'm very curious about it. All right. Our next one here, Elijah Hack, I love this question. He said, as a Bengals fan choosing to ignore the calamity that was yesterday's game, I've already moved on to the Battle for Ohio this upcoming Sunday. My question is, which team would you rather be for the next five to 10 years? the Bengals or the Browns. And his response here is exactly what mine would be.

Before the start of this year, I feel like most people would say the Browns. They have an incredibly town roster, proven play caller, and a GM. That being said, Baker remains a huge question mark. And I think the Bengals,

despite their flaws, have a higher ceiling due to Borough, Chase, and company. Would love to hear y'all's thoughts. Yeah, I absolutely hate this question. Because, right, my immediate thought was like, well, obviously the Browns. And then I went to list the reasons why.

And I was like, wait a minute. exactly what I went through. These all sound like Bengals reasons. Here's what it comes down to for me. Obviously, like, okay, it always comes down to the quarterback, whatever. I feel very comfortable and confident saying before the season, currently at this stage in the season, Baker is a quarterback you can win with.

He's not necessarily a quarterback you win because of. And extending that player can put you into a really, really difficult bog down spot. We might call it the Kirk Cousin Swamp, whatever. The golf bog. Yeah, the golf bog. How much more, how much, how confident am I in my own ability to evaluate that I'm, that I believe that Joe Burrow is that much better than that? I'm positive he is. I'm not sure just how much.

And the reason is because we are largely swinging away from Burroughs style of winning in the modern NFL. We're swinging towards explosives. We're swinging towards exposure guys in the concept. And we're swinging towards longer dropbacks, more time to throw and deeper passes down the field. And the Bengals have been very obvious and honest about the fact that they want Burrow to be a West Coast style quarterback of the 2010s, right? Where he's going to walk the line of scrimmage, always get us in the right play, be super efficient, be super accurate, and get us down the field. And obviously Burrow has playmaking ability. I don't want to take that away from him.

He's a very, very good pocket mover. He's a great improviser. He just doesn't have the physical gifts, arm strength, speed, tackle breaking ability that a lot of these other guys do. So I still think I generally lean Browns because I have more trust in the coaching staff. more trust in the general manager to handle the quarterback situation, even with the difficulties that Baker presents. But that's because I'm not fully sold yet on Burrow as the exception that proves the rule of a quarterback in the 2020s, just dicing teams up because he's too smart, too good from the

pocket, too great pre-snap. Right now there are two guys doing that, Prescott and Brady. Rogers, you can also argue as well, it's kind of a little bit different because of how that offense works, but whatever. I'm not fully sold on Burrow being the fourth yet. So I'm getting more towards the Bengals side of this answer. Give me like another half a season with Burrow and a half season with this offense and maybe I'll get all the way there. But where you've got me right now, I still think I edge Browns.

All of that makes total sense. I think that the point about the style of quarterback he is and where that is in the NFL, I think is a really good one. I'm wondering what it looks like over the next few years. And you look at what Bro has done, for example, against the Blitz this year and his A-DOT against the Blitz and how they've created so many explosive plays out of that. That's an argument in his favor. I think he's able to do some of that when teams heat him up. I would go with the Browns for this reason. I also think that over time, that front office and that coaching staff are probably going to win out.

And if you look at the strength of the roster, going into next year, the Browns are still going to have Denzo Ward and Miles Garrett. You look at the way they're built and you look at a way like the teams, the Rams are built, right? Even if it's not as complete and even if there are holes, I still think the building blocks, on that Browns team over the next few years are really encouraging. The Bengals' defense is better than we expected it to be. Defense is fickle from season to season. It still helps to have stars. The Bengals still don't have stars, especially on defense.

So I trust that long term over the next five years. I think the Brown's defense is going to be better than the Bengals defense solely because they have that star power. They have J.O.K., they have guys on the rise. I'm comfortable in saying that. Yeah. Greg Newsom, by the way, he can play an outside of his mind. Yeah, just guys like that.

And I think that's going to be a huge help for them. Chase and Burrow are playing great, but I still have questions about what that offensive line looks like long term. I mean, you have Jonah Williams playing well, but you don't have any other young building blocks there. The Brown's offensive line comes back intact next season. Every single one of those guys is going to be back. And I don't know what the Browns are going to look like next year on offense.

There is absolutely a world where their quarterback is different and he is better in some way. I don't know who that's going to be, but I know that they're probably going to be thinking about every single possible outcome and eventuality at that position. So I don't think they necessarily need to commit to Baker Mayfield. And they're going to have financial flexibility

if they move on from Odell and Jarvis Landry to figure out those spots in a different way. So I just trust that the core of talent they still have, plus the coaching staff, plus some of the flexibility they'll have next year and moving forward, that over the next five years, the Browns are going to consistently be able to build a better team, have a better process than what the Bengals have right now,

even if Burrow and Chase are more promising than what the Browns have on the offensive side of the ball. Yeah, no, I think that's a very good way of putting it. It's just at the end of the day, like, I look at the talent disparity and I look at the front office and the general manager, and I say, I would love for the Bengals to have fully earned my trust, but they just haven't yet. I would love to see it. Like, I did not expect this coming into the season. I'm very pleasantly surprised by it. I still am a little suspicious and a little dubious.

let's make this playoff push. Let's win a really tough AFC North. And I'll really, really start to buy in. But as of right now, yeah, Brown's just too talented across the board. All right, that's all we got. We got a ton of good questions this week. But I think with a lot of the news, we couldn't get to as many of them as we would have liked. I really appreciate you guys sending them in as I always do.

The reason we do this every single week is because I can trust you to send us interesting stuff, which you did yet again. Thank you very much for listening. We'll be back tomorrow with my friend Bill Barnwell from ESPN to do, of a mid-season kind of reset about what the season has been like so far, some things that have surprised us, some awards for now. Please rate and review the podcast on your podcast platform of choice. Please subscribe to the athletic.com slash football show.

Benjamin, where can people hear and read and see the work that you're doing? I know, but where should they go? Yeah, ringer NFL shows the spot Monday Friday. Ringer gambling show is the spot on Wednesday and all my NFL stuff said with the ringer.com slash NFL. I'm on Twitter at Benjamin Solac. I've been talking a lot about Justin Fields recently. So obviously you don't get a lot about that on this show.

So you got to hop a no. Zero. So we actually had a question that would have been very related to Justin Fields that we did not get to because it was going to be a half hour long discussion. First athletic show since August with no Justin Fields stuff. All right. Give me 30 seconds on what you saw from Justin Fields yesterday against the Niners. The peaks of Justin Fields performances so far the season have been better than the peaks of any rookie so far this year. Bears fans should be extremely excited about that.

The physical gifts are absolutely. insane. To me, the floor is so high because of how athletic he is and how fast he delivers the ball and how aggressive he is attacking tight windows. This is the dude you build around. Move on from this coaching staff and get serious. So one of the questions we got was about how you build around a first or second year quarterback. And I think that if we're going to build excitement and enthusiasm about Justin Fields, this team can start over next year. They can move on from a huge portion of these contracts. They still have, they don't have their first round pick, but they still have a decent amount of draft capital. are not committed to this version of things. And I think if you can find a coaching staff in a front office that likes Justin Fields, you can sell them on that being the starting point of what this looks like moving forward. And I think that it's not that terrible of a situation. Yeah.

And I cannot, I know like Dallin Robinson thing has been weird so far, but I cannot imagine a wide receiver telling his agent I don't really want to play with that rookie. You watch the way this boy throws the ball. Cool. Hit me on the team. Let me run down field. This guy can hit it from wherever.

I think that Fields is, again, like it's the peak plays where you just put on the film and you watch the best reps. As a rookie right now, there's no guy. I'd be more excited about having my build than Justin Fields. It was a really cool experience yesterday watching that game against the Niners because about midway through the third quarter, I was like, I'm good today. Right. Doesn't matter if they win. Doesn't matter if they lose. I literally do not care what happens for the next hour of my life.

I have put enough plays in the bank for this to be a positive day in my life. Akeem Hicks and Khalil Mack playing in that game. they win that game. They force one punt, and they're probably able to win that game. So you say, all right, if we were healthy, we would have won it. Justin Fields looks better. Let's keep rolling this guy out. Seems to work. Don't know why it took us so long to figure this out, but it seems to work great. Let's keep doing that. It's really funny that you say before the season, all that matters is whether the quarterback looks good or not. And I have committed to that emotionally. All that matters to me on a Sunday is whether the quarterback looks good or not. And when he does,

I'm done. That's all I really care about. All right. Thank you very much, buddy. It's always great to chat with you. If you guys are not reading and listening to Ben, you are missing out. The ringer is putting out consistently great NFL content. I do not say that because most of those people are my former co-workers or friends. I say it because it's true. So please go check that out. And please thank you for listening to this show. We'll be back all week with some great guests. Appreciate you guys listening. We'll talk to you soon. This was The Athletic Football Show.