The Bill Simmons Podcast - OKC’s Mega-Sleeper Potential With Kevin O’Connor and NFL Last Rites, 2023 Edition, With Benjamin Solak

Episode Date: October 11, 2023

The Ringer's Bill Simmons is joined by Kevin O'Connor to discuss the bright future of the Oklahoma City Thunder, what Chet Holmgren brings to the impressive young team, possible midseason trade candidates, and more (1:36). Then Bill is joined by Benjamin Solak to discuss the Broncos as a teardown candidate, a potential Kirk Cousins trade, C.J. Stroud vs. Bryce Young, the Steelers' sputtering offense, Bill Belichick and the 1-4 Patriots, Daniel Jones's struggles, and more (47:51). Host: Bill Simmons Guests: Kevin O'Connor and Benjamin Solak Producer: Kyle Crichton The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming, please checkout theringer.com/RG to find out more or listen to the end of the episode for additional details. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Coming up, a deep dive on my favorite young basketball team, plus a lot of football next. This episode is brought to you by Prime Video. You know me, I can't go a day without sports. I really can't. And now Monday nights are all about hockey. That's right. There's a new exclusive home for streaming Monday night NHL hockey, and it's on Prime. All season long, watch Prime Monday Night Hockey deliver unreal

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Must be legal drinking age. We're also brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network, where I put up a new rewatchables on Monday night. Did the 35th anniversary of They Live, which is just an amazing John Carpenter movie. It is so weird. It is a really, really interesting movie

to watch in the conspiracy culture world that we live in now. Did it create it? You can make a case that it did, at least the modern version of it. They Live creates modern conspiracy culture and Pump Up the Volume created podcasts. I think Hard Hairy was the first podcaster. That's my take.

Now we've done both those movies and the rewatchables because they were that important. On this podcast, I'm going to be talking to Kevin O'Connor from The Ringer about Oklahoma City and why I think they're going to be the surprise

kind of pseudo contender this year and could they be even better than that we're going to talk about that plus some other NBA storylines and some Rookie of the Year stuff and then Benjamin Solak we're going to talk about teams players, coaches

that it might be time to pour some dirt on for 2023. So this is a hardcore football basketball pod. Can't wait for you to listen to it. First, our friends from Pro Jam. All right, Kevin O'Connor is here. You can hear him on the Misfatch podcast. You can read him on the ringer.com. I want to talk about Oklahoma City. Normally, I wait until we do the big over-under pod

with House and Russillo to tip my hand on what I'm thinking about some of these teams. I am fascinated by Oklahoma City as a possible leap team. So we saw Sacramento last year was a team that jumped up, and I think a lot of us liked them, but they ended up being even more successful than we thought. There's a case for OKC that I want to go through, but let's start with Chet because you talked about that on the mismatch today. Chet went against Wemby on Monday night.

Chet, I think, is the most kind of under-the-radar asset that anyone has added over this offseason, especially if you watched OKC last year. They went 40-42. Not only did they not have a good center, they didn't have a center. They just basically went small ball. And if you were just going to pick people out of a pile and say, what did this team need? That person would look like Chad Holmgren. So what did you see last night to make you think that not only will he have an impact on

them, but that he might actually be pretty special. We saw everything that we were kind of hoping for in terms of how he could enhance that team. I had the Thunder 15th in my pre-preseason power rankings that went up on the ringer. And that's kind of high, right? But I think it was kind of a bet on SGA getting even better, Jalen Williams taking a leap, Giddy getting better in year two and then Chet you know like Sam Presti said during his hour and 50 minute

media media day press conference that would chat like yes it's his rookie year playing but it's more like the Thunder's first year with Chet because he has a whole year getting stronger you know learning you know how to be an NBA player, improving his body and all that. But I think with him, we saw him hit two threes, so adding floor spacing as a seven-footer. We saw him grab nine rebounds, even though he's lean. They were 28th in defensive rebounding percentage last season. They need size, as you said, Bill.

And then the rim protection, the ability to protect the rim, add defense, create more transition opportunities. He brought the ball up the floor himself sometimes driving to the basket he just adds a completely new wrinkle to the thunder that they didn't have last year and i feel like with him he is somebody who can complement sga and jalen williams and easy ways he can also just enhance those guys and add a new dimension that they haven't had with his perimeter abilities on offense. Is he a rookie of the year candidate to you in a real way? Because if you look at the odds on FanDuel, they're steering everything toward Wemby. But with Scoot as kind of the backup, Wemby's plus 130. Oh, Chet's now plus 270 after that last game.

So he was 4-1 like two days ago. Scoot's 3-1, but I think Chet's the safest rookie of the year bet because if he's going to play like 70 games, they need him.

He's going to play real minutes for them, probably like 30 minutes. And I could see him being like a 14, 10, and 2.5 blocks kind of guy with some good shooting

percentages plus i think the team's going to be good and i think that matters too so is he in the real mix for you i think he belongs where he is right there is third uh i'd still have him behind scoot scoot scoot henderson's gonna have the volume with the blazers dame's been traded now he's the guy on that team and like they could they could even overperform portland could a little bit too with all the veterans that they have and then with wemby though i mean like as amazing as chet was his debut i mean wemby 20 points on 8 of 13 and 19 minutes doing hitting threes off of screens off of handoffs he had a three off of an inbound pass uh where he was kind of moving away from the rim something you see like a six foot five guy, dude, nevermind a seven foot three.

What about the steel? Let's talk about the steel. Now we're having a Wembley conversation. He did this Spider-Man, almost like when you're watching alien videos on some conspiracy board. And it's like, come on, you guys created that. That's like a fake video. That didn't really happen. That alien didn't jump from a car. I've never seen anybody get a steal in that spot. It was the top of the key. Somebody was driving and he did this Spider-Man reach out

and just flicked the ball away. Who was the player? It was somebody good. It was somebody like Jalen Williams. No, it was Jalen Williams. Okay. And Jalen Williams must have been like, what the hell just happened? You were four feet behind me. So anyway, he looked great.

Bill, one of his feet was barely inside the three-point line and the other one was at the free throw line. Just to put it in perspective for people who didn't see the play. And then the block on Jalen Williams,iams too where he got beat it seemed like he got beat and then out of nowhere he stretches out his eight foot wingspan and and blocks a shot that's going to happen a heck of a lot this season i think where guys feel like they have when be beat one-on-one but then they don't i think he has a chance to be the best social media kind of short clip person we've had since social...

We've had 15 years now of social media and probably maybe 10, 11 with the actual videos that can be turned around fast. He's going to be the best one for that because there's going to be one play a game

and you're like, wait, I've never seen that before. Anyway, back to OKC. All right. I'm glad you're sitting down. So I'm going to tip my hand for next week's pot on this one thing.

I have them fourth in the West right now. Wow. Fourth. Yes. And I won't say who I have in the top three, but I have them fourth. So here's the case for the people who haven't done a lot of OKC research. They're over under 44 and a half on FanDuel. They were 40 and 42 last year.

Again, a year younger, no center. The West is better, so I think that's skewed a lot of the over-unders and a lot of the playoff talk. 6-1 for their division. That's going to be tough. 42-1 for the conference. 34-1 for the one seed,

and 85-1 to win the title. Probably staying away from those. But playoffs, they're like minus 140, minus 135, somewhere in there to make it. But playoffs, they're like minus 140, minus 135, somewhere in there to make it. No playoffs is plus 106. I think if they don't make the playoffs, somebody got hurt. So last year, no chat at all.

SGA missed 14 games. And Jalen Williams, the wing Jalen Williams, came on second half of the year. And once that started happening, he just immediately moved in with Giddy, with SGA, where you're like, oh, these three, these pieces all make sense

next to each other. Now add Chet. They have this team where SGA is 25 and he's one of, what, the best seven players in the league? One of The best seven players in the league? One of the best eight players in the league? Like he's in the top eight, right? Yeah.

Top eight, nine, whatever. Yeah, whatever you want to put up. I mean, he was fifth in MVP voting. First team all NBA last year. I mean, like he's in that same general range. Josh Giddey turned 21 this week. Dort is somehow 23, which I don't fully understand.

I think he turns 24 this season. J-Dub is 22. Chet's 21. Wallace, who they just drafted, he's 19 or 20. And then the other Jalen Williams is 21. And Trey Mann's 22. So this is like a crazy young team, and that's why you would ding them.

2010 OKC. KD was 21. Russ was 21. Harden was 20. Abaka was 20. And Green was 25. That team jumped from 23 wins in 09 to 50 in 2010. And if you're making the case for OKC is going to be a lot better than people realize, I think it's really good to look at that OKC team, which went from 09 to 2012. They went from 23 to 50 wins to 55. Then they went 47 to 19 in the lockout season. So each year they got better and they were pretty much a semi-contender in year two. Golden State,. 2014, 51. 2015, 67. So this OKC team this year, they 40 last year, 24 the year before. And if you're applying that mindset of, all right, could those be the mirror teams?

Could you go from 24 to 40? Could you get to like 50-51 this year? And then a year from now, you're 55-56. That's what I have in my head, KOC. And I don't think it's unrealistic. I think you're betting on a lot for a young team, right? That's clear, right? But if things click right around SGA, they have the piece.

They have the one guy. It's not like they're a young team that needs somebody to develop into that guy. It's where like that's like having the quarterback in football right they know they have this guy who can go toe-to-toe with every other best player in the league and they're gonna win some of those yes exactly they they it's just about the other guys catching up with sga and that's where that's why i had them 15th in my power rankings. I'm not quite as high as you are on them. But with if Chet proves that he can stay healthy, continues to add room protection and spacing and all the skill of williams is having his insane struts at the end of the second quarter with like the the transition dunk and then the block and then the putback dunk and the step back three and wimby but lost and

all of that was case on wallace look oh my god through holiday already yeah three steals in different ways they added not just chet this year, not just hoping for development from their existing guys, but Kaysan Wallace is the type of rookie who could come in right away. And next to Lou Dort, that could be one of the best defensive backcourts in the entire NBA.

Add in SGA, you could have so much different versatility and ways that you can play. OKC is definitely an over for me. That overrun is way too long. I'm winning you over with this. Let's go through this. Let's say their finishing lineup, SGA, Giddy,

JW, Chet, and maybe it's Dort if you need defense. Maybe it's Trey Mann if you need shooting. Their bench, we didn't mention the other Williams, Kenreck. How do you pronounce the new point guard? I've only seen Mijic. Oh, Mijic, yes.

Yep. He's going to play, right? Isn't he going to play? I would think he's going to play. They gave him good money and he came over from a great career overseas after 10 plus years. He seems like he's at least a 15 to 20 minute guy. He'll play. And I think he'll be good right away too. You know who else they have

who I think's going to have minutes for them is Bertans. Because this team, their biggest flaw last year, and people are going to laugh and the Washington Dallas fans are going to be like, fuck you Bertans. They needed shooting. They were a really bad three point shooting team last year for

a team that had made the playing game and all that stuff. So they're going to need some shooting. 17th in three-point percentage. So you add Bertans, you add Chet. Chet also helps you with the rim protection. A defensive rating could go into the top 10. Three-point shooting could go into the top half. But the problem with them is SGA and Giddy aren't really three-point shooters.

And Giddy is another't really three-point shooters. And Giddey is another one where I just love that guy. I don't feel like we're close to where we're going to end up with him. And if you look back at that 2010 OKC situation, the big question was like, well, can Westbrook take a leap? And I'm like, wow, Westbrook, he just is in the 2008 draft. What, he's going to run the team? And then all of a sudden he could do it, right? And what I like about betting on this team is these are guys that are really, really,

really talented. Like that Jalen Williams, the wing Jalen Williams, that guy, I thought he was the best rookie the last two months of the season. SGA, we already talked about. Giddy, though his passing and his rebounding from the guard position, he might be the best under-25 rebounding guard we have. Then you add Chet. I just think all these pieces make sense. There's another piece to this too. I like for a young team, I don't know, what else would you add?

Maybe make Trey Mann an even better lights-out shooter. What else would you want on this team? You need somebody bigger than Chet. Their heaviest guy on the roster is J. Will at 245 pounds. You need somebody who's 250, 260 plus, 7 plus feet. With Chet, yes, he provides room protection, but we see teams like Boston last year with Robert Williams and Al Horford, two bigs. We see Brooke Lopez and Giannis, provides room protection but i mean we see teams like boston last year with robert williams and

al horford two bigs you know yeah we see brooke lopez and yannis teams that have size and can put two bigs on the floor chet's unique in the sense that like brooke lopez you know like chris taps porzingis the lakers hope with anthony davis this year shooting threes again there's not a lot of guys that can protect the rim and space the floor. Chet's one of those, but he's still not the type of guy that you're going to have defend Jokic or a bead. So if you can add one more big, that's what I would prioritize if I were Oklahoma City. Probably the easiest thing to find in the league.

Detroit's got 17 centers. Maybe they could get in on the Kai Jones sweepstakes. Glad we're doing an emergency follow-up. Time to pivot to that, right? Dusty for Kai Jones. Russel and I actually, we were texting last night about if we did like a 75-minute Kai Jones emergency trade pod, but we did it completely serious

and never kind of broke character and went through all the teams and treated this like it was a huge event. Like when people get the joke or not, we decided, Rossello was more into it than I was. I was like, there's no way we could keep it going for more than 10 minutes. He's like, I think he really was into the possibilities of it. Let's take a break. And I want to go to the trade assets, which is the other amazing piece with this OKC team. Get ready to start

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All right, so you have OKC here. We mentioned SGA, how he's one of the best players in the league. People know this, but I'm just going to read it. He averaged 31 a game last year. He was 31-5-6. 55% shooting.

10.9 free throw attempts for him. Just ridiculous. Like over and over again at the end of these games, he would figure out how to create some sort of something for him. Just ridiculous. Over and over again at the end of these games, he would figure out how to create some sort of something for them. 27.2 PR, one of the great things for him and for this team, I guess it's not as great for him, but his salary for a superstar is probably the best salary in the league. He's making $33 million this year, $36 million, $38 million, $41 million. Those are his next four years. That's locked in. And when you think about that and you think about how young

this team is from a salary standpoint, they're not even close to the tax, any of that stuff. They got Bertans at $17 million, Dort's at $15.3 million, Old Depot's at $9.5 million, Poku's at 5.3. They have a couple others. So they could put together any sort of deal. The draft picks that they have, they actually had,

Casey, they had twice as many first round picks as I thought they did. When I was doing the work, I was like, oh, I know they have the Clippers and the Houston stuff. And then you go through it.

This year, they have Houston's top four protected first. That is not a bad pick to have. They have the Clippers unprotected first. They get to pick between their own pick and Utah's pick for first, top 10 protected. 25, they can swap with either the Clippers or Houston top 10 protected. They can grab one of those and they have their own. They have their own picks from 25 through 29. They have the Clippers

unprotected 26 first. They have Houston's top four protected first in 26. They have Philly's top six protected first in 26. And Bede might be long gone by then. They have Miami's top 14 protected in 26.

They have two picks from Denver top five protected in 27 and 29, plus all their picks. They have so much to trade that if this team's actually good, they could make a move like in January and we could be going, holy shit,

like they're going for it. I don't know if they want to, but what do you think their appetite is if they're actually good at being like, fuck it, Let's go. Well, Sam Presley was asked about this during his long media day session and he said something interesting.

I watched it last night and he said in there, you can't let the fact that we have some additional draft capital make us soft. You don't want to cut corners. We might need those tools to have a functional payroll over time if our players turn out to be as good as some people are projecting. And then he mentioned how some teams around the league

that have high payrolls already are using those second-round draft picks to replenish their roster. He didn't say the names, but those are clearly the Nuggets, the Celtics, the Suns are adding future picks in the second round. So I think with OKC, they have 10 you just listen like i think 10 future first round draft picks on top of their own 10 plus their five yeah yes like and then 15 additional second round draft picks on top of the ones that they already have that are their own so i i get sam presti's point with saying that but at the same time like you have so many

picks at some point you either need to kick the can down the road or consolidate those within the draft or with a trade during the season. And I think the team, the other thing he said during the presser was he kept saying the word now. Like right now, there's not a rational case for going all in and making a big move. Not right now, but there could be once we have a better idea of what we actually need i think that idea is going to come january or february and whether they make a move or not depends on who's available but i'm pretty sure like we can look at this roster and pretty clearly say adding like maybe a star scoring wing or a big you know beefy center next to chad holmgren somebody like that is pretty clearly what this roster needs because they don't really need much else at all um so maybe or maybe both of those things at the

same time yes absolutely so i think with with okc if they exceed expectations in terms of the the vegas over under and all that i think they'll be at least high 40s projected for wins by mid season then yeah they should at least be looking around a lot by January, February for a big trade. It's so fascinating that Presti is the one that is in this position because he lived this already with the KD era. And if you're going to critique him on anything, and I think he's been, at least from a drafting team building standpoint, trades, all the stuff that he's done. He's been the most successful GM in the last 15 years.

But he also kind of blew a window with that OKC team because they weren't aggressive enough. You know, I listed those guys they had, but, you know, in 2010, having KD and Russ and Harden, all 21 and under, and Ibaka at 20, and Jeff Green at 25. And the league was in a different spot. The lockout was coming. People weren't sure about luxury tax stuff. It was a small market team. I get all that. But that team, when you look back and you think, that team only won one finals game, all the talent that they had,

you know, the hardened trade, which I've talked about a million times, but it wasn't just that it was their one big trade was Jeff green for Perkins. They didn't really go all in at any other point. And then belatedly, as it got near the end of the Katie thing,

that was when they started making like the more rash moves, but I think they missed their window and I don't think they were aggressive enough, you know? And I, I say this over and over and over again. I think when you have a window and you have a top guy, you can't just assume it's going to go seven, eight, nine years, especially in the way the NBA works now where guys become happy overnight and guys are switching teams or guys think it's over. These windows now, I think this has been smart with what the Celtics have done. They know their window is two, three years.

It's not seven. It's not nine. Tatum might be unhappy a year from now. Jalen might be unhappy a year from now. So you got to build around what the window is. At least for them, I think their window is now. Yeah, Peyton Pritchard for $7 billion a year. But I just don't think OKC can think,

Oh yeah. Five years from now, SGA will be 30 and get to be 26. And like you can't. So I think they should be thinking about, can we make a big swing this year? They can certainly afford it from a salary cap aspect. I wrote down Siakam,

Ananobi, Carl Anthony Towns, and Paul George. And we can go at them one at a time. Did you have anybody else? I mean, there's like- Paul George again. Paul George, The Return, the sequel. And then you could always get into like, could it be like a Jonas Valanciunas if New Orleans isn't as good as people thought?

There's other guys down the line. Could you grab some 20 million a year center? But is there anybody like that you just think, oh, man, that would be perfect. Like, would you think Zach Levine for this team? Nah, I don't think I had him. He wasn't on my list either. I mean, I looked at the name and I was like, no, I'm not. I wouldn't go for him.

Salary's too big. doesn't make complete sense the guy names i had wendell carter from the magic uh if they ended up wanting to move off one of their bigs robert williams from the blazers if they wanted to oh that's a good one yeah why not robert williams jared allen from the calves if it turns out that you can't have both mobley and Allen if Mobley can't extend his range to three and they need to move one of those bigs because then you could get if you're the Cavs maybe you get a Lou Dort type back in that deal and you have a strong

wing defender and then the big name would be Joel Embiid if the Sixers implode. Oh my God. Embiid next to Chet Holmgren with SGA. That's a championship team right off the bat. Well hold on. You just gave me an aneurysm. Hold on. I just have to. And B next to Chet Holmgren with SGA. That's a championship team right off the bat. Well, hold on.

You just gave me an aneurysm. Hold on. I just have to, the blood has to stop bleeding in my brain. Holy shit. And B, I didn't even think of that one. I don't know how happy who'd be going from Philly.

It doesn't matter though. Like you said, like how Presti wasn't aggressive enough at one point, but he also did go for a guy that didn't want to go there with Paul George. He wanted to go for LA. He traded for him anyway, and then he ended up resigning a contract extension to stay in OKC for

longer. Granted, he got traded the same year Russ left, but I still think that history from Presti going for Paul George would indicate that if a big fish like Embiid becomes available, he's at least going to explore the possibility of trading for that guy. And he has the assets to,

if he wants to have the best offer in the league, without a doubt, he could top anything out there with the assets, with the picks he has and with the players, he has tradable contracts, good young players. Like he could give up Giddy if he wants to, to get Joel Embiid.

Like there's just so many different ways you wants to to get Joel Embiid. Like there's just so many different ways you could construct the package for Embiid if things sour with the Sixers. Not giving up Giddy. I love that backcourt together.

To me, Dort is somebody that I could put with Bertans. Now I'm in the 30s. Plus I can take more salary back. I'm talking like QB Brown now. But could you flip that dort spot into

could that become Ananobi? And how much of a difference is that for a team? Ananobi, somehow we've spent more time talking about Ananobi than most of the players in the league. Really, really, really, really excellent defensive player and a solid three-point shooter.

Okay offensive player for somebody that thinks he's going to be making 40-plus million a year, but if you just flip Dort and a couple of those picks and then Inobi, they're better. And I like Lee Dort a lot. OG helps, but I mean, is he taking away... Are you winning the finals next year? Yeah. Also, is he taking

away some valuable time from Josh Giddey playing the four next to Chet? Does it become too much overlap with having the investment in OG and Inobi? I had him on my extended list, but to me, if you're giving up that Lou Dort salary,

there's a bit of... I don't know how much better OG Inanobi is for this team. He's a better player in a vacuum, but he doesn't add a lot to Oklahoma City in my opinion. But Siakam is a different story. He's one of the best eight... He's either the seventh,

eighth, ninth, or tenth best forward in the league. And he gives you some... He can play the 4, he can play the 3, he can do a little small ball center with you. He's a proven guy. He's been in big games. That's somebody I would think about too. A little older than OG, but I'm with you that he's a more intriguing fit for Oklahoma City if they want to accelerate this coming season.

A free agent to be, so you'd have to pay him afterwards, and he is older than everybody else on the team. But he does add something that you don't have, and he can play with other guys. He's played different roles at a high level. He was a spot-up three-point shooter in the corner the year the Raptors won the title, and now he's a versatile Swiss Army knife for Toronto,

can do everything on the floor. So I like to see Aka better. To me, I'd still focus more on bigs this year because they have so many guys that can handle the ball and a lot of different options at wing. Unless it's like Paul George is interesting. That's the one that stuck out to me most on your list. Yeah, the Clippers, if it goes a little sideways this year,

they don't get hardened and then they start out slow and Kawhi's in his willy or won't he routine again. I do feel like Paul George is somebody that could be available. The most interesting guy for me, and I can't believe I spent as much time as I did thinking about it and trying to figure out if it was work or not, is Towns. Because I still feel like having Gobert in Towns makes no sense, especially as Edwards keeps ascending and why do you want to have multiple bigs and clogging, all that stuff.

And I don't think those guys play well together. And could you just get Towns for like 70, 75 cents in the dollar? He's somebody that Portland just wouldn't even consider for Dame, which I thought was fascinating. Around the league, his reputation is pretty iffy. And I don't think people think he's like a horrible guy or anything, but it's kind of like he's 27. He is what he is. And can you win with Carl Anthony Towns? I think people are really suspicious of it.

But you put him on this team. All right, what does he give you? Well, now I can play him with Chet. Now I have spacing all over the floor. I have a seven-footer who can shoot threes. I'm going to get 22 and 10 a night. Worst case scenario, good shooting percentages. I have Chet insurance.

It's kind of the perfect fit for them, but yet it's Towns, and I don't know if they'd want to bet on the personality. What do you think? I'm thinking personality, but also salary. Five years left on his contract. But they have the money, though. I mean, I just laid out the SGA thing, and then it's all the younger guys. At some point, you have to spend the money.

But they have it right now. But then when all of these guys come up. So you're saying four years from now. Yeah, or even just three years from now. I mean, when you gotta pay Jalen Williams and you gotta pay Josh Giddey and all of these guys. The cap's going way up though. The cap's gonna be what? Like 180 in three years?

At some point you gotta spend on four guys. Timing wisewise, though, with Cat having five years left, as enormous as that salary gets, 50-plus million. So you think it's a stay away? It's a blind stay away from you? When I looked at Minnesota, I was thinking

more about Gobert. Three years left on his deal. He's along the same lines of what I was saying with Jared Allen and some of the other bigs that I mentioned. Wendell Carter, Robert Williams, Gobert, Chet. That'd be insane. Room protection to compliment. Kaysan Wallace on the perimeter.

I'm intrigued there. I didn't list Gobert initially because the money's so high at $40-plus million and personality fit could be a question there too. But I'd be more intrigued by gobert next to chet than i would with cat next to chet you just can't quit rudy gobert um wow so towns is 36 this year and then it jumps to 49 53.6 57.6 and 61.6 holy mackerel it's not yeah you're right that's a stay away yeah it's not about quitting go go bear it's like i just i just don't trust cat and and it's about what does okc need they they were 28th defensive rebounding percentage they need an elite rebounder having

more room protection next to check could make them the best defense in basketball Cat last year and we'll see this season how it develops but he did not adapt well to defending more on the perimeter when playing next to Rudy. He would have to do that playing next to Chet Holmgren the decision making by Cat, I just have my questions about him and I used to be a Cat guy, a major Cat defender he has he has not improved in the ways that I would hope for over the years so Rudy's

41 43.8 and then a player option for 46.6 and that becomes tradeable two and a half year commitment yeah in the last year is a third year like you can trade that at that point you still have a ton of picks at that point you don't probably don't have to give up many picks to get Gobert, if any.

If Minnesota wants to instead trade, swap out for, say, Dort and Bertans and one other player, they might want pieces. So you might keep all your picks and still get something that you need if it's somebody like him. I just think he's too expensive compared to the Jared Allen types who are at $20 million, half the price compared to Gobert. I think your initial instinct was the right one. And I'm mad I didn't think of it. The Robert Williams call is great. Because you could basically get one good first rounder and then one of the not so great first rounders. But now Portland would basically end up with DeAndre and what?

There'd be seven firsts and swaps. You could give them... You wouldn't want to give them one of the unprotected ones, but you could talk about 2026 Houston's top four protected and then give them

Miami's 2026 Miami's unprotected and just be like, here. A couple seconds. That's unprotected. And just be like, here. A couple seconds, right? Yeah, some seconds. That's a lot for Robert Williams. And then if you're Portland, you're delighted. Because it does feel like they traded for Robert Williams

as a trade piece to try to turn him into two more picks, which with his salary, if he's healthy for a month, I think that's realistic. Whether it's in a two-team or a three-teamer from a team that's trying to shed money. I still, for the, well, I'll never understand why Phoenix wanted Nurkic. I feel like I'm taking crazy pills,

especially hearing them talk about like, oh, his screening and, oh yeah, oh yeah, they're going to be able to run some of the offense through him. It's like, am I, do I have a concussion? What's happening with this? Oh yeah. Oh yeah. They're going to be able to run some of the offense through him. It's like, am I, did I, do I have a concussion? What's happening with this?

So I'll, I'll be proven right eventually, but yeah. So maybe it's just Robert Williams and you just add that. But regardless, 44 and a half wins. And then you look at some of the other teams that are higher than them. Like I don't trust the Clippers.

Memphis isn't going to have job for 25 games. House and I were just badgering Verno today about that because Memphis is over under on Fandles like 46 and a half. And it's going to be 25 games of Marcus Smart being like, I got this, guys. Good luck.

Verno thinks they're fine. Bain's the end of the game guy that they're going to go to. I wish everybody a lot of luck on that one. But I just think I trust the talent on OKC more than some of these other teams. Regardless, the West is impossible. There's 11 teams, and you basically have to decide which three of these are getting bounced. I don't know. Have you even done that work yet?

Not yet. I want to see a little bit more preseason. But the one other thing, the one name we haven't mentioned with OKC Bill, just on top of everything you're arguing in favor of them, is Mark Dagnalt. They have a really, really good coach in Dagnalt. He's done a great job installing layers to the system on offense.

They can play so many different ways. The chemistry last year, and it seems like it'll translate this year, comes from him with his selflessness on this team. Dan Nault, it's not like they have some weak coach with all these pieces. They have a really good coach. So that's another point in favor of Oklahoma City. And off that point, there's a competitiveness to this team

that I talked about a couple times last season during the pod. It's a bunch of dudes who just like roll their sleeves up and go. And then they add Chet, who I think is weirdly wired like that, too. That's a guy killer killer as a skinny white guy. That guy's been targeted since he was 13. And he like, you know, he really cares. And Wallace is another one. That dude, you know, he is like an energizer bunny type of guy.

So it's like you just go down that lineup. It's like, who's the dog on this team? All these guys give a shit. And I think that over the course of a regular season, that's the most important quality if you're thinking about overs. This team has to go 45 and 37 to beat the over? There's no way they're not going to do that unless somebody gets hurt. And plus, they have Poku.

Yeah, so that was going to be my last OKC question. What happens now with Poku? He's just trade fodder now? He's not going to actually play this year, is he? I mean, he got 20 minutes per game last year, and he was pretty good before he got hurt. So I would expect him to play he's part of that group i mean clearly presti is has a thing for tall players with skill giddy

chad poku that uzman jeng for that matter that's what they're investing in so i i think with poku they're gonna play him and see if he continues uh his positive progress from last season because he looks really good in his 30 or so games. Really good? Really good compared to thinking that he was a bust before that? Yeah, really good compared to his dramatically up-and-down rollercoaster first two seasons. He was shooting the ball well, protecting the rim, making better decisions.

He had a positive assist turnover ratio. There's a lot to like from Poku last year, Bill. Listen, when people give you shit online for the big three of Poku, Bomba, and Killian, and Killian, they also need to respect the

fact that you and I were in the front fucking seat of the Luka bandwagon just adamantly saying that he should be the number one pick that year. There's video of the whole thing. We were literally in the front seat playing with the radio as the Luca bandwagon filled. You also

were a big Tatum guy, right? Yeah, Tatum's second in his draft class. You were big on that Tatum trade to Boston. You've had a lot of wins too. If you're going to throw a couple stinkers at KOC, mention the wins. I've talked to people in the league about some of the whiffs that I've had. And everybody in the league, it's so different compared to online.

They're all like, oh, I had this miss. I had this miss. Everybody in the NBA draft has big hits, home runs, grand slams, and they also have big whiffs. That's what the draft is. It's very, very hard to predict. Well, the Killian draft was to me, the COVID year should just be

all the predictions should be thrown out in the COVID year. We're going to look back at the COVID year as one of the dumbest years we've ever had in any draft because what do you have? Halliburton ends up becoming... Edwards hits, but we had no idea that was going to happen. Halliburton ends up becoming Edwards hits but we had no idea that was going to happen Halliburton Desmond

Bain goes to 30th the Celtics draft him and trade him and then you look at some of the other guys Maxie in the 20s right but then on the flip side like Wiseman you know I just think all hell broke loose what I know you're talking about all this stuff

on the mismatch, but is there a storyline you feel like is underrated as we're now getting close to that? We're two weeks away. Is there anything you're looking at as like, I don't feel like people are talking about this enough. Cause for me, I,

other than OKC, which I just, I can't believe everything about them, but I just feel like they're going to be way better than people see. I do think that Chris Paul and the Warriors thing, I'm starting to talk myself into. All the things that he brings to the table that are just a 180 from what they had with Poole,

who was like a young guy who wanted shots, who wanted minutes, who just wanted the contract and just was a young guy that wanted to spread his wings versus now bringing in somebody like Chris, who's like, what is he going to play? 1,300 minutes this season? They're going to be resting him for the playoffs, but spotting him in these 20-minute stretches. And I just think he's going to be additive for them. I think he's really going to help them. So that'd be mine. Do you have, what would you have for underrated? In terms of the top of the west like denver's

young guys that they added um i think i would do it strother hunter tyson jalen pickett like we'll see how those guys end up carving out minutes but um calvin booth their gm clearly made an investment in older rookies and i think that that's an underrated storyline for the way they're kind of trying to build this forward and replace bruce brown And then the Kings, I think they'll be very good. I still have my questions about DeMontis Sabonis as the guy to be their five, to become a championship team. Can he improve? Like OKC years ago, his rookie year had him shooting threes. Can he become a guy that's a threat?

Can he improve protecting the rim? And then kind of the same, the other side of the coin with the OKC storyline that you're talking about is New Orleans. If Zion can stay healthy, if him and Ingram can actually play together, New Orleans also has a ton of depth and quality talent. They've just been completely unhealthy. And I don't think Willie Green is quite as great as a coach as Mark Dagnall yet, but he hasn't had those guys healthy and hasn't had a chance to prove himself. But can New Orleans be another team like Oklahoma City that can really disturb kind of the status quo in the Western Conference with some of those top teams that people expect to be there? It's going to come down to Zion being healthy, and we'll see. That's a big if. Yeah. One of the things I was thinking with the West, like you mentioned New Orleans where they had that little run two years ago, and then Sacramento last year. Everyone really liked them as a possible up and comer, but I

think they overachieved for what we all thought. But sometimes it's circumstances of the conference, right? The West was a mess last year. All kinds of shit went down. And sometimes when it's a mess, the team that just stays healthy for six months or the team that overachieves a little and then they can ascend and their win total is maybe six spots higher. That's not going to happen this year.

And I look at Sacramento and I'm kind of leaning on under for them, even though it's pretty much the same team as last year with a year older of Keegan Murray that you feel like he'll be better. And they added Duarte, I guess. But for some reason, I'm like leaning under for them because I think the conference caught up with them. And is that going to be worth three extra losses? Six? Are they going to have the same health they did last year? They're not going to catch people by surprise in the same way. And the top of the conference where

you got Golden State, I'm sorry, Phoenix and Denver and the Lakers are going to be significantly better as a regular season team. And I just don't think they can swim in that ocean. So I don't know what that means for their over-under, but I just don't think what happened to them last year happens again. And Mike Brown was awesome last year. He installed that system, but it's not fresh anymore. And that's where I think teams are... They had a whole summer, a whole season watching them.

We'll see with Sacramento if they can improve. They added Vyzenkov, too, who is MVP overseas. Very good player. I like him a lot, but it's just a bonus question to me with Sacramento, and this is the year two of this thing for them that we're going to get some answers about him, I feel.

Lakers is 47 and a half. Over. Goddamn, I like it. I think that team's going to be really good. I know. Awesome. I like everything I've read. Oh, Goddamn. I like it. I think that team's going to be really good. Yeah, I know. I like everything I've read. Oh my God.

I like everything I've read about them this, this off season. And even like with them, it feels like if LeBron got hurt for 20 games or just had some sort of old guy injury, I think they'd be fine. I think they have a lot of ways. Yeah.

I think they could just run stuff through Reeves and Davis. And I think they would be okay. I think they have a lot of ways. Yeah. I think they could just run stuff through Reeves and Davis, and I think they would be okay for like four or five weeks. So, yeah, I think that team, the Phoenix's offense, and then Denver's in general, those are three awesome, awesome teams. I can't wait to talk about it in detail next week because I think there's so much talent all over the place. Even like you mentioned Sacramento, it's like, oh, they're not any better.

But what if Vizenkov's really good? What if Keegan Murray's much better? Every team has these guys that you can go, oh man, what if this happens? What if this happens? There's really only like four or five stinkers. I listened to Ringer NBA, the Waz, Barrier, and Mahoney.

They did their worst 10 teams. And you think they all had San Antonio in the bottom three. I'm like, San Antonio might not be bad, but I also think they're probably right. Maybe they are one of the worst three teams. But I still want to watch Sacramento at San Antonio. It's not like it was

a few years ago if you're watching a bad team they're fucking bad you know i i don't know i i feel like we're ready for expansion ksc oh no doubt two more teams we're ready yeah i mean it should be ready asap i wish it were happening next season it's not gonna but i mean maybe 2026 2027 hopefully soon because the league's ready there's so many guys on rosters that aren't going to be getting minutes. We're talking about OKC throughout this pod. There's going to be guys like Trey Mann.

I don't even know if we said his name. Trey Mann is a guy. He could be on another team, and he'd be like a promising young player. Like, ooh, what can Trey Mann become? He might not play some nights for Oklahoma City. There's so many guys like that across the league right now. It's like Pritchard last year.

Pritchard was like this fucking afterthought. He would get DMPs. I would say, and people thought I was being a homer. I was like, Pritchard's good. I couldn't believe people weren't trying to trade for him in February, and now you see it. Now they've paid him. He's going to be the basically sixth man of the team,

or seventh man, and he's going to play real minutes for them. He's going to be good. But I think there's a lot of Pritchard guys out there that are just like, I just need minutes. Just give me for them. He's going to be good. But I think there's a lot of Pritchard guys out there that are just like, I just need minutes. Just give me 25 minutes. I'm going to be good. Philly has a couple guys like that that I think are interesting. After Pritchard's 47 points in two preseason

games, have you managed to get rid of your Peyton Pritchard boner yet? No. It's lasted more than four hours. I really like the Celtics team. They ran the first play of the preseason game. Porzingis was in the corner and they ran the offense so that the ball got swung to him in the Al Horford spot and somebody ran out to him, but he's seven foot four and he just shot it over them and made it. I was like, oh my god. I was like, oh, he's going to have seven wide-open threes a game, and he's seven foot four, and you're not going to be able to jump out on him in time. On paper, it just

looked really good. And then White and Holladavs fired up. We'll talk about that another time. Porzingis looks, I mean, last year with Washington, best season of his career. The first preseason game, attacking off the dribble. I mean, yeah, Porzingis is if he stays healthy, he's the most important piece on the team

to make them from not just great team, but the championship favorite. He's that difference maker. Also, multiple Boston people have told me they think he's taller than 7'3". Have you heard that before? No. You know how like the tall guys lie about their height sometimes?

KG like 6'11 no he's actually taller than 7'3 I need to see it in person but uh there's been a couple of those over the years anyway

uh KOC we can hear you in the mismatch read you on the ringer.com good to see you as always likewise thank you Bill alright our guy

Benjamin Solak is here you can read him on Sunday nights on TheRinger.com. He's writing an excellent weekly column for us. You can hear him on The Ringer NFL Show and on the Philly Special. And he's got the PlaySheet video series. He's one of our busiest people.

So it's always an honor when he graces us with his presence. I want to play a game with you called Last Rights because we're heading into week six. I think five games is enough of a sample size in a lot of ways for, oh, wow, I'm writing that team off. Hmm.

There's bigger problems here than we thought. Oh, this team's better than I thought. Like Detroit. I'm like, I'm in on that. I was in on Detroit a week ago. I'm like, you know what? I was wrong. This team's good.

But I want to go last rights route. The Patriots, can we pour dirt on them? Is that like, have you seen any it's over, right? Yeah, it was over once Judith and Christian Gonzalez went out in the same week, man. Those were, I think, given the way Gonzalez was playing in the first month of the season,

those were your two least dispensable, most indispensable defensive players. You lose them in the same game. They were already tying together a defense that I thought was playing well, but wasn't such a dominant defense that was going to win game after game for you. Offensively, they have no talent. None. There's no one on this team that's impactful. I was a big Romandre fan entering the season. He's

underperformed and he still might be their best offensive weapon. It's so, so, so dreadful. And then the coaching staff you don't think is going to have solutions to this problem because they're the ones who dug themselves into this hole and they've been in this hole for a bit and they're not going to get out of it. No. A Patriots turnaround would be no short of

stunning to me this season. Their over-under has dropped to 5.5 on Fandle and that still feels too high. I have no explanation for Ramondre. He was awesome last year. He's been terrible this year. I thought this was going to be a run the ball, play really good defense, physical team that didn't beat itself

and it's been the opposite. Ramondre is very high on the list of players that I'd be calling about right now if I were a GM at the trade deadline. But I'm just going to call patrons and see like, hey, if you guys just don't like him for whatever reason and it's like an attitude thing and there's a vibes are off thing,

I'm very interested in Austin Eckler, but make him bigger. I'm curious. I would like to acquire that. So Ramondre, I'll be curious to see if we get trade deadline smoke over the next few weeks. Denver's another one. We can give them last rights. They're over

under four and a half. They're done. That's a teardown. It makes me wonder aren't those the two candidates for the number one pick for you? Because Carolina doesn't have their own pick. Maybe you could say Giants too, but I do feel like the Giants at least have some talent.

They've had bad injury luck. They had a terrible schedule. But if you're Denver and if you're the Pats, we see this in the NBA all the time. We don't see it as much in the NFL. Why aren't you trading assets knowing that it also weakens your team this year? And even somebody like Kendrick Bourne, would he be good on the Chiefs?

He probably would. There's a bunch of guys like that. Yeah, I love Kendrick Bourne, would he be good on the Chiefs? He probably would. There's a bunch of guys like that. Yeah, I love Kendrick Bourne on the Chiefs. I dropped that on X-Point Taken last week where I was just throwing around trade deadline stuff and I was like, let's get a QB-friendly receiver to Mahomes that desperately needs just one guy who is where he thinks he's going to be. In that vein,

that exact logic, why aren't you trading assets to go make sure you get an early pick is why i think the vikings are a really good candidate for the first overall pick right uh their general manager uh quessy adolfo mensa who's i i struggle to pronounce his last name i'm sorry uh quessy is a uh an analytics guy it's probably the most analytics pilled gm that we have in the league maybe andrew barry harry roseman but he's up there uh and they're at a spot right now one of my particular last rights that like I have on my list

is last rights to Vikings quarterback Kirk Cousins. Kirk's in the last year of his deal. I would be legitimately stunned if we see him in a Vikings uniform in 2024. It's not even so much that he's not playing well enough to justify it. He's still Kirk. He's playing exactly like Kirk has been playing for the last five years. But this team desperately needs to infuse with youth and start a new era. And I think that you're going to see trade deadline interest in, in cousins, especially cause he's on that one year rental.

Accordingly, I can see them walking into the season, playing the backup the rest of the way. Right. I think it's Nick Mullins. Don't quote me on that. They've been changing backups for a while now. I'm really,

really, really trying to sync this thing. Justin Jefferson's on IR with a hamstring injury now for at least four weeks. Hamstring injuries don't just go away, man. I mean, you don't just get over a hammy. It's a quick twitch muscle at a quick twitch position. That's a hard injury to deal with. I wouldn't be surprised if they shelf Jefferson, if they trade Kirk Cousins.

They really tank this thing and they try to go get a new quarterback this upcoming draft. My daughter had a hammy pull the fifth day of soccer and it's six weeks later and it's still not 100%. She's made it worse twice. I had a hammy pull the fifth day of soccer, and it's six weeks later, and it's still not 100%. She's made it worse twice. I had a hammy pull in 2014. That soccer doesn't leave.

It's not like a sprained ankle where you can play on it, and it gets better, and the only way you're really going to hurt it is if you actually sprain it again. The hammy, it's just like anything can just set you back. I think you're right on Minnesota. They don't even have them for... They took the over-under down on FanDuel. Yeah, the Johnson-Jefferson injury is going to leave them in a bad spot.

They've been a mess too. I mean, some of their strategy stuff, like when they were Blitz and Herbert, 80% of the time in that Chargers game. But you're the smartest football person I know. Can you explain how somebody trades Kirk Cousins during a season and how that works with the salary cap? Because I just can't wrap my head around it. Yeah, absolutely. So Kirk Cousins is on a one-year deal. Excuse me, he has one year left on his deal. Right now, his base salary is $10 million.

Base salary gets paid out as the game checks, right? Oh, you get one 18th of it, 18 times a season, right? That money, however many weeks will be left, nine, 10 weeks, will be responsible for the acquiring team. So if the Jets trade for Kirk Cousins, they have to pay whatever fraction of that $10 million is left, which really is not a lot of money, right? You're going to be paying single, what is it? Seven figures, right? Single digit millions for Kirk Cousins is a functional starting NFL quarterback.

The rest of the money that's on Kirk's contract is all bonus money. It was either part of a signing bonus when he first signed the deal, or money that got restructured when the Vikings changed the deal to create some cap space. All bonus money has already been paid to the player. The Vikings already gave it to Kirk. It's just on their salary cap for this year or for next year or for the following year. And so once they trade Kirk, the Vikings are still on the hook for all of his bonus money. Right now, he's got a $6.25 million cap hit, which is signing bonus, another $4 million, which is restructure bonus. That doesn't go to the Jets. It all stays with the Vikings. And so if you're trading for Kirk Cousins, you're trading for

a one-year $10 million deal. So you're trading for the game checks of Kirk Cousins. Yeah. Exactly. But you don't have to send a matching salary back or anything close. You can just absorb it in your cap. No. Now, you have to make sure you have room for that in your cap, obviously. Yeah. You can still do funky restructure stuff. Usually

when we see trades with restructures, we see that the team that's selling takes on some extra money to incentivize the acquiring team to get this player. Usually it's like a cash dump. We don't typically see it work another way where like the jets would acquire Kirk and then up his salary. I suppose there's worlds in which that might happen, but that'd be an extremely rare thing if it's ever happened at all.

So in general, Kirk is a very, very attractive trade candidate right now. If you are the jets, certainly like I'd be an extremely rare thing if it's ever happened at all. So in general, Kirk is a very, very attractive trade candidate right now. If you are the Jets, certainly like I'd be calling about Kirk. I think the Falcons are a potential Kirk team. Thank you. I was waiting for you to say them,

but Ritter was good last week, but is Ritter just, is he a good at home against young teams or is he actually like there's signs of hopes here? Week five is the worst thing to happen to me in a while. Because I was so close to being off of Justin Fields and so close to being off of Desmond Ritter. And then both of them just had the best games

they've had this season. And I'm just sitting here like, but what if this was the turning point? Yeah, I mean, like, Arthur Smith is a very good example of how this sort of thing can work. He was the Titans' offensive coordinator. They make the Ryan Tannehill change,

and he's a big part of Tannehill's career resurgence. So if there's a guy in the league who feels like, hey, I can go get a middling over-30 quarterback and still make an offense work out of him, that guy's going to be Arthur Smith. So I think that the Jets and then quietly the Falcons are your two best Kirk Cousins trade candidates. And I do think that's going to be a legitimate conversation when we get later

in October. Not Washington. And then there's always the possibility of somebody gets injured and needs a QB immediately because they're having a good team. Man, I hesitate saying this out loud. Yeah, let's do it. No one's listening.

If I'm the Jets, do I want to see a couple more Zach Wilson weeks? Because I think I do. I don't. No, no, no, no. No? No, no, no. It is...

Zach Wilson's biggest fan in the entire world is Robert Sala. And he's almost lost the defensive locker room twice now by endorsing this guy. You cannot... If you walk out with him past the deadline, fine, whatever. And you do the Trevor Simeon thing, I don't care.

But the... Sauce Gardner will stage a revolt if they do too much more Zach Wilson stuff. You can't do it. He had, in the fourth quarter, he had this great third and 11th throw where he stood in the pocket and hit somebody over the middle.

I was like, Zach Wilson, man, it's happening. Then what happened? Two plays later. If you're Minnesota, maybe you get Zach Wilson back. Oh, do a little new home.

Just try it out. See what's up. That I don't mind. I feel like the Jets will want to get Zach Wilson out because it'll just get him out of the locker room. Right? You kind of rid yourself of that polarizing figure. So Cousins trade. I like it.

And it does seem like that's the right move for Minnesota. My next last rights. Tough one. Carolina fans, cover yours. Can we do last rights on the Bryceryce young versus cj stroud who should we pick number one is that just a wrap now is this like luca deandre ayton where we're just we don't even talk about this anymore yeah i have on my list i came with four and one of them was first overall pick bryce young it's we're not i'm not last rights on bryce young the nfl

quarterback i am worried. I was not a Bryce Young guy coming out. That height and that play style at that height was concerning to me. I was much bigger on Stroud and Richardson. And I think that through five weeks, it's pretty clear that those guys, both of them have played well to start the season. Stroud kind of more consistently, more reliably, and Richardson with some incredible peak moments.

Both of those guys have such a wider road to success to long-term franchise quarterbacking than young does. His road is so thin. Even if you want to argue like the offense and the scheme and the skill position players are really holding him back, which I think has some validity to it. It's still just, it's so hard to see the world in which this works. We're a guy who can't really access the deep outside parts of the field

because of his arm strength, who isn't as going to be a great scrambler. He's not quick enough, big enough to actually break tackles like just the worlds in which he succeeds are very, very thin worlds. It's not like a Tua thing exactly. But think about how when before Mike McDaniel with Tua, we were like, okay, this guy might work, but you need to run like a really specific offense for him. When you find it, it's great. It's just that doesn't happen very often. It's very hard, very challenging to do. So first overall pick, Bryce Young, I agree. I think that was a swing and a miss. I definitely think if the coaching staff... It seemed in March when they traded for the pick that the coaching staff was really leaning on Shroud.

Frank Reich had comments today talking about how ownership is really involved here in Carolina. It seemed like that was a little bit of an ownership pick. That's doubly worrisome. Because if the coaching staff never fully believed in the guy, and now he's struggling while the other guy is succeeding, the deck is so stacked against you. It's worrisome stuff.

I think that's the worst team. There's some decent stats with them offensively compared to other teams. They have eight touchdowns. They have 103 first downs. Where you look at the Jets have 73 first downs. The Patriots have 83 first downs. So their offense has been a little friskier.

And they also have no incentive to go 0-17 this year because they don't have their pick. How many of the first downs came from the Andy Dalton game? That's what I want to know. Well, that might be part of the problem. So my lean would be them of the problem. So my lean would be them as the number one worst team, except for the fact that

that's not worth it for them to be the number one worst team. So if you had to go for a worst team, who would you go with? At the end of the year, this team has the number one pick. Who would you bet on? Right now, the team in my power rankings, that's the worst of the Broncos. And the saving grace for the Broncos was supposed to be that,

okay, they're not going to be good. They have talent problems. Russ is a huge issue, but at least he'll be well-coached, and they have not been well-coached. I think offensively, they're trying to do the right things. And in fact, by the numbers, Russell Wilson's having a pretty fine season. But they still make a lot of mistakes there.

And then obviously defensively, it's terrible. I mean, it's a travesty, a miscarriage of football, the way that they try to get 11 players on the field working in the same direction. So I don't think they're a well-coached team. I would say right now, my guess for the worst team in football is the Broncos. They might still win a few games, though.

Because like I said, like Russ and the offense, they have stretches where it works pretty nicely. And so if you put Broncos and Panthers head-to-head right now on a field, like neutral field, I think the Broncos would probably be favored. But my guess for long-term, who's the worst team? I think the Broncos. Panthers are going to get better because they're young, right? Young is going to play better in Week 12 than he did in Week 4.

Defensively, they're on a first year of a system. Offensively, they're on a first year of a system. They're going to get it around the corner at least a little bit, in my opinion. Broncos might just be a total dumpster fire. Might completely blow up. Can we give last rights to all the Sean Payton? All the smoke about him being a top five coach? Because that team is terribly coached.

And he's got to get some blame. They gave up 70 points to Miami. His guys stopped tackling against the Jets, which the Jets were just dying to give Broncos that game. And then the Broncos still figured out a way to screw it up. They do stuff like, it's the kind of team that they just hit the punt returner before he catches the punt. They make those kind

of penalties where it's just like, do you guys practice what's going on here? I thought this guy was supposed to be the savior. I don't see it. I never was fully there on the savior either because, like I said, the Russ offense And yeah, like it's, I never was fully there on the savior either because like I said, like the Russ offense is performing better, but better than it was last season.

Like EPA per drop back. I think like Russ is near the top 10, but it's not like he was never going to turn out a top five offense with Russ. Like that's just not in Russ's cards anymore. He's not that level of athlete. And knowing Sean Payton, he doesn't seem like the sort of dude

who takes great joy slash is interested in fielding the 12th best offense to go nine and eight. Like it's not his DNA to be like, oh, a building block. We did a good job year one. Let's go to year two. Like he just seems angry. He seems like he's in blow up mode, right?

There were reports of rumors that the Broncos locker room is expecting some trade deadline moves and they're going to sell and they're going to go super young. like there's there's ways that you can clearly see sean payton is positively affecting the broncos like they have this udfa running back to liam mclaughlin and he's playing quite well and they're like he's good they got like nine different receivers who can catch a pass and they use them in solid way like there's stuff that's

happening that's like good football but the the bedrock here was never good enough that a Sean Payton coach could walk in and like really actually fix everything. That's like a magic wand pumpkin at midnight sort of a turnover. So I'm very interested in year two of Sean Payton Broncos. Presumably that's non-Russell Wilson version and see what he looks like when he's actually building this thing in his image.

But year one, like, yeah, they should be better than they are. They absolutely should. But I didn't ever think Peyton was going to be able to 11-6 this team. The pieces weren't there. That's not Peyton's MO. Peyton wants to build this thing

in his image. They're going to scrap before they excel. Can we also give last rights to the new coach theory? Or can D'Amico Ryan save it? Because you and Sheil, you did a whole thing on the new coach theory, which by the way, I've been a subscriber for 15 years and I stared at the Broncos for a while because I was like, this is the perfect new coach team where they had the bad coach last year,

no expectations, nobody sees them coming. They're checking boxes. I just couldn't get there mostly because of Russell Wilson. I didn't realize the defense was going to be this bad. So unless Ryan or Shane Statham can save the new coach there, it might be dead. Well, let me push back on that. Because the Broncos almost hired D'Amico, but they lost him because they were too busy screwing around with Harbaugh. And then D'Amico lost interest in the job

and he wasn't going to take the Texans job. And then he did take the Texans job and then they tried to call him back, but he'd already committed to the Texans. So then they went up the offer for Sean Payton. So the new coach theory would have worked perfectly if the Broncos just did their job and hired D'Amico Ryans. But instead, we ended up in an alternate universe

where he ends up in Houston. I think, right, New coach theory, I generally still feel good about. Maybe there's if Russell Wilson is your quarterback and you spent a ton of picks to go get him corollary that precludes the 20-23 Broncos from inclusion. I wonder, I'm not going

to give up on the Colts yet. I know Richardson got hurt, but I think they're well coached. I really liked how they played against Tennessee. I didn't think people were going to be able to run the ball on Tennessee like they did. They've lost their quarterback midway through two of the five games this year. I don't know. I think they're pretty solid.

I've been impressed by them. Yeah. Colts have been a nice big surprise for me. Absolutely. Shane Syken is like official stamps got the goods, dude. I was a huge Syken guy when he was in Philadelphia. He took the play calling from Nick Sirianni mid-season in 2021

and they immediately experienced the jump and then they had a second jump in 2022. Offense was buzzing. You can see in 2023 now the Eagles offense still looks the same, but it doesn't look the same. They're pressing similar buttons and A.J. Brown is great at this and Dallasallas goddard's great at that running the football incredibly but we all watch it and go oh this doesn't this isn't as easy as it was last year this isn't as

free as it was last year and meanwhile you got steichen who just uh like both with richardson and with minshu consistently puts players in the exact position they need to be in to succeed how are we get like this wide receiver room is michael pitman alec pierce and josh downs they're starting tight ends are kylan branson and mo alley cox like this this ain't it from a personnel perspective zach moss is out here rushing for 150 yards man uh right is is i think like uh if there's a guy who like we have we have ben johnson with the lions who's that like play caller everybody loves who's not in the shanahan tree if there's a silver medal on that podium, it goes to Shane Steichen, who

I don't know how he came up and how he got all this from where he didn't get it from the Shanahan tree, but the play calling, the sequential stuff that he does is really, really awesome. And this is the problem. These are the really sad, dark Patriot fan threads that I'm on right now where it's like, well,

Mac doesn't have the weapons and the line isn't there. It's like, well, Mac doesn't have the weapons and the, you know, the line isn't there. It's like, well, how do you explain Houston and Indianapolis to me? Because what does CJ Stroud has? He is a bunch of young receivers.

Nobody's ever heard of. He's had all kinds of chaos on his offensive line and he's been fine. Indianapolis, same thing. Who's had, they didn't have Jonathan Taylor for the first four games. They've had offensive line injuries. They have worse receivers than the Patriots do.

Yes. And they've been okay. And Minshew can come in and throw it around. So to me, that speaks more to how bad the coaching has been in New England, which has been five years of slappiness dating back to Brady's. I have to ask, is it last rights for Belichick for you?

I think Belichick's still a good coach. I think that Belichick in New England might be something that gets put in the dirt here at this point. You just end up washing your hands of it because you're going to have to restart at some point and this is as good of an out as there's ever been. You're going to move on from Mack probably. You're going to change the entire coaching

staff. It feels like a good time to start the new era. And even if Belichick goes to the Chargers and he goes to the Commanders and he's successful, then you kind of say, well, we got out when the getting out was good and we thought it would be okay. They keep Belichick, I'll be fine with it too. But Belichick's at the stage in his career

where he needs to have an actual general manager and then have an actual offensive coordinator. And you can't just... like have an actual general manager and then have like an actual offensive coordinator. And like, you can't just like whatever construction the Patriots had in the last two decades where they built the entire ship in Brady's image of Belichick's image without Brady, it clearly doesn't work. Belichick can still coach a really good defense,

but they need Belichick's next team, whether it's Patriots or otherwise needs to take on a more traditional construction relative to the one that they enjoyed for two years when they had Brady like that. That was a bespoke build that worked with those two guys. Take one out. It doesn't just work with the only one left'm probably not going to have a good football team again until I'm in my late 50s. Part of Belichick's roster construction philosophy was I just want a lot of

swings at things. I want to have depth. I want to have a lot of like cheaper guys and just a lot of solid to good guys all over the place

at the expense of having like some of the bigger ticket people. Right. Yep. I wonder if the league is different and there's just more talent now. And that actually the people that have moved into this, I know I actually want to have some blue chippers. I want to have some fucking bad asses. I want to have some expensive guys. I kind of what San Francisco is doing. The new inefficiency is don't spend anything on positions that we always thought were super important, but spend a lot of money on defensive line, being able to block your left tackle, maybe one big receiver. And that's just never how he

built the team. He was always like, receivers are interchangeable. Running backs are interchangeable. I just want to have depth everywhere. I care about my special teams. And maybe that's just done now in 2023. I don't know. What do you think about roster construction? I strongly agree. I think that's actually, like, that point sets off light bulbs in my head in terms of thinking about the Patriots versus other teams. Because I was just talking about the Lions on Extra Point Taken and saying, like, they're 4-1. I've been the biggest Lions rebuild believer in the last two years. I should be madly in love with this.

I should be just banging the drum. I did. Lions are good. I knew it all along. Here we go. And I'm not. And the reason why I'm not is because I feel uneasiness in my stomach because I can't find their stars.

And I know that stars are January winners. I know that you play as well as you want in the regular season. When we get to January football, you better have two or three guys that can just take over a game, period, done. We win because we have him. You lose that you play as well as you want in the regular season. When we get to January football, you better have two or three guys that can just take over a game, period, done. We win because we have him. You lose because you don't. And right now, the Lions are asking Aiden Hutchinson to be that guy. And Amon Ross St. Brown. And it's like, alright,

maybe, but I would love if we could get a real star on this team. With the Belichick Patriots, that makes sense. We are seeing target distribution among teams in the league become more funneled than ever, like a couple of guys. Look at the Raiders. They throw to Devontae Adams,

and if they don't throw to Devontae Adams, they throw to Jacoby Myers, right? The Dolphins last year. We throw to Tyreek Hill. If we don't throw to him, we throw to Jalen Waddell. The Bengals, Jamar Chase, Tee Higgins, right? We have dudes who are good. We don't mess around with this.

Eagles, Aja Brown, Devontae Smith, Dallas Goddard. It's very concentrated. And so a spread and shred approach, which was like a real common thing in the more 2000s traditional West Coast offense, that starts to fall away. Defensive building, right? Again, look at how the Eagles do it.

We're going to dominate with the front. We'll figure everything else out in the back end. The Niners do the same thing to a similar degree. They spent a little bit more at linebacker and safety, but still, we're going to dominate with the rush. The Cowboys, we're going to dominate with the rush. The Cowboys, we're going to dominate with the rush. We'll survive in the back end. That's never been the way Belichick's done it. And so I do think that

there's a polarization of team building where you have to say, all right, we're going to win in the passing game on offense and the pass rush on defense and invest so much there that we always win and we can figure out the rest of the stuff later that a lot of smart teams are employing that the Patriots have totally zagged on. Other

teams have zagged on that with some success. There's always room to zag and to go a different direction and to be able to beat teams by pitching change-ups, but it's hard to do. It's hard to sustain long-term. I think the Patriots are struggling in that regard. One of the team-building things I really like is

when people double down on something they're already good at. It's like, we have a strength and something they're already good at. Yeah. It's like we have a strength and now it's a super strength. And I think that Jalen Carter picks a perfect example of that. I've never had more fun in my life than I have watching Jalen Carter. I cackle every time he plays. He's so good, dude.

He's amazing. He's already one of the three best interior linemen in the league, right? Yeah. He's like if Ndamukong Suh was just better. Ndamukong Suh and then just ratchet it on 2-11. He's so good, man. I love him so much. Just behave

in the offseason, Jalen. Please. I promise. Please. Oh my god. Would you do last rights on the Steelers having a competent offense or do you see anything in there that makes you think there's signs of life? Because just stat wise, no offense has been worse. I mean, they have, I have a run down five, five touchdowns,

37% on third down. They have 30 punts this year and 70 first downs. You never want the 30 70 ratio for punts and first downs. Historically not great, no. Historically not awesome. And yet, they're the Michael Myers team, right? If they could just hang around, hang around. They get the other team to make dumb plays at the worst possible times.

They'll get one 40-yard pass at the perfect time. They'll get a weird safety when you least expect it. The Steelers are 3-2. And they were my big pick before the year and I've watched all of their games and I have no idea why they're 3-2. So is their offense dead or can it be fixed?

I'm willing to leave them on life support for a couple more weeks just so long as they aren't suffering. If they were suffering and in pain, I think I'd pull the plug. It's a funny thing to be watching a team and to go oh thank god they made it a third and eight now they might just chuck it at george pickens right that's the opposite of the viewing experience that you're supposed to have uh and that's one of the reasons why like in

these late games where they have these comebacks like they just end up being in a kenny pickett backyard football world and that's their best version of offense right now yeah it's not even that great of a backyard football offense like relative to other backyard football offense in the league with more passing weapons and better quarterbacks, but it's better than what they do on the standard dropbacks. I think that if you gave me this entire roster as it currently is built and put a different OC in place, I'd feel like it has a chance to have some legs.

And so as long as they get through the season without any insane injuries and they move on from Matt Canada, I'll still generally believe in this group. And accordingly, it's hard to fully bury them now. Deontay Johnson getting back is going to help this team because they need consistent winners at pass catcher. And right now they have

1.25 with Pat Fryermuth who runs 90 routes a game and gets three targets. I don't. It's a total mess. It is funny when guys disappear for a while and then come back, but you forgot they were gone. Like Cam Robinson. It's like, oh yeah, they have their left tackle back. They're going to be better.

I kind of forgot about him. The DeAndre Johnson return will definitely help this team. They're more willing to use Jalen Warren. I think, yeah. I think they are. I'm comfortable saying I want to keep them alive for now. Bring me back on in a month, and it might be the 1A headline as Matt Canada get out of here. I hope you're right.

It's a miracle that they're 3-2. Do you have any last rights? Because I have one big one for you that I wanted to end on. I do have last rights to franchise quarterback Daniel Jones. Oh, yeah. There was that nice 2019 run where we were like, maybe. And then that 2022 run where we were like, maybe. And then that 2022 run

where we were like, oh. And no, it's just, it doesn't, it's not legitimate. And this was, it wasn't that it was easy to see that this was not legitimate, but rather in 2022,

he was so successful playing an entirely different brand of football. He had quicker throws and shallower throws. They were doing quarterback run. It was so different than the player he had been

for the first few years, which means one of two things happened. Brian Dable fixed him, found an offense that fixed him that he could work in, or it was total noise. It was, it was luck and it was the surprise factor and it wasn't real, which means the easiest thing to do is just franchise tag him,

play him for another year and see which one it was. Instead, they extend him. And now I think it's pretty clear that, that a lot of that 2022 success was some chaos stuff, was some luck stuff. And it's not tenable.

He'll be 28 in 2025 when his contract is movable. It's not movable for 2024. I mean, it's like a $69 million dead cap it. So he's going to be looking for a Tannehill resurgence, right? Where it's, I'm in my late 20s. I'm big.

I can run around a little bit. I can execute your offense for you, maybe. And we'll see if he gets that. I wouldn't super late 20s. I'm big. I can run around a little bit. I can execute your offense for you, maybe. And we'll see if he gets that. I wouldn't super bet against it. But the idea of him as a long-term franchise quarterback, I think that's dead and gone. I thought of Tannehill as straight to video. When you go on Amazon on Tuesdays and there's new movies,

and it's like, Nick Cage's new movie is out. It wasn't released in the theaters. It's just out. It's just available right now to rent or buy. It's like, oh, they didn't release that in the theater? No. That Ryan Tannehill is like the classic. It's available right now on pay-per-view, but nobody's going to the theater

to see Ryan Tannehill. And you're right. Jones is probably in there and I don't even know if Mac Jones is good enough to be straight to video. He might be like Lifetime movie. The problem with the Ryan Tannehill arc is that it's called the Ryan Tannehill arc because only Ryan Tannehill has ever hit it. And that's why it's not a good place to be. If you're on a Ryan Tannehill

path, guess what? It was named after him because he's the only one who's made it. You don't want to be there. Jones, both Daniel and Mac, I can find worlds in which they're successful on a different team. So I'm not willing to close the door on like, again, them having like a Kirk Cousins era

where they end up being a functional quarterback for somebody in their late 20s and their 30s. But again, like a franchise guy, a guy they're like, woohoo, we got him.

We're set for the next 10 years. Not for me. If the Niners drafted Mac, is he doing what Purdy's doing now? Because I say no. No. He's doing 92%? Because I say no. No. He's doing 92% of it, though. Okay.

Here's my last, last rights. And I might get hit by lightning when I say this. Is the Chiefs' awesome offense era? Wow! Do we need to bring the Priest in? No. It's Mahomes. It's Andy.

I will believe it like two years after I see it. I'll be very happy to be the last one to admit that the Chiefs offense has taken a turn. So you want to be the last one to shut out the lights on it. Okay, because

they have no... I can't even tell the receivers apart. You don't even know who's who because none of them stand out in any way. And then Kelsey, and when he hurt his ankle for 20 minutes in that game, they look super mortal

all of a sudden. The NFL, it ends fast, man. It does, yeah. It's just like, holy shit, we're here now? I didn't realize that happened. I just don't know who the big play dudes are if it's not Kelsey. I don't see it anywhere else on the roster. You know, it didn't hurt them last year.

They were able to get through it. But, you know, is this still going to be the team when they're down four with five minutes left, but the live bet is minus 200 on FanDuel because it's like, oh, Mahomes is going to get one here. Like at some point, you can

pass the point or no return with your supporting cast. And it feels like they're really Mahomes is going to get one here. At some point, you can pass the point of no return with your supporting cast. And it feels like they're really playing with this now. I agree. The thing, the Travis Kelsey of it all is really what interests me.

Last, so Kelsey is 34. It's easy to forget. This dude's old, especially at the tight end position. For tight ends. Yeah, the tight ends fall off a cliff. Which,

obviously, Kelsey having a great life moment at this time. But still, he's old by NFL standards. And last year, if you remember, right when they moved off Tyreek Hill, they were doing fine. They were doing better offensively than they are right now.

But Kelsey himself was really struggling. And a lot of his explosiveness numbers were down. His NGS numbers, there was a miles per hour, how fast he got off the line, all that was down. And he was really bad against press. He was just getting big boy, and he lacked the quickness, like all that was down. And he was really bad against press, right? He was just getting big boy and he lacked the quickness and he lacked the strength.

It just, he wasn't moving the same. And then you really picked it off in the second half of the year and into the playoffs. And so you say, okay, like Kelsey's a little bit old and they're just trying to keep, you know,

they're not necessarily going to ask him to be operating at the highest level. And they're trying to, you know, kind of keep him fresh for the post season. That's a scary world to live in. When you have one weapon. That's him and you have to

manage his snaps a little bit. What's it called in the NBA? Rest management. Load management. The Pats had to do this with Gronk. This is the last couple years of Gronk. That'd be okay if you had a second receiver and then another tight end who you felt

fine about, but to live in this world where, like, Kelsey's really your only scary weapon and you've got load management for him, that, I think, is very concerning. The Chiefs have rolled dice after dice after dice to try to find that second weapon, right? You go and you sign MBS, you sign Juju Smith-Schuster, you draft Sky Moore, you draft Rasheed Rice,

you trade for Kadarius Toney. Like, they have brought dude after dude after dude in. They can't get a You draft Rasheed Rice. You trade for Kadarius Toney. They have brought dude after dude after dude in. They can't get a hit. Rasheed Rice looks like he might... I was going to say, I have him on two teams. There's some flashes, especially in the red zone. It seems like Mahomes kind of trusts

him in the red zone a little bit. And that was the book on him at SMU a little bit. He's a good contested catch player. He's good in the tight areas. I think Rasheed, you can see him coming along. The Jets might be trading Mikko Hardman. Go get Mikko Hardman, get him back in this team. Oh my God.

Dust off the Mikko book, run a couple of Jets sweeps. But yeah, the Chiefs, the way they did it was right. They moved off of Tyreek. You get the money, you start throwing dice and just trying to fill out the roster.

They just haven't hit. They haven't gotten lucky. And they might be running out of time on the Travis Kelsey clock. So they are in a tenuous spot with the pass catch roster. They just haven't hit. They haven't gotten lucky. And they might be running out of time on the Travis Kelsey clock. So they are in a tenuous spot with the pass catchers. The offensive line is great. So you brought some doctors in,

but you didn't tell the priest anything yet. Yeah. The offensive line is still great. The running game is improved year over year. It's impressive. And then Mahomes is still so, so good at getting the ball to the right guy in the right time,

making magic happen on third and long. They have a third and 22 conversion to Justin Watson, dude. They still feel like they got it. It's hard to shake. They still feel like they got it. I felt like Minnesota could have had them in that game. That was a deceiving final score, and I thought that game

was way closer. The good thing for KC is they get to play Denver's defense on Thursday night, which if you're a little worried about getting your offense going, I can't think of a better team than that. Are you with me on Rasheed Rice Island? I do like him. I was not a

Rasheed Rice draft fan when he was out of SMU. First few weeks in the league, I'm turning the boat a little bit towards Rasheed Rice Island. Might delete some tweets and get back on over. Well, Puka ruined all draft process, and we're just never going to be able to have draft analysis ever again. Puka, loved him.

Talked about him on the Ring of the NFL Draft Show. Listen, baby, every winner. Here we go. 220 catches this year for 3,000 yards. Justin Jefferson's losing four games. Puka's going to lead the league receiving yards. He's got it. The window's open. What's Philly's final record before we go? She'll maybe run through the rest of their games on Philly Special.

I had them at 14-3. They have a schedule coming up that is absolutely gnarly. They get the Jets this week. That's great. Lovely. And then it's the Dolphins, Commanders. Okay, whatever. Cowboys, Chiefs, Bills, 49ers, Cowboys, Seahawks.

I mean, they're November. Yeah, they're at Chiefs, home versus Bills, home versus Niners, at Cowboys in a four-week stretch. We're going to find out. This Eagles team does not feel nearly as dominant as the 2022 team did. But here they are at 5-0. They're so good at closing out games.

They're so good at winning games. But we're going to find out. They're going to play five of the seven, eight best teams in the league, pretty close to back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back But we're going to find out. They're going to play five of the seven, eight best teams in the league. Pretty close to back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back. We're going to find out. I'm feeling good about my Hurts 12-1 MVP, which is now down to 6-1. He's in the mix in a real way.

Yeah. You got to have a big statistical finish, right? They've been running the ball so much. And Swift will score touchdowns. That just bleeds your numbers. Meanwhile, Josh Allen is involved in every single touchdown the Bills score, so you got to get the numbers up. They're 5-0, man.

It's not as pretty as it was, but it's working. Ben Solak, good to see you. We can hear you on Ringer NFL and on Ringer's Philly Special. Read you on TheRinger.com as well. Great job this season. Thanks, Bill. Appreciate it. Alright, that's it for the podcast. Thanks to KOC and Ben Solak. Thanks to Kyle Creighton and Steve Cerruti for producing. As always,

I will see you on this feed on Thursday. On the wayside, never on the side I don't have feelings within On the wayside, never on the side I don't have feelings within Must be 21 plus in present and select states. FanDuel is offering online sports wagering in Kansas under an agreement with Kansas Star Casino LLC. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit fanduel.com slash RG in Colorado, Iowa, Kentucky, Michigan, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Tennessee, and Virginia.

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