The Ringer NFL Show - Daniel Jones's $45 Million(?), Anthony Richardson’s Ceiling, and First-Round RBs

Episode Date: February 21, 2023

Welcome back to another episode of ‘The Ringer NFL Draft Show’! This week, the guys open up the mailbag to answer a variety of draft-related questions about topics including the best landing spots for the top QBs, stats versus traits, how to value this year’s running back class, and much more (17:39). They close with America’s favorite segment: Two Jargons, One Lie (53:11). Check out our 2023 Ringer NFL Draft Guide here! Email us! [e-mail] Hosts: Danny Heifetz, Danny Kelly, Ben Solak, and Craig Horlbeck Producers: Craig Horlbeck and Kai Grady Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When you're lost in the darkness, look for the pod. Specifically, the Prestige TV podcast on the Ringer Podcast Network, where we're breaking down every new episode of HBO's The Last of Us. On Sunday nights, grab your battery and join Van Lathen and Charles Holmes for an instant reaction to the latest episode. Then head back to the QZ on Tuesdays for a deep dive with Joanna Robinson and Mallory Rubin. From character arcs to video game adaptation choices, story themes to needle drops, we'll parse every inch of this cordyceps-coded universe.

Watch out for mouth tendrils and follow along on. Spotify or wherever you get your podcast. Ringer NFL Draft Show. My name is Danny Hyfitz. I'm joined by Danny Kelly, Ben Sillick, and Craig Rolk, and we're coming to you here on the Ringer Fantasy Football Show. Now, once, twice a week?

What are we even doing nowadays? Well, it is twice a week. However, this is a very unique situation because this week is wellness week for the Ringer and Spotify. So we're kind of paring down a bit this week. There will be a bit less podcast coming out on the Ringer Network, but we're still doing one show this week. But after that, we will stick to twice a week,

Tuesdays and Thursdays up until the draft. So there you go. Coming to you multiple times per week up through the NFL draft on April 27th. NFL Combine is next week. We're going to be together, Indianapolis, next week for the Combine. And we're going to be doing a mailbag right now, kind of like a pre-combine mailback. Also, a lot of stuff has happened. I feel like even just since our last episode.

So we're doing a mailbag. People tweeted us. People emailed us. Email us to ringer fantasy football at gmail.com. If you have questions. I would like your opinions from all of you. Am I? Where this is going, yes.

objective in saying that we should probably start with the Daniel Jones thing news. Is that the correct? Yes. Yes. It's not just me? Okay. I was trying to think of what the podcast equivalent of Daniel Jones asking for $45 million is for Dave.

It's me asking for $45 million. What do you mean? I know exactly it is. It's me just going to bill and be like, hey, thinking about 45, 46 bill? You got a better chance of getting it, though, so like I think, maybe? I don't know. So Daniel Jones switched agents. He really switched agencies.

He was at CIA, which is one of the big sports and entertainment agencies. He switched to athletes first. And probably, not definitely, probably because he wants more money. It's possible in theory that CIA is telling him he should leave the Giants and Jane Jones wants to stay. We can, we'll take the leap and say Daniel Jones probably, though, wants more money than what CIA was able to get him. And before he did the switch, it was like, all right, Daniel Jones would probably make like $35 million a year.

That's, I don't want to say reasonable, but that's the market. That's what Jared Goff makes. That's like what Kirk Cousins makes. Like Matt Ryan made like, the cap-wise, $30 million last year. Now Daniel Jones reportedly wants $45 million a year, $4.5. That's like what Patrick Mahomes makes. Josh Allen's at the old 4-3. So this is, this is bad.

Guys, I don't know. This is a bad thing. This is great. This is an awesome thing. This is exactly how you should do everything, right? Like one moment of like, like, I should write one good article and then immediately just like, I'm not writing any more articles until somebody gets me millions of dollars. That's how you do.

Talk about trying to go out on top. Daniel Jones is like, hey, you know how this is my first good season as a pro? I'd like to be paid as if this has been all of my seasons. And then just stand there and make them say no. Absolutely. I love it. The Giants are in a huge bind because Daniel Jones, mean they put themselves in the bind

because they declined Daniel Jones option, which is the key point here, is that the Giants literally had the option, like an actual contractual option to have Jones under contract this season, the 20, 23 season. What was it going to be? $20, 23 million or something.

And they were like, we think this guy sucks. And they declined it before last season. That's how it works. And now Daniel Jones wants like twice what they would have had to pay him. And I think that speaks to how the Giants can say whatever they want. They were also very surprised by how good Daniel Jones was last year.

And so this is also an issue because Sequin is also a free agent and you can only get one franchise tag. And just a reminder for all this. The tag is basically when your contract expires. Each team for one player every year can be like, ha ha, L.O. jokes on you. You have to take a one-year deal with us for a non-negotiable predetermined number. So you have to take this number. But you can only use it in one player.

So now it's like Jones or Sequin, it seemed like the. Giants who get a deal done with Daniel Jones and they tag Sequin. Now it's like, this is crazy. So I'm obviously not at all objective about this. Solek is an, well, Solac just wants chaos. DK. Yeah. Would you rather pay Dan Jones $45 million? Franchise tag him, which if you do it twice in a row, it's really two for, it's like two years for $35 million and then he'd leave. Or do you just let him leave in free agency? Get a third round pick a year for, like, what do you want? You're going to pay him? all this? What do you do? I don't think you pay him 45 million. I mean, as you said,

I'm looking at the quarterback contracts right now that's like Josh Allen, Mahomes, Sean Watson, Kyler Murray, Russell, Wilson, Aaron Rogers. Those are the players in the NFL right now, the quarterbacks that make more than 40. Well, Josh Allen makes 43. So, I mean, I don't know where he's getting 45. I guess maybe he's like, him and his agent are probably like predicting what the market is going to be in a year or two and kind of going from there. Every quarterback wants to reset the market in Siri. Dale Jones is not a quarterback that, should reset the market, right? Like, we just talked about this.

Like, he had one good year. Other than that, he's been pretty terrible, turn the ball over a ton. That said, I think the Giants want to keep him. I don't understand why they don't just franchise tag him. Like, I think that would probably be the answer. I don't think Sequin Barkley is a make-or-break player. Like, frankly, he's just not in a position that would make a break the Giants.

And so the, like, the priority easily in my mind goes to Daniel Jones, franchise tagging him and going from there. So you tagged Daniel Jones to just let Seekwold. leave in free agency and presumably get like a third run pick from a year from now. Do you have to let Sequin leave? Can you sign Seguan do a deal? They both have more or less said they would like to stay in New York for Jones and Seek one.

The problem is they're so close to free agency that doesn't necessarily make a ton of sense for them to sign a deal at way below what they want when they could wait like three weeks and go to free agency, get other offers from other teams and then turn around to the Giants and say, hey, we're getting offered this. What do you want to do about that? So honestly, the job. Giants probably got to call the bluff here because the Giants, look, there's a reason we're all talking about 45. The numbers being floated. But the Giants have to call a bluff because it's like one,

if the Giants offered 44 and someone else offered 45, Dana Jones is not going to leave the near Giants. He's with Brian Daible. He's with the team that gave him the best year of his career. Like that doesn't make sense. Not to mention like leaving a stable situation, not to mention just the endorsements in New York, probably better than like if the Carolina Panthers threw him a lot of money. Who's he endorsed by? Not as many people as he will be as endorsed by if he stays like another eight months. Also, isn't it more likely that the Giants value him more than any other team in the league probably? That's the other piece of it. All the teams that need quarterbacks are probably going to get one in the draft and the combo of like, well, shit, Aaron Rogers is

available. He gets $50 million a year. You know what I mean? Even Derek Carr, like I think people probably think Derek Carr is better than Daniel Jones. He was released because he was making too much money. Now, I know, but like my point is that like Daniel Jones asking for $45 from the Giants, even if he doesn't get it. I don't see another team. giving him anything close to that anyway. So, like, you're frowning. What do you think? I think I would give Derek Carr more money

than I would give Daniel Jones right now in the open market. The age difference is, I think, a part of it, right? Daniel Jones is 27, 26, 27. Something like that. Yeah, and Derek Carr is past 30. And so I'm signing... Daniel Jones is 25.

25, right, and I want to say car is 33. So I'm getting a legit second contract player in Jones, as opposed to like a third contract player in car. the mobility also is a big difference. Like, Carr just does not bring me anything in terms of scrambling. Jones emphatically does. I think I'd pay Jones more than Carr. And I think a few teams in the league would as well.

Like, I would be surprised if Atlanta, for example, would pay Carr more than Jones, given how they run their quarterback, right? How they use that position. So I don't think it's as hard and fast as that. But it's an interesting comparison for sure. And the fear also, honestly, Washington, like Daniel Jones went to Washington and stayed in the division. That was so. Like Carr feels safer?

It's like Daniel Jones didn't work for four years and then he did with Dayball. and he's kind of a unique player that you have to tailor the offense to. Carr is like much more plug and play to me, right? Like you put him in an offense with good weapons and he can like throw it for 4,500 yards and whatever. Cars safer, for sure, more traditional, yeah. But I like, you know, when you're signing a guy

to a $45 million deal, you're typically not signing him for the sake of his safety. You're signing him for the sake of a ceiling, right? That's kind of the barometer for what that deal looks like. So I'd be curious to see if they both make on the open market who makes more Jones or car. I don't know the answer to that. Aren't we basically just,

feeding into the Daniel Jones process right now by talking about this. Isn't this just negotiating 101? Is that advertising works? But seriously, he's obviously going to ask for a ludicrous number. Maybe changing agents will show like, oh, he's really serious this time. Like, whatever. He's going to try to milk like a few extra million out of this, whatever, by changing agents and going through this whole rigamarole.

Great, great rigmarole drop right there. Flawless, effortless, very casual. I like that a lot. I feel like that's something Daniel Jones would say. But yeah, like, and then he's just going to come back and it's going to be like, oh, okay, well, I'll stay for $36 million instead of $35. Isn't that how this is all going to play out? Yep.

Maybe. You did the deep dive on how contracts work. Like in my office. There's negotiation 101. There's three, I think there's three big picture things going on here. One, all contracts in the NFL are lies. Right. Almost like 99% of them are just not true as they are reported.

And so it's important. that even if the Giants signed in Jones to quote a five-year deal for $200 million, he's not, that's not it. It's probably more like it's like two years for 70 or whatever. And that's what matters. And so that's a big part of it is that even a big commitment is probably not as big of a commitment. And the real question is, do the Giants franchise tag him twice in a row, do the Kirk Cousins

thing and kind of maybe just let him walk after two more seasons? Or do you make some kind of commitment with the idea being if you sign him to some five-year deal, you're kind of getting it. the franchise tag thing anyway, but with the years at the end, and that's really where all the the game within the game is of the contract. But big picture, it used to be for like 10 years that the highest paid quarterback was just the last quarterback who randomly just signed a deal. It was like Derek Carr was the highest paid guy. Jimmy Garapolo was the highest paid guy. Like, it was just like this wheel. It didn't make any sense. And now we're actually going,

like, we're actually going back to this world where there's a middle class for quarterbacks based on, you know, actual talent. And Patrick Mahomes and Josh Allen and make a lot of money. and, you know, Rogers and Russell Wilson is still there. But, and then Goff and Kirk Cousins and Daniel Jones falls in that range. So in a way, even though we're talking about Daniels at 45, Daniel Jones at 35 is actually returning. And then also just a big picture reminder. These numbers are insane.

I feel like this isn't talked about enough. The salary cap is a percentage of league revenue. It's literally like inflation. But instead of the Fed printing money, the NFL just keeps printing money. Like the NFL keeps making more money every year. And so the salaries go up because the salaries are a percentage of revenue. you. So even though it sounds crazy, the only reason that Daniel Jones is going to get paid $35 million where 10 years ago it would have been 17 is because the NFL literally makes

twice as much money as they did like 12 years ago. So that's why the numbers are like eye-popping. I think this is just a big ruse to lessen the sticker shock of when Daniel Jones does get signed. It's his agents. His agent's going to be like, see, that's like a reasonable number. Let's not freak out about $36 million, blah, blah, blah, and then he won't have all that pressure. It's anchoring, right? They're anchoring. They're anchoring. Inking our brains to 45 million. Speaking of anchoring, Aaron Jut Rogers has been anchored to darkness for God knows how long.

How's he doing it? I mean, I assume we haven't heard anything. I wish Spotify, I wish instead of a wellness week, it was a darkness retreat. I wish that's what we were doing this week. Should we do a darkness pod? We should have all just podcasted in pitch black dark.

That would have been a dark. Darkness pod would be incredible. I mean, we're on audio form. Would anything actually change? Yes, because we'd be in the dark. Yeah, absolutely 100%. In reality, it would just be like a really messy pod because we couldn't see one another trying to speak.

But it would be a good bit. Can we make a pact right now that if Aaron Rogers gets traded, we'll just do the whole pod in darkness? There we go. Absolutely, I accept it. While we're talking about it, there's so much to talk about with Lamar, but right now, does anyone here actually think Lamar plays

for a team other than the Baltimore Ravens this year? Yeah. Really? I love this. Like, by think you mean like 100%? No, do I think like... More likely than not. 51 or more.

Probably no, but I think it's in the 60-40 range. That's amazing. Guy's not happy. Star player is upset. Can force issue. Headline. Subheader. Lamar Jackson wants the heck out of Baltimore.

Like this is just like, he just does. The wisdom of it, the sort of offenses that should be designed around him. They said he was going to be involved in the office coordinator search centers that he wasn't super involved. He actually was a really big fan of Greg Roman,

even though he's like, we in the media are not big fans of Greg Roman. Like to me, like, yeah, like this is absolutely 100% has legs. Okay, they're going to franchise tag him. All right, what happens when Lamar shows up to camp? And they say, all right, Lamar, hop out there with the ones, go take some reps. And he goes, no. Yeah, because that's what we're staring down. There's a chance that's not the case.

It's very difficult to predict Lamar Jackson. I don't want to get into the legalese with the franchise tag. But if you just don't sign and just don't show up, like tolls for a year, right? What does that mean? In order to play out your. contract, right? Play a year of your contract. You have to actually accrue a season, right? And your reserve doesn't apply here. But if you don't play any games, that year of your contract doesn't happen. It just pushes to the next year. And so Danny brings up Levi-on-Belle, if you just ignore

the franchise tag and refuse to play, then guess what? Next year, you're all in the franchise tag. Not the year-two franchise tag, the year-one, the year-one franchise tag. You got to do this whole thing again. But that entire time, you're forcing, you know, Ravens owners whose names, I don't remember, such like a B or something. And John Hulli, thank you. Like the cookie. Yeah, I always want to say Biscotti, and then I always think that's wrong and insensitive, and I don't want to say it out loud.

Anyway, so you're forcing the Bishotti family and Eric. That's where they got the money from, actually. They invented it. Okay, is that right? You're forcing them to put out. There's no way in hell that's correct. Cookie is way older. The Italian ways in.

There's no way that's correct. Yeah, no. That's hard, hard no. So, yeah, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, forcing them to put a product on the field, which, yes, might be quarterbacks by Pro Bowl quarterback Tyler Huntley, but we all know the real situation. That's not good. Pro Bowl quarterback. And the entire time, they're getting phone calls from the Atlanta Falcons that's like, do you want every pick we can give you? Like, that's a hard situation to be in his ownership.

So I do think it's a 6040 thing. Wait, do you think that's what the Ravens are saying at the negotiating table? They're like, look, Lamar, we've loved their time together. We have a Pro Bowl guy behind you. You know what I mean? Oh my God. Okay. We'll see. So again, we're going to the combine next week,

and I think all these storylines are probably going to explode at the combine, but we'll come back to that. And then also I want to touch on Eric B. Enemy, the offense coordinator for the chiefs, he's going the very rare lateral move to Washington. Obviously, Eric B. enemy has been head coaching candidate for years now and has kind of become almost emblematic

of black coaches, not necessarily getting a fair shake during the hiring process. And so he's going to Washington, basically because he can call plays there and in Kansas City, obviously, Andy Reid calls plays and the thinking is Eric Bionemy one, if he can call plays, we'll get a crack at a better shot. And then honestly, I think the real other reason is that if Washington is in fact the team, the commanders are sold, and then Ron Rivera is on the outs because Ron Rivera is kind of like, you know, a Dan Snyder hire.

They just have Eric B. Enemy in-house as the offensive coordinator. And it's kind of like Eric B. Enemy shooting his shot as like, this is probably playing the odds, my best chance to actually get a head coaching job of some kind. So, yeah, I mean, technically he did get, he is the assistant head coach. So there's like, it's slightly incline instead of a lateral move. But, but yeah, I think it's basically just like he has more upward mobility at this job potential. And it doesn't feel like Ron Rivera's going to be, like, he's not long for the, for the commanders at this point. Yeah, that's the other thing that interests me is just like at the,

if Bianami becomes interim head coach and waiting, gets an opportunity to coach seven games to the head coach and see if you get a Steve Wilkes bump where everybody really likes you and kind of that contributes to your head coaching candidacy. But like Rivera and Andy Reid go way, way back. So it's not surprising to me that like this setup works well for BNME and works well to kind of improve his head coaching chance as well. So that's something that Andy's talked about a lot,

being about caring about a lot. So I'm not surprised that it's something that we see between these two particular coaches. All right. Let's get to the mailbag. Yeah. Woo. Got an email from Oscar. Oscar. Hello, Oscar.

What is your dream landing spot for the top four quarterbacks in this draft? This is an interesting one. I actually, because like, I don't think there's one answer. I am probably going to be surprised at so like I agree on all these. So I think for Bryce Young, I put the Colts. I don't have like a strong. Basically, I'm just like, I don't think any one is going to say the Texas are an ideal landing spot for anyone.

For the Colts, I think, you know, just having Shane Steik in there, you know, kind of the offensive changes that they're going to go around. They still have some skill players that can like give him, you know, a softish landing spot. They have good interior offensive line that can help maybe potentially provide some, you know, how tall are the interior offensive linemen? Are they so short that are they like many times his height he could see over them? It's about passing windows. It's not about height.

Hyphins, I think is the key here. But like, I don't know, just generally speaking, like, the landing spot seems good. Um, so like you can speak more about like what, Shane Sacking can bring to the offense in terms of like what, how that would fit Bryce Young. But I think like if I'm picturing the Jalen Hertz offense, um, you know, where they start out and don't give him weight, like don't put too much on his shoulders right away kind of deal. Like that's why I was picturing, um, the Colts has a good option for him. Colts are good. I like the Lions for all of those reasons, except they're better than the Colts are.

Right. You know what I'm saying? I think that's the team that I had listed down. And to me, that's the one I come back to for Young, where you're worried about the size of the offensive line. And all jokes aside, like, that's a legitimate aspect of the evaluation and the conversation is the degree to which you have to care about how big your offensive line is and Young's comfort working behind it. But with all of that said, with all that considered and all that put aside, the level of protection that the Lions are going to afford with that offensive line and that system with Ben Johnson. there is, I think, going to minimize the amount of hits that Bryce Young. And that's the number one thing that I'm looking for in a landing spot with Bryce Young.

How can I prevent him from taking unnecessary hits? I feel great about that in Detroit. And then James and Williams, who obviously has some experience throwing to plus him on Ross St. Brown, like the receiving course, just nuts. Detroit's a great landing spot for anybody. But for Bryce, I think it makes a lot of sense. Yeah. I mean, I had Detroit for Stroud.

So, and for basically all the same reasons. Like, he can just, if he's protected, you know, he's good off of play action, like distribute the ball to the playmaker. he does also have some experience with James and Williams back in the day. Right. There's that element. But like all this, I think this is like, the lions are good for anybody, honestly. They're set up to like have a good, like a rookie quarterback going there if they want.

If that's the the route that they take, I think they're well set up for that. You know who else is a really great situation? The New York football giants, you know, Anthony Richardson, Florida. They just, they tag Daniel Jones, let Anthony Richardson learn and develop behind. behind Daniel Jones, one of the, you know, the preeminent Russian quarterbacks of our times and that Brian Dave will get his hooks in Anthony Richardson and just let him sit there. No, Giants are going to be tied up. Four years, 300 million to Dan Jones. 300.

No, they're going to give him a baseball contract. Like, the mayor is going to be like, you know, we want Daniel Jones here for 13 years, like past global warming ending the planet. Right. Oh, my God. I put Falcons for Anthony Richardson. I think just that would be a lot of fun. Obviously, they've got some weapons there, too.

Arthur Smith is a, you know, he's good at, I think, designing a scheme that will fit the quarterback's skill set, right? And so I think that fit makes a lot of sense. And then I put the Panthers for Will Levis with Frank Reich, big strapping young man in Will Levis. I think Frank Wright could, again, he's a guy that has in the past gotten a lot out of his quarterbacks, the quarterback guru, quote unquote. And so he could be the type of guy that could get the most out of Levis. They also have DJ Moore there. They have a good ascending offensive line, good young ascending offensive line that would afford him the protection. They have what was a really strong run game last year. I think they could pair that with like the play action game with Levis.

And so to me that seems like a pretty solid landing spot for Levis if we're talking about rookies. Yeah, I have Atlanta down for both Levis and for Richardson. They didn't say we had to only pick one. But it's so good. Just draft them both. They're going to straight up and take both back to back. Do the nerd thing. Yeah.

Levis is a great fit because my. best comparison for Levis is Ryan Tanna Hill. We saw Tanna Hill not succeed in Miami, go to this offense with Arthur Smith and suddenly become successful. And then lo and behold, Arthur Smith left. And guess what? Tanna Hill has not been as good. Like, this is a great offense for a guy who's got mobility, but it's great standing in the

pocket. As tall as tough, has got a strong arm, we can throw in the middle of the field. A lot of the Kyle Shanahan, Sean McVeigh, outside zone play action offenses will roll their guys out. The Arthur Smith version of the offense doesn't. They stay in the pocket. So you got to be tall. You got to be big.

You got to be willing to take shots. in the pocket as opposed to like, you know, Baker Mayfield, get him out of here, run, go, go, do the side. Like, this is like, you got to be big in there. Like an old-timey carnival barker. Yeah, I don't know why I felt the need to do the carnival Barker voice, but I did. And I feel like it was great.

Yes, I'm fine with that. But Richardson also, like, Levis is that player and would make so much sense in this offense. But Richardson also makes sense for this offense and is great for this offense because he represents kind of the second iteration of it, what they tried to do with Marioo, where they were like, and now we're going to get the quarterback more involved in the running game.

And we're going to have the ability to play 11 on 11 be really big and really physical. Levis can do that to a degree. Richardson doesn't do a far greater degree and has the tools, less proof of concept, but the tools to be that strong, dynamic pocket passer that needs to work for this offense as well. So Atlanta is one of my favorite spots to develop a quarterback. I think Arthur Smith is a really good vision, understanding of quarterback play. I think you saw in terms of how he used Marioata and used Ritter that he kind of gets the differences and has his thumb on the pulse there.

they have a good offensive line, especially if they bring Caleb McGarry back, who was great at right tackle for them this year. And then Drake London and Kyle Pitts, like fantasy jokes and the disappointment in that community nonwithstanding. Those are talented pass catchers. Like those are the sort of guys you can bring along a young quarterback. I love Atlanta to develop a quarterback. It's going to be a tough beat for Kyle Pitts if they draft Anthony Richardson.

And once again, he's just getting overthrown on every open out route. Yeah. Go Gators. The only other spot that I think is a really good spot to develop a quarterback, which is my spot for C.J. Stroud is the Carolina Panthers. I'm just obsessed to this Panthers coaching staff. I love Frank Reich. I've always loved Frank Reich.

Frank was part of a big quarterback development movement with Carson Wentz in Philadelphia. And then when he went to Indianapolis was never really given a shot to develop a quarterback, but they continued to put different offenses on the field for different quarterbacks. They talk about a guy who gets it and understands how like, all right, we need to do this with Jacoby Percept, play action, three guys in the concept, shoot down the field. And then Philip Rivers comes in. All right, spread it out, five in the concept, dumped down to the back. Like he doesn't say like you have to run my office.

He runs the offense that works for his guys. Their offensive line was great. Last season, they had the potential to return functionally five of five starters, depending on what they do at center. And then DJ Moore, they have their star receiver in place. You get another good pass catcher in the building. Carolina's offense looks awesome in terms of the passing game. A question of running back as well, but if they bring back Dunt of Foreman,

which I would recommend, they're pretty much 11 for, they're 10 for 11 in terms of returning starters, and now it's just a question of quarterback. Stroud's level of polish and his ability to execute classic West Coast stuff, right? just like be the high-level process or be the, you know, surgeon, the scalpel from the pocket. Like that makes a lot of sense for Frank Reich and for Carolina. Let's go big picture here for a second on the quarterback thing. We got an email from Brett, which I like this question.

Brett. One T, Brett. Low on T. Brett needs to insulting him immediately. Come on. Brett says the top three quarterbacks in the NFL are all in the AFC. And seven of the nine best young quarterbacks in the, the NFL or in the AFC.

So if I'm the owner or the front office, GM, whatever, for the AFC teams with the high picks in the draft, like Houston, Indianapolis, the Raiders, am I looking for a quarterback to be close to or maybe better than the young entrenched AFC quarterbacks? And basically, he says, my overarching question is, does draft evaluation, especially with quarterback, take into account the conferences or divisions they'll be playing in? And he says, I'm biased as a Florida Gators fan. But doesn't Anthony Richardson have the highest ceiling of all the quarterbacks in this draft? And am I crazy for thinking AFC teams who have to deal with Mahomes, Josh Allen, Joe Burrow, Trevor Lawrence, et cetera, et cetera, Justin Herbert?

Shouldn't those AFC teams have Anthony Richardson higher on their board than NFC teams? Does he really have the highest ceiling in the draft? Or is he just the most raw right now? No, high ceiling. You think so? I agree completely. Higher ceiling than Bryce Young and C.J. Stroud? Yeah.

So, again, Young is tricky because, like, if... Bryce Young literally has a small ceiling. like the guys in men and black. Again, the young, the main thing with the young question isn't like ceiling. Like I think if Young plays the best version of himself and Richardson plays the best version of himself, they both end up a hundredth percentile in their outcomes.

I do think Richardson's a little bit better. But yeah, Young's absolutely up there. He's incredible. The question is longevity. The question is if I get good Richardson, good Levist, good Stroud, I'm expecting to get those guys for 10 plus years. With Young,

I'm not sure I'm expecting to get that just because of injuries accruing because of his size, right? So that's where like that issue becomes tricky. It's like contract length and how long can I sit my watch to this guy. I do think Richardson is the highest ceiling player. And I do think that that matters to a degree in terms of looking into conference, understanding how loaded the AFC is with young quarterbacks. Like every AFC team under the sun drafted a guy in the first round in the final years of Tom Brady's tenure in New England.

Like everybody in this conference was loading up and saying like, all right, we're going to like, it's going to be the Wild West out here once Brady leaves. This guy was in half of the AFC championship. games over the last 15 years. Now he's leaving. We're going. And so you saw a bunch of teams swing on guys. And it's easy to say, and that ends up with your Justin Herbert's, with your Joe Burroughs, and with your Trevor

Lawrence's. Like, the Omar Jackson's, that's how it works. Which conveniently ignores your Zach Wilson's and your Sam Donald. It's not to pick on any Jets fans listening, but like that's, why does Zach Wilson, why does Zach Wilson go to? Because he's the next Patrick Mahomes. He's next to Aaron Rogers. Right? And so this logic of like,

swing on Richardson, he's the highest ceiling guy. If you connect, it's going to really be worth it. it sounds good. It has veracity to it. It really does. But then you look at the example of it not working, the contrapositive, you end up on Zach Wilson. You're like, oh, that really sucked for the Jets.

Like that was a massive issue for them in terms of like developing their receivers, pissing off Elijah Moore. The office coordinator got fired. And that's when you remember the number one job for coaches and general managers isn't to win football games, not to win championships. It's to keep the job, baby. It's to stay employed. And that's where Richardson has to become a trickier proposition.

I think the other good. an example of this whole concept in this idea. And first of all, I think teams typically, I think, will draft to beat the teams in their division. This question is basically like, should they be drafting to beat the players, the teams in their conference, which I think is actually very valid question. The Brady point is perfect because Brady just dominated for like 20 freaking years. He was like, we got to get past Brady.

We got to get past Brady. Then sometimes you get like Peyton Manning, sometimes we do it or whoever. But it's like almost always the same freaking guys in the championship game. and that's Mahomes so far in his career. And so I do think that there is some validity to this that you have to like swing for the fences if you want to beat these quarterbacks. You got Josh Allen, Mahomes, Burrow, Herbert. You got Trevor Lawrence and they come up.

Like there could be, you know, Lamar could be still in the conference, all that stuff. So I think there is something to this. But what I was going to bring up was the 49ers trading up to number three for Trey Lance, specifically because they needed somebody who they thought could like take them over the hump. could be that like force multiplier, game changer, like our version of Mahomes or whatever, that's who they thought Trey Lance potentially could be. However, as we've seen, and obviously the book is not closed on Trey Lance, but like as we've seen, sometimes you don't hit, like sometimes you don't hit it out of the park.

And so I think the 49ers did exactly this. They were like, we have Jimmy G, we have a really good offense. We have really good overall roster. But we just need somebody that's going to put us over the hump and really make us a Super Bowl content. And so, you know, I think I actually do think teams should do this, but I don't think a lot of teams won't just because it's way risky, you know, and Richardson is a risky guy. So do you think the Texans should take Richardson at two? I think it's justifiable. That doesn't mean they should.

I think it's justifiable, right? When we start to move into the world of should, now we talk about, all right, well, if you're going to take Richardson at two and you think if you didn't take him at two, you could get him at 13, then why are you taking him at two? Get out of the pick, right? And that's where, like, now the process of managing the drafts and how you go up against boards comes into play. Because, like, everybody does this, right? Like, you draft a good player at, like, 16. I'm trying to think of an example, but none's coming to mind.

And then he's good. And you're like, yeah, we had him four on our board. You know what I'm saying? Like, you're like, nobody, you don't, it doesn't get talked about unless it, like, absolutely hits and it works. But all the time teams are taking guys, they have, like, drafted way differently and ranked way differently and so on and so forth, right?

It's a matter of playing the, playing the board, playing the certainties, playing the, the question marks and trying to make trades on draft day. We're going to do a whole, I want to do a whole episode later on how bored to work, because I have questions. But sticking with this idea for a second, I think we're all at the point now where Zach Wilson,

again, I always ask, like, where would Zach Wilson be drafted if Patrick Mahomes did not exist? And the answer probably was not number two. Here's my question. How would you feel about Anthony Richardson if Josh Allen didn't exist? In some ways,

is this an overcorrection to everyone being wrong about Josh Allen and him being an MVP candidate now? Richardson is not nearly as raw as Alan was. Not nearly. Numbers-wise, like, all like, you know, bad completion percentage or quarterback rating is these games, multiple interceptions. You look at the numbers, you're like super raw. You watch the film, he's not nearly as raw as Alan was. Alan remade himself, man.

Like, Alan in the NFL became a completely different dude. You go back and look at like the changes in deep accuracy, right? He was so erratic. And then he became so much more accurate, the changes in how often he threw short and how he learned where his checkdowns were. like, you know, his mechanics, everything. Richardson's already, like, the pieces are coalescing. Like, Allen and Wyoming was not an intelligible puzzle. You dumped all the pieces out of the boxes.

They were different colors. They were different shapes, different sizes. There's no square edges, roundbacks. There was no way to make this puzzle make sense. Richardson, I can look at the picture on the box, and I can look at the pieces on the table and go, oh, that's the bookshelf. That's the chandelier.

That's where the flowers are. You know what I'm saying? You can, like, you can, it's intelligible. Richardson, like, absolutely, yes, Josh Allen's success in Buffalo has just led to, like, the NFL in general being like, we can fix everybody, which you can't. But Richardson is not where Alan was in terms of a project. He's further along.

He's further along than Trey Lance was. He's further along than Malik Willis was. Like, he is not raw than sushi. He's just a little raw. I would agree with that. I think generally speaking, though, like in the old, before Josh Allen, like it would have been laughed at if you'd seen a guy with the stats that Anthony Richardson has.

Like his stats are pretty bad. You know what I mean? Like his efficiency numbers are not very good. Like he had a really low completion rate. You know, a lot of turnovers, things of that nature, a lot of stacks. 55% completion percentage in college, 24 touchdowns to 15 picks. And nine picks just last season. It's, I mean, it's hard to look at any of his stats.

And I like looking at like whether it's advanced stats, like EPA per play, EPA per game or whatever. In pretty much every statistical category, like Anthony Richardson, it's really bad. And I think that's where Josh Allen has laid the groundwork because Josh Allen's stats in college were awful. Like there was this whole thing. Like he can't complete a pass.

He's so inaccurate. Like what is he going to be? The Josh Allen conversation was the money ball thing. It's like, oh, well, you know, he's got a great ass. It's like, okay, cool. Like, I get it. We're not selling jeans. It's like, if he's a good hitter, why can't he hit the ball?

And that was the thing with Josh Allen. If he's a good quarterback, why can't he, complete passes. And you can say the same thing I think about Will Levis, too, because his stats this year were bad, too. And so, um, I think to answer the overall broad question, every quarterback is different. But I think Josh Allen panning out and turning into what he, uh, has become has at least in my mind made me more open minded to guys that come into league with like straight up just bad stats. Like the stats are one thing, but like the traits actually do matter kind of, I think is like the old version. Here's, here's my thing with the stats thing.

because this has been driving me nuts over the last week. Hendon Hooker completed 70% of his passes. Yeah. Through for over 3,000 yards in 11 games. It had 27 touchdowns to two interceptions. Now, save for a few scouting members of media who shall remain nameless, y'all can Google if you want. We all generally agree that Hendon Hooker is not as good of a prospect as the top four guys.

He's also your age. He's also in the Stets and Bedick and getting kicked off his parents. He's the same age as Daniel Jones. He literally is. He's my age, right? Stets and Bennett is the same thing, right? Benet, it's 69% of his passes through for over 4,000 yards in 15 games, 27 touchdowns to seven interceptions that doesn't even include the 10 rushing touchdowns.

But we ain't talking about Stets and Bennett up here. We know fundamentally, like from an a priori, step one assumption, we know that stats aren't telling us the whole story. And then we see a player like Richardson and we go, why don't we complete 50% of his passes? we started from a place of knowing this didn't matter. Why are we suddenly folding it back in like it matters three weeks later? Because it does to a degree, it's a signal to a degree, but you got to put the film on.

And if you put on the Richardson, Florida film and you put on the Josh Allen, Wyoming film, to me there's just, there's clear distinct differences in how these guys process, how they manage the pocket on. They try to throw with mechanics, like everything like it is very clear that there's differences in terms of their levels of development. That doesn't mean like Richardson's going to be better than Josh Allen will be better faster and everything. You can make an argument, and it's a sound argument, that you'd much rather have a guy who's a complete blank slate, a total ball of play, as opposed to a dude who's

trying to figure stuff out mechanically, trying to figure stuff out in terms of processing. And you have to unteach him before you can reteach him good habits. There's a legitimate case there, but it's just saying there's a difference between those two prospects. Is now a good time to mention that CJ Stroud, this from Curtis Patrick, among all quarterbacks in college since 2005 is in the 99th percentile of touchdown to pick ratio, a total yard, Total touchdowns per game, total yards per game, and 97th for completion percentage among every college quarterback. Number one overall pick, baby. Watch tape, nerds.

Just watch the tape. Add to go, Craig. Let's do it. Crush tape. Simple as that. Crush tape, yeah. You know what? Can I ask you, would you ever be open to calling it?

Like, yeah, I streamed CJ Stroud's games or does that just not sound like you're hardcore enough? That makes it sound like I went like a sensory deprivation pod and into my consciousness entered CJ Strouds. film and it crossed over my mind and I consumed the knowledge from it. Tape sounds so gritty, you know? I downloaded C.J. Stroud's games. How does it learn if you're saying, I was watching a quick time file of C.J. Stroud the other day. I was quick timing C.J. Shroud.

Quick time. It's like when you listen to an audio book and you say you read it. It's like, yeah. I can't do that. D.K. Dude, I've ripped through like multiple audiobooks a month and all the time. I'm always like, yeah, I read two books this month. And I'm like, someone's like,

like, oh, I just read Sapiens by Yuval Harar. I'm like, wow, it's like a 900-page book. Like, well, I was on a road trip with a buddy. 2x speeds, you know, I got through it in four hours. Dude, dude, speed changes go down to the 10th, all right? And this is the only app that offers this. Spotify's not offer it. None of the TV streaming.

The podcast streaming. We're censoring all of the select. We're literally going to blank this out. I think actually on Spotify's mobile, you can do it now. I was owned by a B. Ben, how dare you? Listen. The best for audiobooks.

I don't know what you want from me. I love my audiobooks, and I say, I say how they read them. We're bleep all that. Not a company, man. Ben is not going to be on the next pod. He won't be at the combine. No one will know why.

This is why you're not getting $45 million. Email from Paul. Paul. Oh my God. Wait, no, sorry. It's not from Paul. Sorry, Paul. It's from pajama.

Pajamara. Oh, pajama. Often confused for Paul. With second contracts for running backs being a bad idea, according to nerds. Wait, Ben just... Ben just chatted us that he didn't know Spotify on audiobooks.

I didn't know that. It's like their biggest initiative of the entire year. It's a burgeoning thing. Look, at some point in the very near future, Spotify's going to be number one in audiobooks. Then we is... It's going to matter. It's one of the tabs on the app at the top.

This is huge. I don't have to spend money on audiobooks now. I didn't know this. Oh, with second contracts for running backs being in general of bad ideas, their validity is. and the idea of taking a high-end running-back prospect, late in the first round to get the fifth-year option,

because that's what happens to first round as you can get them for five years instead of four. And then just move on from the running back. Five years of production seems fine for a late-round first-run pick. It's a good question. Najee Harris for the Steelers. Took him in the fifth round. Now you'll get first round.

Now you'll get five years out of them instead of having to resign him after the fourth. I would also want to get a better player than Nashi Harris, just as a general aside. Zeke is the poster child for this discussion, right? Like, the thing that Zeke does so well he turns three-yard gains into five-yard gains. He turns zero-yard gains into two-yard gains.

Like his ability to finish through contact, like avoid negative plays, be really tough between the tackles. Like, it's just awesome. It's what he does so, so, so, so, so-so-so-so-so-well. And everybody in the entire world wants Tony Pollard to get more carries. And the reason is because after Tony Pollard has like three negative carries, he rips off a 20-yarder.

And like, that's where the league is in terms of the running game. Like, it's, you don't see a lot of teams successfully just chunk off three-four-yard gains, three, four-yard gains, three-four-yard gains and play offense that way, you need to have explosives. And so if I have a back,

who I believe can generate explosive runs for me, like Bijon Robinson is absolutely unequivocally one. I would say, Jemir Gibbs out of Alabama is another. I would say Devon A. Shane,

who, D.K., you've been trying to make me watch A. Shane tape. I watched A. Shane tape like two weeks ago. Holy smokes. This guy is good. Wait, but how's the quick time player?

Yeah. He's driving some quick time files. Who is that guy? What team is he on? Devon A. Shane is running back out of Texas. A&M. I have no idea how highly drafted he's going to be. I have no idea how heavy he's going to weigh in at the combine. These are all legitimate

concerns. However, I watch him hit the open field and I feel things deep in my bones. All right, that man can fly. Thank you. Holy smoke. That might be the asbestos you got from having tape that was like 40 years old. This is just a really leaning into that Joe. I just think it's funny.

That's all. I'm just yeah. We stream things. If you're going to make, every time I say tape, you're going to make a reference to the fact that I said tape, we're going to have a tough. next couple months. I say it a lot. It's good hard.

It'd be hard to talk. Yeah. In terms of, just as an aside, by the way, in terms of a hundred meter times, like running the 100 meter dash, Devon A Shane ran a 10.2,

wind. 02. No, no, no. He ran a 10.2, wind unaided. Yeah. With wind in his face, ran a 10.2,

which is like a bananas time. Wind adjusted, like 10.04, I think it was, officially, right? The next closest, back is 10.7. He ran in 5 tenths of a second faster. That's a, that's a, in the world of 100 meter dash, that is an enormous difference. He might break the 40 records. He can suit.

Yes. So backs like these, I'm, I'm happy taking them early because they have the ability to generate explosive plays for me. Bejohn, as I've said on this spot before, like, I'd take him in any pick that starts with a one. Like, I don't, I don't want them top 10. I guess pick one overall starts with the 10. I'd take him in any pick that's two digits. Any pick that has two digits, I'd be happy taking Bejohn Robinson, no problem. Yeah, I agree with that. So if you look at some of the backs that have, I think the backs that provide the most value to your team,

exactly what Soak was saying is like, look at Kenne Walker, look at Breece Hall, what they did last year. Breeze Hall didn't play the whole year, but he was creating explosive plays. Like those explosive plays matter. That's what teams are wanting from the run games these days.

And those are the types of players, I think they're typically going to go either first runner or second around. In terms of if you think it's a good value or if it's a good strategy, I think it's just so specific. to the draft year and your team needs and your roster. I think there's a lot of people that would argue a running back doesn't move the needle enough to warrant a first round pick you'd be better off going with like a tackle in the late first round or a corner or a receiver or whatever, what have you.

There's just so many other positions that in theory provide more value and are less replaceable, I guess, than running backs. But at the same time, when you see what a guy, what some of these guys can do in terms of creating explosives. I don't actually mind it that much. I would much rather have, so I'll put this way, I'd much rather have a team spent a first, a late first, and then have that 50-year option than give a running-back a big contract. I think the big running-back contracts are like almost exclusively bad. There's like a few players that it's worthwhile, but other than that, it's like almost exclusively a bad decision. Well, glad that the Giants are going to give Daniel Johnson's sake while like half a

a billion dollars combined. That's the other thing is when you draft the running back early and then he's great for five years, you're now in the position where you have to let go of him. And that's hard. It's easy when he's not a guy. These guys are no fun. This is so not fun. Sorry, I'm just kidding him over here. Say, Sean has been fun.

I said, talk to David Gilman. Talk to, talk to Big DG. It's not him, not on me. No, I know.

I didn't even want Seekwan. It's okay. It's easy when it's just like a guy in theory, right? Like, whenever we talk about this in terms of position of value, we say, you get a running back.

And you use him for five years, you run him into the ground, and you move on from him. And then all of a sudden, that guy is Seekuan Barclay. But he was good. Right, but that guy's Sakel and Barkley means a lot to the Giants, right? Like Jonathan Taylor, who means a lot to the Colts.

The Browns, the most analytics front office of the world, they extended Nick Chub. Why? Because they were going to lose the locker room if they didn't extend Nick Chub. He's Nick Chubb. He's integral to the team. So it's easy when it's a running back. It's harder when it's a guy with a name and a face and with a value who's worked his tail off in your building for five years. Soak mentioned that a chain might break the 40-yard dash record.

I would like to ask you guys a very important question, which is the Combines next week. if you could add or change an event at the combine, you could make them do it. Like, you're in charge. Roger Gadeau calls you up, and we're doing whatever you want. What would you do with the combine? I had a couple of ideas.

They're more out there. I don't think anyone's actually going to do this. I want to replace the combine with just American Gladiator events. Do you guys remember American Gladiators? You guys all might be too young for this. No, I saw the old ones, and then I was actually super into the reboot when they brought it back.

Some of the events are amazing. Is this American Ninja Warrior? Kind of. It's sort of like that. They're like fighting. It's like American Ninja Warrior, but instead of falling,

there's another American Ninja Warrior trying to stop you from doing the course. Yeah, like hit you with like American Ninja Warrior versus I got you. You know those giant like padded Q-tips things that people fight with? I was going through

the Wikipedia page for the American gladiators to like read through some of the events. They're just amazing. The earthquake, a contender and a gladiator attempted to throw each other off a moving 12-foot circular platform above the arena floor. Oh, they do that in the Bellagio

fountain that they were going to have guys do that. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think you could really, you could tell a lot about a guy's athleticism by some of these things. The gauntlet, the contenders have to run through a half-pipe shoot while avoiding five gladiators. It's just like ups the ante with all these events. So that would be like in theory what I would do.

This is good. Like Alvin Camer and Marshall Lynch would have like been drafted way higher if they had been to go through a pipeline of all these other like running backs and they just barrel them over. The more realistic idea I had was, this is going off of the two jargons. I think, do you remember when Soak said that guy can throw a strawberry through a battleship? Yeah. Can we get some ballistics jelly and have quarterbacks throw ballistics jelly?

Is that what the kids call it nowadays? What was the show where they like took two like ancient warrior civilizations and made them fight each other? Oh, fuck. You know what I'm talking about? Yes. Oh, my God. Whatever. Whatever that was, we do that.

And it's right, it's quarterbacks throwing footballs at, like, those dummy ballistic gel humans. You can see the ribs and the sternum. And it's just like Anthony Richardson throwing as hard as he can, 10-year-olds away from that guy. And it's just bridged eyes and going like, oh, oh, oh, he broke four ribs.

He broke four ribs, folks. That's a partnership long. Whoa! And that's how we gauge football velocity. Yeah, I'm down for that. It's like the Aztex versus the Cossacks. Right. But it's Anthony Richardson.

in versus Will Lewis. I really like that. Anyway, that's more realistic. I feel like we could get that going. Yeah, that'd be good. That's good TV. Combines just becoming a TV thing. That's good TV.

I, like, the bench press is dumb. Let's, yeah. The bench press could not be a greater waste of time. Let's do squats instead. I just think that squatting is the new, like, good lift. And also it would be fun to just watch, right? Some of these Quadzilla players just bang out, like, an insane number of reps. Squatney's probably unsafe, though.

Sled push is something that probably should be, like, I think that'd be beneficial, right? A lot of, like, you use the vertical jump and the broad jump and the 10-yard split of the 40-yard dash to kind of infer straight-line explosiveness. It'd be nice to see the trench guys go into a sled and move in 10 yards. And just, like, it doesn't even need to be timed. I just would want to see it. That's one of the things that you'll see, like, potentially happen in pro days, but it doesn't happen at the combine.

That's something that I'd like to see. And then mobility stuff would be really. nice, like flexibility and mobility. We're just like, like, again, like, again, this wouldn't be televised. Like, all of DKs are good for television. Mine aren't. But if we want to talk about like a guy's ability to. Like, let's have them fight at American Ninja

Warrior. And so it's like, I don't like the bench press. I want to see, I want to see the external rotation of their hips. I want to see how much doors of flexion they got. It's like the presidential fitness challenge where they do the stretch and reach. Put them through like a yoga class on camera. We all just get to watch it. Dude, what if they just played a football game?

No. Isn't it? Isn't it weird? Isn't it weird that amid all this job interview for the football players that they don't really play football? I want to see what's going on mentally and physically. I think we all put them on a season of Survivor for like a month. And we just see how they all do. See who becomes the alpha. Yeah.

They generate teams. They get drafted by actual NFL teams as like pairs as clans. And all the competitions like on Survivor are just combine events. And then they vote people off. It's great. That's good. Oh, they're voting off. Carson Wentz would have got voted off so quickly.

And he wouldn't have gone second. figured out the leadership problems immediately. This solves the psyche. Holy smokes, Craig. 11th hour. What an idea. You never would have gotten voted off? Jalen hurts.

Would never have been voted off. Seriously. Wow. Oh my goodness. All right. We got to get the Survivor pod guys on here and talk this through. I feel like we're cooking with gas here. Got an email from Seth.

Seth. Is there any point to following the draft if your team, he's a Rams fan, doesn't have any picks in the first two rounds? And if so, what's the reason? She says, but like I should probably just read some books or something else instead, right? Well, he can listen to the books, but does that count? Yeah.

On Spotify. Listen to audio books. On Spotify. On Spotify. There is a point, which is that draft coverage is just the dumbest, zaniest thing in the entire world. We just spent two months just discussing hypotheticals, making things up, risers and fathers. The rumor mill in March, as I've discussed before, some of my favorite things in the entire world or people are just like saying things.

Well, I don't appreciate that, but we do serious work here. That's Survivor idea. That has legs, man. man, that's a very serious prospect. We should try to grow our own narrative, like a little plant on this show. Like, we should take something ridiculous, just start it here and see if we can get it on ESPN in a month.

I've said it a trillion times. If I worked in the league, like all the times you were like, an NFL source has told me that like Will Levis is the top guy in the Panthers board, whatever. If I were an NFL source, if I were an NFL guy and somebody in October was texting about draft prospects,

well, I would lie. Of course I would make up the dumbest stuff. Wouldn't you, like, just fill the time? Who cares? If you can't prove any of this, none of this is real. This is all made up. Absolutely.

Every time I see an NFL source tweet, I always, the first thing I think when I look at is, is this entertaining to the unnamed source to see this being reported as news. And if so, I don't believe it. It's a good point. Hendon Hooker apparently in talks,

number one overall to the Bears. Right. Why not? It's all fake. So that's, just watch for the carnival of it all, Rams fan. We have a related email to this, to both these things.

Mackenzie emailed in. McKenzie. McKenzie. At Penn State, Will Levis was in my golf class. I couldn't wait for golf. To Will's credit, very obvious he was a D-1 athlete tall,

broad shoulders, huge calves. He didn't write this place. Huge calves. Vascular. Huge calves. McKenzie writes the class. Johnny drama calves. Johnny Bravo.

The class stressed the importance of our competition can improve your golf game. So the professor always made competitions with some form of betting or stakes. One day, our professor made us do a long butt competition where you can't leave class until you got within a club length of the hole. Will Levis lines his put up and takes a stroke. He ends up about a club length and a half away. And as I start measuring the putt, Will says, that's a club length and just leaves class. Alpha. McKenzie says, I remember thinking at the time, this is why he won't be an NFL

quarterback. Turns that I was wrong about that. But, But I can say he does not have that dog in him. Big Trump vibes. That's a gimmy. I would have made that. Pick it up. At the Combine this week, we're putting Will Levis to the screws, man. Will, well, well, well, question, question.

When you were a freshman at Penn State in golf class, and you said it was a club length of way, and it was clearly a club and a half, do you think that reveals a lack of competitiveness about which NFL teams might be worried? Kevin Corners? Who's this professor that just gets to teach? kids to bet on golf.

Also, like, freshman year, take a golf. All right. It's a dream right there. That's how you know you're a high recruit for the football program. Dude, we were, I remember it was such a thing that UNC had these paper classes? It's like Penn State has golf and this is okay?

This is crazy. San Diego State offered golf. Did they have surfing? Yeah, surfing, wakeboarding, boating, or sailing, I guess it was called. Every day, I regret more and more the choices I made, which with the college I attended in the classes I took

there. It's just huge most opportunities. It's great like senior year, you get, you just add it on to your, to your curriculum, you know, it's one unit. It's great. I would, I think it's funny that there's probably all these seniors in Sandy Estate who are like, oh, I'm just going to take surfing senior year, not realizing, I assume that class is at like six in the morning. That's why I didn't take it. It was like

Friday morning at like 7 a.m. You search. Yeah, and then all these kids are probably, like, maybe won't be able to graduate standing a state because they felt surfing would be easier. Now they're just like not making it to surfing and they're going to fail. My friend took sailing. It was on Saturdays. He had a great time. At least sailing in theory

could be a career. Yeah, that's actually useful knowledge. If you have to take the class of golf at Penn State, you will not be playing golf professionally. Probably right. You want to do two jargings and lie? Get out of here. This is from Carol.

Carol. This is two Canadian cities and a lie. I've got it. I've got it. I've got it. I've got a lockdown. Medicine hat. I'm in trouble.

100 mile house. Wait, wait, wait, wait. Okay, keep going, finish it. And, uh-oh. Oh, boy. Are these nicknames of cities or real? These are the names. No, I think there's cities.

Well, Madison hat. Cities is a technical term. Like a townhood. Yeah, towns. They're not, it's not like the capital of Canada is 100-mile house. I'm going to need you to say all of them again.

Medicine hat. 100 mile house and uh-oh can I ask a question that will turn off almost all of our Canadian listeners well maybe you shouldn't if you have to ask that but it's more it's more from

coming from a place of ignorance okay there's no return from once I say this so they have miles in Canada or is it kilometers it's kilometers that's a great question it's kilometers yeah so I think a hundred mile house is the lie why if it's kilometers I mean

you could say that potentially, but, you know, the history of the different peoples that have lived in these regions is varied. Maybe that's the trick. We have Spanish names for our cities. Also, I'm going to assume that Carol is Canadian and thus would never make such a blunder if in fact. Oh, so it's real. This is like really reverse psychology. A hundred mile house has to be real. I think medicine hats the lie.

I think uh-oh is the lie. Uh-oh is flying. I was flying too close to the sun. Carol was like medicine hat, a hundred mile house. I can say anything in this third spot. It'll seem reasonable. And uh-oh was one of the few things that just to me, you can't call a city.

Uh-oh. That's an onomatopoeia. It's not even a word. I'm putting a lot of faith in Carol's, you know, skill here because you're right, Ben, 100%. Uh-oh, this is probably flying too close to the sun. But I'm going to assume here that there's no way in hell that she's just, that they are just going to put down, uh-oh.

and assume there's no way they're just making up uh-oh. Guys, I think we got an email from someone in Medicine Hat before. I think we've got an email from Medicine Hat. There's something, medicine. I'm going to uh-oh. How dumb do they think we are if they're putting uh-oh and expecting us to believe that? I'm going to 500 miles. We're all thinking different things.

Now I'm panicking that I haven't said we got an email from Medicine Hat. I think we got it. I just, it doesn't sound weird to me. There is a town called Medicine something. medicine hat is obviously a town. That couldn't be more clear. Of course it is. The answer is, uh-oh.

That's the lie. What's up? Come on. Carol, let me... Fucking got us. Craig. Uh-oh. I'm so upset by that, honestly.

Craig is beat up, man. Expect more from us, Carol. Challenge us more. Don't just toss it. I mean, you just lost. Oh, it's because I'm overthinking it because I'm excited. Craig. Craig, she won.

Yeah, she lost. He overestimated our listeners' belief in us. That's the worst thing a podcast host could do is like, oh, our listeners think we're basically smart and then be really wrong about that. Honestly, expect better of us, Carol. You can challenge us more than toss it in a-oh. I actually think you should challenge us less. Now I'm interested in why 100-mile house is called 100-mile house.

I really think that, uh-oh, sounds like a town in Canada, though. A hundred-mile house. originally known as Bridge Creek House, named after the creek running through the area. It was located 100 miles from Lillooet, Mile Zero, of the Caribou Wagon Road. As the Gold Rush subsided, ranges began to settle the surrounding area.

So there was a Gold Rush Road that started at Lillowet. Sorry to Lillowet, if that's not right, but this is a word I'm not, I shouldn't be expected to know how to pronounce. And then 100 miles down that road was South Caribou what was it originally called? Bridge Creek

which is now called 100 mile house because it was 100 miles down the road. We probably should have figured that out. 100 miles. 100 miles. They often go by the the demon-nym's 100-mileers.

It's kind of fun. Howdy? I'm 100-miler. I would just let people assume that means I run ultramarathons. I just like look like me, a little overweight little podgee, be like, yeah, 100-miler.

How many times do you think they've redone the eye? I will walk 100. You know what I mean? They must do that once you land on it. You don't have to do it again. Well, speaking to which, let's get the hell out of here. Okay.

Thank you, TK. Thank you, Craig. Thank you. So lack. Thank you. Thank you. Kai for producing this episode. Thank you to all the Canadians.

I'm sorry, I didn't know if you guys used miles or kilometers. Thank you. Uh-oh, to everybody who we insulted your town. Or we're from Canada. Thank you, everyone emailed us. Emails at ringer fantasy football at gmail. We're going to the combine. We'll have combine stuff.

Email us, combine questions. Fake combine events. she wanted us to do actual questions about the NFL draft questions about about quarterbacking or anything we talked about and again just two jargons and a lie thank you lord lord lord thank you i'm an em nice okay who's this who's the band that sing is i will walk one one thousand miles 500 miles yeah what's that man the proclaimers proclaimers oh i would have said that but i couldn't think of that name i had a scottish camp counselor who did that song it was amazing

Nice. You guys ever seen, oh, it's like Mamma Mia, but it's like Scottish Mamma Mia? It's, um, train spotting. Train spotting is just about the opposite of Mamma Mia. That's the only Scottish movie that it was 100% certain exists. Sunshine and Leaf, excellent. Hmm. Don't know.

Okay. It's like Scottish Mamma Mia. Put it on tonight. It's nice. Great. Eminem really, no love on this. We just kind of fly right past Eminem. Last time I started signing a single song that was,

by an artist and then I ended up accidentally singing an M&M song. You did an Eminem song, yeah. So I'm worried I'm going to start singing a song I think is done by M&M and then do it. Love the way you're lying. Oh, yeah. That was awesome. Yeah. So like, what's your favorite Eminem song?

Till I Collapse? That is, Till I collapse is the number one high school basketball warm up song of like the 2005 to 2015 era. 100%. Completely agree. And that's, that's why I know that song.

I know it's Eminem and I knew it would be safe. Dude, and there was on line wire, there was a remix that you can't find on our beloved platforms that we love today. But there was a remix with Tupac and 50 Cent of Till I Collapse. That was fantastic that I can't really, you know, can't really find it. Like that's when you knew the layup lines were starting. When the da-na-na-na-na-na-all the kids are run out, circle the court, yeah. Can you email us at Ring of Fantasy Football at gmail.com if you have those other exactly what Craig's talking about, like those classic, like, you know, whatever your sport was, that was on your playlist. that's definitely like number one in everyone's

I ran I ran cross country and so I listened to like A lot of audiobooks I bet Yeah On Spotify At this time I don't think there was audiobooks maybe there was

But no I would listen to like piano And orchestral music beforehand I was always like this is the lamest sport But I was good at it so whatever I was listening to still Dre Still DRE Is it still DRE or still DRE? How do you

people say that still. Why would it be still DRE? Because it's D.R.E. I just, I'm not sure 100% how to say the title of the song. Anyway. It's still Dre. I think it's still Dre. They say it both ways, though, in the song, I believe. Yeah. That was my, that was my, like, pump up jam. You guys want to know something crazy? I just Googled when did audiobooks start? What do you think, what guess? I mean, it's got to be weirdly early, right? Like early. 1970?

They had records. Did they have books in? I remember you could get CDs. Back in the day, you could get CDs of books. So I assume you could get tapes, like an actual audio tape. So 1983. Right. I was just thinking about like streaming and stuff because that's just who.

Did they have books in 19? When was it, Craig? 1932. Holy smokes. The Nazis invented. The Nazis invented all that stuff. It says audiobooks first emerged in 1932. with the establishment of a recording studio

by the American Foundation for the Blind, which created recordings of books on vinyl records. There we go. That's awesome. That makes sense. We're almost 100 years into audiobooks. Wow. Wow.

That's insane. The last 100 years as described by audiobooks, a little poster of the ringer nine years from now. All right. Goodbye, everyone.