The Ringer NFL Show - Rams Dominate, Darnold Collapses, and Cowboys and Mike McCarthy Part Ways

Episode Date: January 14, 2025

The guys recap the Vikings-Rams wild-card playoff game before discussing what it means for Sam Darnold’s future (1:32). Next, they unpack what happened between Mike McCarthy and the Cowboys, whether Dallas is a desirable opening for head coaches, and the Deion Sanders of it all (24:56). Check out our 2024 Ringer Fantasy Football Rankings here! Email us! [e-mail] The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit www.rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Hosts: Danny Heifetz, Danny Kelly, and Craig Horlbeck Social: Kiera Givens Producers: Kai Grady and Carlos Chiriboga Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's up, everybody. Chris Vernon here and welcome to a new season of the NBA and the mismatch. And huge welcome as well to my new co-host, Dave Jacoby. I can't wait to link with you twice a week every Tuesday and Friday right here on the mismatch to break down everything that's happening in the league. Who's playing well, who we loved, who we loathed, trade rumors, team dysfunction. We've got you covered right here. So follow us, subscribe and hit us with those five-star ratings on Spotify or wherever you get you. your podcast. And also don't forget to follow us on social media. That's at Ringer NBA. And check out the full mismatch episodes with the two handsomest podcasters in the history of

podcasting read on the Ringer NBA YouTube channel. Welcome to the Ringer Fantasy Football Show. My name is Danny Hyattford and I'm joined by Danny Kelly and Craig Rollback. And we are going over the wild card game on Monday. And also the Cowboys kind of fired Mike McCarthy. Kind of maybe. Not really. It's kind of weird complicated. But we are going to have the fantasy rewatchables later this week. That's a really fun thing we do.

Craig produces the rewatchables. And at the end of each season, we do our version of the fantasy rewatchables that usually do that when the season ends. That got delayed because of all the fires in Los Angeles. So we're going to have that this week, but we wanted to just hit the end of the wild card round and also this cowboy story.

So, I mean, this Vikings Rams game got moved to Monday night. Sorry, it was always Monday night. It got moved from Los Angeles to Arizona. And, D.K., on a scale of 1 to 10, how crushed were you for Sam Darnold watching this football game? Dude, I mean, yeah, this is tough to watch at points because obviously he made himself a lot of money this year, put himself on the map.

Like the quarterback of a 14 and 2 team, and this is something that Kevin O'Connell said after the game, it's like the body of work is really good. That's what you have to look at. But man, he has really, Sam Darnold has really fallen apart these past two weeks. Like, he looks like the Sam Darnal of O'L. And this is like what we were so worried about,

I think especially what I was worried about. I know you guys were kind of higher on him in the preseason than I was. But it's like when he gets kind of like in a funk or when things start going bad, it snowballs on him. And that's always been kind of the story for him during his career. And I mean, he was completely ineffective. This did not look like a 14 win team whatsoever. They sacked,

he got sacked nine times. They didn't have any answers. Every time they make a big play, they'd like follow it up with like a really terrible sack or a turnover or whatever. And so it's just an awful performance from the Vikings. And as you were texting us, D.K., probably because you took the Vikings in our middle seat to playouts. I did have some skin in the game, yeah. Yes.

D.K. kept texting us, Darnold, throw the fucking ball. Half of Darnold's sacks happened after like four seconds of holding onto the ball. So it's not exactly as though, you know, maybe the coverage is great, but Darnold was not getting rid of the football and completely reverted back to his old ways. It's tough because after the. that Lions game last week when he looked bad. There was kind of this like, well, it's a one-off. Yeah. We're still trusting Donald.

Two in a row, I feel like completely changes everything. And I genuinely feel bad for him because he had such a great year. Aikman was saying it on the broadcast last night, which Aikman is really pulling no punches these days. I love it. He was in DGAF mode right now. It's especially when the game is a blowout and he doesn't really have to do like in-game analysis. And he can just kind of shoot from the hip. He's like, look, nobody wants to say it.

but Sam Donald probably lost himself a lot of money tonight. A hundred percent. First of all, Trey Kempin's the exact opposite of Tom Brady now. He says exactly what it's on his mind. And it's a combination of him being old enough now that he just doesn't care, the switch to ESPN.

And I feel like because they always had that four o'clock Eastern slot, so they always got great games. And then the money and football sometimes, like he has no tolerance for bad football. And Aikman honestly nailed it with Darnold too, where the phrase Aikman used, I don't know if he said it exactly this way, but basically Darnold,

when there's even a hint of pressure, was running, not resetting. It's one thing to get, you know, you're going to get a hand on your shoulder or like, you know, people coming at you. And like, you want a quarterback to like sidestep, whatever, and reset. Donald just then is, oh, my cat's here. As soon as Donald does anything, he's like never resetting his foot, his feet. And it's just so he's even missing screen passes.

Everything's high. And like, he's like a deer in the headlights. You can't see anything. So the Rams beat Minnesota 27 to 9. I mean, that's brutal, 27 to 9. They were down 20 at halftime. It was over before. four half time. And then as D.K said, Vikings won 14 games, one and done in the wild card round.

Brutal to win 14 games, not even making a second roundclass. Just didn't look even remotely like a good team. It was wild. No. And Justin Jefferson looked distraught on the sideline. The nine sacks that Darnel took, that is tied for the most ever in a playoff game. The Rams getting nine sacks tied for the most ever in a playoff game. And then, I mean, all the sacks, oh, sorry, all the stats on the pressures, too, are just brutal. So Darnold, this, there are two ones in particular that stand out to me. Sam Darnold, lost 73 yards on sacks, which is the most in a playoff game in the Super Bowl era, which I think speaks to obviously took nine.

But he's always going backward or running. Like it was brutal. That was the stat hyphids. I saw this, I think from ESPN. Oh, no, sorry, from the athletic. All of his sacks were six or more yards. So the negatives of 10 yards, seven yards, 12 yards, eight yards, seven, 11, 13, and eight were his sack lost yardage.

And if you look at each of those drives, I didn't look this up, but I'm guessing most of those drives, if not all of them. ended up failing. It's like that is a lot of drives to just be completely fucking up the drive. And it felt like, and I was like, chatting with another friend during the game.

I'm like, man, they just need to like start running so they can give Sam Darnel just a little bit of a reprieve because he's obviously pressing. He just feels like he's under siege with like all this pressure stuff

that they're doing. Just start running the ball. And it felt like every single time they got like a good run because they ripped off a few good runs. Every time they had a good play with the running back or with the running game.

Because I know that Acres had one big run, and I think Aaron Jones had another couple of good runs. But like every single time after they would have a good run, they would get like sacked on second down or something. And it would be like, oh, well, that's the drive. Drives over. And by the time they tried the run, I mean, Joe Buck is making fun of them.

He's like, I understand. I think the Vikings know they're down 18 points. You know what I mean? But it's like every time they try to throw, they're losing eight yards. Yeah. And it's, to your point, exactly. It's not just the nine sacks.

Greg Rosenthal at NFL Network had the great, I couldn't believe this one when I saw it. This was the one where I was like, oh, man, Darnold was pressured in this game 26 times. On those 26 plays, the Vikings gained two yards. Like, they netted two yards when Sam Darnold was pressured. That's unacceptable. Like, I would argue that that's kind of entirely your job.

Like, one rung above just executing an NFL offense in a perfect pocket is you can't gain literally two yards on the 20s. six plays when you're pressure. 26 plays? That's the job. And so, and there really is. And honestly, this is a history of Jets quarterbacks and honestly, a lot of quarterbacks that don't make it in the NFL or drafted high is when you're, Anthony Richardson is when

you're thrown into a situation too quickly and there's pressure, you don't see what's happening. Like you're not able to manage the pocket. And that's really what it is. It's a lack of pocket management because every time there's any pressure, he doesn't trust what's around him and he kind of panics. And that's really what this game was to me was a reversion to panic. And that's why, frankly, it was kind of hard to,

watch. Like, I actually had that feeling people have when they watched the office. I don't feel that way watching the office. I know other people can't watch the office. It's like, awkward. Secondhand embarrassment. I felt that way with Donald. Like, once we was like, oh, no, no, like, the 15 days ago, the Vikings were like pouring champagne on him and like just, like, you know what I mean? Like, they were celebrating him in the locker room and he broke him down in the locker room and like they put the video out. And 15 days later, it's hard not to think his careers, they were vocably changed, which that's what you sign up for. But it was, I, It was hard to watch.

And, like, looking forward, I really do think it changed what will happen, like, with Donald, with Minnesota, with his free agency and everything. So I don't know. Right now, D.K., what do you think, let's just start here. Do you think Donald's a Viking next season, yes or no? I think for a while. Yeah. I think they're going to, I think they should.

Here's the deal. I think he still has value. I think teams are still going to look at what he did over the course of the season and be like, look, this is a guy that we can win with. Obviously, beggars can't be choosers when it comes to the quarterback position. He's not a perfect quarterback by any means. And obviously, like, him crumbling under the bright lights is a huge red flag for any team. But like the fact that he was able to lead this team to a 14-2 record this year is pretty really, really good.

And some team is still going to, I think, willing to take a chance on him or at least, like, make him a bridge quarterback for them. The problem is the Vikings, I don't think can just give him away for free. So, like, do that. Does that mean they sign him to a contract and then trade him? More likely, they, like, franchise. tag him and then trade him on the franchise tag. And obviously a lot depends on how McCarthy is doing in his recovery. I'm assuming he's going to be fine by the time next year rolls around.

I think the other thing I want to mention about this too is, and Nate Tice was doing a really interesting threat about this on Twitter this morning, is like a lot of the sacks were like exactly what the Rams game planned to do, which is like the Rams saw that the Vikings have a lot of long developing like play action plays, deep down the field, push the ball down the field with your elite receivers, and they did everything they could to scheme up a game plan where they were taking away those big plays down the field and rushing with four.

And I think I saw almost all of the sacks or vast majority of the sacks in this game came on just four-man rushes. And so they did a really good job of like out-scheming the Vikings. And I think you have to put a little bit on KOC, Kevin O'Connor. Kevin O'Connor. I'm going to continue doing that forever. Yeah, I'm a ringer coworker. Um, he, I felt like if you watch some of the plays, especially in the first half,

there's like not any quick game stuff. There's like, you know, there's not, not any easy button answers to get the ball out quickly. Help, help Sam Darnold out. So I don't know, it's like, it's a combination of like the Rams had a really great game pan. They have a really good offense or defensive line that did like just wrecked havoc on them. Sam Darnold was bad. I'm not saying Sam Darnold was good. He was clearly very bad in this game.

And then, but like they just didn't come up with any schematic answer. to kind of get him into a groove throughout the whole game. So it was just a disastrous game for the Vikings. Now, that being said, I do think this makes the decision and the natural succession plan that they originally had a lot easier. If that's the silver lining you're looking at it as a Vikings fan, it's like, look, we can now go to McCarthy pretty easily here and no one's going to be like that upset about it.

100%. We talked about this. Oh, if they win one game, oh, if they make it to the NFC championship, like, what do you do? You're telling me they're 16 and 3, they're 17 and 3, you're going to not start that quarterback the next year, it's a lot easier now. If Sam Donald lost this game in a shootout and he played great

and they lost 42 to 41, he probably would have gotten $40 million a year to go play quarterback somewhere. And now it feels like he's going to be relocated to kind of a bridge guy that you bring into a team to kind of like keep things afloat before you bring in your next guy. And it's left such a bad taste in people's mouth. I mean, as a Steeler fan who wants a new quarterback next year,

I do not want Sam Donald. You got the ick. I did. I didn't when they were 14 and 3 and he looked good. Yeah. But I have to imagine a lot of people feel that way now. Maybe you could get him at a discount, but I think now it's more of this is a situation where it's like,

this is a Kevin O'Connell system that can make anyone work, but perhaps not outside of the system that person can't succeed. I mean, they're like the best defense in the league, the best wide receiver in the league, and this play caller coach Kevin O'Connell, who made something out of Josh Dobbs, who could probably make something out of Daniel Jones, made something out of Sam Darnold.

And I think a lot of people are going to be, be spooked by these last two games and not want to give him a shot outside of this infrastructure. Spooked is a ironic term. Spooked. Yeah. It really was the worst since the scene ghost game. It really was. And it's too bad.

I think, uh, I agree with everything you guys just said. I think that. Tough, man. Darnold. Yeah. What a rise and fall. This is like a Scorsese movie. I, it is, honestly.

It is actually really structurally kind of is like a Scorsese movie, isn't it? Especially. And it based on Scorsese movies, that means in March, You know, because every Scraese movie, everyone's like, Goodfellis is sick, Wolf Wall Street's sick. And he's like, why are you glorifying this? I remember I'd end it?

And I'd like, come on. Yeah, I would take that in a minute. Even if it ends up with you in witness protection or in prison or something, it was worth it. Yeah. So someone probably will pay them by that logic. I actually do want to take for a second go through some of these teams just for Darnold because you start thinking,

okay, I'll get paid. Who, though? Yeah. And so I think it's an interesting thought exercise to go through it. Because I will say, though, just to, because, oh, well, the Vikings won 14 games, maybe you keep him. As a Giants fan, it is worth noting. The Giants won a playoff game because Daniel Jones crushed a terrible Vikings defense two years ago,

won in the wild card round, and then the Giants kept him in large part because he won that playoff game. It is not lost on me that the Vikings now have suffered humiliating wildcard defeat with Daniel Jones as the emergency quarterback on the sideline. And it is as bad as Vikings fans feel right now. And this is a tortured fan base where they're always good. I couldn't believe when they flashed that graphic on ESPN last night that the Vikings are the oldest franchise to not win a championship in the NFL, the NBA, the MLB, and the NHL. They're the oldest team to not want a championship. The Lions have never been to a Super Bowl, but even the Lions won a championship before the Super Bowl era.

Like, the Vikings are the oldest American male sports franchise do not win a championship of any kind. So Minnesota, like the Vikings are just brutal. Having said that, you could argue that. this game is also proof that you don't like want to delude yourself. Like look at the Giants of Daniel Jones. They beat the Vikings. And you know what happened in the Giants in the next round? I believe they lost to the Eagles 40 to 3. And the Giants

really over-indexed on the Vikings win and not the 40 to three loss to the division rival. 100%. You almost want to find out early. You want to find out early because I think... Failed quickly. And this is something, fail quick. You know why? That's something I think we're going to talk a lot about in the offseason in that we talk

a lot about cap and draft picks when the most valuable thing these teams have is often time. And we don't talk enough about the value of time in all this stuff. And so I do think that the Vikings have a championship ready core. I think the line needs to be better, frankly. But yeah, it's like get J.J. McCarthy in this shit. And then, but I want to talk real quick about where Donald's going to go. And then I want to get to the ramps.

But if you just look, there's not that many teams need a quarterback. Like, top of my head. Of Donald's stature. Well, no, I'm just, I'm talking anywhere. I'm talking any teams that need a quarterback, like, who's starting quarterback for next year. Yeah, let's run through. Titans, who the first pick. the Browns, the Giants, the Jets, the Raiders,

and then I will, like, the Saints probably need one, then, like, maybe the Steelers. I'm like, I don't think I'm missing any minutes. The Steelers definitely need a quarterback. Yeah, so seven. So that's seven teams. But you know what's interesting? Right off the jump, you can kind of take three or four off

because I, there is, to me, the Titans are probably going to take a quarter. Let's say for right now that Shudor Sanders goes to the Titans. We can talk about that at the end of the show. But let's just say Shudder goes to the Titans, number one. I am of the firm belief that Browns is. take a quarterback number two. I think Cam Ward will go to the Browns just because they're picking second. Like,

just the Browns, the opportunity to move on from Watson in any capacity is too good to pass up. So if those two teams, and then the Browns might sign like a Kirk Cousins because he worked for Kevin, he played for Kevin Stavansky in Minnesota, ironically. So if the Brown signed Kirk and get Cam Ward and the Titans get Shed her. God, if the Browns bring in Kirk Cousins and have two guys coming up to have Achilles.

And that would be amazing. And so that would be really funny. Or maybe they won't. But still, I think the Browns take Cam Ward. which I don't think is a lot leap. There's no chance the jets bring back Sam Donald.

It's just too... No, it won't happen. There's no chance the Giants bring in Sam Donald because the Giants are too proud. I texted you guys last night. Get ready to learn Raiders, buddy. That's the thing. It's going to be a raider and it's going to be a disaster.

That's the thing. It's really only the Raiders, the Saints, and like the Steelers, I guess. I'm like, but that's really it. And so I'm curious what happens because now it's like, Tom Brady seems to be the unofficial president of football operation

is there for the Raiders. It's above the owner. It's like he's such a governor. He's like, essentially running shit is for basically what everyone's saying. And so that's where I'm like, I still think Sam Darnold could be a good quarterback in this league. Get a great offensive line in front of him.

The guy can make throws, has all the physical tools. Reminds me a lot of myself. Thanks, Tom. I was going to say, though, I don't know if Brady watches that game and has the pocket, sees the pocket management is like, yeah, Sam Darnel for the Raiders. No way. Yeah, so I don't know. But I think the Vikings, though, the lesson from all this is you should probably let

Donald go, trade him if there's value. We'll see what happens. You know, they can get a third round. Maybe they'll just franchise him and he'll be the backup. You can't franchise him. You're going to pay him $40 million to be backup? Yeah, you can't. That's what the Falcons say they're going to do with Kirk Cousins.

Well, that's called spin. That's spin zone, baby. No, you can't. 40 million to be a backup. You know what you do? You pay Daniel Jones $6 million to be a backup or $10 million and you let him sit and then he's the backup. Can we pivot off of Donald of the Vikings to my boy, Sean McVey?

Your brother, Sean McVeigh, I thought... My blood brother, Sean McVeigh, they're so thoroughly out-coached the Vikings in this game, and I think that this was, to me, a reminder and maybe should be an official elevation after they started one and four, that Sean McVeigh at, what is he, 27 years old, is as good as any coach in the NFL.

He's the best coach in the league. He's been the best coach in the league. He's 38, by the way. This was why, when we were doing our middle-seat playoff picks, I was like, look, Kevin O'Connell who's never coached in a playoff or I guess he has coached in a playoff versus... Oh, no, has he?

Yeah, he lost to the Giants. He lost to the Giants in 2022. Right, never won in the playoffs, correct? No, they won 13 wins and won one and done and now 14 wins won. Right, right. And Sam Darnold versus Sean McVey and Matt Stafford who have, and Cooper Cup,

who have won a Super Bowl together. Craig, hindsight is 2020, but I feel so dumb for picking... I was like, I'm just not picking Sam Darnal. I just feel so... I'm like, this was the easiest thing to do. imagine. Like, Stafford versus Darnold?

What was I fucking thinking? I literally got like, like hypnotized by the 14 win thing. You guys know I wasn't even that high on the Vikings anyway. No, you were the, you were throughout all anti-vikings. I know. The first three throws of the game, Stafford threw absolute darts, three in a row. It was like Higby, Puka, Higby, back to back to back. And I was like, this game's over.

Yeah, Craig. That's separate. I've seen enough. It's so good. I've seen enough. And I don't know. this is just a good example of they're so well coached. Less Needs

is a great gym. They continue to draft these guys late. They have such a young, underpaid defense that is overperforming. The cheapest defense in the NFL, I think? Cheapest defense in the NFL by a wide margin. Not just the cheapest. They spent 30, Rams have spent $30 million less on their defense than any other team this year.

That's so wild. It's crazy, man. And like, what's so cool about Sean McVeigh is we talk about, I feel like this offseason, there's a lot of talk about what type of coach you want. Do you want to Ben, Johnson, the Mike McDaniel, the guru, or do you want the Mike Vrable, the Dan Campbell, the Mike Tomlin? Sean McVease both.

And you can see that he has been coached by John Gruden and also by Mike Shanahan. And he has both of those elements to him where he has the creativity and the play calling acumen. But he's also a football guy and a guy's guy and talking with him personally doing the podcast with him and just watching him in the media, watching him in the locker room. he is a guy that dudes will want to run through a wall for, and he's also on Kyle Shanahan's level as a play caller. He is the perfect blend, and it's why he's the best coach in the league, in my opinion,

because you get two for one. Well, I was going to say, when I was thinking this when I watched the hard knocks? When were they on hard knocks? It was like a couple years ago, right? It was them with the chargers, right? It was a mix. It was a double back there.

They had them both in the new facility. I just remember thinking this watching hard knocks, though, especially as a young coach, coming in to a team and like talking with authority to a bunch of like super highly paid alpha dudes who don't want to hear bullshit and have like really strong bullshit detectors. You know what I mean? Like coming in and talking to a team with authority, that would be really hard. Like I think that's actually probably the hardest part about being a head coach is like

immediately garnering respect from the entire team or at least the vast majority of the team the team's leaders. And I think you see a lot of head coaches fail because they, like, lose that. And, like, guys maybe just tune them out. Don't think, like, think they're full of shit or whatever. But, like, watching McVeigh talk as, like, a 35-year-old guy to, like, all these, like, alpha dudes. You know what I mean? Like, absolute, like, in some cases, like, divas and everything and, like, being able to command

that locker room and earn the guy's respect. And just the way he talks is, I was just like, yeah, this guy has it. Like, whatever that it is, like, he has it as a coach. He's just so, he's just so fucking on top of it. It's hard not to respect him, like immediately. And not only that, the turnover that he goes through with his coordinators for the last five seasons, every year or two, he is losing his offensive and defensive coordinators. Liam Cohen, Zach Robinson, Zach Taylor, all offensive guys that have come and gone.

Rahim Morris defensive coordinator, Brandon Staley, who left to go to the Chargers. And now this new defensive coordinator, Chris Shula, who is the grandson of Don Shula, did an amazing job. Maybe two years from now or next year, he'll be gone. And McVeigh is continuing to like, with these weird rosters with young guys and Kevin O'Connell. Kevin O'Connell, another good example. It's unbelievable that he's able to like, like, he's the real Mike Tomlin of like, you know,

oh, Mike Tallin goes nine and eight every year and then losing the playoffs. Like, oh, he's over 500. What McVeigh is doing with his roster and his turnover every year and still winning, actually winning games in the playoffs against good teams, it's 10 times more impressive. That's the most impressive part of all of it to me. I mean, if you just think about what he's done, never mind he became an NFL head coach at 30, which I mean, as much as you know, no one, it's hard to relate to coaches.

I know, like, we're 30. Imagine Craig going in and talking to an NFL team. Imagine me just like walking in and staring Matt Stafford in the face. Like, Hyfitz goes in there as this, here's what we're going to do. I swear he looked like Gabe Lincoln. What, what? It is insane to run an NFL team at 30 years old. The Rams always joke about how they stole his youth.

But if you think about what he did, he came in and basically changed the entire NFL. Like, he literally changed the entire NFL. the entire NFL with what he did in the beginning. And he's the really, I would say even more than Shanahan, the one who ushered in the era that started everything happening in the NFL right now of we're going to make everything look really similar and just the illusion of complexity, basically making everything look a hell of a lot more complicated than it really is.

And he's the one who really spread it around. And everything and all the, you know, too high, how, you know, the defense is basically prioritizing, stopping big explosive pass plays over the running game is like everything about this frankly is about McVeigh, just as much, if not more than it is about Shannan. So he came in and did that. But the impressive part is what Craig was saying. Since that happened, went to a Super Bowl, got rocked. And then since that moment, learned from it, went back, won another Super Bowl and then got brain drained. But really what I'm impressed with with McVeigh is it's one thing to be the IQ genius whiz boy. He's already, before he turns 40,

rounded himself out in everywhere he was bad at. He was really bad. He's the single worst coach in the NFL using timeouts because he used it like a basketball coach when I'm a play caller. I need a second. I'm in charge. I'm going to call it. They don't do that anymore. He was one of the most conservative coaches in the league on fourth down. They went, they went forward on fourth down on. I think the first or second drive in this game. Like, the game management was his weakness. And now you have a coach that is at the absolute four, like, not just forefront. He's like a four runner of like everything happening schematically in the NFL and been ahead of the basically last three or four trends. He is a culture guy, CEO,

and he's constantly replacing their scouting. It's not an accident that Sean McVe's team is the one. They're going to, Jared Verse, like, is, you know, going to be a defensive rookie of the year. They're pulling all these guys in the second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth round. They replaced Aaron Donald in the aggregate by getting two players from Florida State. What the fuck is that? Fucking Puka Nukua set the rookie record at fifth rounder that nobody cared about. So if you're an Eagles fan, I think you ought to be scared because this is Sirianney versus McVey. And yeah, you can't get him out.

The other thing I wanted to mention Craig, and sorry if you already mentioned this, too, but, like, it's not lost on me that Brad Holmes is a product of the Rams, like, sister, like he grew up in the Rams. and his first move was literally trading for Gough, like trading Stafford for Gough. Obviously, that was roundly mocked at the time. Stafford was forcing his way out more or less, right? But like, yeah, that was, like, looked at as a bad trade for the, for the lions at the time.

And, like, that's been, like, the impetus for them rebuilding their entire franchise into one of the most, like, everyone wants to be the Lions now. And so, I don't know, there's just something going on with this, like, Bram team, like the people that they've had in place and how they've, gone out into the NFL and like created and helped create some of like the like the most enviable teams in the NFL now. So yeah, we're going to be able to talk McVeigh and Rams versus Eagles on our preview show later this week. This is a good pivot from one of the most competent franchises in the NFL to the Dallas Cowboys. And then on the other hand, I didn't think the

Cowboys could get less serious than what had happened this year, but they got less serious. So Jerry Jones basically announced this week that Mike McCarthy will not return us to Dallas Cowboys head coach this year. So McCarthy's contract was up because Jerry Jones, I mean, I believe the phrase that's been used privately is basically it doesn't pay people to not work.

So unlike every other 31, the other 31 teams who always make sure their coach is like at least a year extra on their contract, so they're never a lame duck. Jerry Jones always has coaches play out their contract. And they were going to negotiate. And they, like, what is this?

Like nine days after this, eight days after the season, they're just not going to bring them back. But they missed the window to request interviews with all the top candidates. So they can't get in for Ben Johnson and all the good candidates. This is like what they did with the quarterback thing last year. It is. It's like, why are you waiting so long?

What are you fucking waiting for? And I think this, it is at this point a fun. It started as a funny thing to say with Rings of Truth to now I actually think it is the only way to understand Dallas, which is Jerry Jones Valley, like his are, his key performance metric in his mind. is how much money am I spending per eyeball? Like, that's how much, what is my, how much effort and energy and money do I have to spend to get attention? And it is so much cheaper to say that you will hire Dion Sanders

and then just have a product on the field than actually spend the money to have a winning team. And, like, they literally just value attention and money overwinning in a way that now it's getting funny. But I don't know exactly what happened here. I'm a little confused, to be totally honest, but this is weird. And now they're going to be stuck with an option that, you know,

I don't think anybody's going to be super thrilled about because they're missing out on all of the best candidates. They're floating Jason Witten and Dion Sanders. Oh my God, that's right. They floated Jason Witten. I mean, so can I just, so, so Shepter went on ESPN pregame and said that Jason Witten was being floated. I want to read what Trey Kman said because Tricman was on one. And also, it's worth noting. I love Troy, man.

I feel like I'm sitting next to him on the couch when I'm watching a Monday night football game. Troy is the man. I also, his hands are so big and every time the cuts around, it's all I can think. His hands are so fucking huge. He's like the always sunny guy. It literally looks like those hands. If you'll notice, former Cowboys players don't criticize Jerry Jones that much. Like Michael Irvin couldn't be more of him.

Like a. Yeah, Eggman, once again, being a real one. So Aikman, as they asked them, do you think the Cowboys, do you think the Cowboys are like a, what was the word they used? A desirable job. Yeah. And he said, I'm just going to read the whole thing. It was amazing. Not really.

He said, I don't know that that's accurate. I do think Cowboys are obviously a high profile team. Whoever's the coach certainly going to draw a lot of attention. I think most football people that take over as head coach, they want to do it on their terms. That's hard to do. And he said, if you take Dan Campbell, for instance, is Dan Campbell, Dan Campbell, if he's with the Dallas Cowboys, hard to imagine that he would be. I love the Cowboys.

I played there for 12 years. I wish him well, but to say it's a coveted job, I don't agree with that. Yeah. He's right. He's 100% right. So we... England has somehow perfected that, Craig,

like he was saying last night when we were watching the game or whenever it was. Yeah, it was last night. He's like sitting in a, like, he's perfected like the sitting in a bar with like the guy who's played before. But like no one else is around. So he's like telling you the truth about how things are. Yes. I don't know if it's more glaring because of, you compare him to Tom Brubbner. Brady, but it is genuinely like I walked into a bar.

There's no one in there but Troy Aikman. And I'm like, wow, that's Troy Aikman. And he's like, pull up next to me. Let's watch this game together. Yeah. Troy Aikman nails what so many broadcasters are afraid to do, which is he just shows contempt. Like, he is just so disgusted. That's why actually kind of like the Manning cast, too, is, it's a little wonky too much for me.

But Peyton is unable to contain himself when bad things happen in football field. Especially physically. He's always like. jumping back and putting his hands on his face like, oh, come on. And I almost wonder if that's why Troy Aikman and Joe Buck, mainly more Troy, has leaned into this to kind of compete with,

you know, Manning Katz being so casual and loose. I wonder if Troy kind of tried to compensate for that. That's a good take because like, when the ball gets batted down at the defense on the D-line, Peyton's like, oh, I hate that. Like he can't get that. Like he's disgusted with bad quarterback play.

And Akeman is too. No, it's awesome. Craig mentioned it, I think, or Hyvice, maybe you mentioned it, but like that time that Donald missed, the swing pass. It was just like a simple swing pass. And he threw it at like 50 miles an hour and like,

didn't even get close. Aikman is like, yeah, this is how you know you're having a bad day. Can't even complete a simple like swing pass like five yards away. He's just like, he just doesn't like sugarcoat it in the way so many other like, this is exactly what I've said about Tom Brady all season is he's like

trying to be really professional. Yeah. It's like just be a person, man. Like that's what people want to hear. Just be a person. But that's the problem is he's never been a person. He's kind of,

He's never been a person. It's kind of like if Russell Wilson was like a broadcaster. Craig, he's not a person. Yeah. He's not. No, I still think it's in there somewhere in Brady.

He's the guy who threw a fucking, through the Super Bowl, the Lombardy trophy from one boat to another boat. That was, that was drunk. I don't think he remembers doing that. That thing, if that had fallen to the bottom of the bay,

like that would have been epic. It's epic. It's epic either way, which would have been even better. Yeah, he couldn't stand. I don't know. So,

yeah, Cowboys, I, who's going to be the coach? Who's going to be the coach? Whoever Jerry wants. That's the point. Again, the point is Mike McCart, I don't know if the Cowboys part of ways. I don't know if Mike McCarthy wanted out. It's weird. He campaigned for the job like a politician. It's weird. Maybe he just is like, well, I have three, 12, one seasons in the last four years, I could get another job. But like, maybe McCarthy's agent wanted more, asked for so much money knowing the Cowboys wouldn't meet it, so they let him go. Maybe Jerry

was just sick of McCarthy. I don't really know, to be honest. But either way, the job is to a pain sponge. Like you are Jerry, Jerry runs the team. Jerry makes the decisions and he wants a bobblehead. That's why Jason Garrett had it for 10 years? It's like, why you fire Jason Garrett? It's because Jason Garrett just did whatever the fuck Jerry said. Like, you know what I mean? And so that's the thing. It's a, it is in some ways it is the most, it is a gilded cage of whoever gets it. It's like this thing you wanted your whole life. You get there and you're like, you don't get to do anything. You work for someone older than Joe Biden who's insane and they won't put curtains up and the sun blinds his own players.

And he's like, like, you know, it's, that's your job. You have to explain curtains to like an 89-year-old. You're going to see the curtains thing was an issue in, in Houston too in this last game.

What is it with Texas? People refusing to put up curtains in Texas. I don't know. I really, I couldn't tell you. I don't understand. An American bizarre state. The last thing before we go,

Cowboys and Dion Sanders. I mean, they called them. My take on this is probably not going to happen because Jerry Jones would have to pay a buyout. And again, very cheap man. I don't think he would necessary. I don't think he would pay money to just hire someone to pay them money.

His bio would be $8 million for 2025, I believe. Belichick, too. They're like, oh, maybe you'd want a bell check. But Belichick is $10 million if you're going to hire him for this year. Yeah, but it's only like a million after June or something. They can't go that long without a coach. So I think my take on this is very simple. I don't think it will happen, having said that.

All I heard was they talked on the phone. Dion and Jerry Jones. Once Dion's on the phone with you, I'm not ruling out anything. Like, I'm not really out anything. Like, I think Dion Sanders is the only person left in the world that might be able to convince Jerry Jones to do anything. And I'm not, I am not going to be surprised once Jerry Jones and Dion Sanders are having phone calls. I am done guessing what Jerry Jones is going to do about anything. I don't think it happens, but also Michael Irvin on the Netflix, the Jake Paul or Logan Paul, the Mike Tyson fight at the pregame desk. Jerry Jones and Michael Lervin are there. And Michael Irvin just takes his little

tangent. And they're like, Michael Irvin, are you on Instagram live while we're on show? And he's like, yeah. And they're like, what? And then he turns to Jerry. So you should hire Dion. And they're like, what are we doing here? Like, that was like two months ago. Yeah. So, you know, I don't know what's going to happen here. Weird team. It'll be a fun offseason. It'll be a very fun off season. So we're covering the whole

off season, Ringer NFL draft show. Leakey's got his big board coming out like later this month. We have the senior bowl to a couple weeks. We have, I mean, it's going to be crazy. So like a lot of quarterbacks, a lot of carousel. I mean, Dion and Chaturre, there's a lot to talk about there. I have many thoughts. So we cover the whole off season. We've been with us.

So we're still doing playoffs, previews and reviews and reviews, but we're going to be covering the whole off season and players and drafting and trying to fix teams. All right. And rewatchables coming up. And the fantasy rewatchables. If you don't know, first, the rewatchables is an amazing podcast. If you haven't listened to it, please check it out. But we're going to do our little spin on it this week.

Craig, you're going to host. It'll be fun. So, yeah, that'll be coming out tomorrow. So check that out. That's it. Thank you, D-K. Thank you, Craig. Thank you, Kai and Carlos. Thank you, Austin.

Thank you. Thank you, Jerry Jones for the content. You know what? He's right. No curtains. Thank you, Lauren. Lauren. Thank you, Cisco.

The company? Tell me that you guys know Cisco. I know it as that company that used to sponsor the first song. Come on. Oh, I never would have told you who wrote the thong song. Same. How do you spell Cisco? S-I-S-Q-O?

I think, hold on. Let me pull it up. Oh, yeah. You're right, you're right. You're right. I can see that now. It's just like wild to me and I think it is one of those moments where I realized how old I am because Cisco was fucking ubiquitous at like when in like the late 90s or whatever it was.

Is he a one hit wonder for Thong song or no? I think that was obviously like by far his most famous thing. But he was on a lot of people's like he was like featured on a lot of song. I don't think he was a one hit wonder by any means. But that was by far his most famous. song. What a fun one. They don't make them like we used to.

Hold on. Let me see that. He was on the mass singer. He just said the lyrics are so great. Sisko was on the mass singer. He got 12th place. Oh. Is that good or bad?

I feel like how many are there? There might be 12. I don't know if there's more than 12. That thong, the thong, thong, thong. I just love looking at the lyrics of songs. It's so good. Let me see that thong. Can you imagine being an actual singer and losing to Kobe Turner on the mass singer?

You can beat by Jordan Milata. Ooh, that dress so scandalous. Good song. When I think of Thong song, I think of Wolf Farrell and SNL as Robert Goulet. That's why I come out here. Is that the one? He's like, nature. Yeah, he's in the car.

He's like scatting. That's right. Quick, you and me staring contest, go. You win. You win. You always do. Goulet! Don't gong.

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